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Family and drama go together like oxygen and fire—one fuels the other, and while they can create warmth and light, they can just as easily spark chaos and destruction. So when Reddit user Rentinghappiness asked everyone on the platform to share the biggest secrets they discovered about their relatives, people used the opportunity to use the anonymous nature of the internet to vent their frustrations, confusions, and other kinds of emotional turmoil that they've experienced after unraveling the hidden layers of their relationships.
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#1
I discovered that my siblings and I grew up in foster care since no family members were willing to help my aunt and uncle get custody of us. We were in Missouri while they lived in Michigan. They fought the courts with what means they had but couldn’t afford the legal battle. The system thought our mentally ill mother was the best choice even though we would only be home with her for a few months before going back into the system. Rinse repeat until my sister and I at 15&16 were homeless. Luckily we had an older brother that was adopted by a great family and found us. Sent some bus tickets to Detroit to come stay with him and showed us f****d up kids what unconditional love was.
#2
Grandma had a younger sister who she was told had died in infancy but was actually sent away to other family members because she was severely mentally disabled and the family was embarrassed to have an "abnormal" child around. We found her living with some of Grandma's cousins where she was regularly beaten up and even doused with boiling water when she misbehaved and was in her mid 50s then but had the mental capacity of an 8-year old. She eventually got out and ended up in a special needs nursing home where she was fortunately treated better, but the damage was apparent and she'd scream and throw a fit whenever the caregivers filled up a hot bath or made coffee or had anything to do with hot water.
In addition to the personal stories we see in the thread, we also have some quantitative data to go along with it. According to a 2020 survey that looked at secrets that Brits discover, the most common ones about family were:
An affair (29%);
A secret family (22%);
A secret revelation (22%);
Unknown friends (18%);
More money than expected (17%);
More debt than expected (13%);
A secret job (6%).
#3
My mom always told me my father had died in Vietnam during the war.
Imagine my surprise when he showed up to my High School graduation because he'd seen my name in the local paper (I graduated valedictorian and I'm a Junior). Turns out my mom had kidnapped me when I was a baby to keep my father from trying to get custody when they split up. He lived about an hour away from me the whole time I was growing up and neither of us knew it.
#4
That we weren't really poor; rather, I wore ratty clothes, never got any toys, and would frequently go hungry simply because my mom just didn't give a s**t about me. I was 18 when my mom told me that she started to panic when she had less than 50K in savings, this was in the early 2000s
Bright side, it taught me not to buy stupid s**t.
Darkside, nostalgia for games/toys/movies/trips etc. doesn't exist.
#5
For years we laughed about how, one night, when my dad was little, his parents got drunk and played Russian roulette pointing the gun at themselves and firing. My grandmother’s turn, and she shot herself in the throat, and she lived. Both passed away years ago, and my dad inherited the gun. One night he was re-telling the story to my mom, made sure the gun was unloaded, and realized that even he couldn’t pull the trigger back with the weapon facing himself. There is no way his mom accidentally shot herself, but there is a very high probability that my grandfather shot her.
Dad then remembered that he was sent to foster care for several months after the incident, while the police investigated what happened.
Susie Elle 6 days ago
We're not gonna mention that these people apparently play Russian roulette when drunk, instead of cherades or trivial pursuit?
Most of us would rather find out about these things before our family members pass away—almost 4 in 5 respondents said they wanted to discuss these matters face-to-face.
But when it comes to opening up to family, the study also found some subjects are considered far more taboo than others.
Sex is the most divisive topic, with less than half (48%) of us willing to disclose information about our sex lives to those closest to us. Compared to this, far more of us (59%) would be comfortable talking about our experiences with drugs, and 90% have no qualms about disclosing our finances with family.
#6
My best friend growing up was actually my half brother that my dad conceived with a family friend.
#7
The one vacation I went on with my Dad, which I cherished as one of the few father-son bonding experiences of my childhood, was actually my Mom telling him “Take your son and GTFO for a few weeks while you decide if you want to be married or not”. Apparently there was a “work wife” situation brewing and my Mom was not having it. .
Andrew Keir 6 days ago
I'm glad you had the good experiences when you were young, and that the problems were kept from you until you were old enough to be able to handle them
#8
My father was on his death bed and I ran to the train station and hopped on a 5 hour train to see him in the hospital. When I walked in the room, there was two women (older than me by 20 years) holding him and calling him dad. A huge WTF, who are these people?!!!! went through my head and realized he had another family my entire life. He passed away the next day. I still am shocked.
