We've all gone snooping around in places we shouldn't have, or maybe there have been times where we just know someone is keeping something from us. Either way, if we go looking for answers, sometimes we get way more than we bargained for. From dark secrets to hidden lives, these discoveries give new meaning to the phrase "you can't handle the truth".
1. One Bump Can Wreck Your Love Life
I used to work the desk in an ER. One day, we had a fellow brought in via EMS after a car wreck. After a while, a lady came to the desk and said, "My husband is here, he's just been in a car accident". I checked with the unit, they said he could have visitors, so I let her go back. I went on with my day and didn't think much of it...at first.
About 20 minutes later, a different woman came to the desk and said, "My husband is here, he's been in a car accident". I knew damned good and well that we only had one MVA back there, but I asked her for the patient's name, figuring maybe she'd come to the wrong hospital. But she had not. Now, it's not my place to judge other people's lifestyles.
I myself am polyamorous and know a number of people who all refer to one another as husband and wife, though there are more than a regulation number of players on the field. So, I do my job. I called back and said, "There's a visitor here for room X, may she come back?" The unit clerk gave the ok, so I opened the door and let her back.
This man was not polyamorous. Instead, he was leading a double life of Bruce Wayne proportions. He wasn't just sleeping with two different women. He had two sets of children. He had convinced both that he was actually married to them. And neither had any idea the other existed. There was, how you say, a mild kerfuffle.
In the end, the women joined forces against him and walked out planning their respective divorces. It was just amazing to me that this guy's whole life was blown up by a minor fender bender that wasn't even his fault. Dude looked just absolutely haunted when he walked out of that hospital room. And rightfully so.
2. Betrayal
My moment was when I snuck into my ex-girlfriend's apartment to set up a surprise for her, only to find her in bed with my brother. Oh, and my other brother was covering for them. Before this, I had an innate feeling that my family was my one safe haven in a rather dark world. Now I know that nothing could be further from the truth.
3. The Harsh Truth
My mother was in a fatal car accident when I was three—but my family never told me the whole disturbing story. I found out from a newspaper article years later that it was actually all her fault. She wasn’t paying attention and crossed the yellow line and ended both her life and that of the person in the other car.
4. Way to Leave Us Hanging
A long time ago, back when I was still in middle school my mom's best friend passed on. She wouldn't tell me how it happened. Only that it was sudden. When I asked why we weren't going to the funeral she told me that there wouldn't be one because "her body was being donated to science". I didn't ask any more questions. That was the last time we ever talked about her.
Well, five months ago my mom handed me her phone to find the number for Domino's and as I'm scrolling through her contacts I come across the phone number of the deceased best friend. Biggest what the eff moment of my life. The next day I called it from a pay phone at Waffle House and she picked up. I instantly recognized the voice and accent.
She's not dead. Turns out, my mom had been lying all these years about her BEST FRIEND BEING DEAD. It was beyond messed up.
5. Three’s Company
So I just discovered that my (single) mother enjoys threesomes. This is embarrassing as her son, but I could probably handle her private life—except I found out about it in the worst way possible. She's not the most tech-savvy person in the world, and accidentally posted a threesome request publicly on Facebook. Yikes.
6. The Milk Is for the Baby
I saw a patient who was concerned because she was still lactating, despite the fact that she stopped breastfeeding her twins two years ago. I asked her some routine questions, but I was completely unprepared for her answer. She said: "sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find my husband sucking on them. He says he's trying to drain the milk for me".
I had to explain to her that breastfeeding her husband will lead to continued Lactation.
7. Pregnant Disaster
I was pregnant with my oldest daughter and had extreme pain one day, so I came home early from work. When I get home I see two purses that I knew weren't mine sitting on the stand. I head to my room to see if my then-boyfriend could explain the purses; I'm hearing noises coming from our room. I opened the door to peek in and he is having a threesome. I close the door and just go back into the living room.
I was shocked. I was supposed to be on bed rest, but I was the only one who had a job, so I was going to school and working while he got to stay home all day. I was livid, but what was scary is that I was so furious that I remained calm. I went into the living room, sat on the couch and waited for them to come out; when they finally did I asked them if they had fun?
I told them they needed to get out of my apartment. He tried to talk to me, but I told him he needed to get out. I calmly packed off of his stuff up, had a friend come over because I couldn't do heavy lifting being 7 months pregnant and dropped his stuff off at his parents' house that night. It's still shocking to me that I remained so calm being that angry.
8. Big Pharma
I was promoted to VP of my company. The company was in trouble, and the CEO had asked me to figure out why and fix it. I arranged for a random drug test. All employees, the CEO, me, everyone. All on the same day, and everyone went down at the same time. Even said I would ignore weed, but anyone with anything stronger would be gone. We get the results back and I fired everyone who had tested positive for any drug other than weed. The CEO and myself were the only two people left working for the company.
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9. Change of Heart
Amazingly, once at a wedding I saw the groom actually object. He just stood up there and started crying, then announced in front of everyone that he had fallen out of love with the bride a while before but didn't know how to break it off. It was extremely uncomfortable, and they both stepped out. Suddenly, they came back in and got married—and months later, we found out the awful truth.
It was because she'd apparently told him she was pregnant right then and there. They're still together, with three kids now. I'm not sure about the husband, but I can confirm that the wife is having an affair. Neither of them are happy, but she has a comfortable life and he doesn't have the spine to leave. Just really, really sad.
10. You Think You've Had a Long Flight?
Just got on a flight in London headed to Vegas. Sitting next to my GF and she wants to show me something she has planned for the trip so gets out her phone. It opens to the Messages and shows a chat with a guy (I know him) saying how much she is gonna miss him and how she doesn't wanna go away with me anyway. The doors close on the plane. That was a really fun 10-11hrs...
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11. Obsessive Father
One summer, when I was about 13, a friend of mine had a girl from her school who invited us over to go swimming in her pool. We go to her place and are shown to her room to change. As I'm changing my friend suddenly whispers "What the heck?" I turn around and see a bunch of used sanitary pads lined up on this girls desk. But then it got even weirder.
She comes to join us in her room and my friend flat out asks her what the pads are all about. She says, very plainly, "They're for my dad so he can check that I'm not pregnant".
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12. It Was Supposed to Be a Surprise!
I found my own severance cheque. Apparently, someone at the payroll company addressed it to me instead of HR. Opened it at my desk and laughed, packed up my stuff and left.
13. Talk About a Power Nap
Back when I was a teenager, we hosted a New Zealander at our house for a couple of weeks. The guy gets to our place after the flight, and about 10 minutes later I’m walking around my house to see where he’s at, since he seems to have disappeared. The door to his room is partially open, so I looked in. Oh God, I wish I could unsee what I saw.
The dude is lying face down on the bed and HUMPING THE EVERLOVING HECK out of a pillow. I backed away slowly.
14. Better Left on the Cutting Room Floor
When I was eight or so, my old babysitter was showing me a video of her time with her boyfriend in Paris. After it blacks out for a few seconds, it then suddenly cuts to her lying on her hotel bed completely undressed, telling her boyfriend to"come get it". She jumped out of her seat, tried to cover my eyes, and told me to never tell anyone.
15. It’s That Time of the Month (for a Divorce)
Had a soldier stationed at Guantanamo Bay who met a local. Fell madly in love. They decided to get married so she could come with him back in the States once his tour was done. She was working on American dishes and was making spaghetti. He comes home from work one day, and she's making it. She puts the meat in, puts the canned sauce in, and then pulls an unlabeled bag out of the freezer and adds it to the sauce.
