Feeling guilty for a relationship that happened a decade before I met my now husband.

[Brooklyn1288]

Hello! Sorry if this post is long and all over the place but I’m trying to gather my thoughts. 

For context and some background , My husband (41) and I (36) have been married 7 years now and have a great relationship. We are incredibly happy and in love. We get along great, have a great sex life. We really are like best friends and are basically inseparable. We both feel very grateful to have found each other after both being in some pretty rough relationships. We have both been married before and both got divorced after infidelity from our partners. He has 2 children from that marriage who I love like my own. 

So here is the issue. We were trying to find something to watch the other night and found a reality show to watch. We turn it on for a bit and there was a couple on there with a significant age gap. The girl was in her early 20s and the male was in his 50s I believe. It was basically a sugar daddy type arrangement but they didn’t directly say that. 

My husband says something along the lines of “that’s so gross, I couldn’t date someone like that”. I said something along the lines of I didn’t see a problem if they are both consenting adults and getting what they both wanted from the relationship. We left it at that and didn’t talk about it anymore. 

Here is where the guilt comes in. When I was 18-19 I had a relationship like this. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s also not something I saw as a huge deal and felt that I needed to disclose. It’s honestly something I hadn’t thought about it many years but I wasn’t trying to deliberately hide it. 

I didn’t have a great upbringing and basically had no relationship with my biological parents. I was then adopted. I started dealing with terrible anxiety and depression in my teens and started skipping school due to this. My adoptive father was then diagnosed with Cancer. 

Long story short I basically dropped out of high school to help my adoptive mother take care of him and due to my depression/anxiety.  

I worked my butt off to study to get my GED at 18 and to complete all the nursing pre reqs. After that I applied to an accelerated nursing program. I was accepted and the program was 40 hours a week and a 12 hour clinical on the weekend leaving 1 day to study.  They warned us to not try to work during the program or we would fail out.  

Here is where things went down hill. I was awarded a full grant since it was going only by my adoptive mothers income. I had my own small business I started when I was a teenager so I had a little bit of money for gas to get to school which was an hour away.  

My adoptive mother then very suddenly got remarried to someone. I was randomly selected to complete a fafsa verification but since she had gotten remarried it now went by both of their incomes, causing me to lose my grant. I suddenly felt very hopeless and was unsure how I was going to afford school. I felt like I was finally going in the right direction and I was facing having to drop out due to the cost. I was able to get some loans to cover some but not everything.  

One of my friends suggested I looked into getting a sugar daddy, she had one and seemed happy. I was never into dating guys my age so it wasn’t out of the norm for me to date someone older. I ended up meeting someone in their 40s who was very successful and we had a relationship for about 2 years. We had a great time together, he was kind of a mentor to me and he helped me pay for school and other things I needed. We went on many trips together and had a lot of fun. I felt secure for the first time in my life.  I graduated top of my class. We ended up parting ways later on after I graduated because I was busy working and didn’t have as much time for him. Looking back now I see how naive I was and feel gross. I have now been working as a nurse for 16 years and also own my own business.

Now after hearing my husbands comment I feel like a piece of s*** and like I’m hiding some huge secret. He knows I have a past that is a bit wilder than his but neither of us went into full detail of every relationship we had prior to each other nor “body count” we both agreed we didn’t want to know and that it didn’t matter (not that I slept around). Am I wrong in not telling him about this relationship I was in a decade before knowing him? Is this something I just take to the grave at this point? I honestly believe he would not want to know and that telling him might make me feel less guilty but would do nothing to help him. Any advice is appreciated. Thank you

 

 

Edited June 23 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
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[basil67]

He didn't say "she's so gross" - he said "that's so gross"    So I interpret your husbands words to mean that he personally wouldn't date a woman who was less than half his age because he finds it gross

[FMW]

I agree with @basil67, he wasn't saying the woman was gross.  

It sounds like you've worked hard and done well for yourself.  You should feel proud of that.  The other situation was in your past and it sounds like it was a one-off relationship, not a pattern.  Give yourself a break.  

I do not think you should tell your husband at this point, it happened before you knew him and has nothing to do with your relationship.  Your husband probably has "secrets" of his own, many if not most of us do.  Forgive yourself and deal with your guilt on your own, it's not your husband's to bear. 

[Brooklyn1288]

16 hours ago, basil67 said:

He didn't say "she's so gross" - he said "that's so gross"    So I interpret your husbands words to mean that he personally wouldn't date a woman who was less than half his age because he finds it gross

Thank you for the reply. Now that I think about it he did say he wouldn’t want to date someone so much younger than him because it would feel like he was dating a child. 

[Brooklyn1288]

14 hours ago, FMW said:

I agree with @basil67, he wasn't saying the woman was gross.  

It sounds like you've worked hard and done well for yourself.  You should feel proud of that.  The other situation was in your past and it sounds like it was a one-off relationship, not a pattern.  Give yourself a break.  

I do not think you should tell your husband at this point, it happened before you knew him and has nothing to do with your relationship.  Your husband probably has "secrets" of his own, many if not most of us do.  Forgive yourself and deal with your guilt on your own, it's not your husband's to bear. 

Thank you for your kind words. I have done a lot of work on myself and believe everything I went through helped me be the person I am today. You’re right that it has nothing to do with our relationship. 

[Will am I]

17 hours ago, Brooklyn1288 said:

Here is where the guilt comes in. When I was 18-19 I had a relationship like this. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s also not something I saw as a huge deal and felt that I needed to disclose. It’s honestly something I hadn’t thought about it many years but I wasn’t trying to deliberately hide it. 

First: there's no need to feel guilty.

It was years ago, you were young and single. If your then-boyfriend was also single, where is the transgression?

 

Second: you do not have to talk about this with your husband if you don't want to.

It was years before you even met him. You may disclose these episodes to your husband if you feel comfortable doing so, but there's no need for full disclosure of all that went down before the wedding. Male perspective: I know of a few relationships that my wife had before she married me. Truth is: I don't care all that much. If she would want to get something off her chest I would gladly offer het my ear but personally I don't need to know.

Now in your writing one thing is quite clear: your husband does not make it comfortable for you to speak about your past relationship because of his judgemental attitude towards large age gap relationships. I think you'd better use someone else to talk to. Like a female friend that you have known for a while and trust well.

[mark clemson]

In line with what others are saying, it seems like the age-gap relationship was a positive one for you and met your needs at the time. "Eww" reactions are the opinions of outsiders and in reality are not particularly relevant (or kind) to these situations.

At any rate, if you've been doing well in your marriage for 7 years without this coming up, there's absolutely no sense (IMO) in bringing it up now just to debate or potentially be "judged" by your husband. This is all in the past and IMO there's no reason he needs to know about it.

[Els]

If it didn't happen during your relationship with your partner, there's no need to bring it up if you don't want to.