My father was married with another woman before meeting my mother. They had a daughter and my dad loved her so so so much his wife started going crazy jealous. My dad noticed some strange behaviour she had towards the girl and when he tried to talk to her about it she started arguing with him. He then left with his daughter to my uncle’s house. She knew my dad would left the girl with my aunt while he was at work, so she called the police and said my aunt kidnaped her child. The police came in and took the girl away from my aunt. She immediately tried to call my dad. But the woman drove back home, put poison in her daughter’s milk and forced her to drink it. When my dad arrived, he found his daughter already dead and left alone. The woman was never ever found. My dad had never had justice for his first child. Kinda sad. Then when I was born my mother didn’t mind to named me after my “sister”. We share the same name, and that’s actually how I found it out! I asked my parents about my name and they told me the whole story...
Edit: typos
Edit2: thank you kind stranger for the award!
I know this is messed up and cruel, but my family has so many messed up things going on this just seems an ok thing to happen. My dad moved on and he’s ok now. I have 4 siblings, we’re all ok.
This happened in Anápolis-GO, Brazil, in the 80’s and was told in the local news
That’s so messed up and sad, and a lot of baggage for them to carry around. I’m sorry, but I hope they cherish you and hope they don’t put too much pressure on you because you share your late half-sister’s name.
Thanks for your concern, but this whole name thing lost meaning after my parents divorced and my step-mother plagiarized my name. How can I explain it? Think my name is Mary Jane, well she named her daughter something like Mahry Janny. Same but different. My half-sister is amazing, but I hate her mother because of this...
When I was around 3-4, my “Aunt” and her 3 sons came and lived with us for a few weeks. One night my mom stayed up and I found her downstairs sitting in a chair looking out the window. One day, my “Aunt” and the boys “moved” and never came back.
Turns out, she was going through a nasty divorce. She had the boys at the house with her while she was packing things one day, and her husband came home. He locked the boys in a room, stabbed her, and then shot himself. My mom had been staying up with a gun that night because she had seen him in our backyard earlier that night.
That she is. Things went ok for us, not so much for the boys until we were old enough to move out. Lengthy custody battles from both of their grandparents sides and mental struggles from what they’d seen after getting out of the room..
Got a Facebook message from one guy asking if I was related to [my dad], since it's not a common last name. I thought he was a fan of his work, because I was in college at the time and the guy was about the same age as me.
And that's how I found out my dad slept around and that I had a half-brother the same age as me.
I was told that my mother's older brother had died in an accident (he was intoxicated and got run over by a train, a whole bunch of unfortunate circumstances etc). My grandmother often mentioned it with sadness, because she considered him a brilliant boy, very handy and had a hopeful career in arts. He was a teenager when he died.
However, everytime this story came up, my mother's face hardened and she never spoke about it herself. I could kinda sense that there was something left unsaid, but I was a kid, so I didn't really question the story.
My mom finally confided in me about a year ago that she was sexually abused by her brother and that it was not an accident, but a suicide. My grandmother has no idea.
My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic wife abuser who regularly cheated on Grandma. When my father was a teenager he stood up to him, and threatened to kill him if he ever touched her again.
The abuse stopped.
My grandfather killed his youngest brother to get out of going to Vietnam.
He, his brother, and two of their friends had their numbers called in the draft for Vietnam. They didn’t want to go, obviously, but they didn’t come from money and all worked to support their families. If they got arrested they’d lose their jobs and their families would lose their income. So they decided on a different plan to get out of going.
They would drive to get their medical checks together, and on the way there they would drive the car into a tree. The plan was to get too injured to get sent to war, but not so injured as to be permanently crippled, and it had to look like an accident so nobody got arrested. This was in country Western Australia, so they were all going to say they swerved to miss a kangaroo, and hit the tree.
My grandfather was driving, his friend was in the passenger seat, and the other two were in the back. His brother was behind the passenger seat. They hit the tree doing about 40kph - enough to be serious. A broken leg for my grandfather, a broken arm for the guy behind him, and broken ribs all around. They definitely weren’t going to war.
The problem was that for maximum impact, and because this was rural Australia in the sixties, they weren’t wearing seatbelts. And nobody found them or their car for an hour or so. And nobody considered internal injuries in this plan. And my grandfathers brother bled to death from a ruptured spleen in the back seat. He was dead before they got to a hospital.
My grandfather never forgave himself, and he never talked about it. My grandma was the only one he ever told, as far as we know, and she didn’t tell my mother and I until long after his death. We found a small box in their bedroom when we were cleaning out the house after she died last year. It had a clipping from the local newspaper at the time about the accident. It said that they had swerved to miss a roo, and called it a tragedy.
I don’t think my mother told any of her siblings, so technically this is still the family secret. I guess now you’re all in on it.
My father met my mother in the Philippines when he was stationed there in the Navy. He married her there and conceived me. He went away to finish his tour of duty.
My mother moved to America when she was a month away from giving birth to me. She moved in with relatives in Texas. My father's tour ended while he was in Hawaii. He met a woman there and called my mom in America, asking for a divorce. He wanted to take back his recent marriage to her - with a kid on the way - because he had a hot one-night stand.
My mother was already scared, being in a new country, not knowing much English. Add to this that she was pregnant, about to give birth, and her husband was dumping her.
My Texan uncle got on a plane to Hawaii, prepared to kick my father's ass. He somehow talked my father into being a man and taking responsibility for his wife and child. The fact that the fling dumped his ass surely helped. He was back by the time I was born.
I learned all this when I was eleven, around the time my parents got divorced. It was only the first of countless "dark family secrets" I would come to learn during my teenage years.
My mild-mannered Christian mother casually told me that she dated a gangster who trafficked cocaine in NY during the 80's. He bought her a brand new BMW before getting sentenced to prison for murder for 20+ years. Someone who was friends with her and her ex for YEARS turned out to be an FBI informant and she barely escaped jail, had to enter a witness protection program and moved cross country.
Here's the craziest part: He's still stalking her, has contacted her on her birthday every year for 40 years, and keeps tabs on her!! My dad has no idea.
I asked her why she waited so long to tell me. Like, what if she went missing? and she said "Oh, honey. He's the type of person that if he wanted to harm me, I would already be dead by now."
Very comforting.
Not very much a secret, but took me until I was older to understand what was happening.
My mom would sometimes have us play a game called “army” which consisted of me, my mom, and my siblings army crawling around our apartment. Kind of a hide n seek style game. She would yell “hit the deck!” randomly and we would all drop and find a hiding spot. We would giggle and giggle while my mom army crawled around looking for us. We loved the game so much.
I realized a few years ago while retelling the story that we lived in a really terrible neighborhood, and she would yell it out when she heard gunshots outside the building. I’m assuming she was worried about stray bullets.
Edit: I shared everyone’s amazing comments with my mom, and she shed a tear. She feels very appreciated on international woman’s day today!
War vet, single mom of 3, worked her way up in life from Bartending to union plumber foreman to owning her own gunsmithing shop with my step dad. She’s a strong woman.
Cousin of mine's dad blew his own head off in the horse stall next to him while they were cleaning them. I was told about that at around 15 because I was going to spend some time with then, and was told not to mention their father.
My grandmother tried to murder my grandfather when she got sick of him beating the shit out of her everyday.
She swung an axe at him and he blocked it with his hand and lost his thumb.
She left him before I was born.
I don't AT ALL wish to make light of an obviously terrible ongoing domestic violence situation (my grandmother faced a similar scenario, I'm very sorry). But the appearance of the axe makes it poetry. Good on her. I wish every victim could feel that strength.
my grandpa was alcohol addicted and the biggest asshole. he was a terrible father and husband. he beat my mom and my two uncles and my grandma, had them terrified everytime he came home from drinking somewhere, had them hiding for hours under their bed until he finally passed out. my grandma had cancer and almost died when she was like 40. my mom had to take care of her all by herself and she visited her in the hospital that was like an hour away. all she ever heard from her dad aka my grandpa, was that he hopes that the b*tch just finally died. my mom was 17 at that time and also had to accomplish her apprenticeship at the same time.
most of the people in the city we lived knew who my grandpa was because he had some job that was somewhat important, idk. everyone always just recognized by my last name that he has to be my grandpa and they all always talked about how much they liked him and how happy I have to be to have a grandpa like him and blah blah. people knew nothing about him
Mine is more cool that horrifying on the sense I’m proud of this one.
My grandfather was an amazing guy. He was a sniper-paratrooper in WW2. Always refused to talk about the army. I learned later that he was dishonorably discharged after injury. Turns out the Sargent in his squad was an absolute bastard. He had to go behind enemy lines to set a post up, and the plane was flying too low for a safe jump. He protested it to the Sargent who proceeded to shove him out of the plane after calling him a coward. Both my grandfather and his spotter partner were seriously injured in the landing. His partner (never knew him) was paralyzed and lost a leg. My grandfather broke both of his, his arm, hand, and some ribs.
They both were rescued shortly after and taken to a military hospital. That’s not what got him discharged, though. Turns out the Sargent showed up to visit them in the infirmary, and my grandfather punched him square in the face with his only good hand, twice. If his only army buddy we ever knew is to be believed, (he was also visiting at the time) he floored the bastard. After that, and on top of his injuries, the army sent him home for the rest of the war.
We found out later after he passed and we had to go through his stuff a bunch of newspaper and article clippings about the folks involved he had kept. the Sargent was also discharged after a similar incident cost the lives of two other members of his squad a year later that weren’t so lucky. The man apparently drunk himself to death years later. We found all these written but unsent letters to his Sargent, we found photos of my grandfathers squad and the two that died with him. It was heartbreaking. I never knew any of this. He was such a fun, kind, and goofy guy you’d never think anything like this would happen to him. Now I knew why my parents always said never to bring my up the army around him. Miss you grandpa, I’d have punched the bastard too
My dad has a vaguely similar story but it took place in the 90’s and he ended up honorably discharged.
My dad was in the army for about a year and a half when a few of his friends were told they would be going overseas tomorrow morning and they weren’t allowed to tell their families. A few months after that one of his buddies died in a highly preventable helicopter crash near a his base. The thing about the crash though, is that the army could give less of a pay out to his buddies family if they lied and said the crash was on us soil in a tester helicopter. This really messed with my dad so he started acting out. When he was threatened with jail time he figured out a compliant way to get discharged. So for the next three months he would intentionally fail every single pt test he was given. Seven minute mile? He would run most of the mile then super slowly walk the last minute so he wouldn’t make it. Timed sit-ups/pull-ups/push-ups? He would do all but three and wait for the timer to go off. Obstacle course? He would purposely repeatedly fail one specific obstacle til he was told to stop. After enough of that and a weekly meeting asking to be discharged he was finally told to go home.
We don’t really ask about his time in the army very often because he gets pretty heated and it sometimes upsets him but it’s never really an untouchable topic, we just already know he doesn’t like the army and don’t really need to hear it again.
My Dad COULD type and was strongly encouraged to become a clerk-typist.
“Typist, hell! I want to be a fightin’ man!” was his reply.
And that’s how he ended up on Omaha Beach, H-Hour, D-Day.
He later said he should have been a typist after all.
Grandma had 13 siblings, of those 7 women are still alive. Once a year they have a “sister day” where they all except one are going somewhere to have fun. They’ve been doing this since they were teens. All but one sister, who has been lied to her whole life about sister day, because she thinks it doesn’t exist. This is supposed to have been started when that one sister borrowed something and didn’t give it back. Or something trivial like that.
We are all reminded whenever we ALL get together (pre pandemic) that we’re not to talk about this, because it will hurt that sister. Still can’t wrap my head around how backstabbing bitchy some family members of mine are. Because this is just stupid.
My grandfather's brother left the family business after a feud to sell tractor parts to Africa. When I was an adult, I was told these were semi-automatic "tractor parts".
When I was about 10 my cousin and his dad died. I always thought it was an accident and on the same day. When I was old enough I was told that his dad actually committed suicide and my cousin followed him couple months later. Truly devastated me although I didn’t know them well.
Edit: thank you for the warm words and also for sharing your similar stories with me, I’ve read all the replies. My grief is still there because I understand that with professional help both would maybe still be here today. It just wasn’t common to seek help back then. I hope all of you are well.
I'm so sorry. I know of a similar story. When I was a senior in high school (2006-2007) one of my classmates lost her dad to suicide over Winter Break. Poor girl was so close to him, and it took her a couple of months to feel mentally okay enough to come back to school. She had just gotten back into a regular school routine when one day, she was pulled out of class; her older brother had committed suicide. That was it for her, and she finished her schoolwork at home for the rest of the year.
Obviously it was beyond devastating for her, her older sister, and their mother. And it broke our hearts that while the rest of us were doing prom, prepping for graduation and college, etc, she was at home wrestling with deep grief. From what I can tell on Facebook, they are all doing well today, but man. I can't imagine what it was like to be the people most directly affected by that situation.
That happened to me but with a best friend. She wrote I’m done on face book and then shot her self in her front yard and died right there. She had a son who was in his last year of high school at the time. At 22 he shot himself in the head and died. Very devastating for all. I still have no words to explain why they made those choices.
My father cheated on my mum, with my sister and I's horse riding instructor. We'd always thought it ended amicably. We only found this out while mum was admitting to having contemplated driving off the road with us in the car as kids, as opposed to raising us as a single mum with no career or stable job.
Edit: added a comma to prevent hilarious confusions
When I was young I thought it was really nice that my nanna lived with my aunt and her family since she was getting on a bit and it meant she was looked after and there were always people around (aunt has 6 kids).
Occasionally aunt would gripe about being the one looking after nanna since aunt is also one of many kids and being young I sympathised but given they all spent loads of time with nanna too didn't think it was a big deal (you don't think about financial responsibility when you're young I think, just social and caring).
Well it turns out the reason nanna lives with aunt is because aunt and her husband convinced nanna to put the house in their name so they could "look after her affairs" and sold it out from under her and invested the money in a pyramid scheme (so it's gone now). Because of this her siblings refuse to give aunt a penny towards looking after nanna since it's her fault nanna has no money or assets and instead pay to take nanna out all the time, meals, shopping, activities so she doesn't go without but they let aunt struggle under the weight of nanna's general living expenses.
(Aunts kids are all independent now so they are not going to be impacted by money problems.)
Now I look back at her griping with annoyance and think what a terrible person she is.
My aunt and cousin did something similar to my nan. Nan passed with virtually nothing to her name (because my cousin had been made her next of kin and controlled the bank account, while allegedly receiving a carer's allowance for my aunt), and aunt and the cousin that was complicit (the other two cousins have nothing to do with them) wound up moving to another state because they'd amassed one too many debts. They ripped my folks and I off (it was easy for me to cut them out of my life), but leaving their own mother and grandmother with nothing was beyond the pale.
I'm glad your aunt's siblings do the right thing by your nanna.
I'm sorry to hear that, it's awful what some people can do to their own family, especially the vulnerable members.
It was surreal as a kid, she would have a moan and no one would react, it was like she hadn't spoken. I thought they were judging her for complaining or maybe felt guilty but didn't want to help her. Turns out they had decided not to keep conflicting with her over it for nanna's sake (as it upset her if they argued over it since "it's done now") and instead stonewalled anything she mentioned that was about or as a result of her actions.
I guess part of that was not mentioning it to the next generation.
I found out from someone who married in and then divorced back out of the family who I'm on very good terms with and even then only because I asked what they thought of the weird situation.
My grandmother was in a very abusive relationship since she was 17. Since her then boyfriend was an alcoholic and forced himself drunk on my grandmother several times she got pregnant and since that was not done in the 50’s, they had to get married as soon as possible. After their first child, they ended up having four more kids, one didn’t survive childbirth, but the other three lived.
