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The darker the secrets we harbor, the more we want to keep them hidden, making sure they never make it out into the world. But sometimes, the truth has a way of getting out, whether we want it to or not.
One Redditor asked users to share the most shocking secrets they found out by accident, and they delivered with plenty of juicy stories. We’ve rounded up some of the best responses. Scroll down to read them and upvote the ones that surprised you the most!
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#1
Found out my ‘uncle’ was my dad and my ‘cousins’ were my siblings when i was 10. my little sister came to stay and i introduced her to one of my friends as my cousin. she asked me afterwards why i said that and i was like uh, because you’re my cousin? nope. 70s wife swap, they divided up the kids and my mother kept the truth from me. it’s been quite a life.
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#2
Ex-wife was most likely sleeping with her bio dad. They kept sneaking off to closed bedrooms to be alone.
I calmly confronted her about it and she got extremely upset and crashed out. The next morning she woke me up with my pistol pointed at me. I snatched it from her, and field stripped it. She then ran across the street with my kids (Not hers) and had a neighbor call the cops on me. She filed a restraining order while the cops were processing me before they let me go.
People don't behave like that if there's not a deep, dark secret to hide.
Side note, our justice system is a joke. Male victims seldomly see an form of justice. Attorneys and judges make many decisions based purely on emotion.
Glen Ellyn 55 minutes ago
The good ol' stereotypes are still around. It disturbs me when a male and female with similar criminal histories commit the same crime, yet she gets a lower sentence than he does. And yes, too many judges fall victim to their emotions.
#3
I was helping my tech-clueless uncle back up his old laptop to a cloud drive. Opened a folder labeled "Tax Receipts" to verify it copied, and found a massive archive of messages and hotel bookings revealing a second, secret family in another state.
#4
That my late father was actually alive, but imprisoned. I found out when was 13. He had been out of our lives since I was around 4.
#5
That my 66 year old Mom absolutely hated me and also writes erotic stories for some kind of erotica websites.
A few years ago she kinda had a mental breakdown and went missing for a week or two. This was shortly after my Dad had passed away and she hadn't been taking her meds or taking any care of herself. Her house was destroyed, every room filled with brand new stuff piled up. My brother and I filed a missing persons report and were asked to look around the house for any evidence of where she might have gone.
That's when I found a whole stack of notebooks filled with notes and stories. Multiple log-ins with words I never in my life heard her say, words I was surprised she even knew existed, all for erotica websites. Tons of stuff about her being used by men and enjoying it. I read about a dozen pages out of the whole stack because I hated violating her privacy, but then I found the book about me.
Page after page about me, how she thought I was manipulating my Dad in the months before his passing (he had moved in with me and had filed for divorce). She thought I forced him to file for divorce, had lists with things like: check accounts, were any pain meds filled at pharmacy, did I tell ER Drs to stop CPR, did I tell them not to contact her. It went on and on. I had no idea she felt this way about me, it was heartbreaking and infuriating. Makes and models of cars, license plates and the info and who was driving them and where. All people she suspected I hired to spy on her. She thought her car was being scanned by the government and had bought some magnetic panels to out in it's doors. So much paranoia and all of it based around me.
Even scripts of phone calls she wanted to make to me or others, detailing things like "say Hi then start to cry, tell story about... Then laugh"
suddenly every conversation with her that I could remember felt disingenuous and fake, I still have no idea who my real mom is because it was so bizarrely calculating and written out for me to find.
The cops ended up finding her a few days after I saw all of this. We tried for a guardianship but she was really good at evading every attempt made by professionals to be mentally evaluated, and we dropped it when she finally started seeing a psychiatrist and was stabilized.
She nor my brother have any idea I saw all the awful things written, and I can understand that she was in psychosis so I'm trying to move past it. She has since moved out of state and we talk every few months, she's totally pleasant with me, so it's really strange and I don't think I'll ever bring it up.
Edit: thank you everyone for all the responses, I didn't expect this to help me so much. I've realized I really need to look for a therapist, I've internalized a lot of th in ngs that will only snowball. I've cried a lot reading these comments, it's something I've held in for way too long, thank you so much for listening.
#6
My mother is a public figure and uses a “stage name” for her last name. For decades the story has been that back in the day, her then-director came up with the name because it sounded better and provided more safety than people knowing her real last name.
A few months ago, I signed up for a family tree website because my grandmother on my dad’s side has done a ton of research spanning hundreds of years in our family, and I was interested in doing the same thing for my mom’s side and my grandmother wanted to do it with me.
When I was adding my mom to my tree, a few documents populated for me to review. I almost didn’t even look at them because it’s my mom and I figured there’d be nothing new.
No.
