22 People Reveal The Horrible Family Secrets That Were Revealed To Them As An Adult

We all have our own family secrets...but these secrets...well, they were definitely hidden for a very important reason.

A Hate Full Of Lies

“Through out my childhood I was told that my father beat my sister into being mentally handicapped when she was an infant. I didn’t find out till I was 23 that my sister was born the way she is. I grew up with a lot of anger and hate towards my Dad, all over a lie. I recently got in contact with my dad and we are meeting up later this week” Source

A Downward Spiral

“My grandparents won the lottery. A couple million, not sure of the exact number. Ended up buying a yacht, tried to sail it down to Florida and it sank halfway out of New Jersey because my grandfather didn’t know what he was doing. They bought 3 houses in NJ and 2 in FL. Sent all my illegitimate cousins to college, and one to Law school. By the time I was born, they had stopped paying for the houses because they had gambled all the money away, so the houses were foreclosed on. My grandfather developed some lung pathology from smoking 3 packs a day. My grandmother killed him by withholding his meds and poisoned him; that part is mostly speculation, but we’re pretty sure it’s true” Source

The Caretaker

“Found out after my grandfather passed, that he wasn’t my biological grandfather. My grandmother had been raped and became pregnant with my mom, and my grandfather being a friend of the family took her in.

Best man I ever knew, God I miss him so much” Source

An Unwanted Trend

“At 17 I learned my grandmother and great uncle had killed themselves. At 18 my father killed himself” Source

A Good Samaritan

“My dad did time for shooting a child molester the cops wouldn’t do anything about” Source

All Sorts Of Messed Up

“I knew awhile ago that my father’s mother in Vietnam wasn’t actually his mother, but his stepmother. I didn’t know anything about my father’s biological mother until two years ago when his stepmother (whom he considers his mother) died. Apparently my grandfather divorced his first wife because she sold my father out in the market. When my grandfather found out, he had to go and find the family that bought my dad and pay to get him back. When he got back home, my father’s biological mother was pissed that my grandfather spent money to get my father back and my grandfather divorced her. My grandfather then remarried the woman who my father considers his mother. She always treated him as if he were her own.

I found out about this from my great-aunt. She only agreed to tell me this story if I agreed to never ask my father about it. It still hurts him terribly (I’m tearing up just thinking about it).

What’s messed up is that apparently this woman is still alive, living in the same village as my grandparents did, and I might or might not have met her (supposedly, my father went to visit her and gave her money, God knows why).

Oh, and also. I found out my father’s sister isn’t his biological sister. My grandparents (biological grandfather and step-grandmother) adopted her. She actually has a twin. Her biological family couldn’t afford to raise two more children, so my family adopted one of the twins. I didn’t know about this until my aunt got married and her twin showed up to the wedding” Source

A Brutal Life

“Before my father was born, his parents (my grandparents) had two children. Then WWII started. Grandfather went to war, and grandmother ended up in German occupied territory. Being Jewish they were sold out to Germans by the neighbors, who received grandparents’ house and all of the contents as a payment. Grandmother and both children were sent to concentration camp, and the kids died there. She somehow survived. When the war ended, my grandfather reunited with grandmother and learned about what happened. He went to see the people who betrayed his family and killed them, two adults and four children. He didn’t live to see the trial because his health failed from the hardships and injuries of war.

My father was born soon after” Source

A Fit Of Rage

“My mother once was very sick and delirious with fever. My brother and I were taking care of her when she decided to dump two pretty big secrets on us.

The first was 2 years after they had me, my mother had a miscarriage (or stillborn, the pregnancy went on for 5.5 months). The second, was that miscarriage was probably induced by my father beating my mother. I guess the stress of having me around got to him and he used to beat my mother for a few years. It stopped when she got pregnant with my brother.

