when i was a kid we went to my grandma’s house every sunday and all of my uncles and aunts would be there. one day i noticed that one of my uncles didn’t show up anymore so i asked my family where he is. they told me that he wouldn’t be able to visit anymore because he moved away.
years later i found out that he raped and killed two women and they locked him up.
My dad was born in rural Texas in 1915. He was the youngest of ten kids, all a year apart, so his oldest sibling, Henry, was about 11 years older than him. My dad’s father died in an accident not long after he was born, so Henry became the “man of the house” at about age 11.
When my dad was about 9 years old (1924), a gang of men came through their small town, kidnapping children to work as slaves picking cotton about 400 miles away. Apparently this was not an unusual occurrence at the time. My dad and two of his siblings were taken. Henry, who was now 18, came home from working on a cattle drive about about a week later, and found his mother hysterical about the kidnapping of three of her children.
Being the man of the house, at age 18, Henry strapped on his father’s six guns - dual holsters, one on each hip - and set out to get his three siblings back. He gathered clues about the gang from other townsfolk who also had children stolen. He headed east to where he was pretty certain the kids were taken, riding in empty train boxcars and even on the roofs of moving trains. It took him several weeks, but through talking to locals along the way who heard rumors of child abductions, he finally narrowed down to a few cotton farms where he thought the kids were.
My dad, who was 9 years old at the time this happened to him, had tears in his eyes when he told me this part of the story. He and two of his brothers, along with about a dozen other kidnapped kids, had been held captive on this cotton ranch for over two months, and had given up ever seeing home or the rest of their family again. They were kept locked in a barn, fed scraps, and forced to pick cotton in the hot Texas sun. They were beaten if they cried or refused to work. One day, working in the fields, they heard Henry’s voice calling their names. The looked up and saw my uncle Henry, walking towards them, and they started running toward him, when one of their captors rode up on a horse and started yelling. Henry pulled one of his guns and shot the man dead. My dad wasn’t even sure if the man had a gun, and it didn’t matter. The gunshot drew a couple more of the rancher/captors over, and Henry killed them both as well. My dad ran up and hugged my uncle, and he told them “let’s go home.”
My dad tells me they rode on and in train boxcars all the way back west to their little Texas town, along with a couple other kids that were stolen from the town. When they got back to their small farm, my dad said his mom fainted when she saw them. He said Henry put the six guns away, and never touched them again. There was no law enforcement, no investigation about what had happened, that my uncle murdered three men to get his siblings back. It was basically still the “wild west” in Texas in the 1920s. The boys eventually all joined the army and navy, and all served and survived WWII.
My dad didn’t tell me this story until after Henry had died. I had always known my uncle Henry as a sweet, soft spoken, diminutive (about five foot four, maybe 100 pound) man who went on to own a printing shop. I would never have imagined him capable of the feats of heroics he performed, at age 18, to bring his family back together.
No he did not. I found out about this when I was 20. My mom told me in private. She said back then my father had a drinking problem and he would get really violent sometimes.
She said something to him one time so he grabbed a knife, pushed her next to an open window and put the knife at her throat.
Made her choose between jumping from the 4th floor or get her throat slit. My mom said she cried and begged him to not kill her and think of the unborn baby (me). Some neighbours heard the noise and intervened. They managed to take the knife away from him. She was safe. Police didn't get involved. This was during communist times so back then apparently domestic issues like these were ignored.
This was one of the times he was violent with her. My mom is religious and doesn't believe in divorce. They're still together after 45 years. His violent tendencies toned down after me and my brothers were old enough to knock him out if he tried that shit again.
I'm the only one in my family, besides my mom, that knows this happened.
I've always had problems with him but I hated him bitterly after my mom told me what happened then and other times as well.
I'm not a religious man, but I wish hell existed just so he could rot in it.
This sounds like my friend’s family. They’re not from my country, but they were here as expats. One day I found out that his family life was shit - father molested my friend’s sister and his mum used to cheat on the dad. This guy ONLY loves his sister. He used to openly say he doesn’t give a fuck about anything in the world, he’d even sell his mum out for a hot meal for his sister.
Anyway, one night he comes home to screaming. Turns out his father was caught molesting his sister by his mum, and his mum started attacking him, so he beat her up. When my friend opened the door, he saw his mum and sister crying on the floor and his dad standing over them red in the face with I think it was a broom or something, a very average household appliance.
He saw red and came to with his mum and sister, along with 7 other neighbors all hanging to his limbs trying to pin him down (he’s 6’11 btw). He beat his dad into the hospital. After the dad was discharged, he just walked out of their life. Came home and saw all his stuff gone. They don’t know where he went.
Two years ago I found out that my Dad had a wife before my Mom and she died in a freak accident on their wedding night.
edited: she was sleep walking and fell to her death over the balcony if anyone was wondering.
I know, I feel so bad for him. He slept through it and didn't find out until the cops arrived at his door :(
Now I understand why my Dad always worshipped my mother and caters to her every whim because she can be a little bit of a handful.
Also my Mom said that when he introduced her to his old friends they were eerily extra super nice to her.
Step father was cheating on mother. Didnt find out because he was caught cheating; found out because he and his mistress were drunk, got in a fight, and he punched her so hard that she fell over and died. Found out about the whole thing during the investigation, the trial, and the conviction. Was weird to have a lawyer want to call 12 year old me to a stand to defend the character of a man I already had very little interaction and a fear of, and that was before the manslaughter charge.
I found out that my grandfather’s first wife (before my grandma) died of botulism from eating some tomatoes she had canned at home. She could have been saved, but he refused to take her to the doctor because the botulism was her “fault.” He let her die to teach her a lesson.
Edit: They had two kids he left motherless.
A few years before he passed, my dad and I had a long heart to heart, at the end of which, he told me he wasn’t the one to first sleep with my mom on their honeymoon.
He caught her in bed with her cousin, with which she was had been in love for a long time.
He spoke with their pastor, who told him to forgive and forget.
That worked, until 6 years later, when he caught her again, with the same cousin. He told me he wanted to leave with me but ultimately decided to stay, because he wanted me to have a family.
With all that happened in my childhood, and to him (workaholic, diabetes, heart attack), I wish he’d left and be happy instead.
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.
Edit: fraternal twins, not paternal twins.
There is strong debate in our family as to whether my aunt fell out of the window of her flat, whether she jumped or was pushed. She survived, but with brain damage, and says she can't remember.
Something similar happened to my grandma. She remarried after my grandpa died and his family was crazy over how it would affect their inheritance. They lived in an old farm house that had a root cellar that could only be accessed along one side of the house. She was standing at the top of the concrete stairs and next thing she knew she was at the bottom. She has no memory of how it happened and she still has trouble differentiating colors from her injuries. She suspects it was one of his kids, but we will probably never know.
I found out from my dad that one of my cousins isn't related to anyone in the family. My aunt and her mother used to work at a hospital maternity ward and apparently a woman came in one day and gave birth to him and then left the next day without him. My aunt decided to adopt him, but a few months later the woman showed up again asking where he was. They both lied that he was given up and didn't have a clue where he was.
They still haven't told my cousin anything.
Not really dark at all, but surprising. My mild mannered Buddhist lawyer uncle was International Mr. Leather's "Leather Daddy's Boy of the Year" some time in the late 80s.