After she did this, their marriage was over. At this point in the session, she's crying with broken Spanglish. She's trying to explain she didn't know any better. Through the panic he informs me her mother and grandmother told her if she wanted to keep her man, she needed to put her menstrual blood in his food. It was so hard to keep my composure. I was trying to hard not to gag.
They both described they were madly in love, but he couldn't let it go. They ended up getting a divorce. Having done this for 14 years, I have found it 100% accurate that truth is stranger than fiction.
16. When Toys Aren’t for Kids
We were talking about the difference between men and women in my class, men have this kind of anatomy down there and women don't, blah blah blah. This one boy goes, “My mom has a pee-pee too". Uhh. We are going “Oh no sweetie she doesn't,” but he insists, and it starts becoming uncomfortable. After a while he says, “My mom HAS a pee-pee, only it is not attached to her body, she keeps it in the drawer by the bed".
17. Leave the Swords in the Game
I met a girl I really liked online on World of Warcraft, but she lived in another country. After a couple of vacations there, it turned into a relationship. Made the decision to move and start a new life there with her. After living there for four months, I came to a disturbing realization. She was crazy as heck. Huge mood swings paired with a lot of aggression.
One night, she knifed me in the side while I was asleep. Needless to say, after getting out of the hospital I took the first plane back home. She's still in a psychiatric hospital.
18. Burn After Spending
Leaving work late one evening, I saw my HR director and CFO in a dark office shredding papers—no, that's not a euphemism. I didn't say anything but quietly walked on down the hall. Two weeks later, we were raided by the SEC and several people were charged with cooking the books. It all made so much more sense then.
19. Something Doesn’t Match in This Match…
My brother dumped his fiancée a month before the wedding because when she gave birth, the baby that was born was black, and neither he nor his fiancée is. Unsurprisingly, a paternity test proved it wasn't his.
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20. A Flesh Wound
Heard this from an emergency doctor friend of mine a while ago. Female patient comes in complaining of severe abdominal pain, nurses take vitals, ask questions, etc. Eventually, my friend sees her and, after a few questions, he has her lift her shirt. What he saw almost made him throw up. Turns out, the "severe abdominal pain" on the chart was in fact due to a gash so severe that part of her intestines were sticking out of her.
No one had noticed and she hadn't thought to mention that her organs had started leaking out. In fact, she seemed just as surprised as he was.
21. A Smack in the Face
I just found out recently that my grandma, who I have taken care of for the last seven years doesn't want me to have a single dime of the $100,000 life insurance policy that she has—even though she would have been on the streets without me. Feels great.
22. Ask for a Doctor’s Note Next Time
I was with this girl for just shy of two years. Holidays, festivals, discussions of marriage, the lot. Claimed she lived at home with her mom, who had terminal cancer, and as a result, her mom didn't want to bring anyone new into her life, as the pain of knowing she would soon leave them was too much. Therefore, we spent all our time at mine, and I never met her family or mum.
Received a message from a guy one night asking how I knew her. This one text ended up changing my life. I explained the whole story. Turns out her mom was fine, and the girl had been engaged to this guy and living with him the entire time...they were due to get married in two weeks. It still blows my mind that she managed to play us both so well the entire time.
23. Trim the Details
I'm a teacher. I was reading a book to a kid when he stops me to tell me that, "Mommy doesn't like hair on her [crotch] so she cuts it". We didn't finish the book.
24. Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew my ex wife was cheating but didn’t tell her that I knew. Took her out for a dinner date and I casually asked questions about who she had been spending time with while I was at sea, she barely worked, so she had to spend her time doing something. When her lies started flowing, I knew exactly what I had to do.
She failed to mention the guy that had been staying at my house for nearly two months, the guy she had to call the authorities on just to get to leave because I was coming home in two days...soooo I slid her a copy of the report that was filed for the incident and watched as she crumbled over the fact she had been caught, and I didn’t have to say a word.
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25. Missed Encounters
At a wedding of a college friend of my husband’s, we learned that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade. We learned this from the women at our table at the reception. We introduced ourselves while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. They were horrified that we were there—and extremely worried.
My husband had NO idea that she had feelings for him. She bee-lined right for our table after the "introducing Mr & Mrs" thing—ignoring her family and leaving her husband standing alone. She clung to my husband and sobbed—lifting her head to glare at me. She had to be pulled off of him.
She repaired herself, then followed us as we tried to leave quietly—her parting shot was to stare at my chest and say, "Well I guess I know what I was missing all along!" Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed—he was completely clueless and would never have gone to the wedding if he'd know she was obsessed with him. It was bizarre.
26. That’s Between You and WebMD
Years ago, a colleague had an old smartphone that he brought in to give to another coworker as theirs broke. The phone was sitting on the new owner’s desk, but she hadn't yet tried it out, as it was still charging after months of not being used. We were talking about how cool it was with the coworker—smartphones were not widespread yet—and I picked it up to see how it felt in my hand.
I pressed a button and the first thing that I saw was a Google search for "lump on anus". I quickly put the phone back down. This must have been the last thing he searched for when he last used it a long time ago, and forgot about it.
27. A Tale of Two Babies
Lying in bed post-intimacy, I tell my boyfriend that I’d found out that day I was pregnant. It did not go as I expected. He kind of laughs, then says nothing else. I ask what was so funny and he says, “Kerry also told me today she is pregnant". He was 21 and training to be a chef; Kerry was 18 and just starting training to be a chef.
I asked why that was funny. His answer made my blood run cold. He says it’s because it’s his. I got up, got dressed and went home. Spent days crying on my mom's shoulder. Two months later, they got married, since her parents had insisted. He and I had been together just over a year, and he had been seeing her for a month on the side.
My daughter is the absolute love of my life, but he decided to cut all parental ties with her before she was born. Kerry and her parents wanted it that way. My mom was an absolute rock for me those first few years.
28. Just Say “No,” Dad
One time in fourth grade, a couple of officers come into my classroom (I'm a teacher) to teach the kids about substances as part of the D.A.R.E. program. For some reason, they brought in a bunch of paraphernalia to show kids what kind of things to avoid. An officer held up a piece and goes, "This here is a crack pipe".
Then one of the kids shouted out, "Hey, my dad has one of those!" Thinking he was making a mistake, one of the students said, "Ryan, do you want your dad to get in trouble!?" Ryan replied: "...kinda".
29. Still Need You
This incident gave me years of depression. I met my best friend online through Minecraft, never made friends in this, and I just wanted to play with someone, so I complimented this girl’s skin. We started talking. She was American, I’m Polish and my English sucked. We moved to Skype and at first, I mostly typed, but later on she started teaching me English somehow by talking with me.
She was one year older. We knew each other for almost a year, and I was staying up all night just to talk to her and her friends who she introduced to me. She was also depressed, so we talked with each other and she was the first person who truly listened to me. We had plans of visiting each other. Then, our mutual friend told me the horrific truth.
She had passed on by taking her own life. Four years have passed by and now, at least, I can talk about it and not cry. I still miss her very much though.
30. In It for the U-Haul
When I was 21, I came home from work and everything was gone. There was only a milk crate, the tiny tv, a trash can, and the box spring to the mattress left. I started to freak out that someone had taken everything, including my girlfriend at the time, and I called the authorities. I was pretty panicked, but the 9-1-1 operator was able to calm me down and inform me of the reality: My girlfriend had left me.
31. Smile, You’re on Candid Camera
My brother got a new security camera and he was having trouble sleeping. He lives in an apartment building with a couple other people in the hallway. He kept waking up to a person trying to open his door in the middle of the night. He eventually found out it was a neighbor who got inebriated a lot and was trying to get into the wrong apartment.
