Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
People Are Sharing The Things They Regret Finding Out, And Here Are The 30 Juiciest Ones
Interview
People often say they prefer to know the truth. Honesty is one of the top-rated characteristics in a successful relationship, for example. At work, too, people want to know if they're doing a good job. One survey found that 88% of employees would want to know if their performance is poor.
But do we actually want to know the truth, even if it's a hard truth? Henry David Thoreau summarized his two years of simple living in the conclusion of Walden: "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." So, some prefer honesty above all else.
On the other hand, as Lizzo poignantly truth hurts. These people certainly know, as they shared some wild stories of finding out something they later wished they hadn't. The stories came pouring out after one netizen asked, "What did you regret finding out?"
Bored Panda reached out to the person who asked this question, u/Jimbobsausage, and they kindly agreed to have a chat with us. Read our short conversation below!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
At the funeral my aunt told me that my brother was really not my brother. My parents took in the son of a family friend when I was 2 and raised him as their own. When I was 12 and he was 23, he was hit and killed by a drunk driver. I was crying and my aunt told me to stop being a whiny baby and that I have nothing to cry about because he isn't even your brother. I looked up to him and I loved him so much. I miss you Russell. No matter what, you are my brother.
Edited to let everyone know this happened 40 years ago and I am okay. The b***h is dead. She got cancer and she did suffer and I did not go to her funeral.
Michael Largey 5 months ago (edited)
A brother who's adopted is still a brother. Just like an aunt who's toxic is still, unfortunately, an aunt.
The inspiration for this thread came from u/Jimbobsausage's own experiences. "I started to pan over life and started to realize all the drama I've been through and what I regretted finding out that added more drama." The Redditor says that's what prompted them to ask other Redditors about the things they wished they could unlearn.
"I found out that the skin disorder I have could be caused by cancer," u/Jimbobsausage shares with us. "But I'm checking to see if that's the case." For now, the netizen hopes for the best and awaits further testing. We here at Bored Panda all wish u/Jimbobsausage gets only the best news!
RELATED:
#2
Triple whammy. My step mom was a raging alchoholic. My dad worked on the north slope (alaska). He was gone for 2-6weeks at a time.
She would spend the whole time he was gone absolutely plastered, and she was not fond of me living there. When I was 14 and she was p**s drunk and mad at life, she told me that my dad wasn't my real dad. That my mom was a cheating s**t and he took care of me out of pity. I called my dad after I got her to go lay down and he admitted it was true.
2 years later she killed herself by taking a ton of morphine and chugging a few fifths of vodka. I didn't think it was intentional but her sister came and handed me the suicide note where she said she was killing herself because she hated having me in her life and couldn't be with my dad without having me around. My dad didn't talk to me for 8 years after that.
I tried to go live with my mom afterward, and she said I couldn't live with her. She admitted that she was addicted to meth and couldn't support me and her habit. She died 6 years later.
Edit* for people's peace of mind, I'm in a much better place in life currently. I. I'm doing much better, and I've built myself a nice little life. While not flawless or without my own share of mistakes, I'm proud of what I've accomplished and how far I've come. Me and my dad have a much better relationship. Before my mom died, she got sober for nearly a full year. She was well enough in her recovery to meet my children before she passed and spent that year being the world's best grandma. Thank you all for the care, concern, and well wishes.
#3
That if I don’t initiate contact with my friends they would never reach out or message me ever.
The answers in the thread ranged from serious confessions about family members and dark secrets to more whimsical ones like 'Santa is not real.' u/Jimbobsausage tells us they were expecting more serious answers when they posted the thread, but they were fine with people being funny as well. "The funny ones were funny, and the serious ones were serious," they simply say.
The netizen says the most relatable answers to them were the ones about finding out something shocking about a family member when they pass away or learning that the people closest to you don't actually have your best interests at heart.
#4
My best friend growing up got cancer and died at age 27. My husband was deployed to Iraq when she died, so I basically had to deal with it all on my own.
I had taken all my vacation time from work to travel back home and lay with her in bed during her final days. She didn't leave me anything in her will, but left everything to our other best friend - which is fine by me, but weird under the circumstances. I went through YEARS of struggling with intense grief.
About 3 years after her death, my husband broke down and told me they had slept together the year prior to her death, which was 4 years after our wedding - where she was the maid of honor.
I called a couple friends to confirm, and it turns out she had nonchalantly told EVERYONE.
I don't know which I regret more - finding out that my husband slept with my dying best friend OR finding out that our "best friendship" was a complete sham.