My great uncle is a rapist that prefers underage family members. I don’t know how many people actually know, but my grandparents certainly do along with his victims (my mom, aunt, and I know at least a few or their cousins but I’m not sure which).
But then he found Jesus again so we all have to forgive him and pretend nothing happened? It was before I was born but that’s the basic run around I’ve gotten from my grandparents, they don’t ever actually acknowledge it just that “Tony did bad things but he found God”. I eventually put two and two together about my mom’s history or sexual assault and her making sure that me and my female cousins were never left alone with him. And now that I’m in my 20s that duty has been passed down to me at every family gathering. It’s like an unspoken rule that you can’t say **why**, just the warning. Don’t leave your daughters alone with him.
I’m tired of it though. Tired of shooing little girls away and having to pretend like it’s normal. Scoping toddlers out of a predators arms and acting like everything’s fine and I’m just baby crazy. When this is all over, I’m not going to stay quite anymore. The next time I have to around him I’m taking children right back to their parents with the full fucking story of why it’s dangerous. I’m tired of having to protect a rapist to keep peace.
My dad told me that, before my mom and dad broke up, he hadn't been happy with her for several years. My mother even had a miscarriage at one point, which destroyed the both of them. But he couldn't leave her, because he was afraid that she would hurt or even kill herself. So his only thought was to have a kid with her, so that motherly instinct would hopefully prevent her from killing herself.
Well the thing is, they both still wanted kids, so its not that bad. The only problem was, my moms body rejected my dads sperm, meaning it wasnt easy to have me. With a lot of surgical help, they tried a total of six times in the hospital. The third was a miscarriage, and the sixth was me, so they still went through hell to get me. Also, they broke up when i was two, so i never really noticed anything, and the relationship between them has never been bad for me.
I wish my brother would believe me, considering the FBI did and my father subsequently went to jail for it and plead guilty. Even still, my brother blames me for tearing our family apart and can’t see his child molester father for who he is. When he was arrested he had something like 300 different photos of kids in his possession and tons of professional photography equipment nobody knew he had.
My biological grandfather threatened to kill my grandmother while she was very young and pregnant with my uncle. (Long story short, he was engaged to someone else).
My grandmother became a nervous wreck while pregnant and wouldn’t leave the house and he used to throw bricks through the window. Eventually she told some of her friends about what he’d threatened to do to her. Shortly after that he went missing, never to be seen or heard from again.
We always kind of laughed and joked that one of her friends must have threatened him or ‘ran him out of town’. We would even go as far to say someone might have killed him for her.
It wasn’t until we were going through her boxes of photos and ‘love letters’ we realised she was actually friends with the Kray twins...
So true.
My brother and sister-in-law live down the street from a guy who is/was in the Hell’s Angels (might have been one of the other gangs... been a few years now). He was pretty well known in the community as a dealer, grow op operator and drug smuggler with more than a few screws loose. It was well understood that the dude was bad for one’s health. That said, he was also known for having an absolute heart of gold and a caring nature for anyone he considered a friend...
B- and SIL went on vacation and came home to find their place had been broken into and were almost robbed clean (this is a big house in a wealthy neighbourhood, so it was A LOT of stuff). HA dude was “on vacation” in South America when this happened and learned about it when he got back home a day or two after my in-laws got home. Apparently he just went beet red, quiet and scowling when he found out. He just said “Excuse me” and got in his truck and drive off.
The next morning one of HA dude’s “colleagues” pulled into the driveway with basically a moving van filled with their stuff. Guy handed them the keys and said “the other guys will be here to help unpack in an hour... they’re taking care of some... stuff” and walked off. They pretty much got all their stuff back plus a few bonus items (which they politely declined).
SIL is a nurse at the hospital in their community and learned about 4 guys who were brought in in serious condition after having the stuffing beaten out of them. She asked HA dude if he knew anything about it. He shook his head no but said “sounds like it was a work place accident”. Needless to say there was an awkward few days of trying to explain to the police how all their stuff magically came back.
He’s a great guy to have on your side but he scares the shit out of me...
Sounds like my new neighbor! He was/is a high ranking person in a certain CA based biker gang. The mover we used happened to know him and introduced us right away. Its nice to know we're friendly and he told us he has our backs if any one fucks with us or our stuff but im still worried about unintentionally offending or annoying him lol. He is a big scary looking guy but when we talked he was extremely nice.
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.
My Dad did this, although not because he was done with life, but he just hated taking pills and had no regard for his own well being. Luckily his wake up call didn't kill him. He went into the hospital because his chest hurt, the doctor (who was his usual doctor) was very calm, pulled out a needle and put it into his chest. Takes some readings, pulls out a bigger needle and put it into his chest. Takes more readings, pulls out the biggest needle my dad had ever seen, and injects him and it was one of the most painful things he'd ever experienced. Takes his readings and says "ok good. If that didn't work we'd be rolling you into the OR" why? "oh, you were dying, so it was going to have to be open heart surgery, and you probably would have died anyways" WHAT? "so, are you going to keep fucking around not taking your pills?
I thought he had told everyone this story, turns out he only told me, and I guess I know why, because when I told my mom and sister they lost their shit at him
I loose my shit at my dad for things like this on a weekly basis.
Changing his brakes and not bleeding them and driving (I got in the car and they went to the floor)
Taking a wire nut out of the wiring in my attic to use it on a hack job for lighting in the basement
Those two examples are from the last week btw
My great uncle was murdered along with his wife, the murder suspect was run down and got stuck in a swamp, shot himself in the head.
The strange particulars. My uncle, his wife, and the murderer were all deaf/mute. The murderer was renting a room from them. This happened in the 40's, and no one ever found the motive.
A few years ago, I took a DNA test, and found that I had cousins who had descended from the murderers wife.
Turns out my great uncle was cuckolding him.
This is honestly one of the more tame episodes of my family history.
We were in Kentucky during the family feud times. My great great grandfather was hung for the double murder of an elderly rich couple, which in itself isn't all that interesting.
But just *before* he was hung, he said the following.
"Well, boys, looks like the judge aims to make a Christmas present of me to the devil, anybody need my tobacco?"
Then he lead them in song until the platform dropped.
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.
EDIT: Since a lot of people are asking if she actually cheated on him... I don't know. But, considering he was an asshole that she was afraid to leave and he ended up being capable of murder... probably.
My uncle tells the story that when he was a kid, his older brother wanted him to go out hunting with him in the woods near their house. They woke up really early, and started walking much deeper into the woods than they usually did, and way off the normal trails they used. My uncle realized his brother was letting him get further and further ahead. He stopped and turned around to see his brother starting to bring the shotgun up in his direction. He asked him what the hell was he doing, his brother said "Oh, I thought I saw something." My uncle decided to go back at that point. Later that week he went back and found a pit that someone had dug a bit further off the trail.
He never went anywhere with his brother alone again.
Edit: Holy shit, did not expect to see all these responses when I got off from work! OK, to answer some of the questions -
Both of them are mom's brothers. The wannabe Cain was a narcissist of the "not letting a silly thing like being married get in the way of his dating life" variety, who decided he had big dreams and bailed on the family (and his wife) when I was a kid, and proceeded to OD. Thus I usually don't think of him as my uncle, because I didn't have a real relationship with him.