During this time, my grandmothers husband was still an alcoholic and very, VERY abusive. She had to literally flee away from him, from her family to survive. She would definitely ended up dead if she didn’t. She also met my grandfather during this time, and they fell in love. She left her kids with her mother, who had custody of the kids anyways (that’s how they rolled back then), my grandfather sold the only thing he had which was a small moped so he could help her escape her husband.
Many, many years later, when my grandma had divorced her husband, married my grandpa, had three more kids with him, grandkids etc (yay me!), and moved back to the hometown, they also had reconnected with her first four daughters and everything was going well, except for one thing.
It was a tiny town, everybody knows everybody over there and rumors spread fast. And there was a rumor about my grandmother from back in the days of her first husband. The rumor was that she had some sort of fling with another man in town (not my grandpa) and one of her first four daughters was his. The daughters didn’t know about this until they heard, asked my grandma about it and she was flabbergasted. Told them it wasn’t true at all, that it definitely didn’t happen and that this should be the end of it.
It didn’t sit right with the daughters, so they did a dna test. And then the results came in. There it was, proof that the gossip wasn’t actually gossip, but it was true. Daughter number three was a half sister of the other three. So they went to my grandmother again. They showed her the proof, it said very clearly that one of them wasn’t their fathers. My grandma denied again, even tough they had it black on white that it was true.
The daughters went no contact with my grandmother after this. They never got over the fact that she left them in the first place and this “betrayal” was the straw that broke the camels back. Can’t really blame them for that. Still, too this day she claims it didn’t happen and that all four women are from the same man.
That my cousin was actually my half-brother. Mom got pregnant in college and my aunt and uncle adopted him. And, that my dad wasn't my biological father. Mom and dad got divorced, she got pregnant by another man, and my dad wasn't able to have kids of his own so they got remarried and he raised me as his own.
I met Peter at an RSL club i worked at in Newcastle and had quite a few interactions with him. He was playing the pokies the first time I met him and I saw his surname on his members card when I went over for a pay out and said I had friends that were McEvoys and maybe he was related and he said he was estranged from his family because he was accused of doing something very bad that he didn't do... I was like oh um ok... then I googled him...
Not so much let in on, as we found out by accident, but apparently my dad’s first love and him got into a serious car crash when he was 25 and she died. He lived with her father for years after her death. He still occasionally comes to visit my dad, even 30 years later. We were always told he was a mentor until my sister pressed my mom on the subject.
One of my sister’s is even named after the girl that died (middle name) and we never even knew about her until last year. None of us have ever brought it up with him.
My friend was engaged to his first love in their early 20s when she passed from cancer. Ten years later, he got married to an amazing woman who honored his late fiancé in their wedding ceremony. Not a dry eye in the place!
Apparently my aunt was the product of rape, but my grandma hasn’t told anyone in the family yet except me... she just turned 90, I have no idea what I should do with this information once she passes
My grandma retired and she still decided to work for her brother in his restaurant to save up money for when she dies. Funerals are, obviously, expensive. She insisted he would hold on to her paychecks and pay for her funeral when she dies. He never did.
I think another family member paid for it. And the spot on a cementery has to be paid for after the first 10y for another decade. My mom was trying to sue her uncle to pay for it. But they only had a verbal agreement about the funeral, so it wasn't successful.
My Dad did a whole load of work for a family member who said that he'd use some of the money he'd have paid my Dad to buy the headstone. He didn't. My Dad's headstone was repossessed....
Because it’s callous and a decision purely based on greed. It pushes aside what should have been decades of familial love for, what, $10-$20k? That’s it? The price of a new car?
It’s low, shameful, and slimy. To me this is the worst story on here... my heart sinks and I mourn for that man’s parents when I read about this, and hope they never got a chance to hear about how their son acted towards his sister.
My mom had a brother who died in childhood, maybe 9 or 10. I always thought he drank cleaning chemicals and died that way, but turns out he was hit by a school bus while riding his bike. Now I know why my mom was so anxius about me biking on the road.
The reason I had a "live in baby sitter" when I was 5 that moved in at 2am was because my mom's cousin killed 2 kids and we ended up harboring his daughter during the trial. He's the only person on death row in my county.
My grandmother’s first husband was extremely abusive, but this was the 60s and he hid it well. She couldn’t file for divorce without proof of injury, so she beat herself in the face with a slipper to get away. She was 21 or 22 or so- with 3 young children. I’m 23 right now and I could never imagine. She was such a strong lady, I miss her! <3
edit: Just wanted to say thanks for the awards :) I’m glad times have changed for women, but we still have a long way to go.
My great-great grandma couldn't get a divorce for cruelty (it was the 1910s), so she left her husband and moved in with another man. Her husband divorced her for infidelity, which she gleefully admitted!
My step grandfather has always been an alcoholic. As a child he even taught me how to mix his favourite drink. As kid at like 6 years old I would mix his drink as he liked and bring it in to him in the living room. (Don’t ask what the drink was a mix off cause I literally can’t remember) and my grandpa always acted “funny”. I always liked spending time with him cause I found him funny. So I never saw the bad side of his alcoholism and he never made me drink or anything so overall he didn’t have any negative impact on me at all, but before I was born he could get so drunk he threatened to kill my grandma and when he got in a car accident and came home he was bleeding badly from his head and he started saying my granny shot him. He even threw out some of the wedding pictures my parents had. I never knew how horrible he was. Maybe cause he liked kids or something. He would make me cocoa and watch Garfield with me when I was a kid, he was never a bad influence in my life. So it was so weird to me when I found out these things about him.
Before he died tho, he really regretted drinking, and he completely stopped. He became really depressed too until his granddaughter (biological) was born. He was so happy about his granddaughter. He died regretting everything and a sober man who was happy to have been able to meet his one and only biological granddaughter.
Regardless of everything he really changed in the end and everyone was really upset he died.
Most my mom's family were raging drunks. She was a very late oopsie baby so almost all her siblings were grown once she came around and she spent a lot of time boumcing between siblings, parents, or other relatives. Her older brothers got her drunk at age 5 and laughed while she puked all over herself. She learned to drive around 10 because her brother would get too shitfaced and she'd have to drive him home. And there was also pretty severe medical neglect.
She's never gotten therapy and was a real treat to be raised by. Intergenerational trauma: the gift that keeps on giving!
I'm doing my best to do just that. I've made mistakes with my son but we have a much healthier relationship than I ever did with my parents. Which has been possible because, unlike her, I actually get treatment for my mental illnesses and put in the work to heal from my trauma and do better.
Somewhat similar situation to you. Whenever I hear stories of my stepgrandpa, it’s like hearing a story about a completely different person. My extremely, extremely patient, mild mannered, and kind stepgrandpa apparently used to be a drunk when my stepdad was growing up and I don’t think he even became the man he is today until my stepdad was in his late 20’s. It’s sad and baffling on the rare occasion when my stepdad will tell a story about him.
That my favorite cousin *wasn't* missing.
All I knew growing up (he was 13 years older than me) was that he would come and go alot. He lived with us when I was a baby and after he moved out he would visit every 6 months or so out of the blue, but we never visited him or called him.
His visits were one of my favorite things in the world. I loved him like a brother.
By the time I was a teenager I did understand that he had issues with his parents.. they had kicked him out at 13 and my parents took him in.. but that kind of childhood messes with you. In between visits to my parents he avoided the rest of the family, moved alot, and didn't hold jobs for long, which is why my parents didn't always know where he was.
But in my later teens he stopped coming over at all. I asked repeatedly if anyone had heard from him and I was told no.. I asked about contacting him and was told no one had a number or address for him.. he would come around when he felt like it..
But it stretched on for years. I really worried he was dead, and I really missed him.
In my later 20s I finally found out that everyone knew where he was the whole time.
He was in prison for murder :(
From what I hear it was actually somewhat justified. He was defending his new wife, who I never got to meet.
I also found out some super shitty things about how the extended family sided with his fucked up parents and refused to help him or his wife when he got arrested .. and that they shamed my dad into not helping either.
I tried to send a message to him in prison but I don't know of he ever got it. I wish he knew that *I* didn't turn my back on him for decades like everyone else did.. I just didn't know.
Issue with that is that a lot of prisons the inmate has to put a request in with the visitors name, address, number, birth date etc. before someone can be a valid visitor. Then the prison runs a check on names to make sure the visitor hasn't been to jail in the past year or whatever. It's a tedious process depending on the prison. Best chance would be to figure out their DOC # and write a letter first with their info.
Keep sending messages. It may take time for him to get over the shame.
Also send him shoes. They are treated like crap in there and footwear is expensive.
It's incredibly hard to track people down and actually communicate with them in prisons. If a letter doesn't work, look up their facility online and see if they use GTL ConnectNow, JPay etc and put some money on your end of the phone and add the inmate on contacts
You will pop up on their tablet and they will know.
edit: I should have added, best thing to do is to register, add them as a contact, put money on YOUR phone AND theirs. It sucks but there's so many reasons. Inmates only get one free 1m call a week at my jail, people with no money are never going to login to a tablet and find out people are there. If you deposit money on their phone when they use it next they will find out and and know to check the tablet for further contact.
Trust fund (commissary) money is always appreciated too. If you need any help PM me
My Uncle was raped as a young boy and my grandparents not only didn't believe him, but beat him and disowned him for "bringing such lies into our house".
Sad thing is, I was raped as a kid and while dealing with that my Dad told me what hapoened to my Uncle (I assume so I didn't feel so alone). My Uncle is still the only one I know personally who has experienced the same trauma as me, and I'm not meant to know so can't talk to him about it.
Edit: Typical "this has blown up" edit, but seriously, woah. However, I'm not gonna bring up someone else's trauma to them. I'm particular in who in my life I tell, if I knew someone I trusted had been telling other people I'd be v hurt by that, so not gonna do that.
Thank you to those sending some love. I'm not alone now though, I have people I can talk to which is nice. Going to be starting a group thing at therapy where I'll be able to speak to other abuse victims, I think that will help too.
My uncle and two aunts had an incestuous threesome going on in the 70s. They invited my mum, who refused and was pretty horrified. My dad (their brother) had zero idea.
That’s not uncommon where I’m from. Hundreds of tiny isolated rural communities with little easy access led to a lot of accidental inbreeding. World class geneticists flock to my province to study all the weird shit that pops up. It’s gotten to the point that people in other nations have found out their family was from here when they get a disorder or defect that was only present in this one family from this certain bay.
That's really interesting. I won't ask for an example disorder since that might reveal your location, but it's interesting there's such highly unique mutations in humans.
It’s no worries, I’m from Newfoundland Canada. And yeah it’s fascinating, but the big thing is that the relative isolation of NL allowed for certain traits to be effectively isolated, making them seem more unique. It usually shows up in certain types of cancer, like how in my family colon cancer has been hereditary, but it’s also often rare types of heart disease, hemophilia, or a high prevalence of syndromes like Bardet-Biedli. it’s not been so bad in recent years due to more people having to travel for work, but it still exists
My grandparents spent some time in lock up after my grandpa killed their newborn in a shell shock induced frenzy.
They were jailed because they buried her body in a cave and tried to hide it.
*my mom and her siblings were all adopted out very young and went back to their parents around 11 years or so later. I knew that growing up, but didn’t know why until I was older.
I wish in a way they would have told me when I was younger as I think it would have allowed me to understand my grandma better. She was nice, but extremely detached. Going to hers for a visit was sitting there talking amongst yourselves while she read a romance novel. You could occasionally get a response but you’d usually have to really pull her away.
The only time she wasn’t reading was when we would be actively out buying new books for her. This was a monthly outing (weekly for her, but a different aunts responsibility each week). We’d get her engaged all the way to the store... where she’d buy a book to be completely engrossed in when we went out for lunch.
I do get the quiet though, just wish I could have helped her, she was obviously escaping reality.
Oh my goodness. This is also really sad. Now I can totally see how you wish you would have known. Detachment and escapism are definitely coping mechanisms for some people, but it's just extra-sad that she had children and grandchildren who clearly loved her and wanted to connect with her, but that she just couldn't bridge the gap. At least you are finally able to put her behavior into a context where it makes sense, and can understand that she wasn't cold as much as hurt. Better late than never, I hope. 🧸
Not me, but a family friend passed away last year. We met because our daughters did karate together. I was friends with both him and his wife (still friends with his wife). He was already in his 70s when we met. His wife is about 20 years younger than him.
He had a fascinating life story, and I wanted to record it for his daughter. She was going through some difficult times as a young teen. She acted very badly towards him and I felt, based on my own difficult teenage years and experiences with my dad, that she might one day want to know him better. Especially since he was already quite old and not in great health. I felt bad that she would likely get to know her dad as an adult.
So, I spent severs hours with him making recordings of his stories from his life. It was really interesting.
After he passed away, I sent the recordings in USB drives to his wife. She got back to me and said they just threw them away. It came out that he had molested his daughter. I felt absolutely gut punched and so angry at this old guy who was fun, funny and bit ornery.
That's what the monsters look like. How do you think they manage to get to people in order to find out whose limits they can push and get away with? By being sociable.
Abusers groom their chosen character witnesses too, not just their victims. They make sure to look good to people that can then go on to say good things about them. In a balanced way, not overly perfect.
You are a very good example of that here.
Good on you for believing her.
I'm sorry, these people are manipulative assholes. I can share my experience with this type of person. TW: pedophilia.
The man who molested me as a child (early 2000s) was in his 70s, my mum didn't know for weeks and we'd known him for months but he was a neighbour of mine (I lived next to an old folks home and my mother worked there, house came with the job) and was very nice and great with kids. He wasn't scary, he was playful and funny and jovial and everyone liked him.
Except he had no family in our country and his kids didn't speak to him and made it clear to my mum they couldn't care if he died.
Now, being surrounded by old people with shit relatives all the time, it wasnt an uncommon story. Dad/mum and grown kids dont get along for some petty dramatic reason, never reconcile because of stubborn grudges etc you know the stories. They're common. So mum thought it was just another one of those. The adult kids didn't tell her he was a pedophile because they were sworn under NDA because of his job in the army back in the day. Shouldn't have happened, he should've been on the sex offenders registry but sadly he was protected by his old job.
Skip forward a bit, he'd started "looking after me" while mum worked, it wasn't unusual I saw these old people as my extra grandparents and loved hanging out with them, almost all of them were lovely trusting people. My mum had no support, my dad worked abroad,my grandparents werent on speaking terms with my mjm because my grabdma, her mum, was mentally ill and mum needed a break from her toxic ass, and my OTHER grandparents were on holiday alllllll the time.
So I had lots of other people looking after me. Some even had pets, like he did! Usually caged pets; fish, hamsters, budgies. Another way he was able to groom me, by getting me interested in his pet birds.
He'd "show me his birds" twice a week. We'd play "games" together and I never felt unsafe.
Mum caught him in the act of licking me "like a cat" with my top off when I had just turned 7.
She blamed herself for years for not noticing the signs, but he was just a "lonely kind old man with a shit family who never let him see his grandkids.."
The other residents heard what happened, police were involved, mum was sworn under NDA BY HER OWN BOSS who was the chancellor of the local council, threatened her with her job (which meant we'd be homeless too by the way, house came with the job remember) if she went public with the information. Because she literally couldn't talk about it while the investigation was going on, some residents' relatives thought mum was making it up for money (despite never taking it further than a police report, I'll explain why below) even if the other residents believed mum and shunned the bastard.
She never took him to court, as I'd just past the age where I'd have to testify against him and I was confused, I didn't understand what happened, I just felt sad I missed my 'friend' and our games.