I got over my grief real quick after that, but I feel absolutely robbed of years of what I held close as good memories.
#5
That the law protects the wrong people in the worst situations.
Miranda Veracruz de la Joya Cardenal 5 months ago
The law protects the rich* people in the worst situations.
#6
That there are people who genuinely had a happy family. My family always fought growing up so I just assumed that everyone else's did too and then they played nice in public.
I visited my college girlfriend's family and they were genuinely happy to be around each other and were interested in how each of them were doing. I thought they were putting on a show for me since I was there... but when I asked her later about it - she seemed shocked and informed me that it was normal behavior and sure enough... each additional time i was around them it was the same.
I remember being so jealous at the time and it took me a while to reconcile that my own family was toxic.
Lil Miss Hobbit 5 months ago
I am one of those people with a happy family. The heartbreaking thing was coming into my teens and learning that my family is not the norm. Most families do not love and care for each other the way my family does.
Interestingly, this is the second thread of u/Jimbobsausage's we're featuring on Bored Panda. Previously, they asked other Redditors about the pettiest revenge that they're proud of. This time, their thread did even better, as it currently has almost 2.5k comments and over 6k upvotes.
But it doesn't look like u/Jimbobsausage is chasing any Internet clout. "It's whatever, honestly," they tell us. All in all, the Redditor is just happy that people are engaging and talking with each other in a civil way.
#7
I regret finding out that 'ADULTING' isn’t a temporary phase but a lifelong sentence with no chance of parole.
#8
My mother moved back to her home country when I was 9. I was always told she could never come back to my country due to visa/immigration issues. She confirmed last year that this was not the case and she could come back any time. I realised she chose not to. Ouch.
#9
Finding out the one i loved had someone else in his bed almost every week.
Just end things and leave, don’t cheat for months and months..
u/Jimbobsausage believes Internet spaces such as r/AskReddit can be a great outlet for people to vent their woes and frustrations. "It's better to tell your personal stories to an un-opinionated stranger, who you won't see or hear from again, than it is to those closest to you. That extends [to] family members as well," the netizen adds.
#10
At 35 I finally realized I never had parents, and to this day don’t have a support system. It’s just me out here on a big rock floating through space. I have people in my life, even a girlfriend , but nobody ever feels close to me.
Lil Miss Hobbit 5 months ago
You do have people (your girlfriend for example) but you need to learn to let them in. Because you didn't have parents, you probably don't know how to bond. But you can still learn!
#12
No matter how good or kind or decent you are, people will make snap judgements about and condemn you and assume the worst of you.
Barry the Otter 5 months ago
Unfortunately a trait many people have. Some more, some less. Pull your head out of your a*s and just chill.
#13
When my grandmother died my mom had me send her ( my grandmother's) engagement ring back to her second husband's family. She had it for 25 years, so it was a bit of a project but I did it.
When my mom passed away 2 years ago I found my grandmother's will. That ring was the only thing my grandmother had left for me. I always wondered why she left me out of her will because we were so close.
#14
That the stench we’ve been smelling on my block in the middle of 100-degree weather was not in fact a possum, but rather, my neighbor- dead in his backyard for over a week.
#15
That some parents do not love their children. That hurt me.
#16
Over heard my best friend being asked why they let me hang around them. Their answer was it was out of pity.
#17
That Jehovah Witness are a cult, was a hard pill to swallow, but no regrets leaving that life behind.
#18
The day I remembered I was a boys guinea pig..
My mother ran away from my father with a truck driver, and for the sake of anonimity, I will be calling him John.
John lived in Illinois, with his son. I was 6 years old. We stayed there for a year until I was 7, and in that timeframe my mother was the breadwinner. She worked, and he did not. This worked out because someone was always home with me.
What my mother didn’t know until she came home early one day is that I was thrown in mud. The dog she got me was tied to a telephone pole by his son to antagonize me, blame me, and I’d get beat. His son fed me cat food when I asked for cereal. John would send me to neighbors houses to steal things from them, or their lawn. I got caught stealing a turtle someone had in a box outside. When I came home, he told me to “go get it back right f*****g now.”
Point here is, for that year of my life there, I suffered abuse, neglect, and many other things. My mother came home early one day, and caught him throwing glass at me.
Fast forward to being 21, last year, I was in the car with my mother, and he became a topic. I had been in psychotherapy by now for multiple reasons, developed schizophrenia, clinical psychosis, anxiety, you name it, my father, r*pe, sexual assault, my d**g addiction, and alcoholism, (I am both sober from both currently.) Along in this conversation my mom mentioned his son but she said son(s).