The neighbor eventually went away. A couple weeks later he came home and there were a bunch of officers outside of his apartment. They asked for his security footage, and the whole sordid story unraveled. Turns out that his other neighbor, who had also gotten harassed by this guy in the middle of the night, had slain the guy who kept knocking on my brother’s door.
My brother caught it all on his security camera. He turned it over to the authorities, and the neighbor got detained and went to court.
32. No Trading in for an Older Model
After three years, my girlfriend decided to tell me that the only reason she was with me was that she loved my older brother and wanted to come over to see him. My brother had no idea and was just as mad as I was.
33. Doctor’s Orders
This was the biggest, most horrible "News to me" thing that ever happened to me. Back in college, I had a girlfriend break up with me through my therapist. Yep. Came to therapy and was suddenly told by the therapist my girlfriend didn't want to see me anymore. I told the therapist how unprofessional this was, and then broke up with my therapist, too.
34. The Best Secrets Go Belly-Up
I had to have been pretty little. Five years old tops, probably younger. My dad was at work and my mom was in the kitchen or something. I was supposed to be playing in my room. And I was for a while, but then I decided I would sneak into my parents’ room and jump on their bed. Because jumping on beds is fun and they would never know. I quickly discovered this was a horrible idea.
So, I successfully snuck in there, climbed on the bed, was about to jump and have a grand time until I see what’s on their dresser, straight across from me: my goldfish bowl with my clearly lifeless goldfish floating in it. Cue screaming and crying. The goldfish bowl was normally in the living room, I’m not sure why I didn’t notice it was missing that day.
I wasn’t in the living room much, probably by design. Apparently, when my parents woke up that morning, the goldfish was dead. Knowing I’d be upset, they decided to wait to tell me until my dad was home from work. But they couldn’t leave the lifeless goldfish where I could see it. They also couldn’t get rid of it because I would probably want to bury it.
So, they put it somewhere I wouldn’t see it. Unless I snuck in their room to jump on the bed. I’d say that plan failed.
35. Welcome to the Neighborhood
My wife and I bought a new house about eight months ago and installed security cameras recently. I looked over footage to see if it was working properly—and didn't want to believe what I found. At around 3 AM, there was a random guy that was briskly walking in and out of my driveway, and he kept shifting around.
He looked as if he needed to find something. He goes over to one of the bushes on the side—it represents the barrier line—and takes a dump. A legit dump. I had to replay it a couple times to make sure I was seeing this correctly. Then I thought, "Is that thing still there?" Turns out it was still in the shrub. Guess it was his housewarming gift.
36. Caught Red-Handed
My then-boyfriend had let me use his iPad to watch a movie on Netflix. He had his messenger account linked to both his tablet and his phone, and messages kept popping up on it while I was watching without him realizing I could see. I got to watch in real time as he got his best friend's wife to agree to sleep with him over the coming holiday weekend; with the promise that he'd get rid of me for that weekend so they could get intimate in our bed.
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37. The Remains of the Day
I swear this story is 100% true. So, in ninth grade English class, our teacher assigned us to group work for the day so she could chill out and grade papers. She had a “teaching assistant” who was another student at our high school. We will call him "Tim". He was either a junior or senior at this time? So we're all working (see: messing around) at our tables, and Tim comes over and starts talking with me.
So, we’re on his phone looking at some fire 2013 memes, when a kid walks up and asks Tim a question about whatever dumb worksheet we were assigned. For whatever reason, Tim goes to help this student and leaves his phone with me. So of course, ninth grade me goes straight to his picture folder to see what’s up. So, what do I find? Intimate photos? Embarrassing pictures from last year’s Christmas party?
No…Tim's phone was harboring much darker secrets. Inside an album with an all-too appropriate name were over 300 pictures of various poops in toilets. Thick poops, small poops, chunky poops, diarrhea... it was all there. I just kept scrolling down and down and it was just all poop. I was honestly just in shock, and as soon as Tim came back I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t see.
I had to know. "Dude. Why do you have so many pictures of poops on your phone???" "Oh, I, uhh, those are all mine...I send them to my friends as a joke sometimes. Nobody’s ever seen that before". And that was it about that. Long story short, I found the poop folder.
38. Opened After the Fact
My uncle runs a business hooking up internet in hotels. He travels all over the West Coast for it. Recently, he asked my aunt to have an open relationship. Turns out most of his "business trips" were actually trips to go meet with his business partner, with whom he has been having an affair for the last year or two. Oh, but it gets worse.
This business partner has even had two pregnancies with my uncle. Both were miscarriages, but both were also INTENTIONAL. My aunt and uncle have been married for 12 years and have a five-year-old son. My aunt also has terminal cancer. He's been introducing their son to his mistress as their son's new Mommy without my aunt's knowledge.
Needless to say, that open relationship isn't happening. They're getting divorced.
39. Worth Making the Distance to Keep the Distance
My girlfriend traveled five hours by train to see me...only to get my house and say that she doesn't love me and that she wants to break up. She leaves, I cry for about 15 minutes then call my best friend and ask if he can come over with some beers so I'm not home alone all weekend. Then the truth comes out. I hear her in the background asking him something.
Yup, she traveled five hours to break up with me so she could screw my best friend without feeling guilty about it (I no longer talk to him).
40. Who Are You Gonna Believe, Me or Your Own Eyes?
Go to the gym, no headphones! That’s cool, house is five minutes away. Pull up in front of my house and see work buddy’s car out front. Walk in house through open garage. Son coloring at kitchen table. Ask him “Hey bud, where’s your mom?” He points at the stairs. Walk to stairs to hear moans and movement. Up to this point I had suspected the worst but never had proof.
Knew I had to go look and catch her or she would say I was overreacting and tell me it wasn’t what I thought. Walk upstairs and hear them in the spare bedroom. Walk in the room and say “well this is awkward". They freak out and try to grab clothes and tell me nothing is happening. I walk out to my car and have ex-buddy chase me out and tell me to hit him.
I go to my command the next day. Report him and have the command force him to call his wife that day and let her know. I am now divorced and much happier!
41. So Much for the Language of Love
This is one of the cruelest and most embarrassing stories I have ever heard. My friend seemed to have it all: a nice house, a good job he loved, and a beautiful French wife. But then one day he discovered that his wife absolutely refused to speak English when her family was over. Instead, they would just speak in French the entire time while he sat by, not understanding a word. He started to get suspicious, so he recorded their conversation and got it translated—that tape was absolutely heartbreaking.
She got bored of being married to him, and her family basically talked smack about him while he was there.
42. Don't Let Sleeping Babes Lie
I worked daycare and was told to never accept babies sleeping in car seats or sleeping children at all. So if Mom or Dad brought a kid asleep, I immediately woke them up and pulled them out of their car seat. This made so many parents displeased with me, but it's policy. I used to think it was to help the kid be on a schedule, but one day I discovered the disturbing truth.
That day, a grandma brought a baby asleep and he was not waking up at all. Just would raise his head, whimper, and go back to sleep. Immediately my boss called 9-1-1 and grandma was trying to downplay "he had a rough night, he's just tired, etc". I knew this baby, he wouldn't sleep if he thought he was going to miss out, we had music playing and kids loudly singing and dancing.
In the chaos, grandma slipped out and at some point, someone called the parents. Turns out Granny had a history of giving kids stuff to knock them out when she babysat, but this time she did it to a six-month-old and that's why he wouldn't wake up. I think they pumped the kid's stomach and he had a stay at the hospital. Actions were taken and the family moved away.
To clarify, the policy was put in place because my boss knew people have been known to do this. They'd break the kid's arm, dose them, dump them with the sitter who lets the baby asleep all morning then because the kid was with the sitter all day, it's easy to blame them for the baby's injury. Or worse, the baby passed on and they do this to blame the sitter.
