Reddit Stories - Spouse COMPELLED me over an EXTENDED period to DISCLOSE my past distress from

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #confession #marriage #communication #supportSummary: My spouse compelled me over an extended period to disclose my past distress from. It was a challenging experience that tested our relationship but ultimately brought us closer together through open communication and mutual support.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, confession, marriage, communication, support, honesty, trust, understanding, vulnerability, personalgrowth, mentalhealth, empathy, forgiveness, compassion, love, teamworkBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse compelled me over an extended period to disclose my past distress from childhood, then weaponized it in an argument by suggesting that my harmful father should have called me, and when I challenged. Hers, she admitted she lost respect for me after learning about my past. I do not even know how to write this because my head feels like it is splitting in two. I keep hearing the words again and again and I cannot believe they came out of her mouth. We have been married 14 years.

We built what I thought was a stable life together. Two kids, our son who is 12 and our daughter who just turned 11. They are my entire world. When I look at them I feel the kind of love I never knew existed, because the truth is I never experienced that kind of love as a child myself. That is something my wife has always known about me, though it took years before I could say it out loud. When we first got married, she noticed how I never talked about my parents. She noticed I avoided talking about childhood. She would tell me her stories, warm holiday memories, her parents

decorating the house, sibling arguments that turned funny later. I would just nod and smile. She told me she wanted to understand me better, to really know me. Over the years she kept pressing, until one day she begged me to open up. So I did. Seven years ago I finally told her everything. I told her I was never meant to be here. I was the fourth child after three siblings, a failed contraception baby. An accident, that is the word my parents used. They reminded me constantly that they did not want me. It was not subtle. It was not hidden. It was spoken outright. I told her about the amusement park when I was nine. The day they tried to get rid of me.

They left me behind on purpose. I knew it even at that age. They thought I would panic, wander off, disappear. What they did not expect was that I had already memorized the road home. Hours later they acted like it had been a mistake, like they lost me in the crowd, but I knew what it was. I knew what they had intended. I told her about the night my father wrapped his hand. around my throat and squeezed until the world went dark at the edges. I could not breathe.

My head felt like it would explode. To this day I do not know why he let go. Maybe my mother walked in, maybe something inside him pulled back at the last second. Whatever it was, I lived. Barely, but I lived. I told her about the food. How some nights everyone else ate and I sat there watching. Not because we were poor. We had enough, but because I was excluded. If they bought something good, they shared it among themselves, never with me. I remember sitting at that table as a child, stomach empty, watching them laugh while I pretended not to exist. I told her how they never missed a chance to remind me I was an accident. My parents said it. My siblings picked it up. It became the

running joke. That I should not exist. That I was the mistake they could not erase. I told her how once they admitted they had planned to abort me but never went through with it. They said it with no hesitation, as if it were a casual piece of trivia, not a dagger to my chest. And I told her about the winter night when my father locked me outside as punishment for something I did not even do. I was maybe ten. It was freezing. I stood out there shivering. I stood out there shivering, crying, my teeth rattling. I honestly thought I would not make it through the night. A neighbor eventually saw me and banged on the door until my mother opened it. That neighbor probably saved me. These are the things I poured out to my wife. It was not easy. I remember

shaking as I said them. I remember how exposed I felt, like I had ripped open scars I had carefully hidden for years. She hugged me after. She told me she was glad I trusted her. She promised she would never throw those things back at me. Last night she broke that promise. We argued, it was stupid. It started with our son's homework. She said I was too soft on him, that I let things slide. I said she was too harsh. It escalated. We were both defensive. One of those arguments where you forget the point and just keep trying to win. And then she said it. She looked straight at me and said maybe my father should have finished what he started that night.

I don't even deserve to have a family let alone children. That maybe it would have been better if I had not survived. That I was never wanted anyway and I was the one who told her so. I froze. I actually thought for a second that I misheard her. But she said it again. calmly. As if she believed she was simply pointing out a truth. I cannot describe what it did to me. I have had cruel things said to me before in my life. I have been insulted,

mocked, belittled. I know how to brush words off. But this was different. This was the one person I led into the deepest part of me. She took my pain and turned it into a weapon. I just stood there in silence. I did not even yell back. I could not. It felt like something shattered inside me. The rest of the night I barely spoke. She acted normal. Like nothing had happened. I went to the spare bedroom and stayed there. I lay awake the entire night hearing her words over and over, blending with my parents' voices from years ago. Their cruel jokes, their reminders that I was unwanted, all coming back with her voice layered on top. I thought about the rage I carried as a teenager.

