Sometimes you feel like you know everything there is to know about your family, and sometimes, some secrets that were hidden suddenly shake up your world. Share some juicy secrets that your family hid from you!

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#1

I had a twin sister who died after a few days of our birth. No one in my family (extended included) mentions her. I recently turned seventeen when my dad mentioned her for the first time to me and my younger brother. He also told us not to tell our mom that we now know about her. When he mentioned her, he was really sad and looked in so much pain, I didn't have the guts to ask anything.

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Sanjneel
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PolymathNecromancer
PolymathNecromancer
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11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oy vey, this is a lot to take in, and, depending on your emotional/spiritual toolkit, is potentially a very heavy burden.

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    #2

    my mom and dads first bf and gf were siblings and that’s how they met, BUT my mom’s bf proposed to her, she said no, he got mad and broke up with her. my dad went to her house (cause they knew each other from the peeps they dated) and was like “do you want me to beat his a*s?” she said no, and then my dads gf came, thought they were *AHEM* doing things, broke up with him and my dad was like “hey *moms name* wanna date?” and that’s how they started dating i guess.

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    o.0.moldy strawberries.0.o
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    #3

    My mother he was very religious, always seeking God, never seeming to find him. When she died, I was executor of her estate. I was going through her personal documents when I saw a written exercise she was doing for a religious study: what sins she felt she needed forgiveness for. One of them was that she felt guilty and unworthy of God because she was molested by her uncle and cousin when she was in grade school and her entire family blamed her for "tempting" them. She went to her grave believing she was responsible for a crime committed against her. Broke my heart to learn that. She never told any of us.

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    Susan Stead
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    #4

    My surname is a lie.... It was just the pseudonym used by my grandfather to gain his British citizenship in 1908.....

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    K- THULU
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    DarkGlassSphere
    DarkGlassSphere
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I know someone, whose second name was invented to escape the blood vendetta. She is an old lady now, but back then she was a kid. Her second name is the name of her father, because of whom all this happened.

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    #5

    Took a DNA test via one of the genealogy groups. I don't have a large extended family, and know all my cousins, etc., or so I thought. Nothing unusual showed up until last year, when a seemingly impossibly close match turned up. It turned out to be a half-uncle none were aware of. When I started looking into our genealogy, my dad said he didn't want to know anything that turned up. My father, now in his 90s, had a half brother all his life that he never knew about... and still doesn't. The DNA caught my grandfather fooling around - 90+ years after the fact.

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    Patrick Freudenthal
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    #6

    My father and his siblings have an older, mentally disabled sister living in a care home that nobody except my grandparents know about. I only found out because when my father died her legal carertaker messaged me about information about the inheritance.

    Still a secret, since nobody talks to me anyways ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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    TotallyNOTAFox
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    PolymathNecromancer
    PolymathNecromancer
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I hate to say it, and hope no offense, but experience tells me that sometimes it's better to have no interaction. This seems true for you

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    #7

    My dad:
    1. Had seggs with a random lady he met while he was married to my mum
    2. Lied to me about it for 5 years
    3. Is getting married to this person in march
    4. Is inviting someone who sexually abused me to said wedding.

    Life sucks :)

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    still tired
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    Prashant
    Prashant
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Please do yourself a favor, and don't go to his wedding

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    #8

    In 1916 my 16 year old maternal grandmother hopped a train from New Jersey to California and married a dying veteran. It was planned by him to have someone to leave his pension to. Then grandma and a girlfriend went to visit South Dakota where she met my Canadian grandfather and married him in 1920. The 1st husband died in 1923.

    My paternal German great grandmother never married but had 10 children with a german soldier. She told my grandfather he should go to America because things were getting sketchy in Germany. He came to America in 1911 (when you had to have a sponsor) met and married my Swiss grandmother.

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    Vermonta
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    #9

    My dad was in love with a girl but she died in a car crash. I dont think they were a couple but im not sure. This was before he dated my mother. Heard it from my aunt.
    Also, my younger sister had a crush on a high school teacher, an old and balding man. She wrote him a note confessing her crush, he turned her down (ofcourse!). I know from a cousin.
    When my other sister was pregnant, her hb confessed he had a child from a previous relationship but he has no contact with the kid. My sister told me and our mother. We never told any of our siblings. Her hb - now ex - was also in debts and charged for other s**t we found out later.
    For lots of reasons I have no contact with these sisters anymore and for the better, it was a lot of drama.