For the next part it’s important I mention that in psychotherapy, I unveiled that I was sexually abused as a child, but I never remembered, or knew who, or why.
I was confused, and she went on to remind me, and it was then that everything flooded back in a rapid unstable wave. John did have two sons. The other son SA’d me, and my brain had completely blocked him out for 15 years. I started incoherently screaming feeling this, remembering this, I almost crashed the car.
I wish she never spoke of it. I could have gone my entire life never remembering it. It now sticks with me.
Judy Reynolds 5 months ago
I am so sorry you had to live through both the abuse and the memories.
#19
The secret life of rock stars. Growing up, it was nice just to see them as rock stars. Social media ruined everything.
#20
Santa is not real and my parents have real names. Been a s**t show of reveals ever since.
#21
My grandmother's parents locked my grandmother and her brother in a room and starved them when they were little, and my grandmother's brother died of starvation at the age of 9. Idk How my grandmother survived and grew up.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 5 months ago
I knew someone in county jail who did this to her kids. They came out white, and the boyfriend was black. So she locked them up in the closet. She kept appealing her sentence with every loophole she could find, because she knew she'd get killed in prison. She'd been at the county jail for over five years. I don't know if she ever got moved to prison or released or what. She was in the jail when I got my prison transfer.
#22
I found out that there was a rumor that I had SA'ed someone in high school. I found out about the rumor almost 8 years after I had graduated. This person that was the apparent victim in the rumor is a friend of mine. She didn't start the rumor. She was just as shocked as I was to hear it. We still talk to this day, she's a wonderful person but can't figure out where the rumor came from. Even though its obviously not true, it still bothers me 10 years after I found out. Because I know theres at least someone who thinks I'm some sort of monster.
ucp 5 months ago
I (M) had a female friend in our late teens. Nothing romantic ever happened between us. She started seeing another lad, who was an acquaintance of mine. She told him that I had tried to force myself on her, and he threatened to hurt me. Severely. I don’t know why she did it, as I never spoke to that “friend” again.
#23
When I found out a friend I grew up with had died. Then sat down and counted on my fingers how many people I grew up or went to school with are already dead. Jeez, I'm only in my 30's. Stop dying already people.
Fat Harry (Oi / You) 5 months ago
This thought gets me regularly. I'm 40, and yet several people I went to school with - including my brother - have died or are seriously ill. It makes me reevaluate life when I complain about the little things, and it certainly makes me grateful to be in a position to be losing my hair and getting some middle aged spread because some of those I went to school with were never afforded that opportunity.
#24
Way back in the day, I searched my name in my long term girlfriend’s gchat log. I quickly found a chat of her and one of her friends discussing how stupid I was for not realizing she cheated over the summer, and how sick of me she was. Ouchy.
Kaspar Kristiansen 5 months ago
When you feel the need to spy on your SO, I'd say the trust is long gone already..
#25
The horrors of war. I would've been much better off if I never gave it serious thought. Now I feel furious, miserable and completely powerless every time war is brought up on the news, which is quite often actually.
#26
Finding out someone died when I thought they were just living a great life.
Abinaash 5 months ago
Happened to me with a neighbour in India while I stayed abroad, my neighbour was a very old but healthy and happy man, and one day out of nowhere he died of heatstroke and I didn't find out until I went back and didn't see him six months later. Absolutely heartbreaking for anyone who experiences it, hope it gets better for the poster.
#27
When planning a high school reunion a few years ago, we went looking for a classmate nobody could remember having heard from/about since the 90s. (We went to private school with fairly small classes so this is pretty unusual…)
After during some research, we learned he had died on 9/11. I felt pretty bad that it took me almost 20 years to find this out.
Patrick H 5 months ago
My friend and I went to our 10 year reunion learned that a younger classmate that was in band with us had died in Afghanistan after 9/11. We weren't that close to him but were still a little sad about the news. A few years later, we found out that he was actually alive. I have no idea if we just heard the wrong name or what.
#28
That I had a 21 year old son that I never knew about and that his mother told another guy that he was his father. I regret finding out because all it did was cause drama and hurt in between multiple families.
*Edit - I've seen a lot of the same questions and just decided to add the answers here:
First I have not met him yet, so far he refuses to even meet me or his half brother. He was severely angry with his mother for hiding this for so long and said to her, "I don't care who he is, my dad is the man who raised me, he's my father and I don't want to ever meet that other guy." I've seen pictures of him and he does look like me and like his half brother, but I have no idea his personality or if we have similar interests. I hope someday we can meet him.
