I Know My Family’s Secret
Every family has its fair share of skeletons in the closet—but the burden is so much greater when you’re the only person who knows.
From wild infidelities and illegitimate children to scammers and shady deals, the stories from these dysfunctional families are seriously jaw-dropping.
1. Her Secret Life
I absolutely adore my mother—but she doesn’t know that I discovered her secret. She's a single mother who got a master's in education while taking care of three of us all the way up to working being a head of a department in the DOE.
I've never seen her drink, shout, act immature, act out in any unbecoming way etc.
My whole life the one thing people commented on was how "classy" my mother is. Then two years ago when moving out, I ended up accidentally taking one of her boxes of papers from the attic thinking it was mine. What I found was truly disturbing.
It was full of court documents talking about an affair my mother had with a married colleague where she got allegedly got so upset he ended it that she started to stalk and harass him. He filed charges against her as well and brought it to HR.
The things he says my mother did in those documents, I can't imagine in a hundred years. Yet I also couldn't imagine her having an affair with this guy at all, but she admits it in the paperwork.
I know why she left her state job and we moved to DC—basically, there was some kind of deal made where she would leave and it would go away.
And the case was also pretty much dropped with the expectation and deal that she would never contact him or bother him again.
It's made me really realize that you don't know ANYONE really.
2. Truth Serum
My dad drunkenly called me and told me my younger brother is my half-brother. My mother doesn’t know that I know.
Long story short is that my mom cheated on my dad and didn’t tell him till the child was two. She then divorced him and left him for the guy that she cheated on him with.
3. Torn Apart
I’ve told my parents that I know my dad cheated on my mom while she was pregnant with my younger brother. There are a couple of parts they don’t know I know—and one they don’t even know themselves.
For one, my dad actively took me to see his mistress (my now-stepmom) while he was still with my mom. I was really young, but I remember being around her while my parents were still married.
It didn’t click for me until I got older, and the rest of the family was really mad to find out when I told them.
Then there’s the thing I know that my dad and the rest of my family don’t know—and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. It’s that my paternal grandpa continued to give my mom $1,000/month on top of what my dad paid in child support, because he was angry at my dad for cheating.
My mom actually told me a story about my dad trying to bail on a dinner where the divorce was going to be discussed, and my grandpa straight up said, “You’re going to that dinner whether you like it or not".
Then, my dad started favoring the kids he had with my stepmom, and my grandpa wasn’t having it.
Until the day he died, he would secretly give my brother and me “extra” for Christmas, birthdays, etc, because he knew the other two kids were getting treated better.
My mom told me many times that my grandpa was the only member of my dad’s side she truly still loved after the divorce because of everything he did.
On top of that, my grandparents paid for the house my dad and mom lived in, but my dad wanted to leave it when he got remarried. He didn’t want the memories from it. Note that this house was three years old and really expensive.
My dad threw a fit because he wanted to build a new one on the family farmland.
This made the rest of my family angry because it was active farmland. This fit split the family in half, and it’s still not fixed. My aunts and uncles still don’t like my stepmom because of her role.
4. In Another Life
I discovered that my mom had a secret husband (she divorced him) that no one knew about. I do the family history research for my family, and I discovered it by accident.
I asked her about it discreetly, and she begged me not to tell anyone—said not even my dad or brother knew.
She passed on in 2003, and I still haven't, or won't, tell a soul.