When looking at age demographics, the older generations were consistently more open. For example, 50% of over-65s are happy to discuss drugs compared to just 21% of those aged 18-24 and 20% of those aged 25-35. This trend of elderly honesty and youthful discreetness continues among topics like alcohol, money, and religious beliefs.
Maybe that's why we discover more things when we get older—others become more willing to admit them.
#9
My uncle impregnated his twelve year old step daughter. He is serving a life sentence.
#10
Helluva lot lighter than 99% of this thread but I didn't find out until like 15 years after the fact that when my uncle divorced his wife and got with another woman was because they were swingers and the husbands decided to just swap wives. Now they're hardcore Bible thumpers.
EDIT: Yes, the swap was consensual by all parties.
#11
I was a single child my whole life, then my dad died and I learned in my 30s, that my cousin was my brother, I had a half sister who lived across the country, had a sister down the street and another half sister who was like in her late 50s.
#12
My half-sisters were kidnapped by their (undiagnosed at the time) clinically insane mother who kept them from my dad for two years. He came home one day and they were all gone. He spent those years looking for them, but since it was the mother who took them, he didn’t receive much help from authorities. During those years, my sisters suffered at the hands of their mother and her numerous male companions. One day, their mother just got tired of them and sent them back to their dad.
I didn’t know any of this until a few weeks ago. It explains so much.
#13
My father, a man of questionable morals, set my shy brother up with one of his mistresses. This woman, desperate to escape poverty, agreed to the arrangement.
Tragically, my father continued his affair with her even after she married my brother. This left my brother in a deeply troubled and painful situation.
My brother passed away at the young age of 50, leaving behind a complicated legacy. I'm unsure if the child he had with this woman is my sister or my niece, given my father's involvement.
My brother's life was marked by sadness and turmoil, a direct result of my father's selfish actions.
#14
My mom and dad were real brother and sister but they didn't know it too until they had 2 kids.
Wang Zhuang 6 days ago
I suspect more similar cases like this will emerge as more people take advantage of DNA testing.
#15
My parents always told us kids that my mom lost her front teeth because as babies we’d accidentally head butted her so often we knocked them out.
The truth of it was that when my parents drank (which was, and I assume is still, all the time) they would argue a lot. When my dad got sick of my mom’s voice he’d pop her in the mouth with the back of his hand.
He’s the one that knocked out her teeth, and then blamed it on us as babies.
#16
I knew that my biological father had a sister that died when she was 6-yrs-old. It wasn’t until I was grown that I heard the full story. My Dad was 10 and Helen 6. He was supposed to be looking out for her while they were outside playing. They had walked to a neighbors house and Helen wanted to go home. Dad wanted to stay and told Hellen to walk back home by herself. She was hit by a car and died. My grand-parents blamed my Dad and he carried that guilt his entire life.
#17
My grandma's sister died when she was 15, hit by a car right in front of the family house, well my uncle bought the house years ago and found her hidden journal, turns out great grandpa was abusing her and she [unalived] herself...
#18
My mom's side of the family owned a couple family members from my dad's side of the family during the slave times.
#19
Apparently my dad tried to strangle his ex wife and the only reason she survived is because she cut his arm with a kitchen knife. My mom and I got to find out that little fun fact together, because his ex called her to warn her that he was crazy when she found out he’d remarried. 🙂 so there’s that.
#20
On of my moms sisters died of SIDS in the 50s. Years later it came out that my grandfather got tired of hearing her cry and frustratingly shook the s**t out of her. She actually died of shaken baby syndrome. I don’t know how authorities didn’t know (?).
Multa Nocte 6 days ago
Because information on both these phenomenon were not well known at the time.
#21
I knew Mum was sick… I had no idea how many times she tried to [unalive] herself.
#22
My dad had a whole separate family with a daughter a year older than me. He ran the family business, and the lady that lived next door to the business had been his girlfriend since before my parents got married. When my parents got divorced I was about 11 or 12 and I didn't really know why. My dad and I barely talked all through high school but for some reason I talked him into letting me move in with him between my senior year and college to get to know him better.
