People Are Sharing Red Flags They Discovered in Partners Years into Their Relationships

Relationships are about as interesting as they are tricky. Most of us end up meeting someone we're particularly compatible with, then fall madly in love and start planning our lives in a big-picture way, overlooking and often ignoring small details.

For example, you might be dating a person for two years before discovering that they actually hate sushi and have only been eating it around you because they're afraid of hurting your feelings. It's a tiny detail in the long run — granted, one you might have preferred to discuss oh, I don't know, two years ago earlier — but it might leave you questioning all other kinds of things and potentially spiraling out of control. Like, does your partner even like you or do they just keep you around so your feelings don't get hurt? You get the idea.

To our great delight, some kind of Machiavellian redditor posed the following question to the community: What's something you found out about your S/O years into the relationship that made you reevaluate the whole thing?

The responses are simultaneously cringeworthy and pleasurable to read, you know, in a schadenfreude way. So grab some popcorn, and hug your S/O for being who they are — or don't, because who knows what kinds of secrets they've got hiding up their sleeves.

"One weekend, we were supposed to go out on a date and he stood me up. I couldn't get ahold of him at all. I was freaking out thinking he was dying in a ditch somewhere!

Turns out he had gotten married over the weekend to the girl who had given birth to his child. I never knew about them."

- Faeula

"About one year in, he told me he was about to get full custody of his son. I didn’t know he had a son.

What really got me is that I knew about his daughter, so it’s not like I had a problem with kids. He said he was just embarrassed of the situation."

- rtyjj

"He told me from the very get-go that he was diagnosed as Asperger's in grade school but I just brushed it off because I know many people who halfheartedly claim to be autistic. But a couple weeks ago, I was lying in bed while he was putting away one of his 50 pocket watches in his holding box that he keeps in pristine condition ticked away in his sock drawer; then he proceeded to pick out a new ax to carry in his backpack full of supplies and for some reason, it just hit me for the first true time that he is totally 100 percent on the spectrum. And it made me think back to the times when he has done things that absolutely infuriate me and he has no idea he has done something wrong and suddenly I could see that he wasn't being manipulative or underhanded; his brain simply works in a different way than mine, and he even tried to warn me of this, I just for some reason chose to disregard the information.

He is super willing to meet me halfway, even when he doesn't understand why something bothers me, he acknowledges how I feel and he stops doing it. He is the goofiest most eccentric ball of love I have ever met, and coming to terms with his autism has made me love him all that much more."

- lostatsea73

"My (now) wife and I both love musicals. Whenever we're in NYC, we catch a Broadway show. If a good show tours to our city, we catch it. On one date I offhandedly told a story about when I performed Wizard of Oz in high-school and she froze, eyes wide.

'You performed in musicals?' 'Uh, yeah.' 'Oh, I had no idea. This will take me awhile to process.' 

She was pretty quiet for about 20 minutes. Then said 'OK. That's fine, I just never knew I was dating a guy who was in musicals.'

Never figured out why it threw her so much, but that was that and it never bother her again."

- Weed_O_Whirler

"That my husband wanted to start fires and kill police officers, and was planning on framing me for it so his girlfriend could move in while I did his time in prison for him.

My husband was the guy who started the fire at the Occupy Charlotte camp in Charlotte, NC across from the police station. I’d link the article, but that would dox him. (A simple Google search should do). 

He was an awful human being who ended up stalking me for several years. When he threatened to frame me for a big crime he was planning, I gave his laptop to the police. I ended up having to get a three-year restraining order on him. When my daughter was murdered, he posted a fake slanderous obituary on her FB page during her funeral (and also posted it on Reddit five times). He is pure human garbage."

- 1ofZuulsMinions

"That she had been in contact with her exes, met them and regularly cheated on me with just whomever. Eight years, she was really good at hiding her tracks. I only found out because I contracted a STD (curable, fortunately) from her."

- darkmagi724

"He started hearing voices. We've been together since we were 11. We've experienced everything together. I love and accept everything about him.

Shortly after moving in with each other, he broke down. He told me that he can't stand hearing voices anymore. I helped him see a doctor about it. They evaluated him and diagnosed him with 'stress.' In his words, he's pretty f--king stressed about hearing voices.

After awhile, he starts admitting to me that he's terrified of mirrors. Why? Because the people on the inside will take him away. We go back to the doctor. Again, they tell him 'you don't want to be diagnosed with something bad.' It's just stress.

