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30 Disturbing, Bizarre, And Wholesome Things People Discovered About Partners Only After Marriage
Interview With Expert
You want to know your partner inside and out before tying the knot, or at least have a good idea of their values, habits, and quirks.
But nobody can be certain that a surprise or two won't pop up after saying "I do."
In a discussion on r/AskReddit, people have been sharing the things their spouses kept secret until after their marriage, and it's starting to look like sometimes—whether for better or for worse—the real adventure begins with the vows.
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#1
My spouse makes fantastic pancakes and didn’t tell me. Never once made them while we were dating. 6 years of a pancake hold out
The a few days after our wedding my spouse is standing in the kitchen, whistling and FLIPPING pancakes. I was shocked anyone could actually flip a pancake.
“Morning, babe” and sets out a plate of perfect pancakes. Refused to use store brand syrup…nope we are a “maple syrup” household.
Buttery and not to sweet, and fluffy, beautiful golden brown. A faint cinnamon flavor.
I make a good pancakes, but this was ridiculous. I asked “why haven’t you ever made me pancakes?”
“You never asked for pancakes, I make awesome pancakes. I won a pancake contest once ” was my spouses response.
The only way I forgave this secret is pancakes on the weekends. Watch who you marry.
An: This story is in jest for those that don’t get it. We were long distance for 6 years because of their military deployments and my education. We now have an inside joke where I stand up and yell “pancake liar” and point dramatically. It’s been 12 years of perfect pancakes on the weekends for me.
It can be challenging to understand whether a person is ready to be vulnerable with us, especially if they're sending mixed signals.
So, we asked Dr. Jennifer Litner, a sexologist and founder of Embrace Sexual Wellness—a Chicago-based center for sex therapy and education that accepts clients for both in-person and telehealth appointments—what to watch for.
"Some signs someone may not be ready to open up include avoiding conversations about the future, acting elusive or dodging questions about sharing how they feel, consistently being unavailable or non-responsive, keeping conversations very surface level, and not sharing personal details," she told Bored Panda.
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#2
I fancy myself a well above average ping pong player (former tennis player) - I usually beat my friends and colleagues and I’m always up for a game. My wife has never really shown any interest in any sports or games of any kind. Several years after we were married, we found ourselves randomly at a ping pong table in a public space, and she suggested we play. She wasn’t terrible - better than that - she in fact could hold a rally, had decent form, and placed the ball.
Me, as we started rallying: “WHAT. HOW?”
Her: *shrugs* “you never asked”
Honestly, her humility is pretty sexy.
#3
That he was never in Vietnam, and he didn't actually have PTSD. It was all an act. His ex-wife is the one who told me. I divorced his miserable a*s.
According to a recent study of 50,000 people, the most common secrets include a lie we've told (69 percent), romantic desire (61 percent), sex (58 percent), and finances (58 percent).
Having a secret about “extra-relational thoughts” (defined as thinking about relations with another person while already in a relationship) is also quite common (50 percent), well ahead of having a secret emotional infidelity (34 percent), or a secret sexual infidelity (21 percent).
#4
That he actually hates chicken breasts. When we met we were very poor students, so buying a whole chicken to carve up was the cheapest option. He knew I like the leg, so he would eat the chicken breast without ever complaining or asking for another cut.
#5
Married 20 year this year. He hates my favorite radio station. He just told me this year!
My kids: Dad must really love you to listen to music he hates for 20 years!
A smaller survey of 2,000 adults found that more than one-third of respondents have kept a secret from their live-in partners for over a year and a half, while half of the respondents said they still haven’t told their partner their secret.
Millennials were the age group most likely to keep secrets from their significant others, followed by Gen Z, while Baby Boomers were the generation more likely to be truthful with their partners.
According to the study, the most common secrets people have kept from their partners included details about past relationships (26%), doing something they knew their partner would be upset about (20%), and undisclosed spending habits (19%).
#6
Me, I kept the secret. I am absolutely terrified of water slides and didn't tell my Wife until we were on our honeymoon and I was standing at the top of a huge water slide, having a panic attack. She was so excited to go to this park that I convinced myself it would be okay. Welp. It was not.
#7
Literally the morning after our wedding, while we were still in bed having coffee, my husband came out with-
'I've been meaning to tell you this for a while, and..well..
I really like country music!'
Like....okay 😂
Nevermind the fact that we had been together for 9 years at that point, I'm not sure why it had to be a secret!
Earthquake903 1 day ago
I tell potential mates upfront that I really dislike country music, lol.
#8
I didn’t really think I was hiding anything, but turns out I was pretty untrained in basic social norms.
The reality was that my father was an excommunicated Mormon, and my mother was an agoraphobic shut in. Both interesting and intelligent people, but not very skilled in the ways of the world, or in raising a child.
They both believed that children were just born the way they are, and so just taught me that I was extraordinary by birth, that most people were uselessly incompetent, and that there was little to do to better yourself. So I was simply cut loose on the world, sent out into the world to just “figure it out.”
Starting at about 6, I just took this unjustified confidence out into the wild and tried not to die. I learned lots of amazing things about nature, and even people, but I never learned all the little details of being a socially acceptable human being.