I found a marriage certificate showing she married a man with the last name (the “stage name”) that she has kept all these years. I’m not sure when they divorced but she married her second husband (who I have known to be her first husband my whole life) a few years later so a few years max. I know two things for certain: my dad doesn’t know this, and she doesn’t know I know. What I don’t know is why she would lie about it.
I haven’t told anyone.
#7
My brother accidentally let slip that our grandad didn’t go to (and pass away in) hospital but went to prison.
#8
My dad’s infidelity history. A particular instance that hurts the most was another woman he married and got pregnant. All while stationed abroad and still married to my mom. I was probably 3yrs old.
I’m 45 now and he’s long passed away but these skeletons of his keep popping up. I have 3 half siblings that I know…so far.
#9
So my grandmother had a lot of kids. Her first baby ever was stillborn, then she had 8 kids successfully, and the last baby she had was also stillborn.
That was the story until someone in our family added their DNA to an ancestry type website and found that BOTH of those babies had actually lived, been adopted, and are actually still alive with large families of their own. The youngest actually lives just a city away from us.
All of this was found out after my grandma had passed and while my grandpa was receiving end of life care, so no one ever got any answers about why these two were given up for adoption. We met the youngest at my grandpa's funeral, and she looks the most like my grandma out of all of the siblings.
Not quite as "dark" as some stories here, but it's the biggest family secret (so far)
Glen Ellyn 49 minutes ago
There could be a valid reason why they were put up for adoption. I imagine grandma may have thought the situations were shameful and decided it was best not to disclose it. Sometimes that's the only way people can deal with it and move on. Just lock it away in their memories and carry on.
#10
My grandfather was 100% Polish. My dad doesn’t look much like him and I look a lot like my dad. I did a DNA test and turns out I’m 0% Polish.
#11
That my mom's ex husband was probably sterile & my half brother had a different dad. My dad says things that are out of left field and is into conspiracy/InfioWars stuff, and he mentioned to me when we passed a certain house that my brothers dad lives there. I was having a laugh about it with my mom when we passed that house, but she got all quiet.
My mom cheated on the same husband with my dad, but didn't try to pass me off as her husband's. I suspect it may be because my dad is Latino and she and her ex husband were white. Both my mom and dad have independently explained to me that my mom used to be a serial cheater and got off on the thrill of talking to men behind her husband's back. At least when she did this while married to my dad, the men she was talking to would often gift me Pokemon cards. There's also a chance my younger sister has another dad too. Apparently, my mom had an affair with a younger coworker but didn't commit to running away with him. He apparently freaked out so bad, he lit his house on fire. After my parents divorced, my dad got a Russian mail order bride.
I actually really have a lot of stories about my parents but it's so unbelievable that it would probably just sound like a creative writing exercise.
#12
My grandfather had his boat "Stolen" in the early 90s.. lets just say he got a good insurance payout. Tried to do the same thing 10 years later by setting a vehicle of his on fire in the backyard. He's now passed but was not expecting to hear that one!
#13
When I was 19, I walked into a retail shop to buy an outfit. When I got up to the counter to pay, I handed the young lady my credit card. Her response was "I know you." That made me feel good. Then she said "I know your dad, he's my dad." That was the day my siblings learned about our half sister. She's two months older than me.
I couldn't tell my mom, I know it would have crushed her. She found out later and was more upset that I didn't tell her.
#14
I stumbled upon my dad's old phone records and found out he was still in touch with my mom's ex
#15
Not mine but a friend I know and his half brother decided to do a DNA testing kit (something similar to 23 and Me). When my friend (let’s call him Colin) was 2 years old, his parents divorced and his dad had custody. His dad remarried and had another son (we’ll call him Daniel). So Daniel and Colin grew up in the same household as half brothers, with the understanding that they share the same dad. Growing up, their dad always treated them equally.
Turns out, they’re not related at all. They don’t share the same dad.
The happy ending is they didn’t let that change their relationship in any way. They’re still close as ever.
#16
Found out my “aunt “ wasn’t actually my aunt. She was my dad’s first wife. They never divorced. He just..left.Mom didn’t know either. We found out when the other family showed up at the funeral.
#17
I know where my father went the night he passed away.
He was driving out at 5:00 in the morning while he had a heart attack. His long term girlfriend asked if I had any idea why he was out driving over in that area so early in the morning? They didn't live together, but had been together for least 10 years.
Well, I found out the answer when I went to shutdown his laptop. He was meeting some random dude for a gay date. Probably went out with a smile on his face as they say. I feel sorry for the other guy though.
I've never told a soul. I wiped the computer (as he had asked us to do), and never mentioned it.
We didn't have a great relationship, so I could care less what he was up to. He was never faithful to any of his partners, his gf broke up her marriage and his to be with him, she knew what she was getting into.