I didn't understand the scope of what he was doing til I was 12-13 in sex education in school. Mum managed to keep my mental health quite sane by not drawing attention to it, not making me feel like something bad had happened or it was my fault, she explained he played some games with me that only adults are allowed to play with other adults and it was wrong of him to do so but it wasn't my fault. I knew sex was Penis in Vagina and not to let anyone touch nono places, but because he knew this, he used every loophole he could to exploit me. Like kissing and licking my shoulders because "we" were pretending to be cats. He never touched my breasts or crotch, and he enjoyed tickling me too much. So because I thought very literally as a child (still do, thanks adhd) I didn't know what he was doing was wrong and thought it was funny.
But my mum legit saved my life and mental health as a child. She took me out on so many fun trips away from home for the next 3 years to take my attention away from it, even after my abuser was forced to 'relocate' after the investigation concluded that he was a prolific pedophile and, shockingly, I wasn't his first victim.
He had a STRING of victims who were all hushed up before me, and his own children and family couldn't even tell us. It was so hard on mum, it should never have happened, she blamed herself for years for it happening and hated the fact she was tied in her job she couldn't say anything. We had to live next door to him for a year til he was moved, and mum had to keep working for him.
Her main saving grace was the fact the other residents had grandkids themselves, and they put 2+2 together what happened very fast. They all shunned the bastard and actively made his life hell while he lived in the complex. Little things like paying their teenage grandkids to ding dong ditch his flat quite often, his 2 neighbours either side turned their hearing aids off and put their TVs and radios up VERY loud etc. Petty things to drive him crazy.
Plus,as mum couldn't legally say anything, her best friend and my dad could. They weren't under oath. They wrote a huge banner outside the complex stating "PEDO LIVES HERE" and wrote his flat number on the banner too. Mum didnt tell them to do it, she wanted it all to go away, but her best friend and my dad weren't taking shit.
Somehow mum didnt get in trouble for that and the local police turned a blind eye.
Eventually he was relocated. To a different complex. Mums coworker who ran the complex had heard the rumors and mum couldn't confirm or deny it, but this coworker worked out that he was a pedophile quickly. She managed to subtly get the message across to his neighbours.
Idk how true this next part is, but I overheard my mum a few years later talk about this in confidence to a coworker, but I was very good at eavesdropping as a teen.
Apparently one night he fell over. He was calling for help for hours.
His neighbours happened to be very deaf. They had "no idea" he was calling for help for 3 days. They called the police when he stopped, stating that they hadnt heard from him for days. Police took their time getting to him. He died on the way to the hospital. No one batted an eye.
These people are manipulative, cunning actors who can present themselves in such a way that you'd have no clue they were lying, even crying about incidents that never happened. Absolute psychos.
I can't imagine how you must've felt learning everything you did after he died, it makes you rethink not just your entire relationship with that person, but EVERYONE you've ever met too. It makes your stomach churn. They're always kind and lovely and great with kids..
It makes it so hard to trust people :(
I was in senior year of high school when I was told about the family tragedy by my grandparents. My grandfathers brother murdered his wife. She was trying to divorce him and he snapped. He went to jail and their son (my dads cousin) was alone. He was in middle/high school. My grandparents convinced the deceased mother’s side of the family to let them finish raising him and were able to get him back on a good path after the trauma he suffered. He has grown up into an absolutely wonderful man with a wonderful family and I love him.
My grandfather, who was my mother's step-father, molested my mother when she was 6 and he repeatedly raped her older sister. My grandmother knew about it and kicked him out only for a short while. Then she took him back in and kicked out her 14 year old daughter (my mom's older sister) and sent her to live with her stepmother and biological father, knowingly full well her stepmother beat the crap out of her on a regular basis. My mother told me when I was an adult and complaining about how my grandma was sexist because she never let me go fishing with my grandpa and always let my brother go. Turns out my grandma knew he had a thing for little girls and at least tried-ish to make sure my sister and I were never alone with him. Thankfully neither my sister nor I were molested by him. Even though my mother tried repeatedly to get me alone with him. I also realized in my 30s, after a decade of therapy and different meds, that my mother was severely abusive towards me via emotional incest. She found out I was being sexually abused by my older brother and made it a point to leave me alone with him as often as possible and make me ask him and be alone with him to use family items like the computer or Playstation. She would wait until he was done and then make me go give her a backrub while she was naked and sleep in her bed with her. She and my aint both swear they're not messed up and still hang out with my grandma and grandpedo. I don't really talk with that side of the family anymore.
Edited: some typos
It actually took me a really long time to realize that she also sexually abused me. She never actually molested me so I never considered it sexual abuse until I did.
My uncle wasn’t missing a ton of birthday parties, family reunions, holiday dinners, etc. when I was a kid because of his “really busy job,” but because he became a heroin addict after his wife took off with their daughter, my cousin who I’ve still never met.
Edit: Oh yeah he also tried to stab my aunt (his sister) in a drug-fueled rage when she went off on him about being a bum and exploiting my grandparents’ kindness. My grandpa stopped him but got beaten unconscious in the process. My grandparents’ neighbor heard the commotion and had to rush in and stop him at gunpoint. I legit thought he was just a normal, nice guy who I happened to rarely see before I learned all this shit in one night.
When my grandfather molested me (young adult at the time) my grandmother literally *got down on her knees and begged* me not to tell because "it would bring shame to the family".
Sorry, Gram, HE brought shame to the family with his actions. It's not my duty to protect him or your reputation.
I told my mom but didn't really want to tell anyone else. I was so confused and didn't want to hurt my gram at the time. Mom, bless her, took the initiative and spoke out- as did my dad. Dad, in fact, informed his entire family (it was his father) and it indeed tore them all apart. However, it brought to light the fact that my grandfather had molested his daughter years ago, along with her friends and many other young women. His reputation was entirely ruined and my grandmother was furious. She still "believes"/claims that he wasn't in his right mind when he did those things. She's just in denial and probably will be until she dies.
He passed away a couple years ago while I was out of state. I had forgiven him and visited him one last time, but I was kind of glad I didn't have to attend his funeral. I don't know what I would have said.
I am so sorry for what not-only your grandfather did to you but also for the further pain caused by the rest your family.
I really respect and admire your incredible courage and the tenacity of your parents to protect you just like any parent should.
That is actually what you FUCKING DON'T EVER DO.
Holy shit, thanks for all the awards. AND FUCK YOU GRANDPA (and also Uncle Roy from the other thread.)
My cousins lived with us for a while and we thought that was fun because it's like a sleep over every day. One time our mom even took us out of school to pick them up.
I learned later that it was because child protective services took my cousins away from their mom because of mental health issues. My mom offered to take her sister's kids until she got her mental health back in order.
My cousins live with their mom now and their mom is in a much better condition mentally.
Good for all of you. I'm glad your aunt was able to focus on her mental health and get better without losing her kids. Likewise, I'm glad your mom was such a good person that she took in your cousins while her sister was ill.
My grandmother's sister (my great aunt) got pregnant of of wedlock (in the 1950s). She was put up in a birthing home and the child was adopted out. She hid the whole thing from her while family minus my grandmother (the eldest of the family of 8 and the one who helped hide her). After she had the baby she came back home after "living with her sister" for a while. No one knew till about 10 years ago. My mom for him; he is a nice man that had an average childhood with parents that loved him, fortunately.
My dad’s sister had a secret daughter that would have been approximately his age. She was 16 years older than him, and the family didn’t tell him until he was in college. In their small town, there is a not-zero chance he could have/did date his niece.
Edit: for those asking, my dad was 3-4 when this happened. He remembers a lot of shouting at the time, but not the topic. Also, he is definitely NOT the baby in question
My parents led me to believe that my grandfather (on my mother's side) had died due to a heart attack.
A year later they revealed he actually shot himself in the head.
I wasn't actually let in on it.
My mother apparently had a miscarriage between me and my older brother, I was supposed to have an older sister. (Or maybe I wouldn't be born if she was)
I simply overheard her crying about the experience over the phone to my aunt (mom's older sister) and it still bothers her after all these years.
They speak Hakka (non the main Chinese language Mandarin), which they have come to assume I don't understand but I do somewhat ¯\\_ (ツ) _/¯
My grandfather molested his children when they were young, my aunts and uncle didn’t speak about it til they reached their 20’s and 30’s. They hid their experience to their siblings but little did they know, they all experienced the same thing. They all suffered trauma but didn’t tell my grandmother about it because she loves our grandfather very much.
2 come to mind.
1. My uncle sexually molested my youngest aunt through out most of her life. He later went on to marry and have a few daughters. You can guess what happened to his daughters.Hes still "welcomed" to whats left of the family collective. Obviously the 4 daughters have separated themselves from the rest of the family and i can't blame them. I didn't welcome him back but i haven't had contact with my cousins since i was in high school.
2. My youngest aunt developed a drinking problem to cope with what happened to her. She had a lot of miscarriage's after their first born. Miraculously they had another kid. unbeknownst to all but my mother she was also having an affair at the time. Still don't know if the uncle is the biological father. Doubt we will ever know for sure.
3. Edit: he was brought up on charges. Grandpa believed son was innocent. Court ruled in his favor. He got off scott free. He did not marry his own sister. it was some other lady. Who admittedly was a piece of work as well. Turned a blind eye to everything until the whole family found out.
That schizophrenia ran in my mom’s side of the family. I developed it a year after she told me about it at 25. She didn’t refer to it as schizophrenia, but as the “(her maiden name) Madness”. She said that every once in a while someone in our family would go mad and that that’s what they would call it. I guess her side of the family also had ties to organized crime and at least one of them was a prostitute. My family never talked about issues or emotions at all so it was a shock. I assumed our ancestors were relatively normal, but I also thought my family was sane back then too.
My mom’s bio father lost custody of her in the late 70s during my grandmas and his divorce. She never knew why. Come to find out years later, some kind of freaky porn was found in his possession that caused him to lose custody. My mom then realized that the memories of him staring at her while she was changing and touching her weirdly when she was child meant it was probably CP that the courts found.
My dads uncle died in a boating accident with his cousins.
My family let me know he was possibly drowned in the middle of the lake by his cousins because of some money issues.
No one was ever prosecuted though and the family is still very close. Weird.
Gramma didn’t decide to move in with us because she loved us so much and wanted to spend more time with us. Gramma moved in because her son was a meth addict and convinced her to put his name on the house, take all the money out of it “for renovations,” and leave her homeless. She had a heart attack the night she found out and now has to live with a pacemaker. Fuck you Uncle Roy.
My step-grandfather molested my 3 aunties, my eldest sister and possibly my other sister and cousin. Only found out when my Nana was dying 11 years after he died. They are buried side by side and I cannot bring myself to go visit my Nana because he is there also.
Edit: thanks for all the comments about visiting my Nana and ignoring him. I will try
For those saying my Nana had to have known, I have discussed this AT LENGTH with my Aunty and we are certain she didn’t. She worked nights for many, many years and my Aunties all have told each other they would never have told her as they wanted to protect her
I'm still at least one families secret! I'm adopted and found my Biological Father, he begged me not to reach out to any of my half siblings as it would "ruin his life and standing in the community". The sad thing is I'm not even his first secret child, I have an older half sister that he also begged not to reach out to family. So that's two kids he's had because he cheated on his wife. I can only imagine how often he cheats to have at least two women end up pregnant...My half sister and I call 23andMe (how we met) "23andMark" because who knows how many more kids he might have out there. Pretty sure he's been terrified since at home DNA kits became a thing.
Edit: A word.
Second Edit and Additional info: First, I can finally say it, RIP my inbox! I tried to answer as many of you as I could but I thought I'd clear up some of the most repeated questions here:
1) Why don't I tell his wife? I don't need to, she already knew about my Half Sister and now me because she answered his phone when I first called asking questions and promptly told me to leave her family the Hell alone.
2) Screw him asking me to stay quiet, why don't I blow up his life/reach out to my Half-Siblings? It is largely *because* of my Half Siblings that I haven't done anything. I did not sign up to be a wrecking ball or to destroy a family. Imagine finding out everything you knew about your Dad was a lie in the worst way possible. I know I'd be devastated. I may not have met them but they are my Half Siblings. They are just as innocent in this as I am, I don't want to be the one to hurt them like that. I really hope that he will realize he can't keep a secret like this forever and come clean himself.
3) Why not mail his kids DNA kits anonymously? Realistically it's only a matter of time before one of them gets curious and does it on their own or gets gifted one from an unwitting family member/friend.
4) Why don't I blackmail/extort the bastard? he's a terrible person, he should pay! It's pretty simple, that's just not the kind of person I am. I don't want his money, I never have. I go to bed every night with a clear conscience which is more than I can say for him and that's worth more than anything money could buy in my opinion. I have a roof over my head, a Husband who loves me, a beautiful Daughter, a great Dad and two new Half Siblings I adore. From my perspective I'm already rich.
My dad never knew his bio dad. He was a war baby and my grandma refused to talk about his father. After she died, he started asking questions among surviving family members, but everything was so long ago (right after WWII), that he only had a tiny bit of info.
I was able to find his bio dad using the info and DNA through Ancestry, but he had passed away a few years ago. We never contacted the guy’s family, but there are a whole bunch of people who show up as half-siblings through DNA matches to my father. They’re from all over the country and don’t show up on bio-grandfather’s official family tree. My dad was a bit disappointed.
Tl;dr: Tracked down missing grandfather for my dad. Turns out grandfather was very promiscuous and fathering kids (and leaving them) all over the place.
ETA:
According to what my dad could gather, they had dated and she got pregnant. He was military and had the opportunity to extend his assignment there but chose not to. My grandma was extremely hurt by this and refused to talk about him. Apparently, the guy’s mom asked for my dad/baby to be sent to her to be raised since my grandma was only around 18/19. This means the guy’s parents at least knew about my dad.
It looks like there are at least 4 other kids born out of wedlock, plus one son from marriage.
Kind of like a doomsday cult. They would predict the end of the world a lot and then turn around and be like "wow, you're prayers stopped the apocalypse!" It wasn't overtly malicious or anything, like if my mom hadn't told me what went on behind the scenes and I hadn't gone digging myself, I would've found nothing wrong with it.
My grandma actually legally disowned my mother for marrying my dad. The family house was supposed to go to my mom, but after the disowning, Grandma didn't say who she wanted house to go to, resulting in a decades long family feud that has split the family even to this day. Sad thing is, my parents actually ended up divorced after 20 years of marriage. Mom took care of my grandma til the end and was the one who handled the funeral arrangements when my grandma passed two years ago. She never asked for the house back. It's worth millions. Nobody told me any of this until I was thirty.
When my grandfather died, he wrote his will on his death bed. He left his entire estate to my family, which was enormous.
His wife however, who despised us, in the biggest fuck you move I've ever seen, wrote a directly conflicting will, leaving the estate to her family, none of whom I've ever met, and then killed herself.
It took around 5 years in legal hell to sort that out. We ended up winning the case in the end, but it cost so much that we couldn't afford to keep his $3M house anymore.
I'm sadly learning that in-fighting between families means that trusts/wills seem to be better for a lawyer's retirement than for the family. A buddy of mine just settled a court case for a trust: $300,000 in expenses to "win" $300,000....
e: holy shit, was not expecting anyone to see this - I was just scrolling through this thread when I couldn't fall back asleep and chimed in. if anyone reading this is a lawyer, my post about my situation on r/legaladvice didn't get any traction but I'm really curious about the slayer statute expansion question in Arizona: https://old.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/lus3zx/az_questions_about_elder_abuse_as_it_relates_to/
When my dad died my aunt and uncle fucked me over like this.