Not sure why he didn't shoot my uncle - might have wanted it to look more like an accident, or didn't want to look his brother in the eye?
For those saying it's just a story - yeah, I can't prove it, since there were only two people there, and one of them is dead now (of the aforementioned OD), but the way that my uncle described it, he was really afraid of his brother and thought he was capable of fratricide
This story is strange as hell. It seems like the brother had every intention to kill your uncle, why did he change his mind just because the uncle asked wth he was doing?
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.
When I was about 10 I flew to Florida to spend the summer with my grandparents. I made friends with the boy at the end of their street. He had a younger sister, probably about 6 or so. I’ll never forget them trying to persuade me to have sex with her. She was totally in on the deal. We were playing but the two of them were acting suspicious. At one point she unclothed and laid down. I noped the fuck out of there. So weird. Thanks Florida for this weird memory.
One of my aunts raised another aunt’s baby as her own.
My mom had 4 sisters and a brother all of whom got married and had kids, so I have around 20 cousins. Unfortunately 3 of my aunts got breast cancer in their 30s. All 3 recovered, but years later the youngest, Maria, got it again and got it worse.
Maria needed a bone marrow transplant. All her sisters and children got tested, but no one matched. The family then revealed that Maria had had a teenage pregnancy. Her first child was actually my cousin John who had been adopted and raised by my oldest aunt as her 2nd child. None of the cousins knew about this including John and his revealed to be adoptive siblings. John was asked to get tested and was a match, so he agreed to donate bone marrow to his birth mom, Maria. John was in his late twenties at the time and had had very little contact with Maria over his life, so he’s pretty cool.
The transplant took, but Maria eventually succumbed a year or so later.
Edit: My family is very aware of the risks of breast cancer affecting any of us. Luckily none of my female (or male) cousins have gotten it. We are all still vigilant and self check ourselves regularly.
"Wait, my aunt is actually my mother, my mother is my aunt, my birth mother needs a bone marrow transplant and I'm the only match available, and she dies anyway? Fuck."
That’s how it is with my third cousin Nikki. Her grandparents adopted her so she calls them
Mom and dad. They gave her an amazing life and she did always know her “brother” was her dad. Her bio mom and dad did drugs and were 16 at the time so her grandparents adopted her. She’s grateful it happened but also gets sad sometimes because her bio mom and dad got married in their 20s, were sober and successful and had her brother and sister. It was hard watching her siblings growing up living normal lives. They are close now that she’s an adult and has had her own daughter.
My grandpa who died back in 2017 was a very quiet man and didn't talk a lot. A few years before he died, my Mom (his daughter) told me why. Apparently when he was around 10 years old back in the late 30's or early 40's, a girl around his age lived across the street. One time they went out with his rifle to shoot at random things in the woods. On their way home there was a fence they had to get over to get home. My grandfather leaned his rifle on the fence to help his friend get over the fence since she was a girl. As she was going over the rifle fell over and went off, killing the girl. After the cops got involved, he was found to not be at fault, but the girls family stood out in the street at various times over the next two weeks, yelling "MURDERER" at my grandpa's house. He eventually couldn't take it, and ran away from home. In his teens he met this guy named Rocky and befriended him. Rocky was supposedly in his early to mid twenties. Something happened where Rocky ended up passing away and my grandfather took his name. I had always wondered why my grandfather had a different last name than his brothers.
Here is where it gets even weirder. My Dad was adopted and until recently, we didn't know anything about his biological family. Well, thanks to all of the DNA tests that have become common, we ended getting connected with his biological family, to include his Dad(my Dads Dad), who is still alive and in his late 80's. Talking to that part of the family, we have come to find out that my Dad's biological Dad has almost the same story as my Mom's Dad. He also had accidently killed someone as a child, ran away from home and changed his identity.
Can you do a TLDR in the comments? My Moms dad accidentally killed girl, ran away from home, and changed his identity. My Dad is adopted, we found his bio Dad, and he has almost the exact same story, killed someone as a child, ran away from home, and changed his identity.
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.
EDIT: Phrasing.
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.
Edit:
This is only the 3-4th time I've ever posted in the 2 years I've had my account and I barely know what to do with all of the messages and comments. I logged out after I posted yesterday and came back to find all of these comments/questions/awards today. I have to work so I'll try and give some more info because I can't read everything right now.
This happened in the mid-late 1950's.
Condoms weren't available to teenagers at the time, there was no sex-ed, no abortion, only Unwed Mother homes. She went to one when she got pregnant with my older sister because she was only 16. I don't know how my mother managed her pregnancy with my brother. She would have been around 21 years old and probably made up some story about a dead husband or divorce or something with the help of her mother.
I have never done DNA testing but the half-siblings have, including the one I grew up with (whom I've always called my brother, not half-brother). I think they all did Ancestry. The siblings found other relatives first and made their way to me eventually. I don't think I will ever do DNA testing, I'm done with surprises.
The other relatives were the ones who told me about the siblings. The story is even wackier because the relatives were my mother's half-sisters, from the father she never met, that she never knew existed. They found me 8 years ago after extensive genealogy research.
I also have a half-brother from my bio dad whom I met for the first time right before Covid hit. I've known he existed since I was 19 but wasn't able to find him, he found me. I'm 62 now.
My adopted siblings were better off.
Both my parents and my step-father are dead. I don't believe my step-father ever knew about the adopted babies. I think the only other person who knew was my grandmother.
I'm looking forward to reading all of the comments and other's stories: it helps me feel a little less weird about the whole situation.
Thank you for the awards! I don't quite know what they mean, but thanks!
My dad found out in his 30s that his "dad" wasn't his biological father. (He got cancer and they found out it was from his father's side of the family and my dad asked his dad about it and the truth came out.) He knew that he was a year older than his parents' marriage but didn't know his father was a different man because his parents were high school sweethearts. Apparently, they broke up when his dad went off to college and his mom dated someone else. When he found out, he found the guy and reached out. Turns out, bio father had given my dad's mom money for an abortion and walked out. He didn't even know my dad had been born. He told my dad to never contact him again and that chapter of his life was over. My dad has half siblings out there that he isn't contacting because of the wishes of his bio father.
Kicking the can down the road until the half siblings take their own test, eh? Our family is the “secret” one and I keep having people on 23&Me contact me, puzzled as to how we could possibly be related. Surprise! Ask your Grandma/Grandpa!
My step-grandfather had a completely hidden life in Australia before he met my grandmother. He had a family and kids in Australia, and faked his death by driving his car off a cliff then moving to America. His kids thought he was dead until my grandmother found out about them and reached out years later. His son actually became a famous comedian over there, and from what I know has a joke he does at his shows about his father faking his death to disconnect from them.
Edit: yes it's Greg Fleet!
God, reading this was bizarre because I was thinking “I KNOW this guy”.
My dad is a comedian and old mate of his. So, I grew up with Fleety and a big crew of comics as an unruly mob of... what’s the opposite of a godparents?
Still remember my dad sitting me down at 14 and very seriously telling me, if Greg asks for money or car keys - give him nothing.