Second, I only found out when she got scared when she learned that I did the [Ancestry.com](http://Ancestry.com) DNA test to map out my family tree and she knew her son was about to do it as well and that the truth would come out, so she told me and him in advance of finding out by matching.
Third, she told why she didn't tell me, but first the backstory. This was a fling I had when I was 21 with my next door neighbor who was 33 at the time. I knew her my whole life and always thought she was hot, but she became attracted to me when I got into college, as I got in really good shape physically. I saw her checking me out on multiple occasions and got a chance to shoot my shot one night when my parents were out of town for a week (I was still living at home) and she was always outside working in her garden, so I flirted, invited her over and with some convincing she did. We pretty much slept together every night that week and she told me she was on birth control and stupidly I believed her. What she didn't tell me was that she already had an "arrangement" (here's where it gets weird), with a guy from her work that they would have a child together. She was very independent, didn't ever want to get married, but wanted a child, so she apparently found a guy at her work who was in his 50s and well off, who agreed to give her a child and co-parent, as well as provide everything financially to raise the child. I only heard about this "arrangement" from my mother about a month later when she apparently told them in conversation about this "arrangement" and that they were actively trying to get pregnant and that she might already be (she was). I honestly was suspicious if he was mine, but brushed aside those thoughts since she told me she was on birth control and would have been pregnant by then (which she was, but was lying). She told me the reason she never told me is because I was young, hadn't started my career and didn't think I was ready to raise a child either financially or emotionally. She also was embarrassed since she knew my parents for years, knew me since I was young and didn't want her father or my parents to find out. Also, since she already had started talking to this guy about that arrangement, when she found out she was pregnant, she immediately said "yes" to him and started sleeping with him right away so she could say she was pregnant as soon as possible so the timeline wouldn't be too suspicious. Apparently she kept him from the doctors appointments, so he just had to believe whatever she told him.
So....she lied to me, she lied to the real father and had another man raise and pay for our child his whole life. So understandably the son, the father and I are all very angry with her, as well as other family members.
#29
Meeting with ex - We were together at the time - at her place spontaneously. I know when she gets home so I figured I'd surprise her, take her out to do something, etc.
She didn't get back. Unexpected and unusual, so I waited around across the street. In this situation I know better than to text and create push-back on any clue of her whereabouts. This type of unusual is *that* kind - the gut feelings and the sudden shock.
If I did anything to imply I'm around, she may not have shown up. And thanks to this, she showed up.
In a dudes car, 2 hours later. Dropped off, and lied about who it was. Her friend Jane isn't 6ft with a beard and glasses and definitely isn't a dude.
I regret having to see it. I'd rather a break up or a clean, no cheating, in person conversation.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 5 months ago
Imagine people ending relationships responsibly. What a crazy world it would be.
#30
My sister and I are adopted, one day our adoptive father decides I took too long in the shower and went full ballistic rage about how "you and your sister are useless go back where you fkng came from!"
Only went downhill from there haha
Edit: typo.
What do you think ?
Skywitness 5 months ago
At my sister's wake, I found out my older brother had molested her and our other sister. He lives in another state and if somehow he's ever within 100 meters of my daughter, I will do him great physical harm.
Multa Nocte 5 months ago
How could BP ever confuse "heartbreaking" with "juicy"? I am sorry for BP when they think it is "cute" to put a clickbait title on something that is actually sad.
Moonchild 5 months ago
The story's are a vote system. The juicy ones may be at the bottom of the votes.
Load More Replies...
Skywitness 5 months ago
At my sister's wake, I found out my older brother had molested her and our other sister. He lives in another state and if somehow he's ever within 100 meters of my daughter, I will do him great physical harm.
Multa Nocte 5 months ago
How could BP ever confuse "heartbreaking" with "juicy"? I am sorry for BP when they think it is "cute" to put a clickbait title on something that is actually sad.
Moonchild 5 months ago
The story's are a vote system. The juicy ones may be at the bottom of the votes.
Load More Replies... You May Like 50 Times People Saw Something ‘Mildly Interesting’ And Knew The Best Group To Share It In (New Pics) 50 Interesting Facts And Curiosities To Take Your Mind Off The Stress Of The Holiday Season Drunk People Spilled These 40 Secrets, Regret It Greatly
Viktorija Ošikaitė
Viktorija Ošikaitė
Shelly Fourer
Related on Bored Panda
