“Couldn’t Make This Up”: 50 Wild Family Dramas That Make Your Relatives Look Totally Normal

I have a cousin who is a year younger than me. She used to be such a quiet, shy girl, but when my uncle (her dad) packed up his family and moved to Mississippi, things got a bit out of hand. When she was 16, she got pregnant by a guy who claimed to be 17 (he was, in fact, 23). She kept the baby, but my aunt and uncle raised him more than my cousin did. A year and a half later, she got pregnant again, by a different guy (the previous guy buggered off once my uncle found out he was a lot older than he had claimed). Again, she kept the baby, and it seemed like she was actually going to own up to the fact that she was 18 and had two kids. She moved in with the guy (who lived in his parents trailer), and things settled down for a while.

It wasn't long before she tired of having to deal with kids, so she decided to give the youngest kid up for adoption. My uncle's sister had been trying with her husband to have a kid for a long time, and she jumped at the chance to adopt. Things just got weird from there. Not only was the adoption process long and complicated, but for a while, it looked as if my cousin's boyfriend and parents were going to cause trouble. They backed off, but my cousin, who had recently totaled her car, told my aunt (the one adopting) that the only way she was going to give up her child was if my aunt bought her a new car. That was a slap in the face to just about everyone in my family. She eventually relented and the adoption went through without any further problems.

So, her older kid is being raised by his grandparents, while the younger kid holds the dubious distinction of being both child and first cousin of my cousin. Every time I think about the whole situation, my head hurts.

Aunt's husband was keeping 2 mistresses on the side and had a baby on the way with one of them, aunt left and became director of her company, the [jerk] was left with mouth cancer, mistresses left, his family wanted my aunt to come back to him and was ready to transfer all of their property in her name. Surprise surprise, the property was in the mistress's name who left.

My 18th birthday was god awful. No one remembered and I didn’t get a thing. I keep bringing up but they just change the conversation. I keep asking for things using that as leverage and nothing happens. I add on that they’ve forgotten every year for the past 5 years. Nothing. I cat up. They get mad. I wish I could move out.

My sister's been dating a dude who checks on her phone, gets mad if she goes out with her friends, is generally toxic, etc... Every few weeks she comes home crying to my mom that she left him and it's over.

And then not two days later, she goes back with the dude. It's happened 5 times already and she's become more and more manipulative, trying to get my parent's money to support the dude financially and get out of the house.

My uncle got arrested at the family Christmas. This is crystallized in my memory, because the curious person I’ve been all my life noticed the policeman enter, and snuck away to see why he was there. I was 6. I found a policeman carrying 4 stuffed animals in the kitchen, and got to pick the one I wanted. There was a whole kerfuffle but what remember was the policeman, him talking gently to me, giving me a teddy bear, and the adults freaking out a bit.

My uncle (mother's brother) was with his wife for 40 years, married for 38 years and they have 2 grown children. After his fil [passed], and they received the inheritance of a few million, his wife looked out of the window when she heard a car. She then saw my uncle making out with a woman in the car.

She confronted him and found out he had been cheating on her since they got together, but waited with divorce until they got the inheritance.

He then left her for the woman he had an affair with, until she got cancer. He then up and left her as well.

Circa 2011, con texted needed. Grandma's sadly passed due to medical malpractice. We are MX so you have 9 days of mourning, then a month after same, a year after you have to do a mourning with prays. After, it's up to the family if you continue mourning every year + día de los muertos or just día de los muertos. One of her eldest son's "Joe" has always had his official wife plus his mistress. A month after Grandma's passing we had the month event. He arrived with the official wife with their adult kids+ current mistress he lived with & their kids+ past mistress with their 2 grown kids. They all came to give their respects to Grandma. Official wife was tired and wanted to go home after the prayers & food. Other 2 didn't want to pay for taxi or were tired as well. He said okay let's go, didn't even say by to my Mom who coordinate everything like always. I just saw how everyone got up & loaded up to the pick up truck. He revved up then took off. My Mom then came out asking for uncle Joe. I just deadpanned " He just went to distribute wives". Everybody left busted out laughing but She got mad & scolded me for saying that. I asked well what else could I have said because that's what he took off to do. Now it's a family joke.

My cat is plotting to [hurt] me. Again.

My grandparents are very old-fashioned. Like, none of their daughters have middle names old-fashioned. They go the traditional route on almost everything, and that included making their oldest child the executor of their will. The problem with this is that their oldest child, who I'll call Kenneth, is living at home with them. Kenneth is divorced, jobless, and has a pretty bad relationship with his several children. He doesn't have particularly strong morals, either. He's not a criminal or anything, he just bad at being a good person. Anyway, because he still lives with his parents and is jobless, this gives him incentive to not follow through on my grandparent's will once they are gone. As long as he doesn't enact their will, he still has a free place to live. It's causing a lot of stress among my mother and her siblings, and these are not particularly confrontational people. My grandparents are considering making someone else executor of their will, and I hope they do; I have a couple aunts and uncles who would respect my grandparent's wishes to the letter.

Two 50+ year old sisters fighting over an inheritance. One, who claims to not want the money, is threatening the other. The other sister is indeed a money grubber, but the deceased parent left her all the money. The phone calls, texts, threats, etc., are high redneck drama and dysfunctional to point of crazy. It is so disturbing that I am not even communicating with them.