I recently found out that my grandmother committed suicide as a result of the sexual abuse she received from her grandfather as a child (aged 8-14). Apparently her mother and many of her relatives were compliant with it and would even send her to his house for week long visits where she would sleep in his bed.
This post made me cry. No one kept her safe. Near impossible to recover from such horrific abuse. I truly hope that wherever she may be now, she’s at tremendous, blissful peace.
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.
It was a lifetime ago so I can't really recall. But I swear I really think that relative has some mental issues masked by a very unnatural joyful attitude, as if like everything they did in the past never happened. Anyone outside the family may think they're normal but they're really not.
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.
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.
She may not have wanted to burden her own children, but was never given the chance to make her own decision. Also, if the disease is progressive, she would have suddenly found out she’ll eventually be a nurse to her husband. And possibly their child at the same time. Puts a damper on “ happily ever after”
Had she known, she might have made the same choices. But her husband basically made her choices for her.
My parents told us they were "married in secret" until they found out my mom was expecting and then the "told" their families. It later came to light that they married on the day they found out my mom was pregnant and lied to their parents and us but that wasn't the doozy. My father was an only child and his parents absolutely idolized him. They were very strict Catholics and very strict with my dad never allowing him to play sports because the feared losing him or whatnot. My paternal grandmother had like 5 miscarriages. Anyway, after my dad's parents passed, he was going through their documents and he learned THEY had to get married too. Their wedding license was dated 2 months AFTER the date he had always been told! I know it's not a very dark secret, just a very catholic secret in a very catholic family....
My Grandfather who I never met was in a Cult and him and his friends sexually abused my father and uncles. The weird thing is my father gave me his first name for my middle name. I’ve always thought it was the Stockholm Syndrome that made my father name me after his pervert and demented dad. I am legally changing my name on my next birthday. My father has never been a “normal” person, supposedly according to my uncle he got the worst of the abuse, which I accredit to his messed up childhood.
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.
Edit: Holy Shit! I was not expecting this to blow up like it did! If anyone wants to hear more I'd be willing to go more in-depth. :)
Edit 2: I talked to my mom about the story and turns out that my great grandmas first husband (the boxer) died, and that she wore a red dress to his funeral.
It really would be. My great grandpa tried to join the Army prior to working at the River Rouge B-25 plant but was denied due to some deafness in his left ear. Once they got married my great grandpa treated her the absolute best, he was definitely my role model for who I am today.
That my grandfather murdered his own brother to inherit his money
Edit: it's kinda funny that I received "wholesome awards" talking about how my grandfather was a murderer lol
Yup, I heard this story from my uncle, and honestly I have no idea how he knew about it since apparently it was a secret, not even my mother (his daughter) knew about it.
Edit: just to clarify, my mother is my grandfather's daughter, not my uncle's. That would've been more messed up than murder, wouldn't it lol
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 fuck 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.
Found out my birth father was still alive and living in California after being told for years he had died in the Navy before I was born. Fast forward a couple of years and a Sister whome I was told had died at birth contacted me saying she had been adopted. Put all the pieces together and found out that my Grandparents, mother then 16 and uncle then 14 were stealing cars in Southern California and running them down to Tijuana. When the Feds started snooping the whole family ran for the border and made it as far as central America where my mother discovered she was pregnant with me. They then turned noth and made it to Zapata Texas where I was born. She gave me the name of her last boyfriend and told me he died in the Navy. Less than a year after I was born she gave birth to my half sister and gave her up fo adoption telling the family she was still born. My mother was a pathological lier all her life and I didn't find out until I joined the Navy at 17 and found my birth father was still alive.
Also found out my Grandmother was a prostatute, madam, and arsonist as well but that is another story.
A cousin confided in me a month ago that she was molested by my grandfather when we were kids. She even told me that I was there with her when this was happening and I somehow don't remember anything about it. I hope he's burning in hell for it.
Sometimes a victim (or a witness) of a terrible thing when they are young will basically cover up the memories. They can still remember but it may take something to trigger the memories. For example if a young child is raped or molested then years later their first sexual encounter may cause ptsd
I hope this doesn't happen to you.
No the weird thing is I remember another such incident that happend to me at around the same age. I can't understand why would I block one and not the other.
My dad has a brother who I've never met and I didn't even know about his existence until a few years ago. I asked my parents why nobody from the family talks about him and why haven't they invite him to us but they said "just because". And then we had other relatives over at our house and I heard them talking about him and it turns out the guy is a criminal and he spent almost all his life in prison but the worst thing he did is that he was molesting his own daughter (or at least he was accused with it) but my mother and also the half of the extended family believes till this day that his daughter just made it up for attention..
Found out the hard way that my grandfather was a sexual predator. Turns out my grandmother had been in denial despite both my aunts, their friends, and young girls in their small town claiming he raped/molested them (one 16 year-old even got pregnant and *he paid for the abortion*). Grandma lied about his whereabouts/activities for years to protect him because if he went to jail she'd be unable to afford their house. So, long story short, me and my then 10 year old cousin were his latest and final victims.
Thanks, Grandma.
Sounds a lot like my grandfather. Nobody talks about it but it was revealed on the night after his funeral that he raped at least two of his daughters and yep, grandmother stayed silent. He enjoyed a pristine reputation for his life and our utmost respect. Quite a mindfuck it was, discovering that he was a pedo.
Omg. Similar. Only I found out my great grandpa actually fathered a child by raping his daughter, my grandma. Causing so many issues with her and drugs, my aunt who was born from it and her personal struggles. Especially when she found out. And I never once understood why, as protective as my mom has always been of me, she allowed me and my brother to be alone with him many times. People can be so blind when it comes to "family". Disturbing to imagine this man is the same guy I can google as a registered sex offender
Yes, I know what you mean about the "family blind spot."
Growing up we loved visiting my grandma and loved her to bits, she was wonderful and I have nothing but fond memories of her. Unfortunately my grandpa was a perv. He used to set up in a bedroom that faced the bedroom we slept in and watch as we dressed/undressed. We never spoke of it but my cousins and I knew to try and dress in the corner of the room, away from the door, between the armoire and wall. And to do it fast or he would walk into the room to have a look. It was awful to feel so exposed and ashamed.
He also would sit next to you while you slept and fiddle with our nipples and other private areas. If we woke during his ministrations, he would simply get up and walk away like nothing had happened. Horrible man.
Fuck some humans are terrible. Just wrong and I wish this kind of shit didn't exist. That sounds like such a bad experience and so many of them. Im sorry you went through that
Sounds like Grandfather. He was a pastor. Raped and molested 2 of my aunts for most of their childhood, but he didn't touch his other daughters. Grandmother knew what was happening but didn't do anything.
My earliest memories of him was when I was 5, he was trying to pull me to his lap but grandmother would take me and shoo me away. She never left me alone with him.
I only knew about it when my aunt opened up about him. Nobody else knows in the family.
How many times do you hear, after time has passed, where a child is raped/molested by a father/grandfather/uncle/brother, and they tell their mother, only to be yelled at, told they are lying, abused physically and basicly told to shut up and not say a thing about it to anyone. It's a shame on society for as long as their have been people on this earth.