Well, at least it stopped with my mother. He moved onto beating me by then. I didn’t tell her” Source

Skipping Town

“After I turned 18, my grandmother, totally out of the blue, announced to me that the reason my uncle lived in Costa Rica was because he has fled the US after getting caught growing tons of marijuana on my grandparents’ roof. Rather than being arrested, he just bailed and has lived there ever since, selling surfboards” Source

A Hidden Life

“I found out that my grandfather was murdered (poisoned) by drug cartel agents while acting as an informant for the FBI, but before he had turned over any useful information or evidence, meaning that a mole in the FBI was likely responsible. Previously I’d been told that he had died in an accident.

He was a small businessman and trained accountant. Unfortunately, he was caught cooking the books, and was sent to federal prison for tax evasion – I don’t think it was for very long, maybe a year.

A couple of weeks before he was released, he was approached by a known associate of a large drug operation. The man proposed that my grandfather use his businesses and accounting skill to launder money. My grandfather refused and reported the meeting to the police, who referred him to the FBI, who asked him to go back and say he’d reconsidered and wanted in, acting as an informant. My grandfather was a patriotic, conservative Navy veteran, and agreed.

After he was released, he met several times with the organization, according to my grandmother. One day, he disappeared. He was found several days later in a hotel room that had been paid for in cash under a false name, dead. The coroner ruled out suicide and accident because of the properties of the poison and the circumstances, and it remains an unsolved homicide cold case to this day” Source

Better Off On My Own

“Once I moved out and started living as an adult on my own my family opened up one at a time. Started with grandpa leaking secrets, cousins, aunts, etc. Now before moving out I was the black sheep of the family because my dad was an only parent/partier/drug abuser/biker/trucker/ etc… and I, by association, didn’t get the easy ride. Thus, being overwhelmed with joy when I found out this:

6 out of 10 1st cousins have been, are in therapy for many issues.

I am the ONLY cousin/grandkid that has graduated college

Found out I was pushed to work at 13 to make money for a bond my dad needed help with paying. When I was 13 I was told it was to keep the lights on in the house. (that was a glorious convo. let.me.tell.u.)

Two cousins were adopted and neither of them know. Now 10 and 13 yrs of age.

I thought I was the crazy one, then realized after hearing all of the drama I was better off on my own. So the crazies in the family have made it easy to detach” Source

A Little Juicy Secret

“If you wanted something juicy: I found out in the past year that my parents, who have been happily married for 25 years (or so I thought) have been engaging in an “open relationship” for 5 years or so that backfired when my mom fell in love with a man 15 years younger than she. I found out they were hooking up when she coyly admitted that they slept/had sex in my bed while I was away for the weekend. Needless to say, I moved. My parents are now separated and my dad lives 2 hours away while my mom lives in the house HE owns and still pays the bills on. This also means that my dad pays the bills on stuff that’s in his name but that I pay for myself, like car insurance and property taxes. My mom takes this money from me and pockets it to spend on her hillbilly boyfriend instead of giving it to my dad. He knows she does this” Source

Anything For You

“When I was around 5 years old I had a birthday party. A “friend” of my father came and asked me what I wanted for a gift. I told him I wanted a racetrack with cars. He snapped his fingers and another man who was with him left and came back 30 minutes later with like a $1000 set. My parents forced me to give it back. I found out later on the man was a recruiter for the mafia and they were trying to get my father to join/do some things” Source

An Unruly Sight

“My grandfather died a few months ago. The next time my wife and I visited my grandmother, she sat me down and told me something I never expected. She said that my grandfather’s older brother had in fact committed suicide with a handgun over a breakup with his girlfriend, instead of the whole story about losing touch with him over the years.

My grandfather had always been a very emotionally withdrawn and internalized man. The story goes like this: he came home to a note on the front door written by his brother essentially stating, “I’m going to commit suicide with a handgun at this location”. My grandfather was on the track team in high school and had numerous commendations and awards from track meets for just about everything to do with running fast in the shortest amount of time. Well, he ran, ran as fast as he could to the location his brother said he would be at. He got there right when his brother pulled the trigger to his head. Yeah…was never expecting that, and it made the way my grandfather acted all his life make quite a lot of sense in hindsight. He never really got over that” Source

That’s Some Kind Of Therapy

“I grew up thinking we had a perfect nuclear family. The ‘rents were very loving, very supportive, very religious, and sent us to very conservative christian schools. We went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. We ate breakfast and dinner together every day. Mom and dad seemed very much in love and very happy.