So yea, to this day if I'm babysitting, I don't accept sleeping children. I flat out refuse to watch kids at their home while they're sleeping for the same reason. I've pretty much stopped doing any child care because as much as I love kids, watching parents make bad decisions on purpose when they know better, was ruining my soul.
43. High Time He Explained Himself
Ages ago I arranged a meeting with the local dealer of...substances...through an acquaintance. Surprise surprise, it was my dad. Needless to say, major questions were asked on both sides. My god, the look on our faces must've been priceless!
44. Age Is Just a Number
Two students who happened to have been fraternal twins arrived at our school when they were both 15 years old. One looked older than the other, but that just happens sometimes. Then one day, a rumor started going around that they were not actually twins, but just ordinary sisters. I tell the Behavior Support workers, who look into it. They never expected what they found.
As it turns out, one of the sisters was actually 22 years old. The parents had lied about her age to get her into the school, which they had needed to do in order to be allowed to stay in the country. Whoops!
45. Did He Get an A+?
I caught my boyfriend of two years cheating on me. He had asked me to proofread his paper on his Mac and the text messenger popped up in the right hand. He was sitting in his bed texting some girl "goodnight, I love you" while sitting right next to me in his bed. I deleted his entire paper, wrote "Who's Marissa?" saved it and told him it looks great and left.
She was his girlfriend of eight years who lived next to his parents two hours away.
46. Sister, Sister
My dad was an only child whose own father went away to fight when he was 3 and didn't return ‘till he was 9. My dad was a painfully lonely child, neglected by his mom and raised by his grandfather. When he married my mom he suddenly had five brothers-in-law, two parents-in-law who cared about him, and dozens of aunts/uncles/cousins by marriage.
He absolutely reveled in being accepted into my mom's big family, but he always regretted never having a brother or sister. Then one day I was talking to my dad's father—I think we were actually just talking about the weather when my grandpa looked away from me and started to tremble a bit. I asked him if he was okay and he very quietly said "your dad has a sister in France".
Then he got up and walked away. We never spoke about it after, and to this day my dad (80 years old now) has no idea that he has a sister.
47. Over the Hill
My ex-wife and I went up to Big Bear to go snowboarding and spend some time together. We were having issues and I thought to be fun to get away and do something fun together. Let's just say it did not go well. She said she grew up snowboarding, but she never made it down a hill and had a terrible time.
So we went back to the cabin and she was pretty much just on her phone, not talking to me. We make it back and she says she needs to just shower and be alone for a bit. She goes off and I just hang in the den. She left her phone in her purse and it just kept buzzing, so I checked it out because what if someone was trying to reach us or something? I wish I could unsee what I saw.
I open it up to read a full conversation between her and this guy. It wasn't good. I read how that day’s texts started and they started really early in the morning. "Hope you're doing ok up there". "We'll see, doubt it. He's trying too hard. He should just know it really doesn't matter. Wish I was up here with you instead".
Just the worst stuff. And that was before I even woke up. I was pretty devastated and really didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't want to fight because I realized she wasn't worth fighting for. Grabbed my bag and drove back to San Diego. I took her phone with me, so I could text him and tell him "We're coming home early, let's meet".
I ended up inviting him to a coffee shop and waited for him to show up. When he walked through the door, he saw me immediately and kind of stopped. I waved him over and wasn't too far from the door, so I told him we need to talk. He comes over and already front loads with the "It's not what you think," blah blah blah speech.
I told him that if he wants her, he can take his sorry butt to Big Bear and go get her. Because I was leaving and we're through. See you when we sign the papers. And I left. Second worst day of my life but I'm glad it happened. Met my lady three years later and we've been together for four years, now engaged. Things are much better now.
48. How Not to Deal With Family Problems
I worked at the front desk of one of the Disneyland Resort Hotels. One day, a lady, followed by another lady with like an 11 year old kid, walks up and asks if there is a place that people leave messages for their family if they are separated. I said, "not really" and inquired more into the situation. What I heard chilled me to the bone.
Apparently the first lady was helping the other lady, who didn't speak good English, and her kid. The lady and her kid were in line for Indiana Jones when the father said he was going to the restroom, but never returned. They later went to the car, and the car was gone. They were hoping he left a message for them somewhere.
While talking, me and the lady realized he left them, probably for good. The father was probably thinking that at least he left them at Disneyland. I spoke to my manager later about it, and apparently this happens every so often, a father decides to leave his family, and thinks if it's at Disneyland it softens the hit. Ruins Disneyland for the family if you ask me.
49. Thin Wall, Huge Separation
My fiancée at the time—three months from the wedding—used to use my laptop all the time for social media and stuff while she was watching TV. She comes to me one night and says she thinks stuff isn't working out and that we should talk about whether we should really continue. I'd not felt any problems that I didn't just dismiss as wedding planning/financial stress.
So I explained that and she said she wanted to sleep in the spare room that night to think things through, to which I agreed. I wasn't very happy with it at all, so I decided to go get my device and watch some YouTube before bed. She had her Facebook left open on my user account—completely normal. Then I see a notification from her ex-colleague.
She was live-texting him sensual stuff with just a thin wall between us. I instantly knew I'd never forgive that, got dressed, quietly snuck away into my car and drove to my mum’s. She didn't even realize I knew for days. Didn't speak to her at all after that. All communication was through her own parents, who were devastated.
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50. A Minor Problem
I had this teacher in high school. He was funny, intelligent, and down to earth. He liked to tell us stories about growing up on a farm out in the sticks. I was a pretty good student and he always went out of his way to encourage me, even above and beyond the call of duty. He wrote me some recommendations that got me some great opportunities.
I wanted to call him up earlier this year to ask him for some advice on becoming a teacher. The first thing I saw when I Googled his name was a news headline. The authorities had recently busted him for doing indecent stuff online with minors. I was floored. I still get chills thinking that it could have happened to me.
51. Double Date
Fellow grad student has two young kids; one that is struggling to walk and communicate and is in the process of being diagnosed. She is pulling 10 to 16-hour days (between interning and classes) plus being a mom and wife. She gets a call from a friend that expresses how excited she is to see her at the husband’s work party. What?!!
She didn't RSVP, and her husband had said he would pop over to it for less than an hour then come home to be with her for a quiet dinner. Turns out he was bringing a date that wasn't her. They had been seeing each other for about six months and even had taken a trip together under the pretence of a business trip.
Any time he had been late or gone we assume he was with her. Friend did her a solid and took a couple pictures for the divorce lawyer.
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52. Dear Diary
I read my mom's diary from 2002 when I was 9 years old. Thanks to that, I found out that she got an abortion when she was a teen. I didn't understand what it meant at the time, but now I do. Thing is, I made it so much worse. Right now, I'm feeling all kinds of guilty for all the times I asked her for a sibling.
53. Spilling the Beans
I just found out that my mom and dad love my nephew who lives with us more than they love me. How do I know that, you ask? I overheard them literally say it while talking in bed one night.
54. Watch out Where You Put a Ring on It
High school. I'm dating a guy who is out of high school. I worked at a Dairy Queen. A girl from my school comes through the drive-thru. As I'm handing her the order, I see that the very distinct ring I gave my boyfriend is on her finger. I have to admit: it took me a minute because I was confused about how she could have this ring.
I finally snapped to and asked her, "Did Bob give you that ring?" Her response told me everything I needed to know. She said yes, and how did I know? "Because I gave it to him. He's my boyfriend". She immediately took it off, gave it to me and left. A few minutes later my "boyfriend" comes flying in the door and starts yelling at me for "getting him in trouble".
