The Most Outrageous Family Secrets Exposed
Some dark histories are better left buried. These Reddit tales show how a short conversation with mom or dad can turn your entire life upside down. From secret siblings to hidden family fortunes, some of these stories are downright tearjerkers.
Be warned: after reading this, you may want to tell your parents to keep their secrets to themselves.
1. Stain Of Glory
When I was little—maybe five or six—my family stayed at my uncle’s house one night. My sister and I were snooping around and we found a framed t-shirt with a massive stain on it.
We asked my uncle why he had a t-shirt framed with a stain on it, and were told it was from a milkshake. We were young enough to believe that.
When I was like 15, I was told that the stain was actually from when my uncle was on a date one night. A thief grabbed his date's handbag, so he ran after the guy. He did not know the thief had an accomplice who was hiding around a corner.
The accomplice emerged and knifed my uncle in the neck. My uncle nearly lost his life that day but is thankfully still around and being very cool to this day.
2. Dad Checks Up On Daughter
When I was 20 years old my brother let me know that I was adopted. Everyone in the family—I'm the youngest of five—knew and kept it a secret. It turns out my mom and birth mom are distant cousins.
My birth dad was in a biker gang and he and my mom both had addiction problems and had absolutely no clue how to care for a baby.
After I found this out, I saw some pictures of my birth dad, I was shocked. Turns out I recognized him. He was a regular in the restaurant I worked at the year before I found out about being adopted. He was always very kind to me and told me he knew some of my distant family but left it at that. It turns out he wasn’t there for the food, he just wanted to see who his daughter was and know that I was turning out ok.
3. Try The Gentle Cycle Next Time
When I was eight, I got a cat named Toes. She was a big, fluffy, gray, long-haired kitty with white feet. A really sweet kitty.
I went away to visit my grandparents for the weekend and when I came home, my mom broke the news to me that Toes had been hit by a car and passed. I was terribly upset, but mom took me to a shelter and we adopted a new kitty almost right away.
Many years later, when I was probably 21, my mother called me and sounded very upset. She said she had something to tell me. It turns out that Toes had not been hit by a car that weekend. He had, instead, climbed into the warm clothes dryer to sleep and mom didn't see him and loaded the dryer with a blanket she had washed. She then found Toes when she opened the dryer an hour later.
4. Landlord Disappeared
My dad's mom and his grandma, my grandmother and great-grandmother, stepped in and arranged to move my family—dad, mom, me, and my two siblings—into a ranch-style home in a nice suburb.
They also arranged for my dad to attend night school to become an electrician. He previously worked at golf courses in the clubhouse or pro shop.
My mom worked in various retail jobs when us kids were very small. My folks had always rented, and the house we were staying in was a rundown shack with a terrible landlord. So, my dad's mom wanted to help us improve our lives.
They wanted our family to have a chance at homeownership and just a generally better quality of life.
When I became an adult, mom revealed to me that, as they were getting ready to move, they were quite far behind on the rent. They were stressing about how they'd pay it back on top of the new house payments.
Well, that is until the landlord suddenly stopped harassing them. No more phone calls, never showed up at the door again. Just gone.
So, my parents just kinda shrugged it off, eventually forgetting the debt. The truth was absolutely horrific. It turned out that the landlord had fallen down a well and perished before he was found. Mom and dad eventually heard about it a couple of months after we moved into the new house. It turned out the next of kin couldn't locate the rental agreement, so couldn't prove anything as far as the back rent.