To simplify my upbringing, and to explain some of my glaring defects, I simply explain to people that I was raised by wolves.
For those who want to make a conscious effort to build trust in their relationship, Dr. Jennifer Litner suggested focusing on "being consistent in your communication, doing what you say you're going to do, and continuing to make an effort to create plans and express interest in one another are some ways to build trust early on in a relationship."
#9
I don't remember how this started, but one day, years into being together, I realized I had never seen my husband clip his toenails. I asked him when he does it because I was curious - it seemed weird I had never seen him do such a mundane task. Thus began years worth of him messing with me and refusing to tell me. Not for any reason other than I really wanted to know. And it drove me CRAZY. It's such a simple thing! Why wouldn't he tell me? Argh!!
Well. One day we had to move our heavy couch unexpectedly and I found what I called the Toenail Graveyard. He didn't trim his toenails, he tore them off - and APPARENTLY threw them behind the couch. The look on his face.... he was mortified. I was so repulsed, I think I just walked away.
Now that the jig is up, he clips his nails in the bathroom like a normal human, instead of tearing them off and hiding them around the house like some kind of demented feral beast.
#10
My spouse didn’t tell me how awful their singing voice was until we got married. They used to lip-sync to the radio in the car, and I thought they were just shy. It wasn’t until we were comfortably married that they finally belted out a song—and it was hilariously off-key. Now, it’s one of my favorite quirks about them, and we laugh about it all the time.
PHOTOBOB 1 day ago
One day my wife was sitting on the couch with headphones on, singing away. The dog was beside her and started poking her while looking at her face. She stopped singing. Dog stopped poking and went back to sleep. That is how bad her singing voice is. Plus she doesn't know the words most of the time. we did just celebrate our 46th dateaversary. Been married 43,
#11
That her side of the bed somehow comes with extra pillows, extra blankets, and apparently extra space... meanwhile, I’m living on the edge, literally.
#12
Severe untreated adhd. Found out 5 years later, when father and mother in law casually mentioned it while going through divorce proceedings.
Every single day of my marriage made so much more sense after reading a few books.
#14
That he thought episode 2 and 3 of Star Wars were the best movies in the series. But what got me the worst was when he said the OG trilogy were bad because, I quote, "The special effects are terrible and poorly done."
If he had told me this before we were married, we would not be married now. The bastard tricked me.
Grenelda Thurber 1 day ago
I refer to episodes 1-3 collectively as "The Great Abomination." Saw each of them once and never want to see or hear of them again. Hearing my husband say any of them were great would be a huge disappointment. Luckily he hasn't.
Kiss Army 1 day ago
Episodes 1-3 were killed for me with two words: "Yippie" (this should be self explanatory) and "Midiclohorian" (being able to test for the force with a blood test really cheapened the mystery and specialness of the force).
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Stannous Flouride 19 hours ago
When my daughter came up from Venezuela in 1996 (when she was 7 y.o.) we watched 4, 5, & 6 and afterwards I asked which she liked best. I have never been more proud than when she answered, "The Empire Strikes Back."
Miriam Insidecor 1 day ago
Anyone that judges a film's quality based on the effects is shallow and has poor taste.
LB 1 day ago
Yes, but it seems to me that this is a joke. It doesn't say anything about divorce or ex.
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#15
That she had no intention of ever working, even though she had six figures of student loans.
Yes, obviously we talked about it before getting engaged. She had promised me she was going to work full time.
#16
He was due to inherit a really substantial sum of money. I was making budgets based on our social security and my income because I was still working. Truly jaw-dropping moment and I was gobsmacked. Took awhile to process.
#17
We knew each other for 3 or 4 months before we got married, much of it long distance, and I knew everything about her past well before we got engaged. 13 years later there've been no surprises.
I guess I didn't know when we got married how devoted she would be. I wouldn't have blamed her for leaving when I got brain damaged.
#18
That he ate my sandwich.
We worked together before getting married, and one night I brought a big ol’ sandwich and stuck it in the work fridge. I knew I would need the calories because we were pushing some heavy stuff around that came off the freight truck. So I’m working up a sweat, and it’s break time. I open up the work fridge DEVASTATED that somebody ate my sandwich. Who would eat someone else’s food? It’s never happened to me before, we were a pretty small, tight-knit staff. I asked around, and nobody knew anything of course. I finished out my shift, hungry and lethargic. Ended up marrying one of my coworkers that was with me that night. The sandwich dilemma got brought up in conversation TWO YEARS after we got married, and he casually admitted to it. I had a lot of feelings about that, still do. Lol.
#21
That he’s not the sunny, up beat, happy go lucky guy he always showed me. He’s actually very cynical, defeatist, and just overall negative. It’s been a rocky 20y marriage.
#22
After we got married, I found out my spouse secretly hated one of the recipes I’d make all the time when we were dating. They ate it with a smile every time, but once we were married, they gently admitted it wasn’t their favorite. Now, we laugh about it, and I make it only when I want a good laugh and an excuse to order takeout.
kitten levels tokyo 1 day ago
If it was full of Carolina Reaper death peppers, I wouldn't like it either.