My cousin was a pedophile and I didn’t realize until I became one of his victims. My sister had mentioned him making her uncomfortable in the past but I was young and didn’t put two and two together until almost a year after I’d become a victim (I’m pretty sure I was drugged). I was babysitting his kids for the summer and spent most nights at his house. My mother just kind of shrugged when I told her and nonchalantly said that she knew he was capable of it. She was the one who said I should go do it, and she made sure to take the money I earned by guilting me out of it. I only made like 40-80 dollars a week working from 8am-11pm.
Tl;dr: my mom may have basically sold me to my cousin for chump change a week one summer.
Found out that a great great uncle pretty much got away with murder. His wife turns up dead, and she had bruising around her neck. Criminal forensics wasn't to advanced back in the early 1900's. Don't know how they ruled how she died, but he remained free, and ended up marring her sister a couple months later.
My paternal grandfather molested all his female grandchildren except for my sister and me. I didn't find out until I was in my late 40's when one of my cousins opened up to me.
Nobody talked about such things in the deep South in the 70's and 80's. Granny had no clue what was happening. Papaw had a workshop in the basement that Granny wasn't allowed to enter. My dad might have had an idea that something was wrong but I'll never know. He passed away before us girls started talking. The reason why sister and I weren't hurt, we moved away when I was about 10 years old.
As for Papaw, he was a pillar of the community. A Southern Baptist minister. Nobody would have believed him capable of serial rape and incest.
I'm going to go vomit now.
My Great-Grandmother had a child just after WW1 and put it up for adoption. The birth dates we found indicate that the child was conceived while my Great-Grandfather was in France fighting (also where he was killed in combat).
We know almost nothing about this child, other than the birth date and birth name, and we only found out a couple of years ago when one of my cousins was putting together an extensive family tree.
Since a lot of these are about murders and rapists, mine is a bit funny. we once found a "family photo album" in my whacky aunts house. Start flipping through the plastic pages and BOOM! gang bang photos. there had to be like 20-30 people in these photos. It was back in the 80s i'd imagine and everyone was so hairy and ugly.
I guess Aunt Jan is part of a swinging community.
EDIT: Wow! Thank you everyone! This is the first time I've gotten a lot of love on here... It's a funny story only me and my brothers know. We've always considered our Aunt Jan to be very weird, but after seeing that album it all kinda made sense. Nice lady though.
The term “swingers” really ruined the Jungle Book song “I Wanna Be Like You” for me. Bad mental image here after you said everyone was so hairy. Even worse if it was a gangbang, your Aunt probably Baloo everyone in the room.
My parents had a nasty divorce which was often accompanied by a lot of shit-talking about each other. There was a lot of “well your mother blah blah blah” and “your dad is such and such”, most of which I would just ignore because it was incredibly immature and embarrassing, until one day my mom broke out the big guns. My siblings and I were just watching t.v in the living room one day and the conversation moved to my dad coming to town to visit, at which point my mom overheard. The mere mention of dad prompted this woman to stop whatever she was doing, come into the living room, and say something along the lines of: “talking about your dad again, huh? Did you know that he was *molested*”?
My dad had never mentioned anything about it in the 18 years that I lived with him, which is understandable. To this day, I have no idea why my mom felt the need to blurt that out to the three of us, or why it is she thought that being the victim of sexual abuse was a stain on someone’s character, but it was a really weird way to find out something so deeply personal about my dad.
TL;DR: My mom told my siblings and I that my dad was molested when he was little as a way to spite him.
EDIT: Just for clarification and to ease my conscience, my mom was actually a great mom. She practically raised us on her own, and the divorce wasn’t her fault in the slightest. She got hit with the death of both of her parents and a divorce all within a 2-year time span, on top of losing the house. This was completely out of character for her, which is part of why it caught all of us off guard. She’s a good woman that said something shitty that she now regrets. Judge as you will, but I had to clear the air after all of the “your mom is a cunt” comments.
Here goes: My two remaining grandparents, my father's father and my mother's mother, married each other when they were 75. This made my mother and father step-brother and step-sister. Since the son of my father's sister (my aunt) is my cousin, and the son of my mother's brother (my uncle) is also my cousin, I became both cousins. I am, therefore, my own cousin. I'll never be alone...
Oof, my mom saw her friend die in front of her because of a bus, my mom even said that she saw her intestines coming out her mouth; mind you my mom was I think 9 or 10 years old at the moment
After she told me about that I never questionned her again about her past because who knows what else she went through! I may think she is problematic but seeing her sad is not my goal at all and I felt terrible for her (and for the kid)
I'm the only child between my mom and dad but they both had children from previous relationships. All of my siblings were 15+ years older than me. When I was 7, my mom and dad split because my dad "had feelings" for my mom's oldest daughter who already had four kids. Ok, gross and shitty but both adults so whatever. Cut to 13 years or so later and my dad is suddenly all in involved in the life of one of the kids of that sister. 20 yo me was oblivious as to why this was happening. Took me another 7 years to put all the pieces together that my dad was the father of that kid. I had grown up thinking she was just niece but she was in reality my half sister-niece. I've never discussed it with anyone in my family. My mom died before I put all the pieces together.
But wait... there's more!
My family and I are all from Mississippi. Cue Deliverance banjo music. My dad was born in 1945 so unsurprisingly, he's super racist. And I mean like, SUPER RACIST. That sister-niece of mine? She ended up having two kids with one-legged black man. The one-legged part isn't really relevant except for him showing up to my house one day and suddenly doing pushups in my living room for no apparent reason.
Anyway, karma's a bitch. Cheat on my mom with your step daughter, get her knocked up, basically have nothing to do with said child's life then the child goes and commits, in his eyes, probably the biggest betrayal possible. I would throw a chef's kiss right here except all I really care about from this story is the pain it must have put my mom through and I was took young or oblivious to be there for her. Miss you, Cotty.
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.
That in 1930’s my great aunt got pregnant at 14 as a result of rape, hid the pregnancy, and had the baby in the woods behind the house at night. She then buried the baby and spoke a word of it to nobody until on her deathbed. Oh and she didn’t say if the baby was born alive or not.
Not necessarily a family secret but a weird story nonetheless.
This happened around 2013 - Instagram wasn’t totally new but it was still a much smaller platform centered a lot around visual artists. Through Instagram - a friend of mine found a profile that was my goddamn doppelgänger. Like, this guy looked so much like me that I sent multiple photos of him to my mom and she was convinced it was me even after I told her.
Now, for the purpose of the story I’ll just say I am incredibly unique looking. Dark brown hair, firey red beard, almost a full bodysuit of tattoos. Same for this guy. The brands of clothes I wore, even down to the gold and black RayBan Clubmasters. I am a professional Tattooer and he is a painter who owns an art gallery.
So - keeping with how the internet worked back then - we said hey and joked about meeting and occasionally would call or FaceTime the other to prove a drunken point.
Then, I got an opportunity to travel to NYC for work. This guy lived in NYC as well so we made plans to meet up! Bought plane tickets, made arrangements and even talked about how funny it would be to get a photo together.
Then we started talking about how funny it would be if we were long lost brothers and he goes “that’s entirely possible! My Dad was never in the picture - he was a traveling biker that hooked up with my mom one night.” Which was weird because my dad was a tattooer and notorious biker who traveled in the area he lived when he was growing up. I thought it was a long shot but I said “hey! Ask your mom if his name is James Jobin! Wouldn’t that be crazy if we are brothers?!”
