It's complicated - insight needed

[TamBuktu]

Just now, stillafool said:

There are sites online that charge a very small fee for this type of information.  Google them.

I used a few like whitepages and similar- no information there (I could find it for other people, so I know it sometimes works). Is that the type of sites you refer to?

[stillafool]

1 minute ago, TamBuktu said:

I used a few like whitepages and similar- no information there (I could find it for other people, so I know it sometimes works). Is that the type of sites you refer to?

I don't think I can mention the sites here but put in your search engine what info you are seeking and it should direct you to the sites.  I hope I'm being clear.

[basil67]

8 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

I tried and didn't find anything. Maybe I am looking in a wrong place - e.g. if it happened out of state where shall I check - the current state records or the place where the event happened?

This information isn't available everywhere.  Where I live, marriage certificates for living people aren't public records.  They aren't able to be viewed until 75 years after the marriage.   

[Wiseman2]

22 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

 I don't think he ever considered me as "mistress" material anyway.

Not sure what this means.  "Mistress" (in English) is the polite/correct term for a woman seeing a married man.

 Anyway paid or free search engines won't tell you anything you don't already know. Their first/last names and legal addresses.

You know where he lives. You claim you've met her in person. You claim you know where his properties are. So why play as if you need PI, detectives, etc.?

 Besides, it still doesn't answer you main question. Will he ever marry you and have a family with you.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Wiseman2

[ExpatInItaly]

35 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

I said it earlier I think but if we were focusing on his marriage/relationship, why it worked/haven't worked, 

There is a significant difference between focusing on his marriage, and not having any clue if he is actually married. 

Whatever reason you want to tell yourself to be okay with not knowing these things about him, it doesn't change the fact that you are in the dark where it counts most. You can't even say if he is legally married or not, because you have no idea. 

After 3 years. 

Let that sink in. 

 

[TamBuktu]

11 minutes ago, Wiseman2 said:

Not sure what this means.  "Mistress" (in English) is the polite/correct term for a woman seeing a married man.

 Anyway paid or free search engines won't tell you anything you don't already know. Their first/last names and legal addresses.

You know where he lives. You claim you've met her in person. You claim you know where his properties are. So why play as if you need PI, detectives, etc.?

 Besides, it still doesn't answer you main question. Will he ever marry you and have a family with you.

Ok. For me mistress has a sexual and negative connotation attached to it - I don't think he sees me this way, even if true. But that's semantics.

Otherwise I agree - all that you mentioned is out of curiosity and not changing the actual outcome, unless I discover their relationship is completely different from what I perceive it to be.

I think (know) there is something more to the story though, it surpasses habit/guilt/fear trio and love as well, and I know he will tell me sooner or later, I just don't know if it will be faster if I find it out via third party... It's my impatient side speaking.

[flitzanu]

36 minutes ago, basil67 said:

This information isn't available everywhere.  Where I live, marriage certificates for living people aren't public records.  They aren't able to be viewed until 75 years after the marriage.   

as an example, i'm in the united states, and if i google something like "state court dockets" we have a government site that lists all court cases for the state, and then i can search by name and other details.  in my state, wedding certificates and divorce filings are public, along with all other court cases.  

 

[TamBuktu]

4 minutes ago, flitzanu said:

as an example, i'm in the united states, and if i google something like "state court dockets" we have a government site that lists all court cases for the state, and then i can search by name and other details.  in my state, wedding certificates and divorce filings are public, along with all other court cases.  

 

I have tried that and I'm not getting any records back. As a test case I used someone that I know divorced in our state but married elsewhere. I could retrieve his divorce records but not the marriage records. I wonder if that's why I can't retrieve anything regarding marriage records in our case - it was likely in a different state? Also, I wonder if they had a religious ceremony but not civil does this count as "legal"?

[RebeccaR]

Just now, TamBuktu said:

Also, I wonder if they had a religious ceremony but not civil does this count as "legal"?

Not sure if it matters if he’s actually married, unless he proposes to you. Then you would want clarity. I think you are wasting energy on this. Can’t you literally just ask him? “Hey, you know I used to work with Susan, is she your wife?”

[TamBuktu]

5 minutes ago, RebeccaR said:

Not sure if it matters if he’s actually married, unless he proposes to you. Then you would want clarity. I think you are wasting energy on this. Can’t you literally just ask him? “Hey, you know I used to work with Susan, is she your wife?”

I completely agree actually.