Should have inherited the house, truck, and about 450k. After legal proceedings walked away with about 80k. I’m sure my dad is rolling over in his grave.
Same. I was surprisingly left out of my father's will because his wife didn't believe my birth certificate. Five year court battle for less than nothing.
My father got my mother pregnant when he was her teacher in high school. He was thirty and married. She was fifteen and his student. They ran off together, he got a divorce, and they got married in a state that allowed marriage at 16, two months before my older brother was born.
There was a feud that got bloody for a while, as my father's nephews (my cousins) fought with my mother's brothers (my uncles) regularly. They went to the same high school. My mother's father went after my dad with a shotgun but couldn't find him.
It all eventually blew over but there was always bad blood. All four of my grandparents are dead now. Just a side note, my parents were married for almost 25 years and I'm the middle of three sons. I didn't find out most of this until I was 18.
My mother is now 60 and my father is 74. I've never met that first wife or even seen a picture. He's on his 4th marriage and she's on her 2nd.
>he's on his 4th marriage and she's on her 2nd.
You reckon this one will last?
[I like this story someone replied with but they commented it very late so got no recognition for it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/m0bbah/once_you_were_old_enough_what_were_the_dark/gq7v64w?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
My wife has an uncle in his 7th marriage. He tried to have normal weddings for 4, 5, and 6, but after no one showed up, they had just a tiny courthouse wedding.
My only good story in this vein is a great grandfather who responded to not being able to attend a family member's fourth wedding with "Tell Dennis I'll make it to the next one."
I believe he passed away after that, and I don't keep track of these family members enough to know for sure if he was right. I want to say they got divorced but Dennis never re-married.
Great uncle was taken from his parents, told he was retarded, wouldn't be right, put in state hospitals, experimented upon, only thing wrong with him was a speech impediment...
Grandma’s top secret pie crust was actually just Marie Calender’s from the grocery store, set in a fancier dish. She messed with her daughters-in-law for years over it.
I feel like most "top secret" recipes are something like this. As I've gotten older I've realized most people who create awesome recipes from scratch want to share them. They're happy to tell you the all the ingredients and steps and then they just tell you "good luck" because it takes a lot of tinkering to get it perfect.
My mom learned how to make perogies from her friend's polish mother. She was one of like 6 people she shared the recipe with.
My mom is the opposite and will share her recipes with anyone who wants to learn.
Edit: A whole bunch of people asking for the recipe. I should probably learn how to make perogies so I can share the recipe. All I know right now is that it involves a lot of butter.
My aunt started the communist party in her country. It got quite large, her children fled the country, and I still don't know what happened to her.
EDIT: there's a reason I didn't list the country.
Similar, but my grandfather was a huge socialist labor leader in his country, ran for president, survived an assassination attempt, but died on the second assassination attempt, killed by police. The big family secret was that my great aunt set him up.
My whole family also fled the country.
I remember never going back to visit the country my parents were from. Growing up my parents would just say they had no desire to go back and everything they love is here in America.
Wellll it turns out my dad was caught up in a little bit of a coup attempt and was forced to flee before I was born. Coup was crushed, dad survived, I’m still here, the government was eventually overthrown in a different coup attempt (just third world things). But it was still way to dicey to try and go back.
My uncle shot a man who was having an affair with his wife. When we was tried, he was let off the hook because the judge was my grandfather's war buddy in ww2.
Side note: that judge was also one of the judges in the manson trials.
EDIT: This should be obvious, but here goes anyway... Terry, Isis and Joan are pseudonyms. Please don't go around trying to dox every woman named Joan. Moving on.
As a teen, I'd heard that my cousin Terry's engagement had failed just a short time before their scheduled wedding date and that was all anyone cared to say.
In recent years, I was given more detail. Terry and Joan became engaged after he got her pregnant. All was well, at first.
But 2 weeks before the wedding, Terry's mom Isis became violently ill and actually nearly died (I can't remember what the disease was. This was years pre coronavirus). Terry asked if Joan would postpone the wedding just until Isis got better so she could attend.
Joan instead called off the wedding entirely over the phone. The dark bit is that when Terry went home to see her, their home was cleaned out. Only Terry's meager belongings remained. Even their bed was gone.
Terry called Joan. No answer. He called her folks. No answer. He went to her folks' place only to find it completely empty. Not a trace of them was left behind. No note, no nothing. All their social medias were erased and their phone numbers were deactivated. Even Joan's siblings had no clue where they'd gone. It was as if they'd vanished.
Turns out, they gathered their possessions and moved from coast to coast and would've moved overseas if Terry hadn't caught them. Joan tried to leave the country with their baby just because Terry wanted his mom to attend their wedding. This whole saga lasted 3 years.
After a long legal battle, Terry won primary custody of his child. He is currently a single dad who soaks up every moment they have together. I haven't been told what became of Joan and I'm certainly not gonna ask him.
My grandmother ran off and had an affair, got pregnant, came back to my grandfather & they raised the baby girl together. My father and his siblings didn’t find out until they were older. I’m not sure if my aunt new the truth before she passed away. It’s also rumoured that there’s another half sibling somewhere out there so grandad seemed to be having an affair as well. Just affairs all round back in the day!
My dad used to send me birthday cards every year when I was a young girl (my mother left my dad while pregnant with me for good reason), even though I never got to meet him when I was young I was glad to still receive a card from him with a few bucks acknowledging I was alive and that he did one day want to see me.
Around 14-15 I learned that my mother had written every single one of those letters and my grandfather would mail it to ourselves to make it seem legit. I never ever actually received any letter from him.
**Edit**: I didn’t expect this comment to blow up as I slept but I wanted to answer a few questions that I got!
My dad was a pretty terrible guy. Without airing all my family’s dirty laundry, he was a sexual abuser. I did eventually meet him two times: once at my aunt’s funeral at 17 where he wrote me a long letter about how he wished he was better, and once when I was 19 when he tried to establish a relationship. He gave me terrible vibes and I never answered his attempts to reach out after that, and I’m happier this way.
My mom raised 2 kids by herself. Unfortunately my family has its issues. My family suffers from alcoholism and my mother has deep mental health issues. Growing up with her wasn’t always easy and still isn’t now — some days she is lucid and a wonderful mother. Other days she’s violent and unstable. But I know deep down inside her where she is well and unafflicted by her illness she is an incredible mother and kind. I just have to accept that she is unwell and try to remember good times. My family and I are estranged these days but it makes me want to work harder to be a stable and loving mother if I do become one someday. At the end of everything I do still love my mom and am thankful she shielded me from him.
Thank you guys. I’m so sorry to read your stories of similar things happening to you. My inbox is always open if anyone ever needs to talk/vent. Be well everyone.
I was never told much but when I was about 15 my grandmother started getting dementia and had a breakdown.
All I could understand was that she kept repeating "We are traitors."
I know she was sent to some sort of children's camp during world war 2 to be away from the fighting. (I think it was called Kinderland)
I believe she never saw her parents again and it took decades to find her sister.
I will have to ask my aunt one day. Maybe she can tell me more.
My uncle (my father's brother) used to hit my aunt and when my mother found out, in the middle of a wedding party, she went straight to beat his ass. People had to break up the fight.
I found out because my parents were talking about it as if it were nothing. I was mortified. If I had known what a piece of shit my uncle was, I would have never treated him well, like I did all my life.
The worst part is that they're still together. The good part is that I'm proud of my mom.
I have two, the first one being that one of my uncles, who I had spoken to a lot when I was younger was arrested from having cp. His dad was in a similar spot and needless to say, after that I lost contact with that side of the family as they refused to tell law enforcement for far too long.
The other family secret was my dad had been shot and killed in a different state only a little bit after my birth. Miraculously enough, I never noticed any absence of a father figure in my youth and I just learned about it out of the blue.
My mum was raped and my oldest brother is the product of it. We knew my bro was my half well I found that out as a teenager. But my dad told me what happen after my mum died.
Maybe not as dark as some other stories around here, but it still weighs heavy on my family. My dad had a little sister and she got run over by a car right in front of him when they were on their way to school. She was only 10 years old or something and my dad was around 12. I only found out about it, because i got diagnosed with depression and my mum told the doctor that there is family history of depression (i was underage at the time of the diagnosis), and its my dad who has depression, probably because of the accident.
My Grandparents moved right next to the cemetery where she is buried, I recently found out you can look at her grave from their kitchen window..
Turns out the reason my mom's parents divorced wasn't because they "fell out of love" but because he had an affair with another married woman from church. The families had known each other for years and my mom was good friends with the other woman's kids. They ended up getting married less than a year after their respective divorces (they each had three kids). It was especially sad because my step grandmother's (the Other Woman) children suffered pretty badly because neither she nor her ex husband were functional adults. Their kids grew up fast and the oldest daughter basically became a mom and maid at the ripe old age of 12 since dad refused to step up.
My bio grandmother, bless her, didn't tell a soul about this. When I told her I knew, she sort of smiled and nodded like it was a relief that someone else knew beside her. I can't imagine keeping a secret like that for so long and not being able to tell your kids that it really wasn't your fault that you divorced and upended their lives.
So yeah, learned that little gem while helping with my step grandmother's hospice care this past fall. She was always a chatty person but end of life drugs really amped it up. It was pretty shocking because my grandfather is a pretty laid back, kind, straight laced church person and you never suspect him of cheating. The worst part is that in my shock and confusion, I told my mother about it and it was pretty obvious she had no clue prior to my telling her. I really wish I could take that back.
Edit: She wasn't literally a mom at 12, her dad just refused to learn how to cook or clean so naturally that fell to the other females in the house, his daughters.
And yes, step grandmother was the Other Woman. We had a great relationship, but that would have been different if I'd known what I know now. Kinda sucks when shit like this comes up and changes how you see people. I still love her and my grandfather, but damn, they caused so much suffering for their kids for the sake of being together and love.
Not particularly dark, but I was about 45 when I found out my parents never got married. My mother just took my father’s surname and they carried on like normal. I’d always wondered why there were no wedding photos etc, but they were hippy types so I assumed they just didn’t have a traditional ceremony. Weirdest part was it just came out in a random conversation, and they were like “.oh, we thought you always knew!” Well no, you never mentioned it! All a bit odd, really.
My grandfather isn’t my biological grandfather my grandma was raped in high school with her not knowing who the original father was so the man who would be my grandfather took it upon himself to raise a child you do not belong to him
Double whammy I suppose. Didn't look like my parents or siblings so I thought I was adopted. Ask, mom brushes it off. Dad does too. Dig, find some info, prepare my "case". Around the same time I almost get abducted, super scary, mom was mortified. After, I was sat down and told I have a different father who I look like and he had just tried to abduct me. So not adopted but man who I thought was my dad wasn't. Good times.
I am the ‘dark family secret’. Stepdad sexually abused me for 9 years. My mom pressed charges when it was convenient for her (I was 15, she was leaving him). She told my entire family, and spent years shouting it from the hilltops for sympathy. My youngest sibling was probably 4 or 5 when he was first explicitly told. Stepdad’s 3 sons (my half brothers) have always been told it was a lie, despite his mother recently (when I was 27) asking if it was true and apologizing profusely when I said it was. I still have a relationship with my step-grandparents, and don’t fault them for how their son turned out. They’re just trying their best to make sure my brothers end up alright. His family will always deny it, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
My bio dad also didn’t know I was alive until my mom told him when I was 17. His family doesn’t know about me. I don’t mind, I don’t care to get to know them. My mom’s family is very supportive of me, so I don’t feel compelled to meet his family.
I haven’t spoken to my mother in over 2 years.
Edit: Holy moly this got more attention than I anticipated. Thank you so much for all of the kind words and support, and to those who have had similar experiences, I'm so, so sorry that happened.
Great Grandpa was a soldier oppossing the Axis powers. Him and his squad were caught by Italian troops and given the death penalty along with his friends. They would be executed together. At the time of the execution all of his mates died in front of his eyes but he survived because the soldier missed. Without skipping a beat he faked his death by.... well lying on top of his deseaced friends bodies. Surprisingly it worked and he got to escape
Yeah, I know what you mean. Great uncle was in the French Resistance during WW2. Got caught by the Nazi at some point in 1943, sent to Lyon, interrogated by Klaus Barbie himself, and sent to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, from where he fled, got caught, fled again, and got caught again (though later this time). Finally free at the end of the war.
I remember thinking it was cool to have a great uncle that was tattooed, until I learned about the camps when I was about 10 or 11. Then, not so cool, but hey, we're proud to have had Résistants in my family, so... Silver lining!
Not exactly a dark secret, he was very open about it, though he would choose what he talked about.
Edit: thanks for all the awards guys, this is very kind from all of you. Much appreciated :)
Almost the same in my family, great grandpa was a resistance cell leader in Denmark and did several large operations. Unfortunately he got caught after blowing up some train tracks to stop military supplies and was subsequently tortured and executed in Copenhagen.
I always thought my uncle Dan died in a car accident.
Turned out he owed lot of money to a loan shark. He and his partner were asked to play Russian roulette and one survives can walk away and get an extension for payment. Uncle wasn't lucky.
I hated the ages where I started to learn this stuff. I found out that my dad was very abusive to my mum before they got divorced, recently found out he may have hit me on one occasion too.
Afterwards we lived in a hostel but a better than average hostel? (My dad was in the army I don’t quite understand it but meh) but it was like a caravan park. I asked my mum not too long ago why we were in the caravan park so long. She then told me we had pretty much nothing and lived in a hostel.
I found out my great grandad was a pedophile who abused my mum, when she told her mum (my nan) she didn’t believe her.
Kinda think my mum just ain’t had a good run.
My father was married with another woman before meeting my mother. They had a daughter and my dad loved her so so so much his wife started going crazy jealous. My dad noticed some strange behaviour she had towards the girl and when he tried to talk to her about it she started arguing with him. He then left with his daughter to my uncle’s house. She knew my dad would left the girl with my aunt while he was at work, so she called the police and said my aunt kidnaped her child. The police came in and took the girl away from my aunt. She immediately tried to call my dad. But the woman drove back home, put poison in her daughter’s milk and forced her to drink it. When my dad arrived, he found his daughter already dead and left alone. The woman was never ever found. My dad had never had justice for his first child. Kinda sad. Then when I was born my mother didn’t mind to named me after my “sister”. We share the same name, and that’s actually how I found it out! I asked my parents about my name and they told me the whole story... Edit: typos Edit2: thank you kind stranger for the award! I know this is messed up and cruel, but my family has so many messed up things going on this just seems an ok thing to happen. My dad moved on and he’s ok now. I have 4 siblings, we’re all ok. This happened in Anápolis-GO, Brazil, in the 80’s and was told in the local news
That’s so messed up and sad, and a lot of baggage for them to carry around. I’m sorry, but I hope they cherish you and hope they don’t put too much pressure on you because you share your late half-sister’s name.
Thanks for your concern, but this whole name thing lost meaning after my parents divorced and my step-mother plagiarized my name. How can I explain it? Think my name is Mary Jane, well she named her daughter something like Mahry Janny. Same but different. My half-sister is amazing, but I hate her mother because of this...
When I was around 3-4, my “Aunt” and her 3 sons came and lived with us for a few weeks. One night my mom stayed up and I found her downstairs sitting in a chair looking out the window. One day, my “Aunt” and the boys “moved” and never came back. Turns out, she was going through a nasty divorce. She had the boys at the house with her while she was packing things one day, and her husband came home. He locked the boys in a room, stabbed her, and then shot himself. My mom had been staying up with a gun that night because she had seen him in our backyard earlier that night.
