People Confessed Trulyyyyy Baffling Family Secrets They Just Couldn't Hold In Any Longer
We recently shared a post where people got super duper candid, and revealed some of their family's juiciest secrets.
Folks had a lot of stories to tell, which inspired our BuzzFeed Community to share some of their own experiences.
So, here are some shock, shock, shockinggggg family secrets I'm pretty sure will leave you speechless:
Note: Some submissions include topics of sexual assault and child abuse. Please proceed with caution.
1."I was pissed at my whole family (we're a family of five). It was my turn to make dinner one night. I don't remember the meal I made, but being pissed off with my family, I decided to get back with everyone. I put my boogers in the meal. No one knew, and my mom said I did exceptionally great at cooking. I even ate the meal as well, so as not to make anyone suspect anything was wrong."
—Anonymous
2."When I was young, I always looked up to my older brother (we are kids of WWII parents). My brother served in the Vietnam War, so they were all my heroes. This one time when I was young, I needed a haircut. I was going on an interview for a company that I badly wanted to be a part of. So my oldest brother said he knew someone who could fix me up. I followed him to an apartment complex where I met this beautiful blonde woman who greeted me with a smile and a hug. She was probably one of the most beautiful women from my childhood. My brother entered the kitchen and introduced her to me formally. And, at that moment, I knew my brother was cheating on my sister-in-law."
"Speed it up to just a few days ago. My brother is on his deathbed and is being given his last rights (he's Catholic), and my sister-in-law is there by his bedside. He confesses his infidelity to her, and she did the same thing to him.
Later, as we were leaving, she asked me if I knew my brother had cheated on her. This I will take to my grave — I never said a word."
—Anonymous
3."I lived with my in-laws for a few years in a different province than my own. It started great, and we agreed to split the bills 50/50. But then my partner had to pay for their TV and phone bills, and then I paid for all their groceries and dog food. The final straw was after a meager Christmas between my partner and me. They had spent over $100 on each other, and they demanded that I pay the entire month's rent and all of the other additional payments I was making. I couldn't leave because they kept taking all the money I tried saving up. I put my foot down and refused and cut them off of any financial aid, and with the help of my family, I bought a plane ticket and put a down payment on a house far away from them."
"During the months leading up to me leaving, I poured out their bottles of shampoo, laundry soap, and toothpaste. I even started to throw out my mother-in-law's makeup discretely so they would think that they were using too much of it all, and have to pay for more stuff.
It was a petty revenge plan of making them spend close to what I felt like I had to since I had to buy shampoo for both me and everyone else. I'm older, and I regret doing all the petty acts to them, but I'll never forgive them for the years they set me back financially."
—Anonymous
4."I never knew my grandfather, great-grandmother, or great-grandfather on my dad's side. I was told they passed away before I was born, or I was too young to remember them. Last year, I started looking into my family history and found things that did not add up. After constantly asking my dad, he finally told me everything. He said my grandfather was murdered in a murder-suicide, my great-grandmother was killed in a carjacking and stuffed in the trunk, and my great-grandfather was killed by some young guy swinging a 2x4 to his head after being confronted about illegally dumping on his land. Apparently, The Deadly Eighties was true for my family."
5."My parents used to have us go around and sell fake candy bars as a school fundraiser in towns where we didn't live. I remember thinking it was weird that I was around eight years old and being told to run a shady scam. But I got a number of dinners at night that way, though."
6."My mom attempted to miscarry me so she wouldn’t have to get an abortion. She is now very jealous that I am leading the life she always wanted (educated, childless, and climbing the corporate ladder), and frequently takes it out on me in passive-aggressive ways. I’m just glad the drinking and drugs she did while she was pregnant didn’t seem to have a lasting impact on me (other than maybe the fact that I black out quickly when drinking)."
7."My great-grandfather was an illegal moonshiner and bootlegger. He became paralyzed after getting bucked off of a horse but still continued by rolling in his wheelchair (his wife also helped him make moonshine and bootleg). My paternal grandfather slept with his brother's wife (but my great-uncle was sleeping with my grandfather's wife, so they were unknowingly 'wife-swapping'), and he got her pregnant. However, his brother raised the kid as if she were his own. My other great-grandmother had a husband AND a boyfriend, and they all lived in the same house together for many years (like, 40 years). Nobody ever talked about it, though (nor did she)."