My parents got a divorce because my step-dad is [jerk]. He cheated on her, took all their joint savings and verbally [mistreated] her for years. He did all of this while being a champion for ending violence against woman in our community. I called him out for it and cut ties but he did not take it well. He is a huge hypocrite and lost my respect. I will forever stand with my mom but man did I really stir the pot in my family.

My mother kidnapped me for several months when I was in kindergarten.

I'm not sure how she did it but she managed to take us to Taiwan (her homeland) without getting my father to sign any documents or anything.

One of the first thanksgivings I had with my in-laws, my husband's aunt and cousin got into a fight at the dinner table because the cousin had spent the money the aunt deposited in a checking account to pay bills on an abortion instead, then paid the bills anyway and bounced a bunch of checks.

Let me tell you, it was eye-opening. Drama in my family is someone drops a class in college.

Constant dysfunction and disagreements. It's not funny, it's heart wrenching and depressing. I don't think some people realize the extent that it damages people.

Parents fighting over a affair. Cousin ran off and married. Uncle had an affair. Cousin had 4 kids reach out internationally (previous unknown). Yet another cousin had an affair and ran off. Christmas will be fun!

Let's see. My grandfather cheated on my grandmother with his current wife. He marries another person and cheats on her with his current wife. Then he marries his current wife. Now his current wife's cheating on him.

My grandmother is also racist against hispanics. So naturally my uncle (who has driven cars into houses while drunk) has married two hispanic women. Now, my grandma doesn't speak to my uncle but is best friends with both his hispanic wife and ex-wife. My uncle's daughter (who has also driven cars into houses while drunk except my uncle then buys her brand new convertibles) now has a child and doesn't know who the father is.

My other grandmother was bi-polar and hated my mother. Her sister had a son who [took his own life]. She hates my dad one minute and loves him the next. My dad also has been job hopping for roughly 10 years because all of his employers have been "out to get him." Then he blames my mother for his failures because she is a filthy rich teacher that likes to undermine him and watch people suffer.

So no specific incidents, but I'm pretty sure my family can start its own soap opera.

Cousin is a chill nerdy type who likes shopping and partying. Her father (my uncle) has some health issues he isn't telling us about, but which could be serious, and pressed her to get married while he's still around to pay for it.

She doesn't have much life experience and believes whatever the media tells her women should do. She is a cute popular girl so she had people lining up for her. Turned down some nice people who had superficial issues. Got pretty serious with a weirdo who I didn't like. Then she called it off when it turned out he had career plans that conflicted with hers. Yeah they made it all the way to the engagement without discussing this.

Now she's engaged to someone who is this really bossy dude who tries really hard to be cool, and his family is weirdly misogynistic (and likely he is too). She's changed her whole personality for him.... She's very career focused and he's trying to get her to quit her high powered career (which tbh she's been wanting to do, but not really).

Fun part: their wedding is in May. They don't know if he'll even be able to make it (he's in a country that is somewhat badly affected) or if they might even be allowed to have the wedding by then. So they haven't even printed out the invites.

Her parents are secretly hoping this cancels the wedding. They don't really like the guy or his family. I too am hoping that happens and she actually grows up and figures her life out.

My mom is mad at her mom because she threw out my moms old strawberry shortcake toys from the 70s and apparently they are worth a few hundred dollars now.

Parents constantly argue, mother has anger issues and my dad can be an idiot. She frequently blows up at him. Meanwhile I lack the finances to be able to move out long term, can't get a job because of disabilities, lack of qualifications and small town with limited prospects. Slowly turning to alcoholism to cope.

My dad is sick and angry about it. He 'forgets' to cover his mouth when coughing and gets angry when I remind him. He has already coughed all over me(eww). He goes out everyday even though he was told to self-quarantine by the doctor and probably coughs on other people.



He also throws fits when I remind him to close food containers and bangs things around in the kitchen. (He doesn't care if something is stale so he believes he shouldn't have to close things which is so rude considering no one else wants stale stuff and like bugs get in. Eww)


He also digs expired food out of the trash because he thinks it's fine so I have to mold check and check expiration dates on everything. Then if I find something bad I have to hide it under other things in the trash and hide that I threw it out from him. Yeah I get it some things last longer but I really hate eating bad tasting, expired, moldy or stale food and have eaten way too much nasty stuff before I was old enough to read expiration labels and remember to mold check EVERYTHING.


He blasts music and TV shows so loudly I physically can't stand to be in the same part of the house as him because it hurts. Which is really going to suck when classes start up again for me. My mom teaches online and he interrupts her while she's teaching so I doubt he'll respect me being in class. There really isn't a quiet part of the house because my mom lectures upstairs (and my room is next to her office) and my dad blasts stuff downstairs.



Basically it's just a matter of time till he threatens physical violence on me again (illegal since I'm an adult so I can prevent him from going through with it by pulling my phone out to record him) kick me out again (illegal due to tenant laws in my state about eviction without proper written notice ahead of time) and of course threatening to call the police (to tell them how I'm a terrible daughter so they throw me in jail?? Idk he's not very bright and doesn't think his threats through).



I'm used to it at this point since it's been happening for years but it's still very distressing every time it happens. And I get nightmares about not having my phone to protect me. Plus like it was totally legal to hit me before I hit 18.


Someday I'll be able to escape. Sadly it's gonna be that much longer since my campus job isn't available right now...