How I used to wish my mother would die painfully. I thought those feelings were buried deep, but last night she dug them up and threw them right back at me. I cannot move past this morning she was cheerful, as if none of it had happened. I could barely look at her. All I could think was that something inside me had broken. I do not know if it can ever be repaired. Now I am sitting here thinking about divorce, or at least separation. I do not even know how to start.

I do not know what lawyer to call. I do not know how to explain to the kids why their parents are breaking apart. Part of me wonders if I am overreacting, if this is just a fight gone too far. But I know myself. I know I am not overreacting. because I cannot imagine ever forgetting what she said. Usually I move on. From almost anything.

I swallow pain, bury it, keep going. But this is not something I can just swallow. This is different. She went to the deepest wound I have and drove the knife in. I need to say this clearly. I need validation. I need someone to tell me I am not crazy for feeling this broken. I need condolences, because I feel like I am spiraling replaying her words in my head.

I thought my past was behind me. I thought I had buried it and moved on. Last night showed me I was wrong. It is not buried. It is alive and it can be used against me by the very person I trusted most. And I do not know how I could ever forgive that. Comments where Op has replied, comment one, you shouldn't. Divorce her.

words matter it's over oop ick so thinking of starting with separation so that the children adjust a few weeks then oFC i am asking some people for advice regarding lawyers comment two first i am so incredibly sorry that you were abused by your parents as a child what you endured growing up is absolutely awful and my heart breaks for you it seems on to me that you described the fight as little yet she went to such a drag plastic place as a weapon against you. If she can go that hard over a fairly common point of contention with raising kids, imagine what she'd pull out for something bigger.

I know Reddit seems to jump to leave slash divorce pretty quickly, but I think leaving would be something to seriously think about. If it were me, I don't know that I'd ever be able to get past it. That was lower than a low blow. My goodness, the hurt she hurled at you. I'm so, so, so sorry, sending you a hug from afar and wishing you find peace in your decision and are able to heal again. Oop, thank you.

She believed that I should be more harsh to them, like maybe little beating to get them to study or shout at them while I am more of a cool person, and would like to speak the same thing thrice over three days if they forgot it. And then we were battling about who does it better. Is this the first time Oop's wife has used his secrets and passed against him? Oop, she has done them, one more time related to my past two, but never this deep. That's why I can't help myself but feel this way. Update, I waited until Tuesday. She went through the weekend and Monday like nothing had happened, a little colder than usual, quick with her answers, acting irritated like I was the one who had caused all of this.

No apology. Not even a hint. It felt like I was carrying something heavy while she just moved. moved around it. By Tuesday afternoon I couldn't hold it anymore. I asked her to sit down with me. The house was quiet. I told her I needed to talk about what she said during the fight, because this wasn't something we could just shrug off. I reminded her that the fight had started because I refused to hit our son while teaching. I told her I don't believe in beating kids to make them learn, and that she had pushed for it. That's where the argument began, and somehow it

slid into something so much uglier. I asked her why she used what I told her in confidence against me. I reminded her that she had asked me to open up years ago, and promised she would keep it safe. I asked her why she hugged me back then if this was where it would end up. At first, she was stiff. She said she didn't know what else she was supposed to do at the time. She told me she just tried to act normal, to be supportive, because she didn't know how to handle what I told her. She said she hadn't realized how heavy at all was until later. Her voice was even, like she was just explaining facts. I told her the promise mattered.

