Occasionally, we may feel intrigued to eavesdrop on conversations or uncover hidden truths in a room. Thanks to the openness of some brave individuals who shared their family secrets, these stories might just make you curious enough to start looking into your own family secrets.
“I didn’t know one of my cousins existed until I was about ten years old. Turns out he was diagnosed with Leukemia as a child and I was a very sensitive kid, so my family decided not tell me until the treatment was successful and he recovered. It would have been okay if they told me as soon as he was healthy again, but I guess they forgot so the first time I met him, I was wondering how exactly I managed to forget the existence of a whole person.” monopoppi / Reddit“My pet rabbit got attacked by something a couple years after I got it. My parents found it dead and replaced it before I found out. I just thought my rabbit lived super long but it was actually two rabbits. This happened over 10 years ago and I found out last year.” imissfrostedtips / Reddit“After my mom died I found out the real story behind my parent’s marriage. She came to my father’s country to visit some of her relatives. Met my father and after just one week she asked him to marry her so she could stay in the country. My father accepted because he had no one else and his parents were pressing him to get married already.
But the highlight of the story is that over some time, the two of them fell in love with each other. Their love only grew over time and they were really happy together. My mother spent her last days very ill, and she would accept only my father by her bedside. He swears to this day that she was an angel sent from god to take care of him. I am shocked that they got married just like that, out of the blue and ended up loving each other so so so deeply. I can only hope to have as good and loving marriage as they had.” Amendris / Reddit
“My grandfather was the typical tough, rugged mountain man. He never expressed emotion and in fact rarely ever even spoke at family gatherings. He would just sit in the corner alone. I never felt that he and I had a very good relationship, considering I was the weird, artsy kid in the family. We didn’t have much to talk about because we couldn’t relate to each other well.
He died of lung cancer two years ago. A couple of months after he died I was visiting my parents and my mom pulled out a shoebox that belonged to him filled with sentimental photographs that he kept hidden in his closet. Nobody knew about it until after he died and they we’re cleaning his things out. Almost every single photograph was of me. It broke my heart. I wish I would have been closer to him. He clearly loved me a lot more than I thought he did.” OnlyAutoSuggest / Reddit
“My aunt’s close friend that she lives with is actually her girlfriend. Was about 22 when they told me. Never even thought about it until it was said. Weird how I was completely oblivious to this for so many years.” rugje / Reddit“When I was seven years old, I remember my mom was really excited and telling me I was gonna have a little sibling. Then one day she suddenly stopped talking about it. I kinda just assumed she made a mistake and really wasn’t pregnant. Fast forward to last month and she told me that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.” GrilledCrabCat / Reddit“I was an only child and my mother was 40 and father 50 when they had me. They had gotten together rather late in life. My mother always told me that my father didn’t want her to get pregnant because he was afraid she was too old and didn’t want anything happening to her or the baby.
After my father passed away at the age of 95, I took my mother to the Social Security office to take care of paperwork. One of the questions they asked was whether there were any other potential beneficiaries of my father’s benefits such as other children or ex wives. Being an only child, I immediately answered ‘no’. My mother looked at me sheepishly and answered, ’that’s not exactly correct’. It was then, at the age of 45 in the Social Security building, that I learned that my father had previously been married in his 20’s and had had a child. Mother and baby died during childbirth.
It explained why my parents never had children until late at life and why he had not wanted to.” Contrariwise2 / Reddit
“My brother and I are only half siblings. We didn’t know that my dad isn’t his dad until I was 10 and he was 15. The only reason he was told was because my mom was trying to manipulate him into choosing her side in the divorce.” WhenwasyourlastBM / Reddit“My great-grandparents were high school sweethearts and the only role models I’d ever had for a relationship since my grandparents and parents are divorced and hate each other. Then my mom tells me that my great grandma had an affair and that’s why one of my grandma’s sisters isn’t like the others. So, there goes that.” Symnestra / Reddit“My Welsh great-grandmother had passage booked on the Titanic in 1912. She ended up not going because she ‘fell ill’. Turns out it was actually an out-of-wedlock pregnancy that gave her such bad morning sickness, she couldn’t go. She lost the baby. She came the following year in 1913 and met my great-grandfather. She only told my mom (who she helped raise during the summers) who then told me.” sassy_steph_ / Reddit“My dad had a daughter before I was born and never admitted it to anyone in the family. He was basically on his death bed when he admitted it to me. I was able to track down my half sister a few years back and we were to meet but she was very emotional about the whole thing and she backed out at the last minute. I have since left her alone.” Hamfiter / Reddit“My grandmother’s cousin married a man she met in college. They had a daughter and were married for maybe 40 years. 3 years ago, he passed with cancer. We were not shocked at this. After all, he was approaching 70 and had a bad form of cancer, and it was spreading fast. We were prepared for this.
What we weren’t prepared for was that after he passed, his wife found a journal of his which explained that for 35 years, he was having another relationship with a man. It was a shock to all of us. He was so committed to his wife, that he never left. But at the same time, it must have killed him to stay silent for such a long time.” Pozzik / Reddit
“My step great-grandfather and great-grandmother never actually married. They put on a fake ceremony of sorts but didn’t legally wed so she could continue getting her deceased husband’s social security, life insurance, etc. Didn’t find out until great-grandma died. They had lived together for around twenty years.” victorioushack / Reddit
Before you leave, take a look at another article where we discuss 10 true stories about how trusting their instincts saved these people’s lives.
