‘What is a surprising secret skill your partner has that you didn’t know about?’ – 21 incredible mid-relationship reveals

After we’ve been in a relationship with someone for a few years, we tend to think we know absolutely everything there is to know about someone. We may even start to take them for granted.

And then, boom! They’ve suddenly reveal some previously hidden element of themselves, and we fall in love with them all over again.

They’ve been chatting about these surprises on the AskUK subreddit after paspa1801 shared their own experience on the AskUK subreddit…

What is a surprising secret skill your partner has that you didn’t know about?

Wife and I were visiting her family in the States and we went to a fried chicken shop for lunch. Placed our order and were told it would be like 15 minutes so we went to take a seat and saw a foosball table and thought it would be fun to play.

I went in to it expecting to most likely win, not just because I’m a cocky twat but because historically, I tend to be better at those table top style games as my wife doesn’t have the best fine motor skills or hand eye coordination (she will be the first person to admit this, I’m not telling tales out of school).

I was shocked when we started playing and oh my god, it was like I was watching the foosball version of Mr Miyagi! I’ve never seen anyone else play foosball that well. She would score goals before I even had a chance to think!

I’ve known this woman for 7 years and this came so out of left field that I was flabbergasted. I asked how on earth she was that good at foosball and apparently when she was growing up her parents worked really long hours (yay American corporate life) so she would go to this weird Church ran daycare after school. The only semi entertaining thing they had was a foosball table, so essentially my wife played foosball for like 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for YEARS.

So what other random skills does your partner have that shocked you at the time?

A heartwarming tale, and lots of other people who were wowed by their significant other chipped in with their own stories, like these…

1.

‘She started speaking Swedish to a couple at the neighbouring table. 10 years in, we were, and it never came up before.’
–MonsieurGump

2.

‘So, my partner is a very highly skilled musician and although she isn’t a permanent part of one of the big orchestras, like the London Philharmonic, is good enough to dep at that level, and is so good at sight-reading music that she can fill in at the last minute for a major event without even rehearsing, if someone were to get ill or injured at the last minute. I knew this. She’s amazing.

However…

What I didn’t know is that the skillset for sight-reading music, and an innate sense of musical patterns and rhythm etc, is the same as what you need for those arcade dancing games. Dance Dance Revolution, or variants.

She’s fortysomething and very fit, in both senses, but not at first glance the kind of person you’d expect to get high scores on those, as you know, she does look like the classical musician that she is.

What’s really fun is hustling kids at the arcade, and getting her to challenge them to a dance-off on one of those games. She absolutely destroys them, and usually ends up on the high score board.’
–JackXDark

3.

‘Mine can fold a fitted sheet perfectly. I genuinely thought that was one of those skills humanity had collectively agreed was impossible.’
–EveningGazelle_75

4.

‘This was about 8-9 years in. We were married by this point. She came home from work saying that her wrists hurt from doing the worm at work.

“What do you mean the worm?”

“The dance move.”

“You can’t do the worm.”

“I’ve been able to do it since I was a teenager.”

“…what the fuck? How did I not know this? What do you mean you can do the worm?”

I was so genuinely shocked at the worm. You think you know someone…’
–callumh6

5.

‘My wife has an innate ability to make balloon animals.’
–Bankrupt_drunkard

6.

‘The other way around, but I’d be learning Spanish for a few years, never infront of her, but I’d have Spanish TV or music on, but she never twigged.

Never had any reason to use it with her until we went to Spain with the children and I’m sat in the front having a simple chat with the taxi driver. She was very confused.’
–Historical_Cobbler

7.

‘Baking! My boyfriend had never made a cake before and I, joking, said I wanted a two tier vanilla Swiss meringue butter cream cake with passion fruit curd and fresh fruit to decorate.

He cracked it out like it was nothing baking a cake for the first time ever and it was the best cake I and most others had ever had. The sponge was perfectly light and airy, the Swiss meringue was smooth, flavourful without being cloying, the passion fruit curd perfectly balanced, sweet and tart. The cake was also absolutely massive and unbelievably heavy!’
–loblorbity

8.

‘We went bowling for my birthday, and after bowling went to the arcade. Turns out my wife is an absolute crack shot, absolutely nailed The House of The Dead without even breaking a sweat. we got further than I’d ever been before and I was half cut. She’s my absolute hero and in case of a zombie outbreak she gets to man the guns whilst I watch her back with whatever stupid clubbing weapon is to hand, knowing full well I wouldn’t be needed anyway.’
–ben_jamin_h

9.

‘Hanging out with family, my husband rapidly crafted some very realistic plasticine dinosaur sculptures. Had no idea he could do that, although not out of character tbh.’
-FantasticWeasel

10.

‘My other half absolutely kicked my arse at table tennis. I used to play in the school team so considered myself at the very least proficient. She beat me like 21 to 6.’
–Trumpetplug

11.

‘After four years found out my husband can read Greek… He’s not Greek. Doesn’t know what he’s saying but he can read it. Turns out he studied the letters and pronunciation during his engineering degree for fun.’
–More_Acanthisitta_91