8."I (30F) was sexually assaulted as a young child, and on top of that, I was raised in an extremely conservative Christian household and was told things like having sex before marriage or engaging in masturbation was a terrible sin. I'd 'burn in hell' and all that. Because of this, I've rarely had a sex life in a romantic relationship because of this trauma. Last year, I approached someone, and after months of talking about the painful details of my past, I started a friends-with-benefits relationship with him. One that is focused on me, moves at my own pace, and is about working through everything. We both agreed there are no feelings, just learning and education. The kicker is he's old enough to be my dad, and my entire family has known him for years before this started. No one else knows I'm doing this, but I want to have a future partner who doesn't have to deal with all this baggage."
—Anonymous
9."I am 43 and recently found out that my grandfather (who passed away before I was born) was in prison when he was 16 for killing his father. There were reports of child and spouse abuse and alcoholism. My family looked at it as if he was protecting his siblings. When he got out of prison he met my grandmother, and they had 11 children who were protected until his death."
10."I'm sure I'm not the only seventies kid who found this out, but my mom revealed she and my dad had an 'open marriage.' The kind where he said: 'I'm going to fuck other women, and you can fuck these friends of mine — let me have my fun, or I'm out of here.' Apparently, what followed was three bad years together, as my dad tried to convince my mom to participate in swinging, orgies, a poly relationship — the works. And my mom, who was barely 22 with two babies, went along with all of it to keep him happy and 'save their marriage.' It also explains why I was confused that my dad came home with random women. I thought they were my mom's friends, but they really, really weren't."
11."My grandmother cheated on my grandfather with his best friend. She eventually divorced my grandfather and married the best friend. The best friend had kids the same age as my dad and his siblings, so they all knew each other already. My grandmother eventually cheated on the best friend with my grandfather, later divorcing the best friend and remarrying my grandfather. They all stayed close — my dad referred to the best friend’s kids as siblings (I even grew up calling the best friend 'grandpa Dan'). There were good memories, and it didn’t seem strange as a kid — but I think back at how bizarre that situation must have been."
—Anonymous
12."My grandmother had an affair with a low-level Italian noble, and they had a child out of 'wedlock.' His family refused to let them marry because 'our family doesn't have babies six months before a wedding.' So, she gave the baby up, married my grandfather, and never mentioned it — ever. It was naturally a shock when, nearly a decade ago, my mom was informed that she had a half-sister she'd never heard of. She was suddenly in the picture because she had done one of those ancestry DNA tests that revealed her birth mother. It's like something out of a movie — it was so unexpected because my grandmother is very Catholic, and made a huge deal about the fact that my younger sister had a child out of 'wedlock.'"
13."When I was 18, my mom told me that my dad cheated on her with this woman named Kathy. I actually remember Kathy from when I was a kid because my dad would take my brother and me to her house. She would buy us computer games and stuff, so we loved her at the time. I never understood why my mom hated her until I was older. Kathy ended up marrying my dad's best friend. As an adult, I was never nice to her, and my dad would give me shit about it. I finally told him that I knew about her and that mom had told me everything. He just said, 'Oh, alright then.' He never gave me shit again."
14."My dad blew all of the money my family ever had. He stole my entire college fund left for me by my grandfather (in addition to the family savings), and took first and second mortgages on the house my grandfather had given him for free. He took out credit cards in my name and my mom's name, and ran them up to the tune of hundreds and thousands of dollars (well over three million total gone)."
15."I was driving my grandmother to visit my grandfather at his dementia care facility, and my younger sister was accompanying us, sitting in the back seat. I have no idea how the subject even came up, but out of nowhere, our grandmother started to tell us a story about Planned Parenthood. Apparently, she and her friend, Elsie, were the first gals through the doors when Planned Parenthood opened in their neighborhood. She casually stated that since she knew what our grandfather wanted from her, she had to be prepared with contraceptives. I made eye contact in the mirror with my sister who seemed equally distressed at having heard this unsolicited detail about our grandparents’ intimate life. But also, this was the early 1940s, so good on grandma for her feminist learnings."
—Anonymous
16.And finally, "In high school, my cousin slept around on her boyfriend too much. She ended up getting pregnant by someone else who didn't want the baby or anything to do with her (he's in prison now). She ended up marrying her boyfriend, and they had two daughters together. They waited until the oldest kid was 18, and her dad broke it to her that he wasn't her real father. It was a double whammy of him not being her dad and him being the dad of her two sisters. She ended up running away from home later that week with some 18-year-old guy who just joined the Army. It sounds like she found her footing later in life, but we don't really talk — I only talk with the other two. They just say she's doing 'well enough,' and I leave it alone."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