After dad died in a skydiving accident (I s— you not), mom loses it, becomes very depressed and very, very angry. A few year later, she tells my brothers and me that dad had been cheating on her throughout their marriage, and as of his death, he had been supporting his latest mistress and her daughter. He even bought the mistress new pair of knockers their credit card. Mom had to pay off Dad’s mistress’s breasts with his life insurance money.

We also learned that my dad had been in therapy for his sex addiction and his therapist had recommended skydiving as an alternative to schtupping” Source

Now That’s Some Family Drama

“I learned that I was born from my mother cheating on her husband at the time. She did however marry my father – when I was four years old. I was the ringbearer.

I learned that my sister slept with many, many guys when she was younger, for all of the classic reasons.

I learned that my other sister did (and does) a number of drugs.

I learned that my father used to beat the s— out of my brother and another sister. He also started seeing my mom because my two sisters (who previously were not related and just friends) wanted to get my mother and my father together. I feel that’s a little complicated, so I’ll retell it like this:

Mother is married to first husband, father is divorced. They do not know each other. Both have daughters. Daughters become best friends, try to hook their parents up, it works. Later, I am born.

I learned that my aunt is schizophrenic, most males in my family are/were alcoholics, and even if I am able to survive mental disease and f—- up, my best hope is probably to die of cancer.

I will not live into old age” Source

A Secret Stash

“Brief summary of the situation: In my early 20’s, my grandma passed away from cancer and my grandpa passed shortly thereafter, leaving the house and everything they own to me. My dad was left out of the will on purpose. After taking care of the funeral arrangements, my mom and I began the arduous task of sorting through everything in the house.

On the second day of sorting through everything, we start to find old picture printouts, keepsakes and whatnot in small boxes. They started out nice enough. Secret recipes my grandma had stashed away. I recall the delicious meals my grandma used to cook for me whenever I visited as a kid. Pictures of my grandma as a younger woman with her previous husbands, during her travels, etm. I recall stories that my sweet, old grandma used to tell me about her travels with her previous husbands. In all, I adored my grandma and held her on the highest pedestal. Looking through all of her old collections was a nice trip down memory lane with her.

Then we find this one box. I didn’t know what was coming.

I open it up. Oh, more pictures! Cool! Wait… what’s this… there’s nude people in these pictures. In some of them, nude people having sex. Who are these people… oh god… is that… OH GOD! GRANDMA?!

Yeah, I found my grandma’s old personal porn collection. My mom picked up the pictures to look at for herself when I threw them on the ground, backed off and had the look as if I’d seen a ghost. My mom thought the discovery was pretty hysterical. (Mind you, this was her mother-in-law.) In hindsight, I guess it was pretty funny, but it definitely forever changed my view of my grandma” Source

Racking Up The Bills

“My mother got her and my dad into 6 figures of credit card debt. We found out when my dad tried to cosign my college loan. He got a call, at work, from a credit bureau asking why he ever thought he could cosign a huge loan with tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills.

I will never let anyone handle my finances but me” Source

Young Love

“I recently learned that before my parents met, my father proposed to another woman who refused him because he was a farmer. My parents have been together since they were 19-20, so I would have never guessed one of them could have had something as serious with someone else before getting together” Source

A Full Family

“My oldest uncle was actually the child of an unknown abusive first husband of my grandma. She never told anyone his name and the knowledge of who he was died when she did.

When my mom was about 5 or 6, a teenage kid a with developmental problems attacked her and slammed her head in the sidewalk giving her a concussion. The same uncle from above killed the kid and buried him in the desert.

Growing up I had three grandmas. It turns out one of them wasn’t actually a grandma, she was just a mistress of my grandpa that everyone in the family really liked so we adopted her.

There are a bunch more, but it would be hard to get in to specifics without revealing too much” Source