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    SnackbarKaat
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    #10

    Not really a secret but I was told about it quite late, when my granddad died. Appearently my mother didn't had a good upbringing and my granddad wasnt a good dad or husband.
    He was in the army, identified very much with that thing, but also felt like him, as the only man in the Home, should be boss.
    Discussions with him werent possible without fighting because his opinion would be the only correct opinion.
    He could be pretty aggressive too, with language, sometimes my mom and her sisters got hit too. Also by my grandmother, I should add.
    Theres a story about my granddad coming home drunk and was shouting nonsense and saluting with his gun in the hallway so my nine year old mum hided in the closet because she was (obviously) scared...
    All in all a pretty bad atmosphere to raise your kids.

    He also said some pretty rough things about my mentally disabled brother too.

    I understand that he also had his own trauma that could explain his behaviours to a point. Hes been through the second world war, escaped from Pomerania to Germany (where we live today) when he was 13 years old, was forced to watch his own cousin getting raped.

    Still, Im so sorry for my mum that she had to had a childhood like this.

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    Dolevaal
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    #11

    my grandma's brother is married to his cousin. also my cousins are best friends with the jonas brothers.

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    freakingbee (she/they)
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    #12

    I found out not long ago from a family member that after they went through several rounds of invitro that finally resulted in success, apparently with triplets, one fetus had to be aborted to save the other two. I don't think anyone else in my family knows and I'm not about to say anything.

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    BarkingSpider
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    #13

    My great-grandparents came here from Ireland about the time of the second potato famine. My grandmother was orphaned at an early age, and she and her brother grew up in an orphanage. At some point, they were sent west on an "Orphan Train" and lived with a family in Missouri. After a while, she came back east, married some guy at age 16, then said she didn't want to live with him. She got divorced and went back to the orphanage. A few years later she married my grandfather.
    My cousin did some excellent research, for which I will always be grateful. We don't think anyone in the family ever knew any of this, including my dad and his siblings.

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    Jackie Lulu
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    Jefferson Selvy
    Jefferson Selvy
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The Orphan Trains are a great example of a great idea (childless farm couples + orphan overpopulation) that absolutely failed to take human nature into account, much like communism.

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    #14

    my great grandmother, who was the sweetest person on this earth, had a first husband that not a lot of people knew about. he was super abusive and an alcoholic so she left him and her first two children are his. one of those first two kids took from his dad and over dosed before i was born.

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    MadameMalfoy
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    Debbie Cash
    Debbie Cash
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I was born in 1958 and my sister, in 1960. Never knew my father. No photos, nothing. I just knew his unusual name, his hometown . Mom said they divorced after my sister was born. A few years ago I found information that said differently. Father remarried 2 months after I was born. Again, sis is 21 months younger than me. I don’t know what is true or isn’t.

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    #15

    On vacation with my divorced parents, 15 years old, not sure why they signed up for the same trip. Anyway, my inebriated dad shares with me that I have a 1/2 sister born to my mom 2 years before me and put up for adoption #instantsiblingjustaddrum

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    Mitten
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    #16

    that my grandfather wasn't my biological one.my uncle said it in passing. never even asked mom

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    Richard Johnson
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    #17

    Learned about a kid my father had between me(39) and bro(41). There are more, so the story goes

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    Montanavanna
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    savannahnewman avatar
    Montanavanna (Submission author)
    Montanavanna
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    To elaborate, my dad is a ramblin man with a strong love for the ladies. We were told growing up that he has fertilized many other eggs out there. We learned about her when she looked into her adoption. Her and I could have been twins in high school. Very exciting for us, we are happy to have another sister.

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    #18

    My dog is gay.

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    pain papadopoulos
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    #19

    We only learnt about it after my Grandma passed away.. her sister was actually her mother.
    At a young age her sister fell pregnant after being r*ped. It was all hidden and her mother took the baby on as her own.. apparently no one questioned why her and a sibling were 6months apart in age.

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    Flora
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    #20

    I've recently connected with my birth family. Found out I have a slightly younger brother in Japan. My father refuses to give my sister and I any information on him. I'm hoping someday he'll show up on my list of relatives on Ancestry.com.