Yeah, I know how to pick 'em. As he continues to yell at me, I'm just staring at him with all the anger that's in me. A friend of his (Mike) happened to be sitting in the dining room and Mike comes up the counter and whispers something to Bob. They both go outside. Bob comes back in and sheepishly says, "Mike said if I didn't apologize to you, he'd beat my butt".
I have to admit having Bob's friend, Mike, who I barely knew, stand up for me was one of the best things that ever happened to me. And yes, Mike and I started dating. He was a really nice guy.
55. Mistress and Master of Disguise
I had a child tell me that his mom and dad both like to play dress up at home. The description of their "costumes" made it quite clear that this was private time dress up.
56. Inexperience Isn’t a Fault
I was dating this girl, and she told me she had to break up because she was going to the clinker. Three days later I got a call from a friend of hers, and she what she told me nearly broke me. The girl confessed, "No, she broke up with you because you're a virgin". Years later, my ex has like three kids and is single again. Karma is like that.
57. Waiting for the Last Two PowerPoints
A coworker told me this happened several months before I started at the company. The big boss man comes back from a site visit/weekend at his cabin not too far from the site. He has someone burn all the photos from his camera to a CD and makes a couple of copies. One copy is with my coworker and another guy looking at photos from the site.
Suddenly, the photos of the site trip end and there are dirty photos of big boss man’s wife at their cabin on the disc. But wait, there's a twist. Another copy of the same set of photos was currently in the boardroom PC, where big boss man is showing photos to the client. My coworker doesn't know what to do, tells our lead administrative assistant.
She confidently marches into the boardroom and ejects the disc interrupting the meeting. The big boss man asks, "What are you doing?" She simply says, "There's a problem with the disc," and leaves. Everyone is praising the AA with bigger balls than anyone else. Yes, she's amazing, and no she never got in trouble.
She was the second employee that was hired when the big boss man started the company two decades ago. This event happened almost nine years ago now and she's still an indispensable employee. My coworker who unexpectedly saw the pics never heard what happened after that. Nobody talked about it and everyone just carried on like it never happened.
58. Side Chicks
When I was a poor college student my wealthy cousin and his wife went on vacation and offered to let me house sit to give me a break from my three slovenly roommates. They live a few towns over in a very nice house with a huge front lawn and a fancy, tall iron fence with double gates. The fence and gates are about 11 feet high. You have to have a remote to open the gates.
That first night I slept so well! I breakfasted like a king and then drove to school. I got back around five, made a supper fit for a king, and settled down to write an Econ paper. My cousin has a warning system for when someone driving turns off the road and comes up to the gate. There's a chiming sound and you can look at screens in a couple of different rooms to see who it is so that you can buzz them in.
I was deep into my paper when I heard the chime. I was confused at first and check my phone before I realized what it was. I looked from the sofa and could see a movement on the security screen. I stood up and got closer and had a clear view of two women getting out of a white car. One tried to squeeze between two bars of the gate—impossible—and then the other woman tried to boost her over the top of the gate—hilarious.
The top one fell and even from the house I could hear swearing. I was about to press the intercom button and ask what the eff was their problem but I was chuckling at their antics and just watched silently. They peered at the house intently from between the bars for a while. The skinnier one actually stripped down to her bra and panties and tried to squeeze through the bars again.
No dice. Butt and bosoms were not allowing that to happen. More swearing. Then, as the skinny one got dressed again, the bigger one went back to her trunk and got out a tire iron. As soon as she started with the hinges of the gate I was calling 9-1-1. The authorities took too long and the women left. I showed the officers the video but they couldn't get a license plate number.
When my cousin and his wife returned the next week I told them what happened and we watched the tape. He said that he had no idea who the women were but his wife looked peeved. I packed up, thanked them for my "vacation" and left. She divorced him that summer.
59. If at First, You Don’t Succeed...
I found out that my mom tried to have Child Protective Services take my daughter away from me when she was born, claiming that I had used illicit substances while I was pregnant. I was actually nine years clean at the time. She tried again when I was diagnosed with cancer. You would be amazed to see what doctors actually put in your medical records…
60. Returning the Favor
My parents started making dinner only for me and saying they already ate. Me being a dumb kid of 16, I just believed it. Eventually I learned the heartbreaking truth. They hadn't eaten. They were prioritizing feeding me, and we were hurting real bad financially. I went into town and got a job at Carl's Jr. First paycheck I bought groceries as a surprise.
Sure enough, they are dinner with me that night. My mom later on told me her dad had done the same thing when money was tight. My family is incredibly diehard loyal to their kids.
61. Set Up to Fail
My ex pretended to be upset with me because of something I said, made it escalate into a fight, and then broke all contact with me. A few weeks later, one of her friends told me the truth. She was seeing someone else and didn't know how to break it to me, so instead, she just framed it as if I messed up so that she had a reason to break contact with me.
62. Gateway Cuddles
I was teaching first grade. One of the little girls in my class—who was absolutely sweet and adorable—got picked up by her dad and his girlfriend. The two adults were doing some serious making out outside (butt grabbing included) in full view of my class. I went up to them and asked them politely to knock it off. The daughter then says out loud, "But Miss A, at least they aren't [undressed] this time!"
63. A Solider Always Looks out for Their Own
There was a guy in my unit when I first showed up as a brand new private. His nickname was Hoffinator. We never really talked too much, just worked together, but he taught me a lot in regards to being a good soldier and how to do our job efficiently. He got out around five months after I got to the unit. I got out of the army in October 2015.
I knew he had moved to my area of Florida, so I decided to shoot him a message and see what's up once I remembered that. He called me a few days later and I could barely hear anything he was saying because of wind. He told me he was on his apartment balcony. I wasn't in the middle of anything when he called, so I just sat down and started talking to him we talked for over an hour.
I invited him to come drink with a few buddies of mine that upcoming weekend and he accepted. That was in February 2016. Just recently, he gave me a wrenching confession. He said that when he called me that night, he was standing on an I95 overpass, planning on jumping into traffic to end his life. He said he called a bunch of guys from our unit and that I was the only one who picked up.
He did say that two other guys called him back later, though. He's an EMT/paramedic now, is dating a wonderful girl, and says he's never been so happy before in his life. I just wanted to catch up with the guy who taught me a lot of stuff when I was a dumb private. I didn't know I was talking him off the edge, but I'm so incredibly happy he called me that night.
Please, if you're dealing with bad stuff in your head or life seems to just be taking a fat, steaming dump on you: Talk to someone. Anyone at all. Heck, message me and I'll talk to you.
64. Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater
My opinion of my good friend of nearly 15 years changed instantly the moment he told me that he was cheating on his wife. He explained that he absolutely "loves his wife to bits" but that she's "boring" now that she only has time for her full-time job, being a mom to their three kids, and honestly doing a lot to keep his life running.
He was totally shocked when I said that it was inexcusable and that he needed to stop immediately. He thought it was just fun and harmless, even knowing full well that his wife would be utterly devastated if she ever found out.
65. Don’t Drop off the Face of the Earth
I knew a guy in my Master’s program who was overworked to the point of exhaustion. He had to keep a job as well to pay for all his bills and student loans, on top of taking five high-level classes per quarter. We had an e-mail chat group with me, him, and like five others. One day, we all got an email from him—it unsettled me.
In it, he said he was sorry he wasn't going to be able to help us finish our project and that he was dropping out of school and we wouldn't see him again. All of us really liked the guy and we told him as such. We also told him things he probably didn't hear too much, like "you are a vital part of our group" and that we relied on him for not only his work but his general input as well.