Ah he is aware I know who she is, my search was to see are they “legally” bound (ie marriage certificate vs common law or religious). But yes, at this point I agree it won’t change the outcome except how difficult things will be legally (but it’s a moot point if he’s not ready or afraid to do it anyway)

[stillafool]

21 minutes ago, flitzanu said:

as an example, i'm in the united states, and if i google something like "state court dockets" we have a government site that lists all court cases for the state, and then i can search by name and other details.  in my state, wedding certificates and divorce filings are public, along with all other court cases.  

 

Yes I'm in the US and in my state we have access to the same thing.

[TamBuktu]

1 minute ago, stillafool said:

Yes I'm in the US and in my state we have access to the same thing.

My question would be can you obtain e.g. marriage certificate that is not from the state of current residence

[RebeccaR]

2 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

My question would be can you obtain e.g. marriage certificate that is not from the state of current residence

Omg please just ask him. This is your best friend, your lover, your soulmate. You’re allowed to ask him a question.

can you say “is your little problem legally binding or not?” If you want to avoid the word wife. Honestly this is beyond bizarre (not being able to ask him a question) and I think the responses are a distraction 

[stillafool]

40 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

I think (know) there is something more to the story though, it surpasses habit/guilt/fear trio and love as well, and I know he will tell me sooner or later, I just don't know if it will be faster if I find it out via third party... It's my impatient side speaking.

What difference does it make at this point and how does it help with your decisions?  The answers you really need to know can only come from him.  No search engine, private investigator, court records, etc., can tell you if you have a future with this man.

[TamBuktu]

7 minutes ago, RebeccaR said:

Omg please just ask him. This is your best friend, your lover, your soulmate. You’re allowed to ask him a question.

can you say “is your little problem legally binding or not?” If you want to avoid the word wife. Honestly this is beyond bizarre (not being able to ask him a question) and I think the responses are a distraction 

Yes my stubborn head I just believe what I can prove... Totally my bad on this. Yes, that's the way to go assuming he's honest.

[stillafool]

13 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

My question would be can you obtain e.g. marriage certificate that is not from the state of current residence

Yes, I think so for a small fee (in the US).

[IrinaM]

14 hours ago, stillafool said:

Tam has stated before in this thread that the wife is still beautiful.

yes i know that, but OP contradicts herself quite a bit and seems to allow her emotions to dominate how she interprets reality. So I decided to just go with a reasonably inferred fact, that a woman in her 30's is prettier than a woman in her 60's. But hey who knows.

@TamBuktu I'm confused. In the OP of this thread, you say that you are involved with a man who is married. You used the exact word, "married." Now somehow things have evolved to a point where maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Maybe he has a wife, maybe this is just some "elderly" woman who squats on "one of his properties."

So what I don't understand is, if you legitimately have no idea whether or not he is married to the extent that you might have to hire a PI, what made you think he was married in the first place? If he never refers to his wife and he spends every evening with you, why would you think he was married? What made you come to that conclusion in the first place?

[BaileyB]

What is all this talk about private investigators and online searches for legal documentation of his marriage…

Tam, when you have to hire a private investigator or pay to get a copy of the marriage certificate of the man that you have been dating for three years, you have got real problems -

I would say ask him, but you obviously don’t trust his answer if you feel the need to independently verify the information.

Seriously, this is the man that you hope will become your life partner and such that you will have his children - and you can’t say with any certainty whether he is legally married to the woman he calls “wife.” Well, technically… he doesn’t call her “wife.” 

As my dear mother would say - give your head a shake girl! What are you doing with a man who you don’t know/can’t trust his word if he says he either is or is not married to another woman…

This talk of private investigators etc… is a waste of time, money, and common sense. 

[Wiseman2]

7 hours ago, TamBuktu said:

, my search was to see are they “legally” bound (ie marriage certificate vs common law or religious). 

You claim he told you he was married and you two refer to his marriage and wife as "his little complication".

Unfortunately this is a wild goose chase. It's more like obsessing than actually having a relationship.

Are you sure you two are actually in a relationship? That's the more important thing to find out, no?

[TamBuktu]

Answering all of the above

- he used to wear a ring (until we started dating, then he stopped wearing it, likely just out of courtesy to me); he never called her "wife" but it was clearly implied, she called him "husband"

- so him being married is no secret lol, of course there are variations - i.e. only having religious marriage, being already separated, living together and calling each other husband/wife (i have several friends doing this, even wearing promise rings)

- as said above - all this matters only if he initiates leaving her (and that's only for the logistics, habit/guilt/fear trio would be still there regardless), otherwise is a moot point; I am just very curious person and like to research things; in the grand scheme of things I'm aware and stated earlier that it's irrelevant

I'm "obsessing" to collect my thoughts but otherwise - we are still in a relationship (lol), still happy, still enjoying life together. 