#18
A few years ago, I dated a guy I met on Tinder. He kept going on and on about this other woman he had dated for awhile before meeting me. He was still good friends with her and wanted me to meet her because he felt like we'd get along great. We go to her house....and it was my aunt who walked out on my uncle when I was a kid.
Finding out you're Eskimo sisters with your estranged aunt in the new city you just moved to is wild.
#19
That my dad had a child with another women, in Nigeria, whilst married to my mom. I found a birth certificate. He had been with my mom (in the UK) for 27 years at that point, and we were a nuclear family of 10.
#20
Just found out at 35 that my father has another son. Wtf. And he looks just like him.
Glen Ellyn 43 minutes ago
A few years into our marriage, I found out my (now ex) husband has a son from a previous sh*tgun wedding a few years into our marriage. Just so you know, it's not the reason we divorced about ten years later.
#21
my mother threw herself from a third floor and she never had an accident as everyone told me. i found it out reading medical papers. She survived and she’s fine ok
#22
My mom just admitted indirecrly during an argument that she was the anonymous call to the CPS saying my dad was beating me, same mother who pinned me and strangled me on a couch and psychologically mistreated me for years, worst part is i found out 15 years after
#23
We found out during one of our visits to a cemetery, while looking at a small grave, that my mom actually had an older sister none of us ever knew about. We always thought my mom was the eldest, followed only by a younger sister.
Apparently, when the baby was still very young, my grandparents constantly fought, and one argument escalated terribly. Her father accidentally struck the baby.
Years later, it made us realize why our grandparents always seemed so bitter toward each other. It could have been the weight of that unresolved trauma they carried for the rest of their lives.
Glen Ellyn 32 minutes ago
My mother grew up believing her father - my grandfather - was an only child. When I was in my early 20s, I asked him about being an only child. He told me he was not, that he did have a younger brother. Through research, I found out he actually had two brothers. His youngest lived only about six months. Since my grandfather was only about four when it happened I believe he was just too young to remember that brother - especially considering it was during a time when things like this weren't discussed openly. The brother he remembers is the one who passed away at age 12, when he himself was almost 15. My mom did not believe me when I told her that Granddad had told me he had a brother. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#24
I accidentally found out that my mom was doing her best to abort me during the pregnancy when she was so drunk and kept apologizing to me. My mom was always so affectionate towards me and spoiled me with attention but this confession made me...broken. I thought to myself that maybe words are better left unsaid, but when I reflected on it, I think my mom needs to get that out of her chest because she has been doing her best in raising me. That was then a few days later, mom passed away in an accident.
#26
Not a big deal, but in a southern, conservative, Christian family…
My mother’s parents both passed away less than a year from each other. When my sister and I were getting info together for our grandfather’s obituary, we discovered that my grandparents’ anniversary was just under six months before my mother’s (the oldest) birthday. We noticed it, had a laugh, and went about our way.
We sent it to our mother and her siblings for a final review, and when it came back, the anniversary date was changed to ~3 months earlier than it actually was.
#27
I found out my grandma and her older sister are actually half-sisters. Turns out, my great-grandma got horribly beaten by her first husband and her brother and father were passing by...coming back from woodcutting. Carrying an axe. They only spent a few years in prison surprisingly.
#28
My dad is in jail, nobody ever explained why and at some point, I just stopped asking about it. Anyway, I was going through family photos with my grandma and saw my dad with an uncle. She was so triggered that she told me I was missing at my naming ceremony. I was later found with my 36 year old uncle French kissing me. I was 2 weeks old. My dad removed my uncle from earth because of it
#29
When my first husbands mother passed away of cancer 33 yrs ago we were going through some old papers and I found my husbands parents original marriage license. Mind you we had always been told that his parents met, had a whirlwind romance and were married six weeks later. When she passed away they had been married for 34 yrs. Anyway… I pulled the marriage license out and said “ there is a huge typo in this”. My ex was born in 1966… this marriage license was dated 1967.
Come to find out, my ex father in law was NOT the father and was married when he met my mother in law. She was already pregnant but he chose to leave his wife and other son and married my mother in law. They lied about their entire origin story and that my ex wasn’t even his kid. She took it to her grave and he never has gotten closure. The only thing he found out was that his biological father apparently passed away in a random car accident when she was pregnant. This is something that still haunts him to this day.
#30
Three things: that I was a twin, but my twin didn’t make it much longer than birth. That my adopted mom didn’t want to adopt twins, and it was only after my twin passed away that she adopted me. And my birth mom had two more kids after me and kept them both. I know situations change, but that felt like a slap on the face.
#31
Turns out my great grandfather was sent to the antipodes because he was impregnating the village girls, he continues his behavior in the colony but because my great grandmother was from a 'good family' he had to marry her, but that was after the baby was born - absolutely scandalous!
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