A few hours later, he e-mailed us back saying he thought it over and was not going to drop out, and he was sorry for clogging our e-mail feed with his stuff. A year or so later, his girlfriend told us the whole dark story about that day. Not only was he simply thinking about dropping out of school at the time of the e-mail, but actually walked to a bridge to end his life that day.
He's a high-level manager at Amazon now with a wife and two kids. It's fun to check up on him from time to time and see how happy he now is. I don't know if us just showing him gratitude that day helped him step away from the edge, but I’m sure it helped at least a bit. It makes you realize that people just don't tell other people how grateful they are for them enough.
66. Hammy Downs
I remember being probably six or seven years old when my brother told me we were poor. I didn't believe him. We had a TV, I had toys, we had an apartment and a car so I thought we were doing great. My brother explained to me that the clothes I was wearing and the toys I played with used to be owned by other kids and my mom bought them after the other kids were done them.
67. CSI: Cheating Scene Investigation
My story is like something out of Black Mirror. Girlfriend of six years went out of town with a couple of her girlfriends for a weekend. I decided to check her Facebook profile to see if she posted any new pics or whatever and noticed that this one guy liked almost every status she posted. He never commented. I was just curious about who he was because she never mentioned him.
His profile was mostly private, but he had a couple pictures and statuses that I could view. Just figured it was a classmate or something (she's in law school) until I scrolled upon a picture that stood out: It was a pic of his parked car that a hit and run driver smacked into overnight while street parked. I almost kept scrolling when something hit me.
The background of picture gave me a weird feeling. His car was parked on the street that I recognized because of the brick roads that we have downtown. Upon closer inspection, the reason I recognized it was because it was right outside my girlfriend's house. When she got back I talked to her about it and confronted her.
Of course, she at first came up with a story about how some friends from school crashed at her place because she lives near downtown and they couldn't drive. I'm not an idiot though because I know she'd tell me if somebody hit her friend's car outside her house. Eventually she broke down and confessed she'd been cheating for a year. It turned my life inside out.
We had plans to move in a week after I found out and I was going to propose on our anniversary a few weeks after that.
68. Biding His Time
I live in an apartment unit right next door to an office. They installed a new security camera for their door—which covers a part of mine as well—shortly after I moved in. The office manager knocked on my door a few days after the installation and asked me to come look at something. She pulled up footage of the night before that showed a guy pacing in front of my door for six hours!
He even left for a couple minutes and came back with something he tried to stick in my doorframe a few times. I was asleep the whole time and heard nothing. Turned out to be a recent ex of a friend of mine. I'd only met him once. Still have no idea how he knew where I lived unless he followed her to my place once as we live close by each other.
Authorities called, reports filed, and they eventually found him. He had been on a pretty bad bend since their breakup from what I heard and has no recollection of being there.
69. Living in an Accelerated Timeline
I had been together with this girl for three or four weeks. It was still new, but I was excited. One day, I was just coming home from work when I saw her walking with another dude. I confronted her in front of him and the conversation went something like this: Me: "Hey (her name), who's this?" Her: "Oh, hey, this is (his name), my boyfriend".
Me: "Uhmm haven't we been in a relationship for like a month now?" Her: "Ugh I guess, but we clearly broke up yesterday evening". Me: *visible confusion* We didn't break up that evening; we just had a minor squabble about how we should spend more time together, since was working 12-hour shifts that week.
We even kissed when I was leaving her place, and she told me "I love you". I was so astounded I couldn't even be mad.
70. The Full Monty
I was 17. He was my first everything, pretty much. Eight months into the relationship, lying in my bed, he says, "I don't love you. I never did. I just wanted to have fun". I'm almost 30, and I'm over it, but I still wonder what the heck made him do that.
71. Were His Pockets Full?
My neighbor told me years ago that when she checked the footage from her security cams outside her front house she found a guy coming into her yard, picking her flowers and sticking them down the front of his underwear. He was never seen again. Just once.
72. Facebook Has Sent Your Sidepiece Request
At a birthday party on Saturday night, a guy there who I’ve never met before starts chatting to me, seems pretty cool and fun, and spends the entire night with me as basically my shadow. He offers to walk me home (I declined), and then he kisses me before I leave. Next morning, I have a friend request from him on Facebook where it clearly displays his wife. Poor woman. People really can be outrageous jerks.
73. You’ve Got a Friend in Me
Just tonight, my "friend" who I haven't seen in a long time invited me to get drinks with her after work, then canceled because she was too tired. A few minutes ago, I found photos of her and some mutual friends of ours out for drinks posted on someone else’s social media. So, apparently, the real reason I was uninvited was that she found what she considered a better option.
She didn't realize I'd see the pictures. And I didn’t realize that she felt this way about me…
74. Blaming the Victim
My dad took his own life almost 20 years ago. At the time, my mum told me that it was because he had been having gay affairs with people and he couldn't handle that "sinful" lifestyle anymore. It turns out she cheated on him, and that was what had actually sent him over the edge. I only know this because I was finally able to read a copy of his note last year.
75. Mr. Universe’s Small World
I worked with this guy once who was known for his stories. No matter how loose the connection was, he'd find a way to turn anything into a personal anecdote of a thing he'd seen or done before. All of them were interesting the first time. He'd lived an interesting life—grown up in America, moved to Australia in his early 20s, worked in a lot of really cool places over the years,
Still, it wasn't long before he started repeating the same stories over and over again. I worked with him for just over three years, so it got pretty ridiculous. We knew how he'd met his wife, all the obscure things he owned, his pets, his kids—we knew every detail of his life. It became a bit of an in-joke within the office about how the guy never shut up.
Then one day, he didn't come in. He'd passed on of a heart attack. The whole office was at a loss, especially our little department which had about eight people in it, including him. When it came to his funeral, our little group took the afternoon off and attended. And that's how we found out the awful truth. None of his stories were true.
He'd grown up locally, his family wasn't at all who we thought they were, none of his old jobs had happened...Everything we'd known about him had just been made up. The most interesting thing for me was that at one point, our boss needed someone to head to China to double check something in person at one of our company's factories.
When the usual choices couldn't do it, he was picked. It seemed like a no-brainer, since he was regularly going to and from America to visit family and had traveled a lot on his other jobs. We now think that may have been his first time overseas.
76. Something Blue
I was just at a quickly put together wedding last weekend. The niece was passing out bubbles. She'd say, "Instead of throwing things at the bride, we're going to blow bubbles at her". A friend commented that it wouldn't be very nice to throw the bubbles at the bride, it might give her bruises. The niece replied, "The groom has already given her bruises".
77. Mother Malfeasance
My ex-wife got fired from two jobs in nine months' time. She finally got a job at Hank's Furniture. After a couple of months, she told me that she had to go for three days a week to work at one of their locations about two hours away. That became five days a week quickly. She told me in this role she didn't get paid until after delivery of the furniture, so it takes some time.
She started staying the night there with her boss, a woman. I felt like it was fishy, so I looked up the woman and she is a real person and is the store manager at this location, so I moved on from that thought. The money was not coming. I had two kids and a full-time job. I had to constantly borrow money from in-laws and my parents to make ends meet and my ex-wife was never around.
Made it very hard at the time. I stupidly a long time before had put her in charge of most of our finances, so I did not see her max out our credit card. Finally, though, when I saw she hadn't been paid after a month of this, I told her she had to quit and come home and find a job here. She was extremely upset with me. She told me she knew she was getting paid tomorrow.
Sure enough, $3,600 went into the account the next day. After a few more weeks, I again told her to come home. This time she unhappily obliged. While at home I want to add that she took my daughter up to that store one Saturday to collect something she'd left behind. She took a picture of her and my then five-year-old at the Hanks store there.