What I found out about him was that he was d**k, a womanizer and alcoholic. The verbal and physical abuse i took as a kid was even worse now that I was older, resulting in actual fist fights a couple of times. I worked at his business and made friends with the lady next door who we'll call Wendy. She made me dinner all the time and really took care of me while my dad was too drunk to cook or do any parenting at all most of the time. I was 18 and the lady next door had a daughter about my age and we became friends. This is the daughter, we'll call her Dianne.
We hit it off that summer and neither of us knew that we were half siblings, and there was strangely something about her that made me really like her. Dianne was pretty but not crazy beautiful, but I couldn't take my eyes off of her. Something about her just drew me to her. I think she felt the same way, because we spent a lot of time together getting to know each other that summer. I couldn't get enough of her nor her me. We watched movies on VCR at night after work every night (I'm that old), and smoked a lot grass out on my porch. One night I took Dianne to a house party at a friends house and after a few drinks I was getting up the nerve to make a move when she kissed me. We ended up hooking up that night and messed around pretty good, but thankfully didn't have sex. I was kissing her good night on her door step when her mom came out screaming and yelling and told us we weren't allowed to see each other, and I never saw her again she wasn't around for the next few days. When my dad found out he flipped his lid too huge fist fight that night. It got so weird around there I just went back to my mom's for the few weeks left before college.
I mentioned to my mom, that Wendy was really nice and I really liked her, but I had screwed up somehow and pissed her off and I wasn't sure why. I never told my mom about messing around with Dianne, but I don't think she knew about her. She has dementia now so I have no chance of knowing if she did. Over the next few years, my dad and I drifted apart again, I had real hatred for him for a long time, and we didn't speak for almost 30 years.
Found out he was dying and I went to see him to bury the hatchet. It actually wasn't too bad. While we were catching up on the events of our lives, my dad told me the whole story. My dad had two girls Wendy and my Mom that he was dating. He chose my mom and broke it off with the other woman, and asked my mom to marry him. A few months later right before the wedding Wendy shows up very pregnant and tells him its his. My dad who was running his dad's business at the time, put her up in the property next to the business and took care of Wendy and Dianne. Eventually things rekindled with Wendy and he ended up in a relationship with her the most of the time he was married to my mom. He admitted the guilt was too much and he started drinking and over time the drink was all that was left, both my Mom and Wendy had eventually kicked him to the curb and moved on with their lives, so did I and so did my young sister and Dianne. It was a terribly sad story. For the first time the verbally and physically abusive monster had his mask pulled back and was human after all. I didn't completely forgive him, but I definitely understood him for the first time in my life.
Brandie Litchfield 6 days ago
It's hard to have compassion for someone that has caused such harm and damage, that says a lot about your integrity. I'm glad you had that chance to let go of the resentment and pain.
#23
My family fought in WWII
on both sides.
Ace 6 days ago
Sadly all too common around here (Alsace) where the villages and their occupants switched between being German and French several times over the course of the last 150 years. War memorials, of which there are a lot, never mention one country or the other, it's understood that the fallen sons had no choice in who they were forced to fight for, or against.
#24
I have an uncle who went to prison for [unaliving] a homeless man in the street with a few of his friends. They let him out early and he goes to family gatherings. He’s fairly close with a lot of the family and as kids we would have sleepovers at his house. At one of the sleepovers we overheard him abusing his wife thankfully they divorced but the family still invites him. But she’s the crazy one according to the family.
whodunnitfan2013 6 days ago
My relatives treat me how this family treats the now-ex-wife. I'm the crazy narcissist, meanwhile the real narcissists and abusers are such saints.
#25
My grandfather was greatly displeased with his son Roland, who was mentally handicapped after an infection. So one day he gathered his 8 children in the yard, took out his hunting rifle and staged a mock execution of Roland to "teach him to be right".
My mom was maybe 10 years old when this happened.
misfittrixx 6 days ago
All the kids should have been taken away right then and there that's just cruel
#26
My great grandfather got his wife’s sister pregnant and f****d off leaving both women humiliated. With their mother and children the two women made a new life in Canada where no one knew of their shame.
#27
Grandma didn't just disappear. Grandpa put her into an institution for what would probably be baby blues/ depression and irritation with a 5 year, 3 year, and a few month old kids, he was a trucker, so he was gone the majority of the time.