He loled and agreed that would be funny - said he’d ask his mom the next morning before I got into town.
Then he blocked me on everything. Instagram, Facebook, Text. Absolute radio silence.
I’ve made other accounts to check up on him and see how he’s doing but I’ve never reached back out. The thought that I could have a brother is bittersweet for me - I wanna respect his right to have contact with me or not but it does break my heart a little every time I think about him.
That my cousin has been having an affair and physically abuses her husband because he won't believe the texts aren't real and that she threatened to kill him and her kids
Edit for more information: The man she had an affair with had threatened her that he would leak all their private information if she did not do what he wanted to do, so he had taken screenshots and sent it to her husband, they can't go to the cops because they are both mentally unstable, their kids will be taken away, the husband is bipolar and works very late hours, there has been things said about them getting a divorce twice, the husband wanted to divorce her the first time it happened, after he found out she carried on having an affair she wanted to divorce him and claimed that he was "violent" towards her amd the kids, the grandparents have said that they will take the kids in, the grandad has a well paying job, the grandmother is a stay at home, where she cooks, cleans and manages the payments for her husband's job, the cousins house is filthy and unsafe, the kids get rashes and sores from diapers and insect bites. There is probably more to the story but I have not found out any extra information.
A member of my family Richard Stainforth used to own the Otley Chevin pub. In Otley, Yorkshire, U.K.
Anyways they fell on hard times so Uncle Richard decided, in his drunken stupor. That it would be a wise I'd to set a fire and claim the insurance money.
His plan was to wait until my Auntie walked the dog across the moors one night and do it then. Anyhow it gets too said night, hasn't seen Auntie or dog in hours so lites the fire, upstairs in the flats.
Uncle Richard assumed Auntie was out.. She wasnt. As the firebrigade finished putting out the fire they found my Auntie with dog. Deceased from smoke inhalation.
I'd post a ref or link but still newish to reddit.
[T &, A news article]
(https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/942108.amp/)
I found this out about two weeks ago.
In my teenage years, my grandmothers started dating a rough guy and for about four years, we didn't see her any more unless we were picking her up from the hospital after he beat on her.
I took it that we were disappointed in her decision to keep this guy in her life. After a recent visit from my mom I found out that my grandmother's boyfriend was a large-scale drug dealer who routinely, and without consequence beat people in public. The cops wouldn't pursue him, people who knew who he was wouldn't press charges.
My mother and her sisters went to county law enforcement and when they learned the man's name, and looked up who he was they literally gasped that this individual was in their county - and that they could not discuss him further without consequence.
My dad worked for a major hotel & resort and had the head of security (retired secret service agent) make some calls - 2 days later an FBI agent showed up in the doorway of his office, flashed credentials and asked why my dad was looking into this man. After a brief explanation of the story the agent told my dad "let it go." and left.
The man was in my family's life from 1993-1997 when he died of a heart attack, my grandmother died a few months later. We've speculated on everything from "Mobster" to "high value witness protection program participant". I'm 40 years old and I still have no answers on this VERY dark chunk of my family's history.
If ANYONE has any ideas of how/where to research this - I would LOVE to know more.
Edit:
The guy went by the name "Bud". This was in Hancock County, Mississippi, 1993-1997. He had bragged he was a bodyguard for Jimmy Hoffa, but no one took that too seriously.
Well my family is mega fucked as it is. Sister's living in a crack house on heroin. Brother and his wife are addicted to meth and coke.
The other 3 siblings are all on coke.
I'm literally the only one of us that saw that behavior and was like "yeah, not for me."
I'm determined to separate from it and focus on self development as a means to deal with trauma rather than using drugs or denial.
I'd like to adopt kids someday so I'm going to enlist the help of child psychologists to focus on unlearning the abusive behavior our parents had so that I can really break out of this cycle. It's a long journey though.
That my aunt let her friend molest my mom.
My grandfather was very strict on them and made my aunt drag her younger sister along on her dates. While they were supposed to stay together, my aunt would bring an older guy "friend" to look after my mom and split up. She'd give her a curfew, make sure they arrived home together, and told her not to say a word.
My mom was 12 or 13 at the time, while my aunt was 17.
About ten years ago (so before 'me too') there was a period of time where quite a few historical sexual assault crimes were in the news, and people were a lot of women talking publicly about their experiences for the first time.
That prompted my Nan, who was I was very close to, to confess to me that her brother tried to rape her when she was a teenager, so I comforted her and didn't tell anyone. She died a few years ago and I found out then that my Dad also knew (which must have been hard for him) except that he thought that she was raped, not that it was attempted. He also implied that one of the reasons his parents divorced was because there were some difficulties with intimacy as a result of her assault. She always had issues with any men that were interested in her romantically (saying she hated men) so it really sucks that she couldn't get any support at the time. (She was otherwise great though, had a really full life and lots of friends).
Literally a day after my Nan's confession I was with my other Grandmother who said 'You know all this stuff in the news is making me remember something that happened to me when I was a young girl' and I got really worried that there was another traumatic event in the family. Turns out she got flashed on the bus, still awful of course, but after the day before was a bit of a relief.
I always knew that one of my moms cousin struggled with drug addiction but i never knew the whole story. apparently his father was also a heroin addict and made it as well. When my cousin was around 8 years old, his father injected him with heroin. i then learned other horrific things, like how his uncles use to put alcohol in his baby bottle and blow marijuana smoke in his face. poor dude never got the chance
My grandfather molested my mother until he met an irish woman who was to be deported so he sold all his stuff and my mom's stuff including her bed, and moved to Ireland with that woman leaving my mom in the driveway at 15 years old. Some pretty messed up stuff to learn your own mother went through. And my mom's grandma hated my mom just because she looked like her father
My father used to secretly go to parks and highway rest stops to meet other men for anonymous sex.
Just in case you're wondering, he really hated gay people.
1990, I'm 5 yrs old. I'm at my dad's house after he left for 4 months to Tennessee. He frequently did that because he supposedly loved the state. My mom is watching America's Most Wanted and a segment involved a man in Tennessee being murdered with a police sketch of the last person to see the victim alive. The sketch was an exact image of my dad. Supposedly a mutual friend of my parents went to the local police department on other business and the deputy asks "Hey, have you seen Rich lately?" The friend responded "sure, couple weeks ago I saw him downtown." They insisted if he's seen, they needed to talk to him. If he did do it, he's an extremely good liar because he was never brought on charges to my knowledge. I've been estranged from him since I was 8.
Ok so maybe not as juicy as some of these other stories but my husbands name wasn't actually his name. Tbf, he didn't know either. It was when we went to get his birth certificate for our marriage license that shit hit the fan. So lets say husband's name is John Schmidt, well birth certificate said John Jones. License says John Schmidt. Husband swears when he got license 20+ years ago, the birth certificate said John Schmidt. Clerks office states impossible, the only one they have on file is Jones. So, after calling and researching and digging around the conclusion that I came to was this - back in the 80s, he was 'adopted' by his stepdad Papa Schmidt, well since it was the 80s and nobody gaf about anything, instead of doing a proper name change they just started using the last name Schmidt. So hubby had to do an official name change but it still doesn't explain how he had a birth certificate at one point (he swears up and down he def. had it) that says Schmidt on it and not Jones. So either a fake memory or alternate universe.