Nothing left to do than keep bringing him back until they believe him. Doesn't help that now he's convinced the doctors don't want him to get help. Can't really blame him for that.

It was hard to adapt at first. I would never have pictured him to have been going through such internal pain. The one thing that stood out to me, he had spent so many years building my mental health up and doing anything he could to bring me out of depression. I had been so selfish for so long. How could I have not realized something was wrong? I was supposed to be the one person who knew him the most.

Our relationship was unbalanced, and it was time for me to start picking up the slack. Ironically enough, we have an even stronger and healthier bond now."

- kristelkleer

"That he was doing meth up until after our first son was born. Found this out after we were divorced though.

I was young and stupid.

After a few months together, he told me he used to do it but quit in order to be with me, because he knew I wouldn't put up with that. Then a few years into the relationship he admitted that he had done it for the first six months. Then after the divorce he admitted that he stopped after our first son was born, which was two years into the relationship.

I'm kind of wondering if he ever actually stopped. Might explain some of the money problems."

- Misanthrope_penguin

"My wife and I have very little boundaries. Often times while we're having a conversation in our room, if one of us needs to use the bathroom we'll just follow each other in the bathroom and continue talking. If the conversation is good enough, poop won't hinder our dialogue. However, there are times when my wife is in the bathroom and locks the door. I always thought it was weird, but it didn't bother me.

We've been married for nine years now. We met at 15 and are now 28. We've grown up together. Graduated together. Traveled together. We know each other so well, and have nothing to hide from one another. Or so I thought.

This all changed one day. I was feeding our kids lunch and she was in the bathroom. Unbeknownst to her, she did not lock the door. When I walked in on her, I witnessed something that I never thought I would see. Something that lived in the back of my head, but I didn't think could be real...

My wife of 13 years relationship, 9 years of marriage, 3 kids together...was shaving her upper lip. She is Puerto Rican and has a little peach fuzz that you can't even really notice — but she was shaving it like it was a full on mustache! She looked at me with this embarrassed look and I thought to myself... 'What else is she hiding?'

I don't know that I'll ever look at her the same again."

- Kaito_Scythe

"He lied about where he went to undergrad. I suspected it while the relationship was still going on, but after he moved out I found some of the stuff he left that included transcripts from a different university than he'd claimed. It wasn't even in the same country. I'm fairly sure most of the stories he told about his childhood were lies."

- murderousbudgie

"That I had been inside his house before.

Years before we dated, I went to a house party and did a "Centurion" (100 shots of beer in 100 minutes). Was obviously wasted and barely remembered the night.

Cut to us dating, I'm lying in his bed and I ask him his exact address to tell my friend. The second he said the address, it prompted my entire memory of that night. I just gasped and said I HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE. Pretty sure he was like, 'Uh yeah, no s--t. You're here all the time.' haha

Then a couple years later, I discovered that I had vacationed at his parents' property when I was 12. We were mutual friends with the family who owned it before, and it came up. It was truly bizarre.

Honestly a lot of weird s--t like that has come up. It didn't make me question the relationship exactly, but it made me feel like the universe had always intended for us to meet."

- 110clearlyquick

"She lied about being financially responsible and was formulating a plan to murder me.

She and her second spouse declared bankruptcy. She convinced me that her partner was all to blame and she knew how to manage money. She nagged me until I gave her control of the bank accounts. When I found out about the second part, they had racked up $40,000 in unnecessary credit card debt. Together we made about $80K/year so we should not have been hurting.

For the second part, my darling loving spouse started watching those true crime dramas. For the sole purpose of learning what real criminals did and how they got caught so they would be making the same mistake. Because they was going to use this information to not get caught when they were going to kill me.

I found this out as she took $45,000 from my inheritance to pay her debt and as she ran out the door to go find another victim. I couldn't sign the papers fast enough. She did leave me a whole $5,000 to pay off my debt and take care of the house. So generous."

- BannedForTypingTruth

"Let me start by saying my wife has Asperger's. She didn't even know until we were married. That wasn't what really shook me. 

Seven years into our marriage, a random conversation leads to her revealing she's never felt anything when we kiss but she went along with it because she knew the importance of it as a romantic gesture. WTF.