I said it wasn't about a slip in anger. It was that she reached for the exact things I handed her in trust and turned them against me. I asked her again why. That's when she admitted it. She told me she lost some respect for me after I opened up. I asked what that meant. She said it wasn't one detail, it was the whole picture. She said she had always seen me as solid, someone who could carry weight without bending,

the person she leaned on. But after I shared everything, she couldn't stop seeing the brakes under the surface. She said parts of my story made me look fragile to her. Some of the darker pieces, the way those years sat inside me, gave her an uneasy feeling she couldn't shake. seeing me tear up and feel so nervous and like a wreck made her look very differently at me. She actually used the word ick. She said sometimes when she remembered those things, it got in the way of how she looked at me. I asked if that meant she thought less of me for

surviving. She said it wasn't about surviving, it was about how it changed what she expected from me. She admitted she had built an image of me that didn't include those kinds of wounds, and once she knew, she couldn't put that image back. I asked her why she hugged me then, why she told me she wanted to know me fully. She said she didn't know what else to do in the moment. She didn't want to punish me for telling the truth. She said holding me and saying it was okay felt like the only decent response at the time, even though, inside, she had already started to see me differently.

I let that sit, then asked the harder thing. She said she couldn't control herself in that moment, and she reached for what she knew would hurt me most. She said she regretted it and that it would never happen again. I also thought about how it might sound from the outside, like maybe I had dumped too much on her back then. But the truth is, I never sat her down and unloaded everything at once. I gave her my story the way she asked for it, piece by piece, only when she pressed me. If she wanted to know something, I answered. I didn't overshare, didn't volunteer random details.

And even then, she probably only ever heard a fraction of what I actually live with. What makes this worse is that I've been to therapy. I've done the work. I wasn't unloading on her because I couldn't carry it myself. The only reason she even heard those parts of me was because she demanded it. She insisted I open up, insisted she wanted the whole picture. She told me she wanted to know me fully. and I believed her.

I trusted her enough to hand over things I never planned on saying out loud. That's why this betrayal feels so much heavier. It wasn't me blurting out things I couldn't control it was me handing her pieces of myself because she begged for them, swore she'd hold them safe. And then she took those same pieces and cut me with them. It feels like giving someone your heartbeat because they said they wanted to hold it close and then watching them drive a knife straight through it. After she said all of that, I just sat there for a while.

It was like I'd finally gotten the truth behind everything, but it didn't settle in cleanly. I wasn't shocked anymore, more resigned. I also thought about how it might sound from the outside, like maybe I dumped too much on her back then. But the truth is, I never sat her down and unloaded everything at once. I gave her my story the way she asked for it bit by bit, only in response to her questions. If she wanted to know something, I told her. I didn't add anything extra, didn't volunteer random details. And even then, she probably only heard a quarter of what I actually carry.

Why was she so intent on me being open and emotionally vulnerable then? I told her I didn't think I could just go back to how things were. I said I felt like the foundation was cracked in a way I couldn't ignore. I told her maybe the only way forward was to separate amicably, quietly, before things got any worse. I said I didn't think I could keep looking at her the same way, not after knowing she could turn something so personal into a weapon. That's when her whole tone shifted. The firmness she had when she explained herself dropped, and she sounded almost panicked. She asked me not to say that, said she didn't want a divorce. She told me she still loved me, that whatever

she had done in anger wasn't bigger than the life we had built. She couldn't imagine splitting the kids between us, couldn't imagine them growing up in two houses. She told me leaving would scar them more than anything we had been through. I told her love isn't supposed to look like tearing each other apart with the sharpest words we can find. She said she knew that, and promised again that it wouldn't happen anymore. She said she had already admitted it was wrong and she meant it when she said she'd never go there again. She kept circling back to the same point, that we had kids, that they needed us together, that whatever issues we had, we had to fix them without breaking the family apart. She didn't cry, but there was a kind of

desperation in her voice. Almost like she was afraid I was already out the door and she was trying to pull me back any way she could. She didn't apologize again for what she'd said, not directly, but she kept stressing that it would never happen again, that I shouldn't throw everything away over one mistake. Right now, I haven't made a final decision. I keep going back and forth in my head. Part of me feels like the damage is too deep and I'd be lying to myself if I pretended I could ever really see her the same way again. But another part of me hesitates, because walking away isn't simple when there are kids and years of life tied together. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't leaning more in one direction the end than the other, but I'm not there yet. I feel

heavy most days, caught between wanting to protect myself and not wanting to tear my family in half. Some moments I think I know what I have to do, then I second guess it. It's draining, but at least writing this down and hearing different perspectives has made me feel less alone in it. Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read, comment, or even send me a message directly. It means more than I can put into words. I couldn't respond to every single individual, but I have gone through all of the comments maybe even twice. Thank you, strangers.

