“What’s The Darkest Secret You Found Out About A Family Member?”: 35 People Share Heavy Stories

My mom and dad decided to take in my 3 cousins because their mom got into a horrible car accident. Two girls and one boy. The girls were 6 and 10, the boy 12. Fast forward to when the 6 yr old girl is 14 years old and is asked about birth control. She starts sobbing saying her brother (the then 12 yr old) took her virginity when she was 6 and that it continued until she was about 13. We had no clue.

My grandmother used to kidnap and sell young girls in Mexico back in the 50's and 60's. She would sell them to ranchers to presumably be wives and/or sex slaves. She was not a good person at all.

Both of my mother's parent's had affairs without the others knowledge. My grandmother had Parkinson's and in one of her confused states she told my grandfather that she had an affair.

Suffice to say my grandfather was not happy and put her in a home. He then started talking to my mother trying to figure out when it could have happened. He speculated that it happened around the same time he was having his affair, which was around 1966. My mother was shocked, she was born in 1967.

So my mother may or may not be related to the man she believed to be her father.

A relative tried to poison one of their guests. Once I learned about it, it finally sealed the deal for me and forever changed my view on them. They were bonkers anyway but good lord that's too much.

In doing ancestry research, I found a prison record for my great-grandfather. Felony assault at age 18 in 1901. My mom was shocked and never knew.

Growing up I never understood why my dad could sometimes be so cold to my mom. When I was 13 he passed away and I had to start dealing with my learned relationship habits. My aunts began telling me the story of his first wife.. My father and her got pregnant and he was called to the hospital and excitedly ran into the room to find her and her lesbian lover standing there with the baby. They told him "we are done with you and she wants a divorce." It was a years long plot to have a baby with him and he never even suspected anything. My grandmother said he was crushed for years. I probably hurt women along they way in my navigating relationships as well. Please don't make selfish choices that hurts others, it hurts more people than you think...

I found out 2 years ago that my mother had a baby she gave up for adoption 18 months before she had me and then had another baby when I was 3 and she also gave that baby up for adoption. All 3 of us have different fathers and I think the only reason she kept me was because my father married her but that marriage only lasted a year. My mother remarried when I was 5 and my (half) brother was born when I was 7. As far as I knew for 59 years he and I were our mother's only children.

I never saw her pregnant with the 2nd baby because she sent me to live with my great-grandparents across the country during her pregnancy. My mother and grandmother were the only people who knew about this and they both took the secret to their graves.

The only reason any of it was found out is because of all of the DNA testing people now do. This discovery really impacted my sense of identity for a while, my view of my mother, and our relationship.

I've met my half-siblings, an older sister and younger brother. I like them and I'm glad I've been able to answer some of their questions but the initial discovery really messed with me for a bit.

When I was growing up my grandfather hated anything Russian.
If there were any news about them he turned of the TV. if they played against any other team in hockey or so he didn't watch it (even tho he loved ice hockey and it was a world cup final).

I was a kid I didn't understand why, to me he was a retired carpenter and grandfather.
When he passed away my uncle told me everything. How he served as a foreign volunteer for Finland in the winter war against Soviet (my great grandfather was from Finland). How he's friend were taken as a POW and executed. He then want back to Finland for the continuation war where he was wounded and almost died in the battle of Ilomansti, the last big battle.

My Uncle didn’t have an ~~aneurism~~ stroke spontaneously. (Sorry, I’m not a Doctor)

He deliberately stopped taking his blood thinners.

Dude was 63 with a wife, four kids and 15 grandkids, the oldest of which was 13 and the youngest was not even a year.

He was just done. His wife doesn’t know, his kids don’t know. I only know cause I overheard the family doctor telling my dad. As far as I know, only myself. The Doctor, and my dad know.

This will probably get lost, but here's my story.

Had some family move to Vegas with a local churches money (close to a million dollars) to open a new church for them in sin city.

They gambled it all away.

Came back church told them to f**k off basically.

They started their own church that allowed them to buy multi million dollar houses, brand new cars for them and their kids, basically a luxury lifestyle.

They sell merch at the front door to the church, members are required to provide bank info and they tithe 10% monthly income from all families. If you don't pay up, they kick you out. They tell you how to eat and exercise. If you don't follow they kick you out. They put it in an old movie theater so they have multiple stages. Full lighting and av crews. They do love offerings when they need extra cash. God tells them to take trips (like told their congregation God told them to ride motorcycles through the grand canyon) he even claimed he had healing powers for a short amount of time and got SAINT tattooed down his arm. The whole 9 yards.

At the beginning of the pandemic when they were shutting everything down, they pressured their congregation to pay the 10% for the WHOLE YEAR UPFRONT*

They've cut contact with all our family because we won't be part of their church.

Also their church is well know in our city and local area, but no one has stepped in. Cuz, ya know, Bible belt.

My cousin started a cult.

My uncle’s family claimed he had polio instead of a hereditary crippling disease. His wife figured it out when she went to their family reunion. She already had one child and was pregnant with another.

I found out that my great-grandpa got away with murder. He thought that my great-grandma was cheating on him with her dentist so he went into his office and shot him. He got away with it too and they didn't find out that he did it until he told everybody before he died.

I found out my dad killed someone in a drunk driving accident. My mum randomly told me a few years ago, it shook me for a while. I think it still very low-key affects him.

I found out that my great grandpa wasn't actually my great grandpa because my great grandma had my grandma (her daughter) with a famous boxer who was extremely abusive. She divorced him after having kids with him and met my great grandpa while she was supervising the manufacturing of B-25 bombers during WW2. My mom and I are the only ones (besides my grandparents) that know the true story.

My mother "supposedly" has a fraternal twin. My grandmother couldn't handle the thought of two kids so she gave the male child away to someone she knew that was moving away.

In a drug induced rage one night my grandmother screamed at my mom that she kept the wrong child; it was never mentioned before or after that moment. My mom was roughly 12 at the time. She asked my great grandmother about it and she knew the boy's name but not where they moved to or who he was living with. My mom actually had met him once but didn't know who he actually was. My grandmother denies it ever happened and my grandfather felt that "surely they'd have had to tell me". I doubt they would have though.

When she was pregnant with me, my mom asked my great-grandmother what my middle name should be: my middle name is actually his middle name.