“My Mom Was Disowned”: 47 Unbelievable Things People Found Out About Their Parents

About 8 years ago my brother and I got an email from a man looking for his birth mother. It included a picture of a couple and I could tell it was definitely my mother. My bother and I thought this has to be a joke or a scam so I confronted my mother and at first she denied that she was the one in the picture. After some time she admitted that it was her. Born in Japan and married at 18 she gave birth to a baby boy but unfortunately her husband had passed away. This was around the 1950’s in Japan and it was very difficult at that time to be a single parent with no income. The details weren’t clear but she made the choice to give her son up for adoption to an American naval couple thinking they would be able to give him a better life.
She never told anyone about this until the day I received that email and discovered that I had a half brother. We eventually all met him and it was wonderful. We all live in California just an hour away from each other not knowing this for years. My mom cried when she saw him and said “I thought I would never see you again”. I was so happy for my mother that she was able to see that he did have a wonderful life with his adoptive parents. She passed away six months later.

I had been married about 10 years and my parents were staying with us for a visit. My father walks over to the piano and starts playing... no music sheets, just playing. Even starts taking requests. We never had a piano growing up, there was never any mention that he was in any way musical. In middle school I was in band learning the saxophone... never a peep about a musical back ground. And audible WTAF was heard that day.

My parents got divorced when I was a toddler. They told me they got divorced because they had a "big disagreement", the disagreement was apparently about whether or not it was okay that dad broke my oldest sister's arm when she told him he's not allowed to hit mom. She was 10 at the time.

No one told me until I was a teenager.

My parents argued frequently when I was young. I remember my father once telling my mother that my sister and I would be ashamed of her if we ever found out what she had done before they were married. After my father passed away, that comment stayed with me for years, I found myself endlessly wondering what this supposed secret could be. Given that I knew she had done some modeling in her younger days, my imagination ran in predictable directions.
A few years ago, I finally worked up the nerve to ask her directly. What she confessed genuinely caught me off guard: in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she had regularly pulled heists with a male friend stealing designer goods, jewelry, and the like.
It was a lot to take in. She has always seemed like the most ordinary, law-abiding person I know.

The reason i was kicked out at seventeen was because my step mom said i was going to hurt my baby step siblings. I found out many years later and was so upset and hurt i still at forty haven’t forgiven them. I’ve never been violent a day in my life. Always super passive. For my dad to just go along with it was heartbreaking. I loved my father.

My mother casually mentioned her first husband while our family was out to dinner. I was about 16 and had no idea she had been married to someone before my dad. I was pretty shocked. Then she told the story of how he threw her down a flight of stairs in a successful attempt to terminate her first pregnancy. I’ve been angry about this for 30 years.

I fought with my parents regularly about getting me braces when I was a kid. They kept saying they couldn’t afford it, meanwhile came home with 1) a new solid cherry wood bedroom set 2) a new solid maple living room set 3) a Porsche. To this day my mother still claims those purchases were out of necessity.

Fast forward 25years and I got myself Invisalign. I excitedly told my grandma and she said she was happy for me because she and my grandpa offered on more than one occasion to pay for braces when I was a kid and my parents said no because I “didn’t need them”.

I guess their kid’s self esteem wasn’t a necessity.

My mom was disowned for dating and marrying my dad. I was a grandma's boy. I was definitely the favorite grandchild; we spent a lot of time together. Mom joked she had to pry me out of her arms the first time she saw me. My grandparents loved my dad and vice versa. My grandparents leaned on my dad for everything. Bypassing my uncle entirely (which he absolutely hated). I even share my middle name with my grandpa, so it's not like she didn't love her parents. That's what I saw growing up, so I just thought that's how it always was. I was in my teens at the lake with my grandparents and aunts when my aunt mentioned, "Judy was disowned..." I had the "wait, that's my mom's name" moment. Turns out they hated him, he had long hair, rode a motorcycle, didn't talk to his family (left the day he graduated), was married and divorced once already, never saw his other son (they assumed because of him when it was actually his ex-wife). It was them or him, and my mom chose him. They were always close so this sounded absurd. No contact for 5 years total. 2 years after they married, I came along, and my mom was exhausted, broke down, and called my grandma for help. She gets there and assumes my dad isn't there and that he's coming home late because he's a "deadbeat" (her words during the story). Nope, he was working 12-hour days then plowing snow or loading trucks for cash till 2 am, so my mom didn't have to work. He came home to pack a lunch and head back out, and my grandma cooked for him and apologized for not giving him a chance. If I didn't have both grandparents and 2 aunts there to confirm it, I wouldn't have believed it based on what I saw for 13 years.

Found out my allergic to dogs diagnosis as a kid was actually just my dad not wanting a dog. I've owned two now. No allergies. Just betrayal.

