Not everyone who's married is always an open book with their partner. Still, there are tiny things you can hide from your spouse — like just how much the total came to at Target — and BIG THINGS you can hide … like, oh, ya know, the fact that you sterilized yourself. That's exactly what one man on Reddit is saying his wife did years before they met. And yet, she neglected to tell him about it for more than 13 years.
The anonymous man shared his story in a post that's now taking Reddit by storm.
First, he went over a bit of their backstory.
The couple, both 33, have been married for 13 years and have always been on the same page about wanting kids. At least, that's what the husband claimed.
"We came up with names for our kids and [my wife] never showed any signs of not being able to have them," the man wrote. "She even spoke about how she can't wait to get pregnant and know how it feels like to carry a baby."
Still, since they married relatively young, they were waiting for their lives to stabilize a bit before doing the whole kid thing.
"About 5 years ago, we finally reached a financial steadiness," the man continued. "Had a house fully paid for, two cars, both had amazing jobs. Now we were ready to support a baby … "
But his wife, to his curiosity, said nothing about it.
"I wouldn't say we were trying for a baby but we went off all contraceptives," he shared.
Three years passed by, and still no baby -- at which point, the man says things were starting to feel "fishy."
"I started panicking but [my wife] kept reassuring me that the time will come when it's right," he recalled.
And yet, it never did.
"Last year, I finally sat down with her and asked her if we could both just get a check up," he continued. "Just to make sure."
The wife reluctantly agreed, but every time an appointment came around, she would come up with a reason to postpone it. After months of back and forth, she finally admitted she feared the "problem" was with her and that she didn't want to feel like "less of a woman."
Even if so-called "problem" was with the husband, she thought they could make better use of the money they'd throw at fertility treatments, which could ultimately not work.
For a little while, this response appeased him.
"Sounded reasonable enough so I left it," the husband shared, adding that they eventually settled on adopting and are almost finished with that process.
But recently, he ran into his sister-in-law … and that changed everything.
The pair bumped into each other at the grocery store, engaged in some light small talk, and began to discuss the upcoming adoption.
"I gave her the updates and she started smiling," he relayed. "When I asked why, she said she was honestly surprised that I didn't leave my wife after hearing she got sterilized and that I was a good man."
(Ummm … say WHAT now?!)
Quickly realizing that her brother-in-law actually knew zip about the whole "sterilization" thing, the sister-in-law made her excuses and left.
Obviously, however, this little tidbit of information had just stirred up some SERIOUS you-know-what.
As soon as he got home, the husband confronted his wife, who came clean with quite the story.
Honestly, the story she told him was pretty heartbreaking.
"She broke into tears and told me the story of how before she met me she was dating some abusive guy who didn't want to use any condoms during sex (or rape from how she described it) so he forced her to go to the doctor and get it done," the husband recalled.
Oof. How can you not feel for this woman?
Now he's confused and unsure of how to feel.
On the one hand, her story is heartbreaking, and if she truly felt in that much danger, it's sad to think she had to go to such lengths to feel safe from a partner.
But on the other hand, the husband has some doubts that the story is real. Especially considering the way her sister-in-law brought it up.
"I don't want to think she's lying about this, but she has lied about something big before so I don't know," the husband admitted. (Later on, he clarified what that was, saying that his wife was once laid off but didn't tell him. Instead, she "went to work" for three months, when she was really going to her friend's house.)
Yep — that's definitely a quandary he's in.
After speaking with his wife once more, she clarified that she got an Essure -- a nonsurgical, but permanent sterilization procedure.
"The Essure procedure is permanent and is NOT reversible. Therefore, you should be sure you do not want children in the future," according to Planned Parenthood.
It's also said to be 99.74% effective, "making it the most effective form of permanent birth control available," the website stated.
For now, the couple is trying a separation, and the husband is even looking into a divorce.
A lot of people on Reddit found the wife's whole story pretty fishy.
"Something isn't right here," one person wrote, adding that "her story is EXTREMELY suspicious to the point it is beyond belief. If you married her 13 years ago when you were both 20, that means she's claiming a doctor agreed to sterilize a reluctant, unmarried, childless woman under 20 years old. Unless she was diagnosed with a medical condition that made pregnancy dangerous, that's not a thing any doctor would agree to do."
The implication here is pretty obvious: Maybe the wife's "story" was just that — a story. And maybe she didn't have the heart to tell her husband that she actually had the procedure done during their marriage.
A lot of others felt similarly, and many even shared how they literally had to beg to have the procedure done themselves because it's so permanent.
"I'm 40, and I just got a doctor to agree to sterilization this year, after having begged doctors since I was 25," one person wrote. "I'm also doubting the wife's story."
"I agree. It sounds like she went and got sterilized while they've been married, not that she was in an abusive relationship previously and had it done then," another person wrote. "Besides don't people discuss their previous partners with their spouses? Wouldn't he have heard about an abusive ex? Wouldn't she have some other things going on."
"I think that this is calculated and deliberate deception on your wife's part that she carried out over the years," another person commented. "She lied to you about trying for a child when she knew that she was sterilized."
Regardless of when the woman truly had the procedure done, people on Reddit seemed to agree that she lied to her husband.
And there's no going back.
"Either way I don't think there's much damage control that can be done," one person wrote. "Just have to try and get to the truth and then decide if you want to maybe adopt on your own as a single dad."
Another commenter put it to him more bluntly than that, saying: "Wow my dude, sorry but she's a compulsive liar. She is never going to be completely honest with you. She's not trustworthy."
Honestly, we might have to agree on this one.
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