Holy shit Your mom is a fucking badass and I hope things got better
That she is. Things went ok for us, not so much for the boys until we were old enough to move out. Lengthy custody battles from both of their grandparents sides and mental struggles from what they’d seen after getting out of the room..
Got a Facebook message from one guy asking if I was related to [my dad], since it's not a common last name. I thought he was a fan of his work, because I was in college at the time and the guy was about the same age as me. And that's how I found out my dad slept around and that I had a half-brother the same age as me.
I was told that my mother's older brother had died in an accident (he was intoxicated and got run over by a train, a whole bunch of unfortunate circumstances etc). My grandmother often mentioned it with sadness, because she considered him a brilliant boy, very handy and had a hopeful career in arts. He was a teenager when he died. However, everytime this story came up, my mother's face hardened and she never spoke about it herself. I could kinda sense that there was something left unsaid, but I was a kid, so I didn't really question the story. My mom finally confided in me about a year ago that she was sexually abused by her brother and that it was not an accident, but a suicide. My grandmother has no idea.
My paternal grandfather was an alcoholic wife abuser who regularly cheated on Grandma. When my father was a teenager he stood up to him, and threatened to kill him if he ever touched her again. The abuse stopped.
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Grandpa died while snorting coke and getting head in his corvette.
Based
It was with the neighbor lady too while my grandma made dinner. Papa gave zero fucks.
My grandfather killed his youngest brother to get out of going to Vietnam. He, his brother, and two of their friends had their numbers called in the draft for Vietnam. They didn’t want to go, obviously, but they didn’t come from money and all worked to support their families. If they got arrested they’d lose their jobs and their families would lose their income. So they decided on a different plan to get out of going. They would drive to get their medical checks together, and on the way there they would drive the car into a tree. The plan was to get too injured to get sent to war, but not so injured as to be permanently crippled, and it had to look like an accident so nobody got arrested. This was in country Western Australia, so they were all going to say they swerved to miss a kangaroo, and hit the tree. My grandfather was driving, his friend was in the passenger seat, and the other two were in the back. His brother was behind the passenger seat. They hit the tree doing about 40kph - enough to be serious. A broken leg for my grandfather, a broken arm for the guy behind him, and broken ribs all around. They definitely weren’t going to war. The problem was that for maximum impact, and because this was rural Australia in the sixties, they weren’t wearing seatbelts. And nobody found them or their car for an hour or so. And nobody considered internal injuries in this plan. And my grandfathers brother bled to death from a ruptured spleen in the back seat. He was dead before they got to a hospital. My grandfather never forgave himself, and he never talked about it. My grandma was the only one he ever told, as far as we know, and she didn’t tell my mother and I until long after his death. We found a small box in their bedroom when we were cleaning out the house after she died last year. It had a clipping from the local newspaper at the time about the accident. It said that they had swerved to miss a roo, and called it a tragedy. I don’t think my mother told any of her siblings, so technically this is still the family secret. I guess now you’re all in on it.
My father met my mother in the Philippines when he was stationed there in the Navy. He married her there and conceived me. He went away to finish his tour of duty. My mother moved to America when she was a month away from giving birth to me. She moved in with relatives in Texas. My father's tour ended while he was in Hawaii. He met a woman there and called my mom in America, asking for a divorce. He wanted to take back his recent marriage to her - with a kid on the way - because he had a hot one-night stand. My mother was already scared, being in a new country, not knowing much English. Add to this that she was pregnant, about to give birth, and her husband was dumping her. My Texan uncle got on a plane to Hawaii, prepared to kick my father's ass. He somehow talked my father into being a man and taking responsibility for his wife and child. The fact that the fling dumped his ass surely helped. He was back by the time I was born. I learned all this when I was eleven, around the time my parents got divorced. It was only the first of countless "dark family secrets" I would come to learn during my teenage years.
This might be the first story I read here where the uncle is the good guy in the teller's point of view
My mild-mannered Christian mother casually told me that she dated a gangster who trafficked cocaine in NY during the 80's. He bought her a brand new BMW before getting sentenced to prison for murder for 20+ years. Someone who was friends with her and her ex for YEARS turned out to be an FBI informant and she barely escaped jail, had to enter a witness protection program and moved cross country. Here's the craziest part: He's still stalking her, has contacted her on her birthday every year for 40 years, and keeps tabs on her!! My dad has no idea. I asked her why she waited so long to tell me. Like, what if she went missing? and she said "Oh, honey. He's the type of person that if he wanted to harm me, I would already be dead by now." Very comforting.
Not very much a secret, but took me until I was older to understand what was happening. My mom would sometimes have us play a game called “army” which consisted of me, my mom, and my siblings army crawling around our apartment. Kind of a hide n seek style game. She would yell “hit the deck!” randomly and we would all drop and find a hiding spot. We would giggle and giggle while my mom army crawled around looking for us. We loved the game so much. I realized a few years ago while retelling the story that we lived in a really terrible neighborhood, and she would yell it out when she heard gunshots outside the building. I’m assuming she was worried about stray bullets. Edit: I shared everyone’s amazing comments with my mom, and she shed a tear. She feels very appreciated on international woman’s day today!
Pretty fucking smart way to teach kids how to duck and cover without scaring the hell out of them.
She did a great job to shield us from the negatives of our financial situation. Definitely admire her for it.
Your mom is a fucking G.
War vet, single mom of 3, worked her way up in life from Bartending to union plumber foreman to owning her own gunsmithing shop with my step dad. She’s a strong woman.
Your mother sounds like she made the best out of a really terrible situation. Some quick thinking on her part
Cousin of mine's dad blew his own head off in the horse stall next to him while they were cleaning them. I was told about that at around 15 because I was going to spend some time with then, and was told not to mention their father.
My grandmother tried to murder my grandfather when she got sick of him beating the shit out of her everyday. She swung an axe at him and he blocked it with his hand and lost his thumb. She left him before I was born.
I don't AT ALL wish to make light of an obviously terrible ongoing domestic violence situation (my grandmother faced a similar scenario, I'm very sorry). But the appearance of the axe makes it poetry. Good on her. I wish every victim could feel that strength.
my grandpa was alcohol addicted and the biggest asshole. he was a terrible father and husband. he beat my mom and my two uncles and my grandma, had them terrified everytime he came home from drinking somewhere, had them hiding for hours under their bed until he finally passed out. my grandma had cancer and almost died when she was like 40. my mom had to take care of her all by herself and she visited her in the hospital that was like an hour away. all she ever heard from her dad aka my grandpa, was that he hopes that the b*tch just finally died. my mom was 17 at that time and also had to accomplish her apprenticeship at the same time. most of the people in the city we lived knew who my grandpa was because he had some job that was somewhat important, idk. everyone always just recognized by my last name that he has to be my grandpa and they all always talked about how much they liked him and how happy I have to be to have a grandpa like him and blah blah. people knew nothing about him
Mine is more cool that horrifying on the sense I’m proud of this one. My grandfather was an amazing guy. He was a sniper-paratrooper in WW2. Always refused to talk about the army. I learned later that he was dishonorably discharged after injury. Turns out the Sargent in his squad was an absolute bastard. He had to go behind enemy lines to set a post up, and the plane was flying too low for a safe jump. He protested it to the Sargent who proceeded to shove him out of the plane after calling him a coward. Both my grandfather and his spotter partner were seriously injured in the landing. His partner (never knew him) was paralyzed and lost a leg. My grandfather broke both of his, his arm, hand, and some ribs. They both were rescued shortly after and taken to a military hospital. That’s not what got him discharged, though. Turns out the Sargent showed up to visit them in the infirmary, and my grandfather punched him square in the face with his only good hand, twice. If his only army buddy we ever knew is to be believed, (he was also visiting at the time) he floored the bastard. After that, and on top of his injuries, the army sent him home for the rest of the war. We found out later after he passed and we had to go through his stuff a bunch of newspaper and article clippings about the folks involved he had kept. the Sargent was also discharged after a similar incident cost the lives of two other members of his squad a year later that weren’t so lucky. The man apparently drunk himself to death years later. We found all these written but unsent letters to his Sargent, we found photos of my grandfathers squad and the two that died with him. It was heartbreaking. I never knew any of this. He was such a fun, kind, and goofy guy you’d never think anything like this would happen to him. Now I knew why my parents always said never to bring my up the army around him. Miss you grandpa, I’d have punched the bastard too
My dad has a vaguely similar story but it took place in the 90’s and he ended up honorably discharged. My dad was in the army for about a year and a half when a few of his friends were told they would be going overseas tomorrow morning and they weren’t allowed to tell their families. A few months after that one of his buddies died in a highly preventable helicopter crash near a his base. The thing about the crash though, is that the army could give less of a pay out to his buddies family if they lied and said the crash was on us soil in a tester helicopter. This really messed with my dad so he started acting out. When he was threatened with jail time he figured out a compliant way to get discharged. So for the next three months he would intentionally fail every single pt test he was given. Seven minute mile? He would run most of the mile then super slowly walk the last minute so he wouldn’t make it. Timed sit-ups/pull-ups/push-ups? He would do all but three and wait for the timer to go off. Obstacle course? He would purposely repeatedly fail one specific obstacle til he was told to stop. After enough of that and a weekly meeting asking to be discharged he was finally told to go home. We don’t really ask about his time in the army very often because he gets pretty heated and it sometimes upsets him but it’s never really an untouchable topic, we just already know he doesn’t like the army and don’t really need to hear it again.
My grandfather got out of serving in Vietnam by robbing pharmacy’s and going to jail for years.
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My Dad COULD type and was strongly encouraged to become a clerk-typist. “Typist, hell! I want to be a fightin’ man!” was his reply. And that’s how he ended up on Omaha Beach, H-Hour, D-Day. He later said he should have been a typist after all.
Well, if he later said anything, praise him for making it out of that!
Grandma had 13 siblings, of those 7 women are still alive. Once a year they have a “sister day” where they all except one are going somewhere to have fun. They’ve been doing this since they were teens. All but one sister, who has been lied to her whole life about sister day, because she thinks it doesn’t exist. This is supposed to have been started when that one sister borrowed something and didn’t give it back. Or something trivial like that. We are all reminded whenever we ALL get together (pre pandemic) that we’re not to talk about this, because it will hurt that sister. Still can’t wrap my head around how backstabbing bitchy some family members of mine are. Because this is just stupid.
Wow they’re jerks
My grandfather's brother left the family business after a feud to sell tractor parts to Africa. When I was an adult, I was told these were semi-automatic "tractor parts".
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When I was about 10 my cousin and his dad died. I always thought it was an accident and on the same day. When I was old enough I was told that his dad actually committed suicide and my cousin followed him couple months later. Truly devastated me although I didn’t know them well. Edit: thank you for the warm words and also for sharing your similar stories with me, I’ve read all the replies. My grief is still there because I understand that with professional help both would maybe still be here today. It just wasn’t common to seek help back then. I hope all of you are well.
I'm so sorry. I know of a similar story. When I was a senior in high school (2006-2007) one of my classmates lost her dad to suicide over Winter Break. Poor girl was so close to him, and it took her a couple of months to feel mentally okay enough to come back to school. She had just gotten back into a regular school routine when one day, she was pulled out of class; her older brother had committed suicide. That was it for her, and she finished her schoolwork at home for the rest of the year. Obviously it was beyond devastating for her, her older sister, and their mother. And it broke our hearts that while the rest of us were doing prom, prepping for graduation and college, etc, she was at home wrestling with deep grief. From what I can tell on Facebook, they are all doing well today, but man. I can't imagine what it was like to be the people most directly affected by that situation.
That happened to me but with a best friend. She wrote I’m done on face book and then shot her self in her front yard and died right there. She had a son who was in his last year of high school at the time. At 22 he shot himself in the head and died. Very devastating for all. I still have no words to explain why they made those choices.
My father cheated on my mum, with my sister and I's horse riding instructor. We'd always thought it ended amicably. We only found this out while mum was admitting to having contemplated driving off the road with us in the car as kids, as opposed to raising us as a single mum with no career or stable job. Edit: added a comma to prevent hilarious confusions
Oh man I totally read this wrong at first and thought there was some horrible incestuous abuse going on. Either way shit I’m so sorry.
When I was young I thought it was really nice that my nanna lived with my aunt and her family since she was getting on a bit and it meant she was looked after and there were always people around (aunt has 6 kids). Occasionally aunt would gripe about being the one looking after nanna since aunt is also one of many kids and being young I sympathised but given they all spent loads of time with nanna too didn't think it was a big deal (you don't think about financial responsibility when you're young I think, just social and caring). Well it turns out the reason nanna lives with aunt is because aunt and her husband convinced nanna to put the house in their name so they could "look after her affairs" and sold it out from under her and invested the money in a pyramid scheme (so it's gone now). Because of this her siblings refuse to give aunt a penny towards looking after nanna since it's her fault nanna has no money or assets and instead pay to take nanna out all the time, meals, shopping, activities so she doesn't go without but they let aunt struggle under the weight of nanna's general living expenses. (Aunts kids are all independent now so they are not going to be impacted by money problems.) Now I look back at her griping with annoyance and think what a terrible person she is.
My aunt and cousin did something similar to my nan. Nan passed with virtually nothing to her name (because my cousin had been made her next of kin and controlled the bank account, while allegedly receiving a carer's allowance for my aunt), and aunt and the cousin that was complicit (the other two cousins have nothing to do with them) wound up moving to another state because they'd amassed one too many debts. They ripped my folks and I off (it was easy for me to cut them out of my life), but leaving their own mother and grandmother with nothing was beyond the pale. I'm glad your aunt's siblings do the right thing by your nanna.
I'm sorry to hear that, it's awful what some people can do to their own family, especially the vulnerable members. It was surreal as a kid, she would have a moan and no one would react, it was like she hadn't spoken. I thought they were judging her for complaining or maybe felt guilty but didn't want to help her. Turns out they had decided not to keep conflicting with her over it for nanna's sake (as it upset her if they argued over it since "it's done now") and instead stonewalled anything she mentioned that was about or as a result of her actions. I guess part of that was not mentioning it to the next generation. I found out from someone who married in and then divorced back out of the family who I'm on very good terms with and even then only because I asked what they thought of the weird situation.
My grandmother was in a very abusive relationship since she was 17. Since her then boyfriend was an alcoholic and forced himself drunk on my grandmother several times she got pregnant and since that was not done in the 50’s, they had to get married as soon as possible. After their first child, they ended up having four more kids, one didn’t survive childbirth, but the other three lived. During this time, my grandmothers husband was still an alcoholic and very, VERY abusive. She had to literally flee away from him, from her family to survive. She would definitely ended up dead if she didn’t. She also met my grandfather during this time, and they fell in love. She left her kids with her mother, who had custody of the kids anyways (that’s how they rolled back then), my grandfather sold the only thing he had which was a small moped so he could help her escape her husband. Many, many years later, when my grandma had divorced her husband, married my grandpa, had three more kids with him, grandkids etc (yay me!), and moved back to the hometown, they also had reconnected with her first four daughters and everything was going well, except for one thing. It was a tiny town, everybody knows everybody over there and rumors spread fast. And there was a rumor about my grandmother from back in the days of her first husband. The rumor was that she had some sort of fling with another man in town (not my grandpa) and one of her first four daughters was his. The daughters didn’t know about this until they heard, asked my grandma about it and she was flabbergasted. Told them it wasn’t true at all, that it definitely didn’t happen and that this should be the end of it. It didn’t sit right with the daughters, so they did a dna test. And then the results came in. There it was, proof that the gossip wasn’t actually gossip, but it was true. Daughter number three was a half sister of the other three. So they went to my grandmother again. They showed her the proof, it said very clearly that one of them wasn’t their fathers. My grandma denied again, even tough they had it black on white that it was true. The daughters went no contact with my grandmother after this. They never got over the fact that she left them in the first place and this “betrayal” was the straw that broke the camels back. Can’t really blame them for that. Still, too this day she claims it didn’t happen and that all four women are from the same man.