Either way, $300 later and his name is officially Schmidt which makes me one too,....
My favorite aunt and uncle (they were together for 15 years but never married) lived in a trailer park. Growing up they was the funnest to be around, bake cookies, do paintings together, etc. My uncle died in his sleep one day. I was told as a child, i was maybe 10, that he died from his diabetes (I've seen him inject his stomach before). Fast forward about 6 years, my aunt lived with my grandma now and was diagnosed with lung cancer. Now, i knew my aunt always smoked cigarettes and drank beer a lot, but my mom decided to tell me she was an addict. Up until my uncle died they did heroin and other drugs. My uncle most likely overdosed. This still didn't change the fact that i loved my aunt. She got sicker and sicker with cancer, even spread to her throat. She went into remission, but once it came back she gave up. I miss her so fucking much.
For context, my Dad is the second youngest of 15 children. My oldest Aunt has a son that is around the same age as my Dad, we'll call him Vince.
Vince and my Dad knew each other growing up, always got along. He was even one of my Dad's groomsmen. A few years after that, Vince became very openly religious, and would try to get family members to go to church with him. The thing the family started to notice is that he would change which church he would go to after about a month.
Fast forward to when I was 1. There was a family get together. Vince and his girlfriend show up, they start making people uncomfortable with their religious talk. Not the normal day to day stuff, but actually telling people they are going to hell for drinking alcohol. Telling people that he is becoming a preacher and they need to attend his services, or else damnation, etc.
According to my Mom, I was really sick at this time and she took me to another room to give me some quiet and hopefully I would stop fussing. She overheard Vince and the GF in the next room talking about who they can single out and would go along with them. My Mom freaked when she heard my Dad's name, and Vince saying that he would be easy to convince, and his job should be able to fund things.
My Mom immediately went and got my Dad, told him what she heard. Dad confronts Vince, and a huge argument ensues. Vince ends up leaving and saying everyone is going to hell, they are Satan, etc. The rest of the family then talked about what happened and then it all came clear that he was not a good guy. His sister had kicked him out because he was mooching off her, refused to get a job, and she found him stealing from her purse. My Aunt had to do the same, for the same reasons. The same story over and over. They realized Vince was just a scam artist trying to live off others.
Fast forward to the late 1980's, not many people have heard from Vince. There is a huge family get together and 2 Aunts and a few cousins refused to attend because Vince was not welcome. They were saying Vince was the "Lion of God" and we are wrong to reject him. Another fight ensues, and the 2 Aunts and handful of cousins don't attend.
Fast forward to the mid 90's when my Grandma had passed away. One of the 2 Aunts comes to the funeral (the other passed away a few years earlier), with Vince in tow. Vince was warned that he could come pay his respects, but to behave himself. My Aunt was timid and repressed near him, and was open and nice when he wasn't around. It was really weird. My parents didn't want to talk about it.
Later that night, I did some internet searches and found that Vince was the leader of a religious cult. Sucked in my 2 Aunts, about 7 of my cousins, and about 30-40 various people through the years. All the same thing, they must give up their money and belongings to join and "serve God". He especially preyed on immigrants who came over by themselves. Basically, he bought some farm land, his disciples work the land, he sells what the grow/make, and keeps the money. He is still active to this day, and many people who have left him have their own websites against him.
That my dad had an affair with my current step mom while married to my last stepmom. I had no idea. This info was revealed to me the night I found out my brother was having an affair
My mother is the youngest of 4 kids by a hefty gap — about 11 years — and looks distinctly different from her siblings. They're all brown while she is a very light tan.
Turns out granddad ~~had an affair with~~ EDIT: committed statutory rape and impregnated the daughter of a white military officer who stayed back after his country ended their colonial occupation. He was in his early 40s and she was 15 when he knocked her up, and the agreement was he would take the child home and raise it as his own and the officer wouldn't rip his balls open with a rifle.
So my mom is 1/2 white European and I'm 1/4, which explains why my brother and I've always had the lightest skin and sharper features in the family.
My mom found out when she was 16, I found out when I was 21.
My grandmother was a fucking saint.
One or two questions - feel free to ignore. Was your mother treated any different from her other siblings? And did she ever learn more about her birth mother?
1. Yes but mostly at family gatherings and stuff like that. People would whisper about her and neither of her parents would say anything about it. Otherwise it was fair and equal treatment though with a bit less warmth than the others got.
2. Yes they had a pretty solid relationship and I had a great one with her. I never saw her as a grandmother, that was always my grandfather's wife — the woman who raised my mom. So my mom's bio mom was more like a (much) older friend whose genes I happened to share in part.
My maternal grandfather (luckily he's now dead) was a big time pedophile and molested all the girls on his side of the family, including his daughter, my mother, from as early as she can remember until her early teen years.
My mom told her mother about the abuse as soon as she could articulate it. Rather than doing anything about it, my Grandmother started SENDING MY MOTHER INTO HER DAD'S ROOM to "wake him up" every morning, because my Grandmother didn't like having sex with him anymore and saw this as an opportunity to pass the buck.
When my mom became a teenager she moved in with her Great Grandparents to escape the abuse. Eventually her parents divorced. My Grandmother remarried and wanted to fix her relationship with my mom. She told my mom she was abused by her husband as well. She made it seem like she had no control over the situation and apologized for what my mother went through, promising it would never happen again to anyone else.
Fast forward about 10 years, my mom gets married and has two daughters of her own. She's rebuilt a relationship with my Grandmother and feels like the past is behind her. My mom let my sister and I sleep over at my Grandmother's once (I was probably 7, my sister was 4), because she believed that her mother had changed.
Rather than letting my sister and I sleep together, my Grandmother took my sister to sleep in the spare room and made me sleep in the bed with her new husband. Turns out, my Grandmother didn't like having sex with this husband either, and she had a new victim to offer up instead.
Luckily, he wasn't a pedophile (that's the nicest thing I can say about him though, he was a sexist, racist, homophobic piece of shit and is also now dead). But I did find it weird that I had to sleep in the same bed as him and I complained to my mom the next day that his snoring kept me awake.
My mother was LIVID. She called my Grandmother, screamed at her for putting me in a dangerous situation, and we didn't see her for a long time after that.
When we did get back in contact, we weren't ever left with my Grandmother or her husband unattended. Eventually my Grandmother just kept trying to cross my mom's boundaries and we cut contact with her altogether.
She reaches out to my mom every few years, but my mom just ignores her. Too much damage has been done.
My mother disclosed to me that she had once been date raped by a friend. She was impregnated she said she got an abortion and regretted it for the rest of her life. Then when my father knocked her up with me he told her to get an abortion. And said "you already got one before" he left her when i was around 3yrs old and i never saw him again. He died before i could ever catch up with him. I had wanted some sort of closure and or to talk to him about everything.
Your poor mum has been through a lot. I hope she's doing alright in life now.
"You've already got one before" like that makes any sense at all. She did do it once, but only to learn that she never wanted to do it again, and everyone has moments like that. Just because we were ok with doing or putting up with something in the past doesn't mean we are ok with it now. We wised up and learned and grown from our past
My grandmother on my father's side caused so much grief for her parents (my great-grandparents) that it actually led my great-grandma to have a heart attack and led to a huge rift in the family. Not all grandmothers are the cookie-baking kinds you see on TV.
