40 Scandalous Things People Learned About Their Families Due To Secret-Spilling Sessions

My grandpa sat us all down in the living room one day and let it out. We weren’t completely polish but Spanish. Only problem was he was the only one who cared anymore. Was completely disappointed.

My great-great grandpa shot his wife and her lover. She was injured and the lover died. He got away with it. The newspaper said it was justifiable homicide because she shouldn't have been cheating on him.


Same guy rented out his still to Al Capone during prohibition to make moonshine. Cops busted up the sill, he got arrested. All of this confirmed by a newspaper article. He kept his mouth shut about who rented it. The mob paid him off well for doing so.

My stepfather did not die of a heart attack; he died from a failed attempt at autoerotic asphyxiation.

My great uncle’s career was home robbery. His specialty was getting in second story windows by climbing on things below so his nickname was Porch.

A lot less dramatic than most of the others, but it surprised me….

When I was five or so, my parents told me they had to fire my favorite babysitter because she stole money from my dad. When I was a teenager, my mom told me that it wasn’t money the babysitter stole, it was weed.

My paternal grandmothers last words to my father were "There's a big family secret about you..." And then, she was gone. So that one is lost probably forever.

Some member of my extended family(20++ members) were executed in my parent home country for violated some laws, also we're are to never go back there in fear of being executed as well.

Ohhh a juicy one! As I got older I heard about a cousin nearly marrying another, unknown cousin at the time. They were engaged! Apparently His Dad had stepped out quite frequently in the 60's and the result was questioning any relationship he got into from our shared race and community. More personal to me was that my father, peach that he was, managed to sleep with my mother's twin within a year of them being married. Apparently this came out in their 50's so surprise everyone!




A sad one I learned on a road trip in my tweens. My Mom and I were traveling, just chatting and I start asking her about my cousin who I'm named after. I have old parents, my mom was 40 when she had me. This cousin, who's funeral I attended at the ripe old age of 5 was in his mid 20's. Amazing musician I'm told. Had a lot of mental health worries his whole life and didn't really seek treatment until the late 70's. Big stigma, hush, hush you'll be fine. Called his parents absolutely shattered one night and said the following words "I'm so tired, I have Dad's revolver. Please talk me out of this". They didn't call him back until it was far too late.

I found out that my grandmother is actually my step-grandmother and my biological grandmother died a few years ago because of substance abuse.

I also found out, on the other side of my family, my grandad (who I've always been very fond of) was an alcoholic and quite abusive.

Basically found out why neither of my parents drink.

My great aunts were almost certainly an incestuous secret lesbian couple. They lived together their entire lives except for like a year when one of them got married. During that time they completely cut contact. After the divorce, they lived together until the day one of them died.

They were caught doing....things together as young teenagers. We're pretty sure that never stopped. They never showed any real interest in boys. Even when one got married for that year people thought there was nothing there between them.

1) When I was 13 my dad told me that he'd had a child with his first wife, but my half-brother drowned in a swimming pool when he was 3. Only time I ever saw my dad cry.

2) I have an uncle who retired and dropped out of most contact with the family about 25 years ago. When I was in my 20s, my mom told me she keeps one eye open with my uncle (my dad's older brother) and that she knows something having to do with him and my little brother that if my dad knew about it, he would get on a plane, fly halfway across the country, and murder him on the spot. She passed away before I could ask her more about that, but the implication has haunted me for years.

My father’s ex-wife passed away by s****de after learning that he had started a new relationship with another woman, my mother. By this time, they had already been separated.

The first secret was that I had a cousin who was adopted out. A few years after that, while drunk, my aunt confided in me the reason she'd adopted out her daughter and swore me to secrecy. The father of the child was her first cousin.

The number of illegitimate kids fathered by my dad and his brothers. They all had at least one, I met a first cousin no one knew about through a DNA testing site.

Dad died blowing c**e, not a virus that attacked his heart.

Best part was my dad’s oldest brother was just candidly talking to me about the whole day. How he misses my dad and all this and that.

“We were talking about getting clean for the kids and wives and this quarter bag was the last go around but it did us in.”

Oh, my pops?

“Yeah, oh you don’t know? Your mom didn’t tell? She was very much into that lifestyle with your dad as well.”

“No….” she never told me my dad died snorting c*****e with his older brother, let alone the very last time before his demise. Also that she does that with them as well. She spared me of the details.

My mother was absolutely horrified to know they told me at 15 years old. 6 years after his death. Also that she used with my dad.

I didn’t know any of this and it damaged my relationship with my mom. It took a long time to work trust back from all that. Purely because of the way it floated to me. It really hurt my mom. My uncle absolutely sent her to orbit over this, with a fallout that hasn’t been repaired to this day 18 years later.

Some family just never break that cycle and cause misery for others.

One of my cousins had a baby when she was 17. My aunt and uncle sent her out of state to a hospital where she gave him up for adoption. Years later, after he would have turned 18, my uncle started looking and finally found him years later. He was doing well, had a family of his own. My uncle didn't contact him and only told my aunt and my mom that the boy was fine. They decided that my cousin did not need to know where he was, and she died not knowing what had become of him.

I have no idea if any of her siblings ever knew she had given up a child in her youth. If they did, they never said anything.

The only reason I know is when I was going over my mom's will, I noticed she had this cousin listed to be my guardian if anything happened to her before I turned 18. I asked her why that cousin and that's when the story came out.

I didn’t realize that my mom wasn’t ever married to my father, when she had my sister and I.

I knew he had another family — a wife and kids. I guess my kid mind just never thought too deep about it, and figured at some point years ago, him and my mom were officially together. But they never were. She told me over the phone, in my junior year of college.

It’s so weird the way the universe works sometimes — to know that if my mom hadn’t made an immoral choice (having a years-old relationship with a married man) — and if he hadn’t made an immoral choice (to cheat on his wife) — that neither me or my sister would exist. That their two wrongs brought us to life.

My grandma was single in her 30s and sleeping with a married man. She ended up getting pregnant, and towards the end of her pregnancy met my (step)grandpa. They got married and put his name on the birth certificate, and my aunt has always believed he is her biological dad. Still to this day does (she’s 50), while literally every other person in the family knows the truth. My mom has like 10 siblings, so the shear number of people who know the truth and have managed to never tell her is quite impressive.

I’ve known since I was like 8. Not sure why they trusted a child with that secret, but I never told.

That my grandparents had gotten a divorce, married other people and divorced them, then got back together and had another child, but never got remarried. I was scandalized, was told this in the early 1980's...things were still different then.

Did not find out that my parents date of marriage was wrong until mom died (saw on death certificate). Turns out they married on one date. Were notified three days later the JP’s license had expired. They had to borrow money from my uncle to get re-married. Mom was so horrified she swore dad and my uncle to silence. This was back in the early 1950s.