For the sake of the discussion, let's leave it at what I said initially - he's married AND something has stopped him from leaving her for good. That's all that really matters.

[BaileyB]

32 minutes ago, TamBuktu said:

I am just very curious person and like to research things

Clearly, you can rationalize anything and you like to distract yourself with irrelevant things. I would suggest that you do this as a coping strategy to keep yourself busy and provide some reassurance from the anxiety you feel given the fact that you have little actual knowledge of his marriage or control of the outcome. 

[elaine567]

1 hour ago, TamBuktu said:

- he used to wear a ring (until we started dating, then he stopped wearing it, likely just out of courtesy to me)

Or to assuage his own guilt.
Does he have an indentation on his ring finger... ie is he only taking it off when he is with you but wears it the rest of the time?

ETA - Of course if he is doing a lot of manual maintenance work he may not want to wear a ring due to safety reasons

Edited November 24, 2021 by elaine567

[ExpatInItaly]

1 hour ago, TamBuktu said:

as said above - all this matters only if he initiates leaving her (and that's only for the logistics, habit/guilt/fear trio would be still there regardless), otherwise is a moot point; I am just very curious person and like to research things; in the grand scheme of things I'm aware and stated earlier that it's irrelevant

I would say you are missing the point. The point is not only their legal marital status.

The other (and arguably more important) point is that you clearly don't know him as well as you so badly want to think you do, as evidenced by the fact that you cannot say with any certainty if he is married. That is a basic fact one would normally know about their partner, and that includes APs. 

And you don't know. That is the issue, as I see it. You lack basic knowledge about his private life. And I am quite sure that is absolutely by design on his part. That says a whole lot more about the lack of genuine intimacy than you appear to realize. 

[stillafool]

34 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

That is a basic fact one would normally know about their partner, and that includes APs. 

Especially after 3 years.  If they were as close as Tam says she wouldn't be afraid to ask him a simple question like, "are you two really married".  This is something I would have no problem asking a grocery clerk, but this is suppose to be the love of Tam's life and she's afraid he'll leave her if she simply asks him a question.  This negates all the love and closeness she swears they have between them.  That can't possibly be true.  She has to walk on eggshells to keep him around.

[TamBuktu]

34 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

I would say you are missing the point. The point is not only their legal marital status.

The other (and arguably more important) point is that you clearly don't know him as well as you so badly want to think you do, as evidenced by the fact that you cannot say with any certainty if he is married. That is a basic fact one would normally know about their partner, and that includes APs. 

And you don't know. That is the issue, as I see it. You lack basic knowledge about his private life. And I am quite sure that is absolutely by design on his part. That says a whole lot more about the lack of genuine intimacy than you appear to realize. 

Expat - this was literally my main reason to start the thread - I was looking for someone in a similar situation, because I thought it is highly unusual "wife" to never be mentioned, despite of us spending all this time together, being close to each other's family and friends etc.

I can assure you I know everything about him including past relationships, family stuff, intimate stuff EXCEPT this part of his life which he surgically removes from any conversation (with me or literally anyone else; you can argue he only does it in front of me but I've been a side observed for quite a long time before getting intimately involved with him).

Why he keeps this part of his life "dark"? I have several hypotheses, some of which you yourself suggested
- doesn't want to be questioned
- is done with her but not ready to move forward with me
- is ashamed of the real situation
- feels intense guilt or shame
- is "saving" me from something he knows will make me feel uncomfortable
Or something else, who knows

On Elaine question regarding the ring, nah, no indent lines and it was a non-issue for me anyway until we got closer, then he just stopped wearing it. He was doing manual work earlier too, he'd just put it in his pocket while doing it.

Bailey - of course if there are gaps the mind fills the gaps, it's a natural thing to do.. and yes, that suppresses my anxiety. I'm professionally biased in that direction too;)

StillAFool - I am not afraid of him leaving me if I ask questions, not at all. The worst thing that might happen is he will not say anything or deflect the topic. It has happened before, so what I'm saying here is based on evidence, not assumption.

It's just very bizarre to me that he cuts out that entire aspect of his life and I'm trying to understand why, in an unbiased way.