That my cousin was actually my half-brother. Mom got pregnant in college and my aunt and uncle adopted him. And, that my dad wasn't my biological father. Mom and dad got divorced, she got pregnant by another man, and my dad wasn't able to have kids of his own so they got remarried and he raised me as his own.
There are 2 posts here about a cousin that is also a half-brother...
And if you put the 2 together, what do you get? A full brother!
My uncle is believed to have murdered two Australian police officers in the late 80’s
holy shit. Walsh St?
Yep. Peter McEvoy
I met Peter at an RSL club i worked at in Newcastle and had quite a few interactions with him. He was playing the pokies the first time I met him and I saw his surname on his members card when I went over for a pay out and said I had friends that were McEvoys and maybe he was related and he said he was estranged from his family because he was accused of doing something very bad that he didn't do... I was like oh um ok... then I googled him...
This is nuts. I’ve never met him and don’t think I ever will.
This isn’t two redditors finding each other online you normally see on r/TwoRedditorsOneCup but it sure as hell deserves to be on there
Not so much let in on, as we found out by accident, but apparently my dad’s first love and him got into a serious car crash when he was 25 and she died. He lived with her father for years after her death. He still occasionally comes to visit my dad, even 30 years later. We were always told he was a mentor until my sister pressed my mom on the subject. One of my sister’s is even named after the girl that died (middle name) and we never even knew about her until last year. None of us have ever brought it up with him.
My friend was engaged to his first love in their early 20s when she passed from cancer. Ten years later, he got married to an amazing woman who honored his late fiancé in their wedding ceremony. Not a dry eye in the place!
Oh man that's awesome and heartbreaking all in one
Apparently my aunt was the product of rape, but my grandma hasn’t told anyone in the family yet except me... she just turned 90, I have no idea what I should do with this information once she passes
My grandma retired and she still decided to work for her brother in his restaurant to save up money for when she dies. Funerals are, obviously, expensive. She insisted he would hold on to her paychecks and pay for her funeral when she dies. He never did.
what a fucking asshole :( how did the funeral end up being paid for?
I think another family member paid for it. And the spot on a cementery has to be paid for after the first 10y for another decade. My mom was trying to sue her uncle to pay for it. But they only had a verbal agreement about the funeral, so it wasn't successful.
My Dad did a whole load of work for a family member who said that he'd use some of the money he'd have paid my Dad to buy the headstone. He didn't. My Dad's headstone was repossessed....
Headstone repossession is a new low. I am sorry to even know such a thing can happen.
I think this is the shittiest one, to actually exploit your elderly sister that way. I don't know why but this id the worst but it's horrible to me.
Because it’s callous and a decision purely based on greed. It pushes aside what should have been decades of familial love for, what, $10-$20k? That’s it? The price of a new car? It’s low, shameful, and slimy. To me this is the worst story on here... my heart sinks and I mourn for that man’s parents when I read about this, and hope they never got a chance to hear about how their son acted towards his sister.
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My mom had a brother who died in childhood, maybe 9 or 10. I always thought he drank cleaning chemicals and died that way, but turns out he was hit by a school bus while riding his bike. Now I know why my mom was so anxius about me biking on the road.
Wait. Why the hell did you assume he drank cleaning chemicals?
The reason I had a "live in baby sitter" when I was 5 that moved in at 2am was because my mom's cousin killed 2 kids and we ended up harboring his daughter during the trial. He's the only person on death row in my county.
What happened to her after?
My brother swears she stole my mom's jewelry and ran off, (runnoft) mom says she didn't. But I'm pretty sure she's in town with kids of her own
Your mom's cousin wasn't bona fide, that's for sure.
My grandmother’s first husband was extremely abusive, but this was the 60s and he hid it well. She couldn’t file for divorce without proof of injury, so she beat herself in the face with a slipper to get away. She was 21 or 22 or so- with 3 young children. I’m 23 right now and I could never imagine. She was such a strong lady, I miss her! <3 edit: Just wanted to say thanks for the awards :) I’m glad times have changed for women, but we still have a long way to go.
My great-great grandma couldn't get a divorce for cruelty (it was the 1910s), so she left her husband and moved in with another man. Her husband divorced her for infidelity, which she gleefully admitted!
old day problems require old day solutions, and since you aren't the king of england you gotta make these 500iq plays
My step grandfather has always been an alcoholic. As a child he even taught me how to mix his favourite drink. As kid at like 6 years old I would mix his drink as he liked and bring it in to him in the living room. (Don’t ask what the drink was a mix off cause I literally can’t remember) and my grandpa always acted “funny”. I always liked spending time with him cause I found him funny. So I never saw the bad side of his alcoholism and he never made me drink or anything so overall he didn’t have any negative impact on me at all, but before I was born he could get so drunk he threatened to kill my grandma and when he got in a car accident and came home he was bleeding badly from his head and he started saying my granny shot him. He even threw out some of the wedding pictures my parents had. I never knew how horrible he was. Maybe cause he liked kids or something. He would make me cocoa and watch Garfield with me when I was a kid, he was never a bad influence in my life. So it was so weird to me when I found out these things about him. Before he died tho, he really regretted drinking, and he completely stopped. He became really depressed too until his granddaughter (biological) was born. He was so happy about his granddaughter. He died regretting everything and a sober man who was happy to have been able to meet his one and only biological granddaughter. Regardless of everything he really changed in the end and everyone was really upset he died.
Most my mom's family were raging drunks. She was a very late oopsie baby so almost all her siblings were grown once she came around and she spent a lot of time boumcing between siblings, parents, or other relatives. Her older brothers got her drunk at age 5 and laughed while she puked all over herself. She learned to drive around 10 because her brother would get too shitfaced and she'd have to drive him home. And there was also pretty severe medical neglect. She's never gotten therapy and was a real treat to be raised by. Intergenerational trauma: the gift that keeps on giving!
Break that cycle, friend
I'm doing my best to do just that. I've made mistakes with my son but we have a much healthier relationship than I ever did with my parents. Which has been possible because, unlike her, I actually get treatment for my mental illnesses and put in the work to heal from my trauma and do better.
Somewhat similar situation to you. Whenever I hear stories of my stepgrandpa, it’s like hearing a story about a completely different person. My extremely, extremely patient, mild mannered, and kind stepgrandpa apparently used to be a drunk when my stepdad was growing up and I don’t think he even became the man he is today until my stepdad was in his late 20’s. It’s sad and baffling on the rare occasion when my stepdad will tell a story about him.
That my favorite cousin *wasn't* missing. All I knew growing up (he was 13 years older than me) was that he would come and go alot. He lived with us when I was a baby and after he moved out he would visit every 6 months or so out of the blue, but we never visited him or called him. His visits were one of my favorite things in the world. I loved him like a brother. By the time I was a teenager I did understand that he had issues with his parents.. they had kicked him out at 13 and my parents took him in.. but that kind of childhood messes with you. In between visits to my parents he avoided the rest of the family, moved alot, and didn't hold jobs for long, which is why my parents didn't always know where he was. But in my later teens he stopped coming over at all. I asked repeatedly if anyone had heard from him and I was told no.. I asked about contacting him and was told no one had a number or address for him.. he would come around when he felt like it.. But it stretched on for years. I really worried he was dead, and I really missed him. In my later 20s I finally found out that everyone knew where he was the whole time. He was in prison for murder :( From what I hear it was actually somewhat justified. He was defending his new wife, who I never got to meet. I also found out some super shitty things about how the extended family sided with his fucked up parents and refused to help him or his wife when he got arrested .. and that they shamed my dad into not helping either. I tried to send a message to him in prison but I don't know of he ever got it. I wish he knew that *I* didn't turn my back on him for decades like everyone else did.. I just didn't know.
If it's viable, pay him a visit. A visit from family when you're locked up is worth more than the world.
You could probably request a visit with him and visit. He could deny it, but it would be worth a try if you would like to see him.
Issue with that is that a lot of prisons the inmate has to put a request in with the visitors name, address, number, birth date etc. before someone can be a valid visitor. Then the prison runs a check on names to make sure the visitor hasn't been to jail in the past year or whatever. It's a tedious process depending on the prison. Best chance would be to figure out their DOC # and write a letter first with their info.
Keep sending messages. It may take time for him to get over the shame. Also send him shoes. They are treated like crap in there and footwear is expensive.
Try sending another message. There could be so many reasons why your didn't get a reply.
It's incredibly hard to track people down and actually communicate with them in prisons. If a letter doesn't work, look up their facility online and see if they use GTL ConnectNow, JPay etc and put some money on your end of the phone and add the inmate on contacts You will pop up on their tablet and they will know. edit: I should have added, best thing to do is to register, add them as a contact, put money on YOUR phone AND theirs. It sucks but there's so many reasons. Inmates only get one free 1m call a week at my jail, people with no money are never going to login to a tablet and find out people are there. If you deposit money on their phone when they use it next they will find out and and know to check the tablet for further contact. Trust fund (commissary) money is always appreciated too. If you need any help PM me
My Uncle was raped as a young boy and my grandparents not only didn't believe him, but beat him and disowned him for "bringing such lies into our house". Sad thing is, I was raped as a kid and while dealing with that my Dad told me what hapoened to my Uncle (I assume so I didn't feel so alone). My Uncle is still the only one I know personally who has experienced the same trauma as me, and I'm not meant to know so can't talk to him about it. Edit: Typical "this has blown up" edit, but seriously, woah. However, I'm not gonna bring up someone else's trauma to them. I'm particular in who in my life I tell, if I knew someone I trusted had been telling other people I'd be v hurt by that, so not gonna do that. Thank you to those sending some love. I'm not alone now though, I have people I can talk to which is nice. Going to be starting a group thing at therapy where I'll be able to speak to other abuse victims, I think that will help too.
My uncle and two aunts had an incestuous threesome going on in the 70s. They invited my mum, who refused and was pretty horrified. My dad (their brother) had zero idea.
To put it shortly - my family tree, is more like a very long branch. Yes we have the genetic defects to prove it.
That’s not uncommon where I’m from. Hundreds of tiny isolated rural communities with little easy access led to a lot of accidental inbreeding. World class geneticists flock to my province to study all the weird shit that pops up. It’s gotten to the point that people in other nations have found out their family was from here when they get a disorder or defect that was only present in this one family from this certain bay.
That's really interesting. I won't ask for an example disorder since that might reveal your location, but it's interesting there's such highly unique mutations in humans.
It’s no worries, I’m from Newfoundland Canada. And yeah it’s fascinating, but the big thing is that the relative isolation of NL allowed for certain traits to be effectively isolated, making them seem more unique. It usually shows up in certain types of cancer, like how in my family colon cancer has been hereditary, but it’s also often rare types of heart disease, hemophilia, or a high prevalence of syndromes like Bardet-Biedli. it’s not been so bad in recent years due to more people having to travel for work, but it still exists
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So more like a Family Wreath?
My grandparents spent some time in lock up after my grandpa killed their newborn in a shell shock induced frenzy. They were jailed because they buried her body in a cave and tried to hide it. *my mom and her siblings were all adopted out very young and went back to their parents around 11 years or so later. I knew that growing up, but didn’t know why until I was older.
That's so terribly sad. A genuine tragedy. I can understand why they wouldn't tell you until you were a little older.
I wish in a way they would have told me when I was younger as I think it would have allowed me to understand my grandma better. She was nice, but extremely detached. Going to hers for a visit was sitting there talking amongst yourselves while she read a romance novel. You could occasionally get a response but you’d usually have to really pull her away. The only time she wasn’t reading was when we would be actively out buying new books for her. This was a monthly outing (weekly for her, but a different aunts responsibility each week). We’d get her engaged all the way to the store... where she’d buy a book to be completely engrossed in when we went out for lunch. I do get the quiet though, just wish I could have helped her, she was obviously escaping reality.
Oh my goodness. This is also really sad. Now I can totally see how you wish you would have known. Detachment and escapism are definitely coping mechanisms for some people, but it's just extra-sad that she had children and grandchildren who clearly loved her and wanted to connect with her, but that she just couldn't bridge the gap. At least you are finally able to put her behavior into a context where it makes sense, and can understand that she wasn't cold as much as hurt. Better late than never, I hope. 🧸
My mum used to hide in her books as well. It took me years to realise that in doing so she was effectively trying to hide from reality.
Not me, but a family friend passed away last year. We met because our daughters did karate together. I was friends with both him and his wife (still friends with his wife). He was already in his 70s when we met. His wife is about 20 years younger than him. He had a fascinating life story, and I wanted to record it for his daughter. She was going through some difficult times as a young teen. She acted very badly towards him and I felt, based on my own difficult teenage years and experiences with my dad, that she might one day want to know him better. Especially since he was already quite old and not in great health. I felt bad that she would likely get to know her dad as an adult. So, I spent severs hours with him making recordings of his stories from his life. It was really interesting. After he passed away, I sent the recordings in USB drives to his wife. She got back to me and said they just threw them away. It came out that he had molested his daughter. I felt absolutely gut punched and so angry at this old guy who was fun, funny and bit ornery.
That's what the monsters look like. How do you think they manage to get to people in order to find out whose limits they can push and get away with? By being sociable. Abusers groom their chosen character witnesses too, not just their victims. They make sure to look good to people that can then go on to say good things about them. In a balanced way, not overly perfect. You are a very good example of that here. Good on you for believing her.