I'm flabbergasted as our first kiss had left my lips tingling. To me, it was more than just the act, it was a genuine chemistry between us but with her Asperger's, she couldn't process it that way. Hearing she went along with it because she knew it was supposed to mean something just broke my heart. 

Every single kiss suddenly felt like a lie and I start questioning whether she actually loved me. Took months of therapy to reconcile and reassurances she did feel love it wasn't something she was assuming she should feel for me. It's been four years now and we're still together. I came to accept she just doesn't process our kisses the same way."

- Futurenazgul

"My wife and I married quickly without getting to know each other much. She was raised in a Mormon home and I had converted to Mormonism at 18. We played the roles of 'provider' and 'nurturer' in our marriage, according to the teachings of the faith.

I left the faith about six years ago. She stopped attending about 2-3 years ago. The very difficult conversations when I left made us talk about things more than we ever had before. We dove deeply into so many aspects of our life, marriage, and desires for the future.

I realized, after years of marriage, that she was actually an incredibly smart, dynamic woman. I loved her a lot before this. I always thought she was amazing. But because of the dynamics of each of our upbringings, and the dynamic of the faith, I never realized how intelligent she was. I ask her opinion on things all the time now.

We left our faith, ditched most of our baggage from our sexist upbringings, and I realized how great of a lifelong companion I have. And I am ecstatic about it."

- minimallyviablehuman

"Just the realization that he is very content living with his mother at the age of 34. He has issues with me wanting to plan ahead in our long-distance relationship, because he thinks it will be forced and he likes things to just happen. 

The thing is that a successful relationship doesn't just happen... And he is lacking initiative to come visit me. I refuse to plan for him, I would love to plan with him.

I'm really doubting we will make it. We are three years into the relationship."

- Pufferfoot

"When I had my first child. The pregnancy wasn't a surprise or an accident. We talked and planned. He got a little overbearing during the pregnancy, like insisting on breastfeeding without even discussing it with me. I put it down to new dad nerves, and not knowing any better.

Turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg. He believed that children were completely and totally a wife's responsibility. He wouldn't change a diaper. He wouldn't pick up the baby when it cried. No way would he get up in the middle of the night. He expected me to work a full-time job, plus do all the childcare.

At that point, I was confused and appalled but I told myself he just needed time to adjust.

I realized how delusional I was when the baby got sick while he was on a fishing trip. The doctors thought baby had meningitis. So not just sick, but life-threatening sick. I called and asked him to come home. He refused. He'd paid for two more days of fishing. He didn't want to lose the money."

- rusty0123

"Married 22 years. I found out this weekend past that my husband has decided we are at the pinnacle of our lives. We have a nice house, jobs, paid off cars, and so on. His goals now are to stay home when not at work and play a golf game or Fortnite from now on. He has no interest in travel or experiences. He just wants to stay at home and play video games for the rest of his life. I know it sounds like most people's dream life, but not mine. I want to go and do. I want to have amazing experiences and meet people. He is only 47 and has pretty much decided to become a hermit."

- treed1973

"I knew what time and even where she was when she logged into any of my social accounts. Not once did I ever bring it up in our 13-month relationship. However, I was always curious how she knew my password and why she always went on it, I had nothing to hide though so I didn't mind. 

One day, somehow we got into a conversation where she said she has caught me in some lies, I'm not sure what she was talking about, but my life is a little weird so I believe her that I may have said a few white lies in the beginning of the relationship. 

I ask, have you ever lied to me, she replied no. I ask, have you ever gone onto any of my personal stuff without my permission, she says 'No, I don't even know your passwords to your accounts except your phone.' Made me curious what else she was lying about...

After this talk I had with her, we continued our relationship for about another three months. She just kept lying to me. I wrote all the lies she said to me in a notebook and gave it to her. 

The biggest lie that she told was when her father found out we were sexually active (he was very very very against it), she told her father she didn't want to do it. She had me tell the father that she was correct. So basically sexual assault... 

I told her hell no and that I would tell her dad everything. She got extremely angry, but no way am I going to jail for something that did not happen. Well, we broke up, she was obviously very angry at me. 

I sent snaps of our chats and stuff to her dad as proof I did not rape his daughter. Then I gave her the notebook and told her I knew all her lies. We then blocked each other and have not talked at all. Although somehow we have the same class together at uni. We don't talk though and sit on other sides of the room."

- mikepoland