Next story, friend asked my daughter to be her flower girl, but when the dress didn't fit ten days before the wedding she called my daughter a whale, so I skipped the wedding. I, 35F, am still friends with some of the people I went to college with. One of them, Debbie, fake name, 36F, got married this past January after being engaged for two years. Early in the planning process, Debbie had asked my six-year-old daughter, who was five at the time, to be the flower girl. We agreed, and she had the dress sent to us right away. We barely spoke about the subject for a while. Then the wedding was delayed by almost a year, the original date was in March 24th. I'm still not sure why, I've heard three or four different reasons.

By the time the actual wedding date came around, the flower girl dress did not fit my daughter anymore. We didn't find out until roughly ten days before the wedding, admittedly my fault, and I texted Debbie right away to ask what I should do about it. Her first reply was figure it out. I tried to ask her where she bought the dress, where I could get a similar one or whether it would be okay for my daughter to wear a different dress. I basically gave her a list of ways I could fix this and asked her what she preferred. Debbie responded with I don't have time for this.

Stop making your wail daughter my problem. Obviously, I decided against attending the wedding after that. As far as I'm concerned, we're no longer friends. And to be clear, I know that up until this point, I was not the awe. I didn't tell anyone about it at first, but our absence was. obvious, my friends missed me, and my daughter was supposed to be the only flower girl. Whenever Debbie was asked about it, she apparently just said we'd had an argument, but it wasn't a big deal. When our mutual friends and acquaintances asked me, I told them the truth, without

sugar-coding it or trying to defend Debbie. I even showed my friends the text messages that proved everything. Everyone took my side. About a week ago, Debbie called me. She apologized I apologized for what she said about my daughter, but told me I have no idea how stressed she was at the time. She said it wasn't fair for her to lose friends over a mistake she'd made when she was under so much pressure. Again, I don't think I was in the wrong for skipping the wedding, but I'm wondering whether I took it too far by telling our mutuals why. Edit, yes, I know I should have made sure the dress still fit sooner. I already know that was my mistake, and I'm not blaming Debbie for it. That's not what I'm asking about.

Update, hey guys. I wasn't going to update, but a friend of mine brought the situation up a few days ago and I remembered posting here. After my post back in March, I didn't hear anything from Debbie for a while. I did speak to my friends a lot, and they told me that she did continue trying to get them on her side for a while. From what I gather, her story always matched mine. I forgot to make sure the dress fit, I apologized, and asked how she preferred I fixed it. She insulted my kid, and as I remember discussing in the comments, wail of a daughter is a better translation.

Everyone continued taking my side. Apparently, I wasn't the only one Debbie had problems with before the wedding, my case was just the worst one. There's no doubt that the dress fiasco was my fault. I had a lot going on at the time and several reasons why I forgot to make sure it was a fit sooner, but no excuse can change the fact that I messed up. But I still don't think giving Debbie options on how I could proceed was the wrong move. I've been a bride before, and I wouldn't want someone else to make a decision about my wedding without giving me the

final say. And I can't ignore that her reaction was to insult my daughter. Debbie first texted me in June. She asked me to help her clear the air with everyone, because most of our mutuals hadn't spoken to her since April. I was tired of all this, so I told everyone that Debbie had already apologized to me. I made it very clear that while we're no longer friends, I sincerely don't care whether they remain in contact with her or not. She texted me once again early in July. She told me that a couple of our mutuals were talking to her again, but it wasn't the same as it used to be. She asked me whether I was still mad at her. I told her I'm not, and I wish her the best, but I don't think we can continue this friendship. I said I was sorry for the dress

fiasco and I understood that she was stressed at the time, but I'll never be able to look past what she did. It would have taken her less time to give me directions than it took to call my daughter a wail. I can forgive rudeness with time, but not insults, especially towards my children. We haven't spoken since. I haven't blocked her, but I have no intention of reaching out again, and I don't think she does either. Some of our mutuals are speaking to her again. Both my best friends from that group want nothing to do with her. I sincerely don't care what anyone does. I won't pretend this never happened, but I've moved on. Like I said, I'm not mad anymore. My daughter will be a flower girl at my cousin's wedding in December, and my family is

doing very well. Life has been crazy for a while, but things are finally getting. becoming calmer. I won't post here again. Thank you for your time.