She went back one more time to collect a paycheck in person and say bye to her old boss. She deposited $2,450 or so. Then, randomly, I checked out recent bank expenses and saw a very expensive lunch at a Houlihan’s. Over $50. I decided I was ticked about this, so I called up to the store there, and asked for the woman manager she had been staying with and working for.
I got her on the phone, and I said this: "Hi, this is (name) the husband of (name). Did you have lunch with her on Monday?" The response shocked me. "Who?" At this point my stomach is sick: "(Name), she worked for you and stayed with you for the last few months". "I don't know that person and she never worked for me or stayed with me.".. A huge pit in my stomach developed.
I was distraught and furious. I had to know for sure. I went to the Hank's in my town. She had been fired a couple months ago, and they did not transfer her to the other location. At this point I was in a panic. I went and got a lawyer and settled on divorce. I discovered then the credit card that was maxed out. I then looked closely in to my finances, because I was an idiot and did not sooner.
The two large "paychecks" were traced back to one of those same day loan places. You know, extremely high interest type deals. I served her, and she trashed my house in a fit of rage. She had been going to stay with her ex-boyfriend from high school, for presumably substances and intimate time. She went to extreme lengths to draw out the time she could spend on those bad habits and made me feel like a complete fool.
The good news? She didn't show up for the hearing. I got full custody. After a year of visitation set up at my discretion, she took me to court to get more, scheduled visitation. However, she had not even been consistent about showing up to what I gave her. She didn't show up to that court date either. Cost me a grand. Finally, I got remarried to the love of my life.
After a year, we tried to let her adopt my older two. I had documentation that was 58 slides long of evidence showing she didn't pay child support and never really showed up for visitation. We won, and the judge said all the mean things I've always wanted to say to her to her in that court room. Closure is nice, and my kids aren't suffering from a deadbeat mom never showing up anymore.
78. All That Glitters Isn’t Capital
I found out that a relative who everyone believes to be filthy rich—and always throws extravagant parties, put his kids in expensive private schools, sends his wife shopping and loves fine dining—is broke and close to declaring bankruptcy. He's in deep debt and he hasn't paid his bills in months from what I could see. He owes a loan shark too.
Now, every time I see him post an invite to my mom, I cringe at the thought of him owing more money.
79. The Chain of Command Just Broke
My boss forwarded me an email telling me to do something. I noticed the email chain had his bosses on it, so I read through the chain. Earlier in the conversation, they had asked him to rate all my co-workers and me from best to worst.
80. I’m Taking All of You With Me
When I was in Korea, my wife at the time told me over Skype that we'd drifted apart and she wanted to separate. So, she takes the powers of attorney I had given her, packs up everything out of the house that she wants, regardless of who it belongs to, uses my bank account to pay for the U-Haul and all the moving expenses, sells the house, has one dog put to sleep, takes the other to the SPCA, and disappears.
Eventually, all her lies unraveled. I learn that she'd been planning to leave ever since I came down on orders. Oh, and she was a textbook psychopath and a compulsive liar. By the way, she actually never had (and beat) cancer before I met her. For SEVEN YEARS I kept asking her to see the doctor and make sure she's still cancer-free. I've seen people I love die from cancer and it's horrible.
FOR SEVEN YEARS she'd lied to me about having had cancer and watched while I worried myself sick about it coming back. So glad to be rid of that lunatic.
81. The Elephant in the Room
I was helping my mother-in-law cleaning out her closet. It was all jokes and laughter until I pull out an unopened massive adult toy. We were both paralyzed for a moment before she slowly took it out of my hands and mumbled something about it not being what she thought it would be like, and that she ordered it online.
She then backed out of the room and threw it in a cupboard. We proceeded to clean the rest of the closet.
82. Santa Is Stuffing Someone Else’s Stocking This Year
I once walked into my dad's van while he was hooking up with a woman who was not my mom. My dad had a drinking problem. Mom took me and my brother to go looking for him because he was supposed to be buying Christmas presents. We found his van at a bar. Mom sent me to look inside the van to see if there were presents in there.
I looked into the back and saw my dad's bare bottom as he was plowing some chick. He turned over his shoulder, looked right at me, and said in the evilest voice, "Get out". This was 20+ years ago now and I still get emotional thinking about it. I still remember the entire thing so clearly.
83. Caught Swiping
I was single and on Tinder. One day, I was scrolling through and made a disturbing discovery. I saw my sister's boyfriend on there. I thought, what the heck is this? And then I came up with a plan to get revenge. I made a fake profile to catfish him and talked to him for a bit—it was obviously him, and I got his number.
Showed it to my sister and she broke up with him. Mission accomplished, jerkwad.
84. Brother From Another Mother
The other day I was looking for my old passport when I found a few of my Dad's old visitor's passports. Now, my Dad is older than most, so imagine my surprise when, listed under "children" in the passport, there's the name of a kid born in the 1970s. The best part is that the name isn't on his other passports, so I guess I accidentally found out I have a deceased half-brother.
85. The Hurt You Give Yourself
It was about a year after my mom passed on, so I was about 11 years old, and my sister was 13. She and I had a rocky relationship at the time, but we had our moments. When she was at a band competition on the weekend, I was dropped off with her. The time came when she had to perform so she gave me her phone. I went through it, being the nosey 11-year-old sister that I was.
I was expecting to find some exciting eighth grader gossip or a secret boyfriend, but what I did find was not a laughing matter. I found dozens of self-harm pictures. Bloody sinks and bloody words carved into my sister's skin. At the time, I didn't even know self-harm was a thing. I didn't confront my sister about the photos until years later.
My sister and I are best friends now, and those photos did help me gain the perspective I needed to change our relationship, but they still haunt me.
86. Buy My Silence, No Refunds
When I was 16, I went to this bookstore to get some books and notice this guy and girl shopping. The guy looked really familiar to me and when he turned around, I realized it was my friend's dad and he was definitely not with his wife. He noticed me and I started freaking out since he looked peeved. He tried to pay me off with a few hundred bucks, so I took the money, lied and said I wasn't going to tell anyone, and then told his wife and my friend.
87. Thanks for Sticking Around
At first, I thought I’d found my dad's will. I was on his computer while he was at work and ended up finding a strangely titled word document. At first, it didn't seem like a big deal. It contained a note to each of his kids. It wasn't until I got to the last one, my youngest brother, that I realized it wasn't just a will. The start of that line read something along the lines of "If anything is going to make me change my mind now, it's writing this part".
When I realized what I'd found, I started shaking. I had found my dad's suicide note. I was about 14 or 15 at the time, and I had no idea how to go about talking to him about it. I decided to just keep it to myself. He started buying us gifts and stuff, and I would get really scared and I still just kept it to myself. I remember one day, on the weekend, I woke up in my bed to a loud bang coming from my dad's room.
I laid there in bed for probably half an hour frozen. Once I worked up the strength I went to his room and opened the door. He wasn't in the bedroom. I was so confused until I saw that the bedroom window was open. What had happened is that there was a gust and the wind had slammed the door shut, but my paranoid brain had heard a gunshot.
After that, I was laughing in shock, and I don't have much memory of the day past that. Shortly after this incident, my dad returned most of the gifts he bought us kids and I slowly started to believe that he had changed his mind. I never confronted him about it until last year, about 14 years or so later. I had never fully accepted that he was okay now.
I called him distraught about a separate matter, and he started talking to me about depression. He told me on his own about he had considered taking his life, and went into detail about it, and all I could do was cry and tell him "I know". We talked a lot longer after that and we were finally able to put it all to rest.