My dad had a whole other family before he met and married my mom. Even my mom didn't know. She found out when his 16 year old daughter showed up one day. He and his daughter fought and he sent her packing.

All THAT happened just *before* I was born. They never mentioned it. I was an older teenager when I found out. I was like "who is Sonia?" Big pause. "She's your older sister".

Also: I didn't know my mom could tap dance until one day, in her 70's, she just tap danced across the kitchen one day. I mean SHE WAS GOOD. My jaw dropped. Whhhaaat?

I was autistic. I remember messing around in my older brothers room and finding a book called “Living with Asperger’s”. I was like 8 and couldn’t read so I was like “bro why do you have a book about living with asparagus?”. My brother got embarrassed and said nothing and we never spoke of it for 5 more years until my parents told me I was autistic too and we were going to social groups so we could learn how to interact with other kids, make friends, and have normal conversations instead of just talking about Star Wars for 20min everytime (they put it differently but that’s what it was).

Looking back I was like “oh no, I have asparagus too.”.

That my dad isn't actually my dad. I was so confused.

As I matured, my respect for him grew in leaps and bound. He didn't have to be my dad, but he chose to anyways, and did am awesome job at it.

Apparently I still disappointed him though, as he specifically wrote me out of his will. That still hurts.

I was about 12, and asked my mum why a family friend sent us letters every month. “Oh that’s your child support cheque”. “WHAT??” Well he’s your real dad. I’ve told you that before haven’t I?”

And that’s how I found out she had an affair, resulting in me.

When I was a kid and screamed to mom that there was a spider on my bedroom wall, she would come up and squish it with a Kleenex. Many years into adulthood she confessed that she didn’t always find it and just smacked the wall with the tissue.

In our early 30’s my brother and I (14 months younger than me) found out our dad thought my brother wasn’t his for the first few years.

My mom and dad were already separated by the time my brother was conceived and when my dad would come to pick me up I would cry if my “baby” couldn’t come so my dad would take both us. After a while I guess my dad accepted my brother as his since he does look a bit like my dad, and for sure has his personality. My dad ended up raising both of us and we never knew or heard this story until a family dinner when we were in our 30’s.

Fast forward 15 years and my mom casually told me that she is almost certain that my uncle is my brothers dad since she did the deed with both of them during a crazy weekend. She went into a little (TMI) detail and I believe her.

That is one secret I will take to the grave with me, it would serve no purpose to say any of this to anyone. I love my brother and I love my dad and I wouldn’t want either one of them to get hurt by this. My mom and dad haven’t talked in probably 30 years.

**Mom:** she was married before my dad and my "cousins" in Japan are actually half-siblings. Reason why my mom never spoke of her prior marriage was due to how toxic the first husband was. She divorced him within a year of marriage and my two "cousins" were taken in by my Japanese aunt and raised as her kids. I discovered this by accident when looking through old family photo albums and saw a wedding photo of my mom to someone who was not my white American dad. She only kept that one photo because her hair was very pretty in it. She told me the backstory and swore that dad was never to know of this. My dad passed away never knowing this fact.

**Dad:** Never understood why he refused to wear anything indicating he was a veteran or why he had a disdain for the military. I saw all the vets wear those hats and have those car stickers saying they fought in (insert past US war here) and my dad refused all of that stuff saying, "It's stupid to tell the world that." Only learned by the time I was 19 why he never spoke of it. He was a Vietnam Vet (2 tours) and was drafted at the time. All anyone knew of his time in the military was that he came home with a purple heart and a bronze star. That and when he was drafted, about 20 guys (him included) were picked from his hometown to go fight in Vietnam. My dad and 5 other guys were the only ones to come back.

That my father was a literal spy who helped saved a lot of lives in the 1980s.

I started my first day of school, was 5, and my whole life my parents used a nickname for me that's nowhere close to sounding like my real name.

I was informed by my teacher what my real name was, I cried because I thought she was changing my name and my mom had to come to school to tell me I have a real name and a nickname lol.

My parents divorced when I was 3. It was very....... Difficult. They seemingly hated each other and we (older sis and I) were always in the middle of vicious battles and angry insults. For my entire life, it was rough and I remember being one of the only kids who never was bummed they divorced- they needed it.



The secret? My husband and I (now 34) are on vacation in California with our 2 kids for spring break. I get an urgent video call from my sister and niece. "MOM AND DAD ARE DATING!" what? So what, they deserve to have fun and go on dates with people. "NO. MOM AND DAD ARE DATING EACH OTHER! THEY'VE BEEN Seeing EACH OTHER FOR 4 MONTHS BEHIND OUR BACKS".



WTAF.

We were raised in poverty. They were not poor. They just chose to live that way.