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    Kim Shannon
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    #21

    My paternal grandfather had another family before he met my grandma. I found out at his funeral, when after the military 21 gun salute, the American flag was handed to a man who was not my father.

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    Calliope Orvik
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    #22

    This isn't nearly as interesting as the rest. My father lied to me for years.
    I found out later that turning on the light inside the car while driving was actually not illegal.

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    Rostit. .
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    Wintermute
    Wintermute
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My thoughts and prayers for you at this difficult time. 😪

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    #23

    A few years ago my dad told me that his cousin (she had just found out herself) told him that their grandfather had 2 kids with another woman in between his kids with my great grandmother. My grandma, aunts,and uncles knew about them but never talked about them.

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    Suzie Alto
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    #24

    this family secret could be the basis of a gothic novel. it involves nostly my grandmother, my aunt, and my mom but my great grandfather also played a significant role in the way things played out. first, my grand's mom was lost in a fire when she was very young (she was born in 1917, btw). so her dad decided to send her off to a convent school to be raised. she returned home around the age of 15 or 16. It had been shared over the years that the relationships between my mom, my aunt, my grandmother and great grandfather were complicated. Apparently, my grandmother favored my aunt but was dismissive to almost the point of abuse of my mom. On the other hand, my great grandfather, while never mean or abusive to my aunt, didn’t really have much interaction with her but doted on my mom. And, as you can imagine, his actions just kind of fed the resentful treatment of my mom and the coddling of my aunt. It was also shared with me that my mom and aunt, who had a good relationship with each other, were very aware that they didn’t look like each other either. Finally, they decided to sit my grandmother down and ask her some pointed questions about their family history and this is what was revealed. When my grandmother was back at home she basically took care took care of dad and her older brother. But, she met a young man who was of irish descent while her family was Portuguese through and through. Seems that my grandfather did not approve of the pair as he wanted her to marry a Portuguese man. They decided to elope and were gone for about a week or so. Upon returning to my grandfather to announce their marriage, he blew a gasket at the news and, because she was a minor, had the marriage annulled. But, there was a slight problem: having consummated their marriage, my grandmother became pregnant with my aunt. However, because grandfather had annulled the marriage, making it for all intent and purpose, having never happened, it essentially turned my aunt into an illegitimate child which, for the times, was an embarassment. He then married her off to an older well off man who was my mother’s father. All of this was news to my mom and my aunt but it explained so much in regards to how they were treated differently. They did get the name of my aunt’s father and I have tried to search for any thing I could find but as of now there is zero return on any of the search. All of them have passed on now but there are times when I think to myself that if my great grandfather hadn’t been such a controlling person how different my grandmother’s life would have been as she bore his contempt for the rest of his life in spite of her adoring him and taking care of him to the best of her ability.

    sorry for the broken off attempt at posting this previously if it shows up as a 'double.:

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    talliloo
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    #25

    This is mild compared to the others, but until she recently retired (mostly) my wife was a professional clown doing a magic act, face painting, and balloon art, mostly at children's birthday parties. She always said it came from her mother, who was sort of a free spirit (unlike her father, a typical straight-laced engineer). Shortly before he died at 89 she found out that her father ran away from home and joined the circus when he was a boy (around 1940), so maybe it came from him after all.

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    Papa
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    #26

    My younger sister died in 2009. We had a contentious relationship and I was glad I got to see her about 6 weeks before her passing. My siblings and I engaged in lots of alcohol related therapy after the funeral. Out of the blue, one of my older sisters mentioned that our brother had molested her and another sister. He sent her an apology letter before she died and she didn't want him at the funeral.
    That a**hole showed up and acted as a pallbearer next to me before I knew any of this. I'm sure I'd still pi** on him if he was on fire but only to prevent the fire from spreading

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    Skywitness
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    #27

    My two Cousins never knew tat their Mother was married two times before she married their Dad, My Dad helped her get two divorces.