#23
That she didn't actually like science fiction movies and Weird Al.
#24
That he didn’t want children. Also, his capacity for cruelty. I’m leaving as soon as I can find a more secure job.
#25
I can tell you what I kept secret from my husband until after we were married. I'm independently wealthy. We don't have F**k You money, but compared to the way we were both raised, we are *great*. My mom couldn't afford milk when I was growing up, my husband's parents weren't much better off. My husband and I are millionaires, we can afford to put our kids through college if they so choose, or whatever else they want to do, and I can't tell you how good that feels.
#26
That he was an abusive cheater.
#27
That she was gay.
It was a roller coaster ride of a marriage, with two separations and a reconciliation in the middle before we divorced. After she left the first time, she wanted back in only to leave again to be with a woman. On one hand, I’m glad she is living her authentic life. I wouldn’t want anything less for her. However, it wasn’t easy to realize my years with her were based on a lie. The fact that we reconciled while she took the time to figure herself out, certainly made me feel used. In hindsight, the lack of affection, intimacy, and the absence of feeling when she told me she loved me all makes sense. Before we got back together, I insisted on dating for months, a marriage contract, and marriage counselling. She promised she would never leave again, which obviously meant nothing, given the circumstances. Water under the bridge.
#29
That she was very very mean.
#30
I didn't tell my spouse until 3 weeks before the wedding that my dad had been in prison for 10 years. I was very ashamed, and thought they would think less of me.
What do you think ?
Elladine DesIsles 1 day ago
My grandfather served in the liberation of the Netherlands during WWII with the belief that his own ancestry was Dutch on his father's side. It wasn't until he became interested in genealogy years later, after his father's death, that he discovered that there had been an error between von and van in the older version of the family name (and, I imagine, possibly some confusion between Dutch and Deutsch at some point as well), and his paternal ancestry was almost all German. My grandmother told me flat out that she would not have married him in 1946 if she'd kniwn that he was German. Five children, 13 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild to-date, and we all owe our existence to that misunderstanding.
Susical 1 day ago
My ex waited until after we were married to become verbally abusive towards me. I felt tricked. But looking back, I had witnessed him being mean to OTHER PEOPLE. I was just in denial that he would hurt ME. So to quote a friend who gave me some tough love during the divorce: "You knew he was an a*****e when you married him." As ppl are always saying - when they show you who they are, believe them.
Sky Render 1 day ago
Honestly my wife and I knew each other stupidly well by the time we got married. The biggest thing I learned after the wedding was that touching her inner elbow on her left arm causes her tongue to go numb and tingly for a few minutes. It's been that way for years but it never came up before then!
marianne eliza 1 day ago (edited)
I lived with my ex for 2 years before we got married. Household chores were evenly divided up on an A list and a B list. Both daily and weekly chores. We changed lists each week. Worked great. After the I Do's he suddenly stopped doing wimmen's work. After all, he stacked the firewood twice a year (3 cords each time). And I helped with that.
dandylilah 1 day ago (edited)
I told my husband before we got married that I LOVE soup! He said, "Me too!" Two years of marriage later... I find out he only "likes" soup, not "love"....I've been hoodwinked.
Liz The Biz 1 day ago
Before I met him, my ex-husband, had been to prison not one, but twice for GBH. He doesn't know that I know. His sister told me.
Elladine DesIsles 1 day ago
My grandfather served in the liberation of the Netherlands during WWII with the belief that his own ancestry was Dutch on his father's side. It wasn't until he became interested in genealogy years later, after his father's death, that he discovered that there had been an error between von and van in the older version of the family name (and, I imagine, possibly some confusion between Dutch and Deutsch at some point as well), and his paternal ancestry was almost all German. My grandmother told me flat out that she would not have married him in 1946 if she'd kniwn that he was German. Five children, 13 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great grandchild to-date, and we all owe our existence to that misunderstanding.
Susical 1 day ago
My ex waited until after we were married to become verbally abusive towards me. I felt tricked. But looking back, I had witnessed him being mean to OTHER PEOPLE. I was just in denial that he would hurt ME. So to quote a friend who gave me some tough love during the divorce: "You knew he was an a*****e when you married him." As ppl are always saying - when they show you who they are, believe them.
Sky Render 1 day ago
Honestly my wife and I knew each other stupidly well by the time we got married. The biggest thing I learned after the wedding was that touching her inner elbow on her left arm causes her tongue to go numb and tingly for a few minutes. It's been that way for years but it never came up before then!
marianne eliza 1 day ago (edited)
I lived with my ex for 2 years before we got married. Household chores were evenly divided up on an A list and a B list. Both daily and weekly chores. We changed lists each week. Worked great. After the I Do's he suddenly stopped doing wimmen's work. After all, he stacked the firewood twice a year (3 cords each time). And I helped with that.
dandylilah 1 day ago (edited)
I told my husband before we got married that I LOVE soup! He said, "Me too!" Two years of marriage later... I find out he only "likes" soup, not "love"....I've been hoodwinked.
Liz The Biz 1 day ago
Before I met him, my ex-husband, had been to prison not one, but twice for GBH. He doesn't know that I know. His sister told me.
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