They gave her enough brain zap zaps that it turned her into a shell of a person, and she didn't even remember her kids. They visited only once when the youngest turned 18. She stayed there for 40 years completely alone, and no one knew or cared she died. She's just a random number in a mess of a graveyard they toss the wards of state in. She's less than two hours away in Minneapolis, but I won't drive in The Cities. I much prefer my small Wisconsin town.
#28
That my father's arrest at a rodeo in his teens (that led to his mom kicking him out, complete estrangement from his mom and siblings and his eventual adoption by his best friend's family) was not just a little dustup. He beat another person so badly the victim almost died. He was fifteen.
#29
Great grandparents living in Europe lost all their kids in the Spanish flu epidemic; immigrated to the US and just popped out 5 more kids. Wild.
MellonCollie 6 days ago
Why is that wild? If the great grandparents had sex, that would likely result in babies back in the day. The fact that did lost their children apparently did not mean they never had sex anymore ... Perhaps they even had more children on purpose. I can imagine many reasons, ranging from grim to loving.
#30
My great aunt was a nurse at a mental hospital and fell in love with a guy being evaluated to stand trial for [ending people]. She helped him escape and they ran off to Florida. But the police tracked them down and her lover was sentenced to the electric chair. She got off easy, though.
Before all of that craziness, her younger sister had come to live with her and then [unalived] herself. My aunt worked in a distant city and promised her father that she would get her sister a job at the hospital and look after her. But the sister got pregnant by a married man who dumped her, so she jumped off a bridge.
I found all this out like 80 years after it happened while doing family research. My 90 year old mom reluctantly confirmed it.
What do you think ?
Cindy Brick 6 days ago
Please please PLEASE stop using the word 'unalive' instead of suicide, murder, etc. We are old enough to handle this! It also makes it incredible difficult to read. (I feel the same way about d***s, etc.)
CG 6 days ago
My "father" was a Neo-Nazi before I was born, and went to a few rallies before my older brother was born. I dunno if I should consider that too big of a shock, because he's basically a Right Wing Canadian, who basically hates the same things Right Wing Americans do (vaccines, LGBTQ+, things considered "woke", etc.). My mom doesn't know, and frankly, I kinda want to tell her, because he's not really in my life anymore.
Bryan Hamilton 6 days ago
My grandfather was left on a family door step as a baby and that family took him in. They ended up being bank robbers and eventually when my grandfather was old enough to drive became the getaway driver at 12. Finally in his teens got busted and spent 12 years in prison and then escaped with another man and got caught after a hold up at a liquor store. The other guy shot and killed the sheriff and also took a bullet and died. My grandfather turned himself in and part of the plea agreement was that he serve out his time being a barber for the army in which he did til he passed away in 1967.
Dre Mosley 6 days ago
One of my cousins was date raped in college and impregnated. She didn't want the child, another cousin(her brother) and his wife adopted the baby. The woman he knows as his aunt is actually his bio mom.
The_Nicest_Misanthrope 6 days ago
One of my ancestors was executed by hanging for stealing a sheep
Cindy Brick 6 days ago
Please please PLEASE stop using the word 'unalive' instead of suicide, murder, etc. We are old enough to handle this! It also makes it incredible difficult to read. (I feel the same way about d***s, etc.)
CG 6 days ago
My "father" was a Neo-Nazi before I was born, and went to a few rallies before my older brother was born. I dunno if I should consider that too big of a shock, because he's basically a Right Wing Canadian, who basically hates the same things Right Wing Americans do (vaccines, LGBTQ+, things considered "woke", etc.). My mom doesn't know, and frankly, I kinda want to tell her, because he's not really in my life anymore.
Bryan Hamilton 6 days ago
My grandfather was left on a family door step as a baby and that family took him in. They ended up being bank robbers and eventually when my grandfather was old enough to drive became the getaway driver at 12. Finally in his teens got busted and spent 12 years in prison and then escaped with another man and got caught after a hold up at a liquor store. The other guy shot and killed the sheriff and also took a bullet and died. My grandfather turned himself in and part of the plea agreement was that he serve out his time being a barber for the army in which he did til he passed away in 1967.
Dre Mosley 6 days ago
One of my cousins was date raped in college and impregnated. She didn't want the child, another cousin(her brother) and his wife adopted the baby. The woman he knows as his aunt is actually his bio mom.
The_Nicest_Misanthrope 6 days ago
One of my ancestors was executed by hanging for stealing a sheep
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