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    By Deleted User
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    #28

    I don't see my dad's parents that much anymore, and I don't go over to their house overnight or without a parent in the room. I thought this was just how things were, but apparently when I was little their dog attacked me since it was jealous I was sitting next to my oma. My dad was going to confront them about it and tell them they needed to do something to prevent another instance or I wouldn't be allowed to sleep over again. Sadly, my oma had a bad fall a few weeks later (due to the dogs tripping her up on the stairs) and had a traumatic brain injury, so my dad never brought it up. She doesn't remember it happening, and keeps asking to see me more. I love her dearly, but it's super uncomfortable watching her and my mother interact, since my mom is annoyed with her, my opa, and my dad for being so Southern-ly passive-agressive and not fixing the problem.

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    QueerAxolotls
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    #29

    When I was 10 years old, I found out that my bio parents (I was living in a children’s home at the time) had had another child as well as myself and my sister. It wasn’t until I was older that I found out he was born between myself and my sister. I’m 18 months older than my sister. Stupid Catholic values.

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    #30

    My uncle (dad's brother) tried to with my mum while drunk. My dad whooped his azz. Less than a year later my dad had seggs with some random he met while fully sober since he"earned it" after defending my mum from his drunk brother. Found this all out a month ago, and the "random person" is now my dad's fiancé.

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    still tired
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    #31

    My Mother's Side: My grandmother cheated on my grandfather with my grandfather's best friend, and left my grandfather for him.

    My Father's Side: I'm part Jewish. There's an oddly specific reason for this, and my mom brought this fact up to me but wouldn't tell me the specifics of the situation. This eventually led to a huge fight between my parents, where I overheard my mother telling my father she was concerned I may "meet somebody I'm related to without knowing it". After the fight, my mother told me that she always confuses my step(?) grandfather and my grandfather. I still haven't figured it out and I'm too afraid to ask.

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    Hatch Man Des
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    #32

    I was told that a maternal family member may be my dad. It’s believable because this member also assaulted me although no one believed me. Not even the original victim. I’ve went back a few generations and noticed I favor my actual dad’s lineage more. My height, build, hair texture, eye color, and face shape are highly influenced by him then the maternal family member.

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    Display_Name
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    #33

    Pretty sure my step dad cheated on my mom a bunch back in the day, but she has no idea. In the late 90's he gave her crabs twice and she believed him when he told her it was from a toilet seat at a local bar. He died a few years ago so there's no reason to tell her now. Personally never liked the guy, though, and don't miss him at all.

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    leneeriksen1984 avatar
    Lene
    Lene
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Haha my mom told my dad the same. I really hate that she cheated on him.

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    #34

    We only learnt about it after my Grandma passed away.. her sister was actually her mother.
    At a young age her sister fell pregnant after being r*ped. It was all hidden and her mother took the baby on as her own.. apparently no one questioned why her and a sibling were 6months apart in age.

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    Flora
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    #35

    My sister has a boy/girlfriend and nobody in my family knows. I was looking through a stack of paper and I saw in her handwriting, I love you and I will come visit you soon. We recently moved to another country so I was kinda confused and worried. If my sister has a special someone, why has no one said anything? I have trust issues so I am really questioning our relationship. We are really close (I think) and I want to figure this out.

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    A pug with bananas
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    weatherwitch101 avatar
    weatherwitch
    weatherwitch
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    11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It may be that she wants to keep things secret because she does not know how it will work out, the other person may not recipate their feelings. I kept my few relationships quiet, they're personal to me and it really is no one else's business who knows. Just because you are really close, it doesn't mean that you both have to tell each other something. Someone not telling you something isn't anything to do with you in these circumstances regardless of your trust issues I'm sorry to say. So it could be a lovely sweet relationship that's not yet started or is budding. Moving away makes you miss people more than you realise and can make you feel isolated in ways you don't expect, but that's no reflection on your relationship with your sister 😊 it also be an inappropriate relationship (ie someone supposed to be in a position of trust) so she knows its wrong or has been told not to say anything. Keep quiet, don't ask, watch out for her and be happy. She'll tell you when she's ready 😊

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    #36

    this family secret could be the basis of a gothic novel. it involves nostly my grandmother, my aunt, and my mom but my great grandfather also played a significant role in the way things played out.

    first, my grand's mom was lost in a fire when she was very young (she was born in 1917, btw). so her dad decided to send her off to a convent school to be raised. she returned home around the age of 15 or 16.

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    talliloo
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    #37

    My great-grandfather was committed to an insane asylum, where he died less than a year later

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    Annie
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