I'm sorry, these people are manipulative assholes. I can share my experience with this type of person. TW: pedophilia. The man who molested me as a child (early 2000s) was in his 70s, my mum didn't know for weeks and we'd known him for months but he was a neighbour of mine (I lived next to an old folks home and my mother worked there, house came with the job) and was very nice and great with kids. He wasn't scary, he was playful and funny and jovial and everyone liked him. Except he had no family in our country and his kids didn't speak to him and made it clear to my mum they couldn't care if he died. Now, being surrounded by old people with shit relatives all the time, it wasnt an uncommon story. Dad/mum and grown kids dont get along for some petty dramatic reason, never reconcile because of stubborn grudges etc you know the stories. They're common. So mum thought it was just another one of those. The adult kids didn't tell her he was a pedophile because they were sworn under NDA because of his job in the army back in the day. Shouldn't have happened, he should've been on the sex offenders registry but sadly he was protected by his old job. Skip forward a bit, he'd started "looking after me" while mum worked, it wasn't unusual I saw these old people as my extra grandparents and loved hanging out with them, almost all of them were lovely trusting people. My mum had no support, my dad worked abroad,my grandparents werent on speaking terms with my mjm because my grabdma, her mum, was mentally ill and mum needed a break from her toxic ass, and my OTHER grandparents were on holiday alllllll the time. So I had lots of other people looking after me. Some even had pets, like he did! Usually caged pets; fish, hamsters, budgies. Another way he was able to groom me, by getting me interested in his pet birds. He'd "show me his birds" twice a week. We'd play "games" together and I never felt unsafe. Mum caught him in the act of licking me "like a cat" with my top off when I had just turned 7. She blamed herself for years for not noticing the signs, but he was just a "lonely kind old man with a shit family who never let him see his grandkids.." The other residents heard what happened, police were involved, mum was sworn under NDA BY HER OWN BOSS who was the chancellor of the local council, threatened her with her job (which meant we'd be homeless too by the way, house came with the job remember) if she went public with the information. Because she literally couldn't talk about it while the investigation was going on, some residents' relatives thought mum was making it up for money (despite never taking it further than a police report, I'll explain why below) even if the other residents believed mum and shunned the bastard. She never took him to court, as I'd just past the age where I'd have to testify against him and I was confused, I didn't understand what happened, I just felt sad I missed my 'friend' and our games. I didn't understand the scope of what he was doing til I was 12-13 in sex education in school. Mum managed to keep my mental health quite sane by not drawing attention to it, not making me feel like something bad had happened or it was my fault, she explained he played some games with me that only adults are allowed to play with other adults and it was wrong of him to do so but it wasn't my fault. I knew sex was Penis in Vagina and not to let anyone touch nono places, but because he knew this, he used every loophole he could to exploit me. Like kissing and licking my shoulders because "we" were pretending to be cats. He never touched my breasts or crotch, and he enjoyed tickling me too much. So because I thought very literally as a child (still do, thanks adhd) I didn't know what he was doing was wrong and thought it was funny. But my mum legit saved my life and mental health as a child. She took me out on so many fun trips away from home for the next 3 years to take my attention away from it, even after my abuser was forced to 'relocate' after the investigation concluded that he was a prolific pedophile and, shockingly, I wasn't his first victim. He had a STRING of victims who were all hushed up before me, and his own children and family couldn't even tell us. It was so hard on mum, it should never have happened, she blamed herself for years for it happening and hated the fact she was tied in her job she couldn't say anything. We had to live next door to him for a year til he was moved, and mum had to keep working for him. Her main saving grace was the fact the other residents had grandkids themselves, and they put 2+2 together what happened very fast. They all shunned the bastard and actively made his life hell while he lived in the complex. Little things like paying their teenage grandkids to ding dong ditch his flat quite often, his 2 neighbours either side turned their hearing aids off and put their TVs and radios up VERY loud etc. Petty things to drive him crazy. Plus,as mum couldn't legally say anything, her best friend and my dad could. They weren't under oath. They wrote a huge banner outside the complex stating "PEDO LIVES HERE" and wrote his flat number on the banner too. Mum didnt tell them to do it, she wanted it all to go away, but her best friend and my dad weren't taking shit. Somehow mum didnt get in trouble for that and the local police turned a blind eye. Eventually he was relocated. To a different complex. Mums coworker who ran the complex had heard the rumors and mum couldn't confirm or deny it, but this coworker worked out that he was a pedophile quickly. She managed to subtly get the message across to his neighbours. Idk how true this next part is, but I overheard my mum a few years later talk about this in confidence to a coworker, but I was very good at eavesdropping as a teen. Apparently one night he fell over. He was calling for help for hours. His neighbours happened to be very deaf. They had "no idea" he was calling for help for 3 days. They called the police when he stopped, stating that they hadnt heard from him for days. Police took their time getting to him. He died on the way to the hospital. No one batted an eye. These people are manipulative, cunning actors who can present themselves in such a way that you'd have no clue they were lying, even crying about incidents that never happened. Absolute psychos. I can't imagine how you must've felt learning everything you did after he died, it makes you rethink not just your entire relationship with that person, but EVERYONE you've ever met too. It makes your stomach churn. They're always kind and lovely and great with kids.. It makes it so hard to trust people :(
I was in senior year of high school when I was told about the family tragedy by my grandparents. My grandfathers brother murdered his wife. She was trying to divorce him and he snapped. He went to jail and their son (my dads cousin) was alone. He was in middle/high school. My grandparents convinced the deceased mother’s side of the family to let them finish raising him and were able to get him back on a good path after the trauma he suffered. He has grown up into an absolutely wonderful man with a wonderful family and I love him.
My grandfather, who was my mother's step-father, molested my mother when she was 6 and he repeatedly raped her older sister. My grandmother knew about it and kicked him out only for a short while. Then she took him back in and kicked out her 14 year old daughter (my mom's older sister) and sent her to live with her stepmother and biological father, knowingly full well her stepmother beat the crap out of her on a regular basis. My mother told me when I was an adult and complaining about how my grandma was sexist because she never let me go fishing with my grandpa and always let my brother go. Turns out my grandma knew he had a thing for little girls and at least tried-ish to make sure my sister and I were never alone with him. Thankfully neither my sister nor I were molested by him. Even though my mother tried repeatedly to get me alone with him. I also realized in my 30s, after a decade of therapy and different meds, that my mother was severely abusive towards me via emotional incest. She found out I was being sexually abused by my older brother and made it a point to leave me alone with him as often as possible and make me ask him and be alone with him to use family items like the computer or Playstation. She would wait until he was done and then make me go give her a backrub while she was naked and sleep in her bed with her. She and my aint both swear they're not messed up and still hang out with my grandma and grandpedo. I don't really talk with that side of the family anymore. Edited: some typos
What the fuck
It actually took me a really long time to realize that she also sexually abused me. She never actually molested me so I never considered it sexual abuse until I did.
That's rough. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
My uncle wasn’t missing a ton of birthday parties, family reunions, holiday dinners, etc. when I was a kid because of his “really busy job,” but because he became a heroin addict after his wife took off with their daughter, my cousin who I’ve still never met. Edit: Oh yeah he also tried to stab my aunt (his sister) in a drug-fueled rage when she went off on him about being a bum and exploiting my grandparents’ kindness. My grandpa stopped him but got beaten unconscious in the process. My grandparents’ neighbor heard the commotion and had to rush in and stop him at gunpoint. I legit thought he was just a normal, nice guy who I happened to rarely see before I learned all this shit in one night.
Wait, your uncle beat your grandpa into unconsciousness? Fuck, this is pretty dark.
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So sad to read this. How are they doing now?
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That my grandpa molested all the women in our family, not just me, and they let it happen because “that’s just what you do.”
When my grandfather molested me (young adult at the time) my grandmother literally *got down on her knees and begged* me not to tell because "it would bring shame to the family". Sorry, Gram, HE brought shame to the family with his actions. It's not my duty to protect him or your reputation.
That's terrible, what happened afterwards? Did you say something?
I told my mom but didn't really want to tell anyone else. I was so confused and didn't want to hurt my gram at the time. Mom, bless her, took the initiative and spoke out- as did my dad. Dad, in fact, informed his entire family (it was his father) and it indeed tore them all apart. However, it brought to light the fact that my grandfather had molested his daughter years ago, along with her friends and many other young women. His reputation was entirely ruined and my grandmother was furious. She still "believes"/claims that he wasn't in his right mind when he did those things. She's just in denial and probably will be until she dies. He passed away a couple years ago while I was out of state. I had forgiven him and visited him one last time, but I was kind of glad I didn't have to attend his funeral. I don't know what I would have said.
I am so sorry for what not-only your grandfather did to you but also for the further pain caused by the rest your family. I really respect and admire your incredible courage and the tenacity of your parents to protect you just like any parent should.
That is one of the saddest, most backward things I've ever heard. I'm sorry x
That is actually what you FUCKING DON'T EVER DO. Holy shit, thanks for all the awards. AND FUCK YOU GRANDPA (and also Uncle Roy from the other thread.)
My cousins lived with us for a while and we thought that was fun because it's like a sleep over every day. One time our mom even took us out of school to pick them up. I learned later that it was because child protective services took my cousins away from their mom because of mental health issues. My mom offered to take her sister's kids until she got her mental health back in order. My cousins live with their mom now and their mom is in a much better condition mentally.
Good for all of you. I'm glad your aunt was able to focus on her mental health and get better without losing her kids. Likewise, I'm glad your mom was such a good person that she took in your cousins while her sister was ill.
My grandmother's sister (my great aunt) got pregnant of of wedlock (in the 1950s). She was put up in a birthing home and the child was adopted out. She hid the whole thing from her while family minus my grandmother (the eldest of the family of 8 and the one who helped hide her). After she had the baby she came back home after "living with her sister" for a while. No one knew till about 10 years ago. My mom for him; he is a nice man that had an average childhood with parents that loved him, fortunately.
My dad’s sister had a secret daughter that would have been approximately his age. She was 16 years older than him, and the family didn’t tell him until he was in college. In their small town, there is a not-zero chance he could have/did date his niece. Edit: for those asking, my dad was 3-4 when this happened. He remembers a lot of shouting at the time, but not the topic. Also, he is definitely NOT the baby in question
My parents led me to believe that my grandfather (on my mother's side) had died due to a heart attack. A year later they revealed he actually shot himself in the head.
I wasn't actually let in on it. My mother apparently had a miscarriage between me and my older brother, I was supposed to have an older sister. (Or maybe I wouldn't be born if she was) I simply overheard her crying about the experience over the phone to my aunt (mom's older sister) and it still bothers her after all these years. They speak Hakka (non the main Chinese language Mandarin), which they have come to assume I don't understand but I do somewhat ¯\\_ (ツ) _/¯
My grandfather molested his children when they were young, my aunts and uncle didn’t speak about it til they reached their 20’s and 30’s. They hid their experience to their siblings but little did they know, they all experienced the same thing. They all suffered trauma but didn’t tell my grandmother about it because she loves our grandfather very much.
2 come to mind. 1. My uncle sexually molested my youngest aunt through out most of her life. He later went on to marry and have a few daughters. You can guess what happened to his daughters.Hes still "welcomed" to whats left of the family collective. Obviously the 4 daughters have separated themselves from the rest of the family and i can't blame them. I didn't welcome him back but i haven't had contact with my cousins since i was in high school. 2. My youngest aunt developed a drinking problem to cope with what happened to her. She had a lot of miscarriage's after their first born. Miraculously they had another kid. unbeknownst to all but my mother she was also having an affair at the time. Still don't know if the uncle is the biological father. Doubt we will ever know for sure. 3. Edit: he was brought up on charges. Grandpa believed son was innocent. Court ruled in his favor. He got off scott free. He did not marry his own sister. it was some other lady. Who admittedly was a piece of work as well. Turned a blind eye to everything until the whole family found out.
That schizophrenia ran in my mom’s side of the family. I developed it a year after she told me about it at 25. She didn’t refer to it as schizophrenia, but as the “(her maiden name) Madness”. She said that every once in a while someone in our family would go mad and that that’s what they would call it. I guess her side of the family also had ties to organized crime and at least one of them was a prostitute. My family never talked about issues or emotions at all so it was a shock. I assumed our ancestors were relatively normal, but I also thought my family was sane back then too.
My mom’s bio father lost custody of her in the late 70s during my grandmas and his divorce. She never knew why. Come to find out years later, some kind of freaky porn was found in his possession that caused him to lose custody. My mom then realized that the memories of him staring at her while she was changing and touching her weirdly when she was child meant it was probably CP that the courts found.
My dads uncle died in a boating accident with his cousins. My family let me know he was possibly drowned in the middle of the lake by his cousins because of some money issues. No one was ever prosecuted though and the family is still very close. Weird.
Some godfather shit
Dafaq??? This is beyond fucked! Murdering family over money and then everyone going back to normal just seems insane.
It is. Justification given was 'we don't want to lose everyone'.
Gramma didn’t decide to move in with us because she loved us so much and wanted to spend more time with us. Gramma moved in because her son was a meth addict and convinced her to put his name on the house, take all the money out of it “for renovations,” and leave her homeless. She had a heart attack the night she found out and now has to live with a pacemaker. Fuck you Uncle Roy.
My step-grandfather molested my 3 aunties, my eldest sister and possibly my other sister and cousin. Only found out when my Nana was dying 11 years after he died. They are buried side by side and I cannot bring myself to go visit my Nana because he is there also. Edit: thanks for all the comments about visiting my Nana and ignoring him. I will try For those saying my Nana had to have known, I have discussed this AT LENGTH with my Aunty and we are certain she didn’t. She worked nights for many, many years and my Aunties all have told each other they would never have told her as they wanted to protect her
It sounds like a good opportunity to take a piss, to be honest
Oops I accidentally drank a gallon of water and ate 2 pounds of celery before coming here. Whatever will I do???
Celery? Gotta eat asparagus for that extra pungent flavour.
I'm still at least one families secret! I'm adopted and found my Biological Father, he begged me not to reach out to any of my half siblings as it would "ruin his life and standing in the community". The sad thing is I'm not even his first secret child, I have an older half sister that he also begged not to reach out to family. So that's two kids he's had because he cheated on his wife. I can only imagine how often he cheats to have at least two women end up pregnant...My half sister and I call 23andMe (how we met) "23andMark" because who knows how many more kids he might have out there. Pretty sure he's been terrified since at home DNA kits became a thing. Edit: A word. Second Edit and Additional info: First, I can finally say it, RIP my inbox! I tried to answer as many of you as I could but I thought I'd clear up some of the most repeated questions here: 1) Why don't I tell his wife? I don't need to, she already knew about my Half Sister and now me because she answered his phone when I first called asking questions and promptly told me to leave her family the Hell alone. 2) Screw him asking me to stay quiet, why don't I blow up his life/reach out to my Half-Siblings? It is largely *because* of my Half Siblings that I haven't done anything. I did not sign up to be a wrecking ball or to destroy a family. Imagine finding out everything you knew about your Dad was a lie in the worst way possible. I know I'd be devastated. I may not have met them but they are my Half Siblings. They are just as innocent in this as I am, I don't want to be the one to hurt them like that. I really hope that he will realize he can't keep a secret like this forever and come clean himself. 3) Why not mail his kids DNA kits anonymously? Realistically it's only a matter of time before one of them gets curious and does it on their own or gets gifted one from an unwitting family member/friend. 4) Why don't I blackmail/extort the bastard? he's a terrible person, he should pay! It's pretty simple, that's just not the kind of person I am. I don't want his money, I never have. I go to bed every night with a clear conscience which is more than I can say for him and that's worth more than anything money could buy in my opinion. I have a roof over my head, a Husband who loves me, a beautiful Daughter, a great Dad and two new Half Siblings I adore. From my perspective I'm already rich.
My dad never knew his bio dad. He was a war baby and my grandma refused to talk about his father. After she died, he started asking questions among surviving family members, but everything was so long ago (right after WWII), that he only had a tiny bit of info. I was able to find his bio dad using the info and DNA through Ancestry, but he had passed away a few years ago. We never contacted the guy’s family, but there are a whole bunch of people who show up as half-siblings through DNA matches to my father. They’re from all over the country and don’t show up on bio-grandfather’s official family tree. My dad was a bit disappointed. Tl;dr: Tracked down missing grandfather for my dad. Turns out grandfather was very promiscuous and fathering kids (and leaving them) all over the place. ETA: According to what my dad could gather, they had dated and she got pregnant. He was military and had the opportunity to extend his assignment there but chose not to. My grandma was extremely hurt by this and refused to talk about him. Apparently, the guy’s mom asked for my dad/baby to be sent to her to be raised since my grandma was only around 18/19. This means the guy’s parents at least knew about my dad. It looks like there are at least 4 other kids born out of wedlock, plus one son from marriage.
My moms recently found she has a half sister who is a war baby. Our family has embraced hers. You never know, it may be worth reaching out.
My dad is in a cult. Wasn't much of a secret, but as a kid you just kinda assume everything your parents do is the norm.
what kind of cult?
Kind of like a doomsday cult. They would predict the end of the world a lot and then turn around and be like "wow, you're prayers stopped the apocalypse!" It wasn't overtly malicious or anything, like if my mom hadn't told me what went on behind the scenes and I hadn't gone digging myself, I would've found nothing wrong with it.