88. Brothers Never Known
I always knew that my parents had some kind of "family secret". Various mutterings amended streams of conscious, etc. in my childhood. From the sound of it, I was under the impression that I had an older sibling. I am the oldest sibling of four, so I was fixated on the few little details, but as I grew older, I assumed it was a very morbid kind of imaginary friend delusion I had.
When I was in high school, I was talking to my mother when she slipped, saying something about her early relationship with my dad. I pushed her on it and found out that she had stayed with my dad after they had a child at age 15. She went on to tell me that I’d had not one, but three older siblings, and that were lost in some kind of accident.
My mom broke down. I didn't push for details and never have. That day, I went from being the oldest of four to the middle of seven. Probably my frame of reference for the concept of "trauma". Every obsession, every worry, and character flaw of my teenage self at that time burned into my character like scars.
89. More Than He Bargained for
Private investigator here. One woman I was hired to investigate was married to a guy who made a decent living. He wasn't mega-rich, but he likely made around $250K a year. He started to suspect his wife was cheating on him, so we tailed her for the weekend. It was only one weekend, but we quickly discovered that she was selling herself on Craigslist and Backpage.
We caught over 13 men coming in and out of her motel room that weekend and found her ads online.
90. Snooper’s Regret
Recently, my mom used my husband's phone to make a call—to the man she was having an affair with. The phone had auto record on. And that was how I found out she'd been in that relationship for 17 years, and tried to have kids with him as well. My dad found out about it years ago and almost ended the marriage as a result. But he doesn't know the worst part.
She continued the relationship up until last year, and only recently broke it off because the loser CHEATED on her with someone else. She's also a raging narcissist.
91. Too Much off the Top
Went to an open house in my town. The realtor told us that the couple was getting a divorce. The man had left his wife. She was a bit strange. So, we make our way up to the master bedroom and the only piece of "decor" was a long glass display case like you might use to showcase a model ship or car. It was about two feet long. Inside was something that looked like a ticker-tape rolled up at one end and pulled across the length of the case.
It was a life monitor readout that slowly flat-lined to the end. Across the bottom of the case was displayed a ponytail...with a good-sized section of the scalp still attached to it. Totally morbid. We got the heck out of there. Found out later that the daughter of the couple had been slain by an intoxicated driver. The wife went a little batty and drove her husband away.
92. One Double Life With a Happy Ending
Friend close to me, who worked with me, had always talked about her boyfriend (let's call him Dave). She would talk about her evening plans with him, holidays they went on and so on. Other friends tried to Google him, and search for him on Facebook out of a morbid curiosity to see what he looked like, but never came up with anything.
Then, one Christmas party she took me outside and told me she was engaged! But that wasn't the full story. She was actually engaged to Danielle, a woman, and had spent the last few years covering up the fact she was gay by completely fabricating Dave. He had never existed, and all stories and anecdotes were actually about Danielle.
I remembered being so pleased she was engaged, but just had an overwhelming feeling of sadness for her that she had had to hide her true life at work. I met Danielle later on and she introduced herself as "Dave".
93. Let It Go, Dude
My ex-husband went off the deep end when I left him three years ago, despite the fact that he was cheating on ME every step of the way. Anyway, I moved 1,000 miles away and began to restart my life. One day, about a month after leaving him, I checked my mail and saw that I had a huge, heavy envelope in the box. When I opened it, I was horrified.
It was photos of me doing allllll the activities of my daily life, but the photos were clearly taken from afar, and without my knowledge. Immediately, I contacted my attorney. It turns out, my ex was hoping to catch me with someone else, because he wanted to try to sue me for abandonment. It was awful, and it took me a long time to feel safe and secure in my new home.
94. Bedtime Story
When I was 13 years old, I caught my father in bed with my 15-year-old brother's girlfriend, who was also 15. I haven't seen her since, but I've been blackmailing my father with this info for the past six years.
95. The Bad Doctor
Years ago, I heard rumors that a relative through marriage had lost their license to practice medicine because of some accusations of misconduct. At the time, all I heard were whispers of something amiss but didn't know much about it. Decades later, a friend who became a doctor was able to look up the case since I had mentioned it offhand—I said I heard scant rumors.
It turns out it wasn't just some rumor, it was a full-out, massive scandal. There was severe misconduct of patients, many of whom testified at trial about how he misused his position, including wanting naughty favors in exchange for medication. He vehemently denied the accusations, but his character witness was severely flawed and there were way too many accusations for it to have been a conspiracy.
The details were far beyond what I was expecting. It happened years ago, and he's been barred from practicing, but I still don't even know if I can hide my disgust next time I see him. I don't want to bring up skeletons in the closet to disrupt the familial peace, but I'm actually really angry that none of my family members were honest to me about the situation.
96. Check the Texts
My girlfriend told me she was going to a "girls only" pool party with some of her fellow waitresses from the restaurant she worked at. I had felt something weird going on for a bit and had put a lot of effort into making that night a surprise "date night". I worked that morning, while she worked in the evening.
While she was at work, I cleaned the whole apartment (that we shared), cooked a fancy surf and turf dinner with filet mignon, lobster tails, butter pasta, expensive vino, etc. Also rented a few movies I knew she would like. So when after dinner she suddenly told me she was going to this pool party at around 10 pm (!!!) and I couldn't come I was pretty exasperated and knew something was not right.
Noticed she was putting her phone face down every time she received a text about this party. While she is putting on her sexiest bikini to wear under her clothes on her way over to this party I decide to look at the phone and it's some dude from her work (under the name Angela in her phone), telling her he can't wait to see her, can't stop thinking about the other night, etc.
Scroll down a bit and they even said they loved each other. There's not really a worse feeling in the world when you are in love with someone and they do that to you. She comes back into the room and queue one of the worst nights I've ever had as she blames all of this on me not proposing to her quickly enough.
We were 22, relatively poor, and in college, and I did want very much to marry her. She trashes the apartment, breaks the screen off of my laptop, cuts up a few of my favorite shirts, and breaks MY phone after going through it looking for some sort of justification for her actions and finding none by throwing it at the wall and stomping on it. But hey...it was satisfying knowing that I wasn't going crazy, and I learned some valuable life lessons.
97. Afternoon Delight Meets the Law
Just two days ago, at a community pool, a teenage couple who entered into the pool area went into the hot tub. I stood up to stretch my legs and looked over to, well, them hooking up in the hot tub. It was mid-day!! I cringed pretty hard, but they were about to get their comeuppance. You see, the neighborhood cop suddenly showed up. I laughed so much.
101. Family Friends With Benefits
I have a regular breakfast place that I had been frequenting on the weekends for about a good five or six years. One day I went into work later because of a doctor’s appointment, so I decided to pick up some breakfast at my regular place. I walk in and I take a look around to find a spot to sit at and I see my dad.
He’s sitting in a corner spot with some woman I don’t recognize. He looked shocked and I decided to walk over. He stands up and gives me a kiss/hug and introduces her as a coworker. It was the most awkward introduction of my life. My dad was an AC Repairman and was strictly on the road. No women in his office.
I pretended like I believed him, said hello and sat down on my own. Definitely one of the most awkward moments of my life that will stand out for a long time. More background: My mom and dad haven’t been together since before I was born however, he was married to another woman when this took place.
The waitresses were all my friends and a couple of days later when I went for breakfast, they proceeded to tell me how he met that lady there every week. I never brought it up to him and pretended it never happened. That was about 14 years ago...I still go to that breakfast place and the girls told me after that day he never came back to that restaurant.
In a couple of weeks, it will be one year since he passed. I’m glad I got this opportunity to think and talk about him.
