29 Family Secrets That Left A Mark In The Worst Way Possible

That I was conceived via a donor. I found out that my dad was not my biological father when I was 38, and that (at the time) I had 18 half-siblings! Right now we are up to 32 and counting because they keep rolling in. It actually created a cool new social group.

I was always told that my mother’s father had passed away in the war. After my mother passed away, my cousins found out that our grandfather was actually alive and had divorced my grandmother when my mom was young. My grandmother, being a good Irish Catholic, told the nuns at the school that she was a widow because the church wouldn’t let a divorced woman’s kids go to Catholic school. My grandfather had remarried and had a whole other set of kids and grandchildren. My cousins tried to meet him, but he wasn’t interested.

That my parents got DIVORCED in SECRET. Yet we all lived MISERABLY under the same roof my whole life and then EVENTUALLY they REMARRIED…ALSO in SECRET. I found their re-marriage license. Lol sorry idk why typing it out like that made it easier but...

The story was always that my two cousins were adopted and not related to each other even. People sometimes would ask them if they were twins. They would say "Nope, we're adopted." Somehow it got out that their bio mom was their younger aunt. The older sister adopted and raised both girls as her own. Younger aunt/mom got married and started a family before all this came out too. It was a wild journey. I have heard this is common in Catholic families. They hide the illegitimate pregnancy and someone in the family adopts the child or pretends it is an older married family member's child. This was in the early 80s so I guess it was possible to get away with it.

My uncle got his college girlfriend pregnant, with twins. My grandfather gave him money to marry her, but he abandoned her and signed away all rights. The twins reached out to my grandparents after they turned 18 and built a relationship with them. I know because my grandfather told my brother while we were in college. He wanted to make sure someone would let them know when my grandparents passed away. My cousins, who I was extremely close to in my youth have two sisters they know nothing about.

That my dad cheated on my mom and almost missed my mom giving birth to me because he was with his affair partner when she went into labor. And he was trying to get my mom to meet the person he cheated on her with.

When I was a kid we had a huge surprise 50th wedding anniversary party for my grandparents on my dad’s side. When it came time to have cake/ dessert everyone wanted my grandpa to give a speech. It turns out the surprise was on all of us because they weren’t actually celebrating 50 years of marriage. They secretly got divorced and then got back together and literally no one knew. Everyone was shocked to say the least. I don’t remember all the details but they got remarried at some point in secret and just carried on life as normal.

Apparently my mother in law was once engaged to a high up mafia guy, and personally hung around with some of the most notorious mobsters in Europe. Eventually things got quite dangerous and they ended things and she moved back home. No one would expect this from this simple grandma in Florida, but she just revealed the whole thing to my husband in case when she dies he finds the wedding dress photos, letters, and other things in her belongings.

Well this came out a few years ago for everyone. My aunt had a family years ago, just packed up and left behind a husband and several children. Went on to have a son years later and raised him. He found out when he was in his late 20s, along with the rest of us. All people old enough knew and never discussed it.