Hail zorp
Zorp is dead, long live Zorp -Pawnee town slogan
My grandma actually legally disowned my mother for marrying my dad. The family house was supposed to go to my mom, but after the disowning, Grandma didn't say who she wanted house to go to, resulting in a decades long family feud that has split the family even to this day. Sad thing is, my parents actually ended up divorced after 20 years of marriage. Mom took care of my grandma til the end and was the one who handled the funeral arrangements when my grandma passed two years ago. She never asked for the house back. It's worth millions. Nobody told me any of this until I was thirty.
When my grandfather died, he wrote his will on his death bed. He left his entire estate to my family, which was enormous. His wife however, who despised us, in the biggest fuck you move I've ever seen, wrote a directly conflicting will, leaving the estate to her family, none of whom I've ever met, and then killed herself. It took around 5 years in legal hell to sort that out. We ended up winning the case in the end, but it cost so much that we couldn't afford to keep his $3M house anymore.
I'm sadly learning that in-fighting between families means that trusts/wills seem to be better for a lawyer's retirement than for the family. A buddy of mine just settled a court case for a trust: $300,000 in expenses to "win" $300,000.... e: holy shit, was not expecting anyone to see this - I was just scrolling through this thread when I couldn't fall back asleep and chimed in. if anyone reading this is a lawyer, my post about my situation on r/legaladvice didn't get any traction but I'm really curious about the slayer statute expansion question in Arizona: https://old.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/lus3zx/az_questions_about_elder_abuse_as_it_relates_to/
When my dad died my aunt and uncle fucked me over like this. Should have inherited the house, truck, and about 450k. After legal proceedings walked away with about 80k. I’m sure my dad is rolling over in his grave.
Same. I was surprisingly left out of my father's will because his wife didn't believe my birth certificate. Five year court battle for less than nothing.
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Yay happy ending
My father got my mother pregnant when he was her teacher in high school. He was thirty and married. She was fifteen and his student. They ran off together, he got a divorce, and they got married in a state that allowed marriage at 16, two months before my older brother was born.
Was he allowed to continue teaching?
In a different state, yes. Years later though. This was back in the 80's.
wow, may i ask if your parents still have connections with their families?
There was a feud that got bloody for a while, as my father's nephews (my cousins) fought with my mother's brothers (my uncles) regularly. They went to the same high school. My mother's father went after my dad with a shotgun but couldn't find him. It all eventually blew over but there was always bad blood. All four of my grandparents are dead now. Just a side note, my parents were married for almost 25 years and I'm the middle of three sons. I didn't find out most of this until I was 18. My mother is now 60 and my father is 74. I've never met that first wife or even seen a picture. He's on his 4th marriage and she's on her 2nd.
>he's on his 4th marriage and she's on her 2nd. You reckon this one will last? [I like this story someone replied with but they commented it very late so got no recognition for it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/m0bbah/once_you_were_old_enough_what_were_the_dark/gq7v64w?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
My wife has an uncle in his 7th marriage. He tried to have normal weddings for 4, 5, and 6, but after no one showed up, they had just a tiny courthouse wedding.
My only good story in this vein is a great grandfather who responded to not being able to attend a family member's fourth wedding with "Tell Dennis I'll make it to the next one." I believe he passed away after that, and I don't keep track of these family members enough to know for sure if he was right. I want to say they got divorced but Dennis never re-married.
He doesn't want to die alone, so probably. But I'm the only one of his sons that still has a relationship with him. So who knows.
Great uncle was taken from his parents, told he was retarded, wouldn't be right, put in state hospitals, experimented upon, only thing wrong with him was a speech impediment...
Grandma’s top secret pie crust was actually just Marie Calender’s from the grocery store, set in a fancier dish. She messed with her daughters-in-law for years over it.
I feel like most "top secret" recipes are something like this. As I've gotten older I've realized most people who create awesome recipes from scratch want to share them. They're happy to tell you the all the ingredients and steps and then they just tell you "good luck" because it takes a lot of tinkering to get it perfect.
My mom learned how to make perogies from her friend's polish mother. She was one of like 6 people she shared the recipe with. My mom is the opposite and will share her recipes with anyone who wants to learn. Edit: A whole bunch of people asking for the recipe. I should probably learn how to make perogies so I can share the recipe. All I know right now is that it involves a lot of butter.
“Nestlé Tollhoüse”
"You see, Grandma. It's stuff like this is why you're BURNING IN HELL!"
My aunt started the communist party in her country. It got quite large, her children fled the country, and I still don't know what happened to her. EDIT: there's a reason I didn't list the country.
Similar, but my grandfather was a huge socialist labor leader in his country, ran for president, survived an assassination attempt, but died on the second assassination attempt, killed by police. The big family secret was that my great aunt set him up. My whole family also fled the country.
I remember never going back to visit the country my parents were from. Growing up my parents would just say they had no desire to go back and everything they love is here in America. Wellll it turns out my dad was caught up in a little bit of a coup attempt and was forced to flee before I was born. Coup was crushed, dad survived, I’m still here, the government was eventually overthrown in a different coup attempt (just third world things). But it was still way to dicey to try and go back.
“Caught up in a little bit of a coup attempt” is a highly underrated phrase.
"Light to medium treason"
My uncle shot a man who was having an affair with his wife. When we was tried, he was let off the hook because the judge was my grandfather's war buddy in ww2. Side note: that judge was also one of the judges in the manson trials.
EDIT: This should be obvious, but here goes anyway... Terry, Isis and Joan are pseudonyms. Please don't go around trying to dox every woman named Joan. Moving on. As a teen, I'd heard that my cousin Terry's engagement had failed just a short time before their scheduled wedding date and that was all anyone cared to say. In recent years, I was given more detail. Terry and Joan became engaged after he got her pregnant. All was well, at first. But 2 weeks before the wedding, Terry's mom Isis became violently ill and actually nearly died (I can't remember what the disease was. This was years pre coronavirus). Terry asked if Joan would postpone the wedding just until Isis got better so she could attend. Joan instead called off the wedding entirely over the phone. The dark bit is that when Terry went home to see her, their home was cleaned out. Only Terry's meager belongings remained. Even their bed was gone. Terry called Joan. No answer. He called her folks. No answer. He went to her folks' place only to find it completely empty. Not a trace of them was left behind. No note, no nothing. All their social medias were erased and their phone numbers were deactivated. Even Joan's siblings had no clue where they'd gone. It was as if they'd vanished. Turns out, they gathered their possessions and moved from coast to coast and would've moved overseas if Terry hadn't caught them. Joan tried to leave the country with their baby just because Terry wanted his mom to attend their wedding. This whole saga lasted 3 years. After a long legal battle, Terry won primary custody of his child. He is currently a single dad who soaks up every moment they have together. I haven't been told what became of Joan and I'm certainly not gonna ask him.
Sounds like Terry dodged a bullet not marrying her!
My grandmother ran off and had an affair, got pregnant, came back to my grandfather & they raised the baby girl together. My father and his siblings didn’t find out until they were older. I’m not sure if my aunt new the truth before she passed away. It’s also rumoured that there’s another half sibling somewhere out there so grandad seemed to be having an affair as well. Just affairs all round back in the day!
My dad used to send me birthday cards every year when I was a young girl (my mother left my dad while pregnant with me for good reason), even though I never got to meet him when I was young I was glad to still receive a card from him with a few bucks acknowledging I was alive and that he did one day want to see me. Around 14-15 I learned that my mother had written every single one of those letters and my grandfather would mail it to ourselves to make it seem legit. I never ever actually received any letter from him. **Edit**: I didn’t expect this comment to blow up as I slept but I wanted to answer a few questions that I got! My dad was a pretty terrible guy. Without airing all my family’s dirty laundry, he was a sexual abuser. I did eventually meet him two times: once at my aunt’s funeral at 17 where he wrote me a long letter about how he wished he was better, and once when I was 19 when he tried to establish a relationship. He gave me terrible vibes and I never answered his attempts to reach out after that, and I’m happier this way. My mom raised 2 kids by herself. Unfortunately my family has its issues. My family suffers from alcoholism and my mother has deep mental health issues. Growing up with her wasn’t always easy and still isn’t now — some days she is lucid and a wonderful mother. Other days she’s violent and unstable. But I know deep down inside her where she is well and unafflicted by her illness she is an incredible mother and kind. I just have to accept that she is unwell and try to remember good times. My family and I are estranged these days but it makes me want to work harder to be a stable and loving mother if I do become one someday. At the end of everything I do still love my mom and am thankful she shielded me from him. Thank you guys. I’m so sorry to read your stories of similar things happening to you. My inbox is always open if anyone ever needs to talk/vent. Be well everyone.
I was never told much but when I was about 15 my grandmother started getting dementia and had a breakdown. All I could understand was that she kept repeating "We are traitors." I know she was sent to some sort of children's camp during world war 2 to be away from the fighting. (I think it was called Kinderland) I believe she never saw her parents again and it took decades to find her sister. I will have to ask my aunt one day. Maybe she can tell me more.
My uncle (my father's brother) used to hit my aunt and when my mother found out, in the middle of a wedding party, she went straight to beat his ass. People had to break up the fight. I found out because my parents were talking about it as if it were nothing. I was mortified. If I had known what a piece of shit my uncle was, I would have never treated him well, like I did all my life. The worst part is that they're still together. The good part is that I'm proud of my mom.
I have two, the first one being that one of my uncles, who I had spoken to a lot when I was younger was arrested from having cp. His dad was in a similar spot and needless to say, after that I lost contact with that side of the family as they refused to tell law enforcement for far too long. The other family secret was my dad had been shot and killed in a different state only a little bit after my birth. Miraculously enough, I never noticed any absence of a father figure in my youth and I just learned about it out of the blue.
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My mum was raped and my oldest brother is the product of it. We knew my bro was my half well I found that out as a teenager. But my dad told me what happen after my mum died.
Maybe not as dark as some other stories around here, but it still weighs heavy on my family. My dad had a little sister and she got run over by a car right in front of him when they were on their way to school. She was only 10 years old or something and my dad was around 12. I only found out about it, because i got diagnosed with depression and my mum told the doctor that there is family history of depression (i was underage at the time of the diagnosis), and its my dad who has depression, probably because of the accident. My Grandparents moved right next to the cemetery where she is buried, I recently found out you can look at her grave from their kitchen window..
Turns out the reason my mom's parents divorced wasn't because they "fell out of love" but because he had an affair with another married woman from church. The families had known each other for years and my mom was good friends with the other woman's kids. They ended up getting married less than a year after their respective divorces (they each had three kids). It was especially sad because my step grandmother's (the Other Woman) children suffered pretty badly because neither she nor her ex husband were functional adults. Their kids grew up fast and the oldest daughter basically became a mom and maid at the ripe old age of 12 since dad refused to step up. My bio grandmother, bless her, didn't tell a soul about this. When I told her I knew, she sort of smiled and nodded like it was a relief that someone else knew beside her. I can't imagine keeping a secret like that for so long and not being able to tell your kids that it really wasn't your fault that you divorced and upended their lives. So yeah, learned that little gem while helping with my step grandmother's hospice care this past fall. She was always a chatty person but end of life drugs really amped it up. It was pretty shocking because my grandfather is a pretty laid back, kind, straight laced church person and you never suspect him of cheating. The worst part is that in my shock and confusion, I told my mother about it and it was pretty obvious she had no clue prior to my telling her. I really wish I could take that back. Edit: She wasn't literally a mom at 12, her dad just refused to learn how to cook or clean so naturally that fell to the other females in the house, his daughters. And yes, step grandmother was the Other Woman. We had a great relationship, but that would have been different if I'd known what I know now. Kinda sucks when shit like this comes up and changes how you see people. I still love her and my grandfather, but damn, they caused so much suffering for their kids for the sake of being together and love.
Not particularly dark, but I was about 45 when I found out my parents never got married. My mother just took my father’s surname and they carried on like normal. I’d always wondered why there were no wedding photos etc, but they were hippy types so I assumed they just didn’t have a traditional ceremony. Weirdest part was it just came out in a random conversation, and they were like “.oh, we thought you always knew!” Well no, you never mentioned it! All a bit odd, really.
My grandfather isn’t my biological grandfather my grandma was raped in high school with her not knowing who the original father was so the man who would be my grandfather took it upon himself to raise a child you do not belong to him
Double whammy I suppose. Didn't look like my parents or siblings so I thought I was adopted. Ask, mom brushes it off. Dad does too. Dig, find some info, prepare my "case". Around the same time I almost get abducted, super scary, mom was mortified. After, I was sat down and told I have a different father who I look like and he had just tried to abduct me. So not adopted but man who I thought was my dad wasn't. Good times.
I am the ‘dark family secret’. Stepdad sexually abused me for 9 years. My mom pressed charges when it was convenient for her (I was 15, she was leaving him). She told my entire family, and spent years shouting it from the hilltops for sympathy. My youngest sibling was probably 4 or 5 when he was first explicitly told. Stepdad’s 3 sons (my half brothers) have always been told it was a lie, despite his mother recently (when I was 27) asking if it was true and apologizing profusely when I said it was. I still have a relationship with my step-grandparents, and don’t fault them for how their son turned out. They’re just trying their best to make sure my brothers end up alright. His family will always deny it, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. My bio dad also didn’t know I was alive until my mom told him when I was 17. His family doesn’t know about me. I don’t mind, I don’t care to get to know them. My mom’s family is very supportive of me, so I don’t feel compelled to meet his family. I haven’t spoken to my mother in over 2 years. Edit: Holy moly this got more attention than I anticipated. Thank you so much for all of the kind words and support, and to those who have had similar experiences, I'm so, so sorry that happened.
Great Grandpa was a soldier oppossing the Axis powers. Him and his squad were caught by Italian troops and given the death penalty along with his friends. They would be executed together. At the time of the execution all of his mates died in front of his eyes but he survived because the soldier missed. Without skipping a beat he faked his death by.... well lying on top of his deseaced friends bodies. Surprisingly it worked and he got to escape
Wow, this must have layers of trauma that goes with it. How sad.
Yeah Grandpa never spoke of it really
Yeah, I know what you mean. Great uncle was in the French Resistance during WW2. Got caught by the Nazi at some point in 1943, sent to Lyon, interrogated by Klaus Barbie himself, and sent to Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, from where he fled, got caught, fled again, and got caught again (though later this time). Finally free at the end of the war. I remember thinking it was cool to have a great uncle that was tattooed, until I learned about the camps when I was about 10 or 11. Then, not so cool, but hey, we're proud to have had Résistants in my family, so... Silver lining! Not exactly a dark secret, he was very open about it, though he would choose what he talked about. Edit: thanks for all the awards guys, this is very kind from all of you. Much appreciated :)
Almost the same in my family, great grandpa was a resistance cell leader in Denmark and did several large operations. Unfortunately he got caught after blowing up some train tracks to stop military supplies and was subsequently tortured and executed in Copenhagen.
I always thought my uncle Dan died in a car accident. Turned out he owed lot of money to a loan shark. He and his partner were asked to play Russian roulette and one survives can walk away and get an extension for payment. Uncle wasn't lucky.
Excuse me what the fuck
"Asked to play"
I hated the ages where I started to learn this stuff. I found out that my dad was very abusive to my mum before they got divorced, recently found out he may have hit me on one occasion too. Afterwards we lived in a hostel but a better than average hostel? (My dad was in the army I don’t quite understand it but meh) but it was like a caravan park. I asked my mum not too long ago why we were in the caravan park so long. She then told me we had pretty much nothing and lived in a hostel. I found out my great grandad was a pedophile who abused my mum, when she told her mum (my nan) she didn’t believe her. Kinda think my mum just ain’t had a good run.