If your partner left out a major part of their romantic history, would you still be willing to marry them one day, or would you feel lied to and uninterested in tying the knot over that?
This 35-year-old woman has spent nearly three years with her 33-year-old boyfriend. A year ago, her boyfriend’s dad was diagnosed with cancer, so he moved to his hometown to be his caregiver.
She did come to visit when she was able to, but relocating to be with him was out of the question due to her career. Her boyfriend’s mom died when he was little, and his dad got remarried.
Her boyfriend’s 32-year-old stepsister, Tara, then entered his life. Tara helped her boyfriend care for his dad while he was sick. She doesn’t know Tara that well, but Tara has always been nice to her.
A couple of weeks ago, her boyfriend’s dad passed away, and following the funeral, her boyfriend moved back to where she lives. Days later, he shared with her that he had to speak to her about an important topic.
“He said he had been planning to propose for a while, but did not feel it was the right time while his father was sick. I honestly thought that meant we were about to get engaged,” she said.
“Instead, he told me there was something I needed to know first. He brought up Tara and explained that they had known each other long before their parents married. They went to school together and were close friends for years. I already knew that part.”
“What I did not know was that they had previously dated. According to him, they were in a relationship for several years from high school into college before eventually breaking up.”
He and Tara remained friends, then their parents got married, and they turned into stepsiblings well after their romance had come to an end.
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Her boyfriend stated that he kept this a secret from her, as he was afraid she would think there was still something happening between the two of them.
Her boyfriend promises that he and Tara were finished before their parents began dating, and to this day, they do not have feelings for one another.
“Now he is telling me that after everything that happened with his father, he feels Tara is essentially family to him. He says losing his father made him realize she is the closest thing he has left to a sibling,” she continued.
“Because of that, he wants her to remain a major part of his life, and he wants her involved in our wedding, possibly even as one of my bridesmaids.”
“I am struggling with the fact that the woman he wants included in my bridal party is also his ex-girlfriend of several years, and I do not know how to feel about it.”
This is so bizarre to me that her boyfriend is telling her that Tara has to be a bridesmaid in their wedding when he hasn’t even gotten down on one knee yet.
Madness, I tell you, and I am convinced her boyfriend and Tara were hooking up while playing caregivers to his dad. I don’t think that her boyfriend is over Tara, and there still could be something going on there.
Her boyfriend isn’t even ashamed that he lied to her for three years about Tara, and so I think she should dump him and move on already. Otherwise, she will spend the rest of her life worrying about what’s going on between her boyfriend and Tara.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