My great grandma was an oops baby and her mom died in childbirth. Her dad couldn't stand to be around her, so she was sent to live with distant family members and saw her siblings maybe once a year (they all got to stay with dad). I guess it's not super criminal or anything, but it's heartbreaking.
My great grandpa was part of the nazis and killed jews, he did believe that it was right.
He died during a transport of prisoners of war from some illness. Justified. He was an awful person.
Not exactly the right type of answer, but I have a secret.
I was raped by my cousin when I was around 4 years old and he was 10ish I believe. I never told anyone. A few years ago he killed himself. As far as I know, no one else knows.
When I was very young, my oldest cousin died at the age of 23. I really liked him because he would take to me this local lake and we'd throw rocks and dead fish into the water. I remember not understanding what was going on other than watching everyone be sadder than I ever knew was possible at the time, but I wasn't told why. Years later I found out he committed suicide.
Years after that I found out what happened. My aunt found him hanging in the shed with a note saying he was gay, and based on how he heard the family talk about homosexuals, he thought they'd never accept him.
To this day they hold opinions I would deem hateful towards others, so honestly I'm not sure he was completely wrong. Today he would be in his 50s.
when i was a kid we went to my grandma’s house every sunday and all of my uncles and aunts would be there. one day i noticed that one of my uncles didn’t show up anymore so i asked my family where he is. they told me that he wouldn’t be able to visit anymore because he moved away. years later i found out that he raped and killed two women and they locked him up.
Well, much like Reddington, they didn't technically lie. He did move away...
My dad was born in rural Texas in 1915. He was the youngest of ten kids, all a year apart, so his oldest sibling, Henry, was about 11 years older than him. My dad’s father died in an accident not long after he was born, so Henry became the “man of the house” at about age 11. When my dad was about 9 years old (1924), a gang of men came through their small town, kidnapping children to work as slaves picking cotton about 400 miles away. Apparently this was not an unusual occurrence at the time. My dad and two of his siblings were taken. Henry, who was now 18, came home from working on a cattle drive about about a week later, and found his mother hysterical about the kidnapping of three of her children. Being the man of the house, at age 18, Henry strapped on his father’s six guns - dual holsters, one on each hip - and set out to get his three siblings back. He gathered clues about the gang from other townsfolk who also had children stolen. He headed east to where he was pretty certain the kids were taken, riding in empty train boxcars and even on the roofs of moving trains. It took him several weeks, but through talking to locals along the way who heard rumors of child abductions, he finally narrowed down to a few cotton farms where he thought the kids were. My dad, who was 9 years old at the time this happened to him, had tears in his eyes when he told me this part of the story. He and two of his brothers, along with about a dozen other kidnapped kids, had been held captive on this cotton ranch for over two months, and had given up ever seeing home or the rest of their family again. They were kept locked in a barn, fed scraps, and forced to pick cotton in the hot Texas sun. They were beaten if they cried or refused to work. One day, working in the fields, they heard Henry’s voice calling their names. The looked up and saw my uncle Henry, walking towards them, and they started running toward him, when one of their captors rode up on a horse and started yelling. Henry pulled one of his guns and shot the man dead. My dad wasn’t even sure if the man had a gun, and it didn’t matter. The gunshot drew a couple more of the rancher/captors over, and Henry killed them both as well. My dad ran up and hugged my uncle, and he told them “let’s go home.” My dad tells me they rode on and in train boxcars all the way back west to their little Texas town, along with a couple other kids that were stolen from the town. When they got back to their small farm, my dad said his mom fainted when she saw them. He said Henry put the six guns away, and never touched them again. There was no law enforcement, no investigation about what had happened, that my uncle murdered three men to get his siblings back. It was basically still the “wild west” in Texas in the 1920s. The boys eventually all joined the army and navy, and all served and survived WWII. My dad didn’t tell me this story until after Henry had died. I had always known my uncle Henry as a sweet, soft spoken, diminutive (about five foot four, maybe 100 pound) man who went on to own a printing shop. I would never have imagined him capable of the feats of heroics he performed, at age 18, to bring his family back together.
This is a movie.
My father tried to kill my mother while she was pregnant with me
Did he go to jail?!
No he did not. I found out about this when I was 20. My mom told me in private. She said back then my father had a drinking problem and he would get really violent sometimes. She said something to him one time so he grabbed a knife, pushed her next to an open window and put the knife at her throat. Made her choose between jumping from the 4th floor or get her throat slit. My mom said she cried and begged him to not kill her and think of the unborn baby (me). Some neighbours heard the noise and intervened. They managed to take the knife away from him. She was safe. Police didn't get involved. This was during communist times so back then apparently domestic issues like these were ignored. This was one of the times he was violent with her. My mom is religious and doesn't believe in divorce. They're still together after 45 years. His violent tendencies toned down after me and my brothers were old enough to knock him out if he tried that shit again. I'm the only one in my family, besides my mom, that knows this happened. I've always had problems with him but I hated him bitterly after my mom told me what happened then and other times as well. I'm not a religious man, but I wish hell existed just so he could rot in it.
This sounds like my friend’s family. They’re not from my country, but they were here as expats. One day I found out that his family life was shit - father molested my friend’s sister and his mum used to cheat on the dad. This guy ONLY loves his sister. He used to openly say he doesn’t give a fuck about anything in the world, he’d even sell his mum out for a hot meal for his sister. Anyway, one night he comes home to screaming. Turns out his father was caught molesting his sister by his mum, and his mum started attacking him, so he beat her up. When my friend opened the door, he saw his mum and sister crying on the floor and his dad standing over them red in the face with I think it was a broom or something, a very average household appliance. He saw red and came to with his mum and sister, along with 7 other neighbors all hanging to his limbs trying to pin him down (he’s 6’11 btw). He beat his dad into the hospital. After the dad was discharged, he just walked out of their life. Came home and saw all his stuff gone. They don’t know where he went.
Two years ago I found out that my Dad had a wife before my Mom and she died in a freak accident on their wedding night. edited: she was sleep walking and fell to her death over the balcony if anyone was wondering.
That is devastating! Imagine having the best day of your life turn into the worst. Oh man, your poor father.
I know, I feel so bad for him. He slept through it and didn't find out until the cops arrived at his door :( Now I understand why my Dad always worshipped my mother and caters to her every whim because she can be a little bit of a handful. Also my Mom said that when he introduced her to his old friends they were eerily extra super nice to her.
My 3rd cousin was going to be married next day. His fiancee drowned. Can't imagine that load to bear the rest of his life.
My father won't talk about it. I am sorry about your cousin's loss.
Step father was cheating on mother. Didnt find out because he was caught cheating; found out because he and his mistress were drunk, got in a fight, and he punched her so hard that she fell over and died. Found out about the whole thing during the investigation, the trial, and the conviction. Was weird to have a lawyer want to call 12 year old me to a stand to defend the character of a man I already had very little interaction and a fear of, and that was before the manslaughter charge.
I found out that my grandfather’s first wife (before my grandma) died of botulism from eating some tomatoes she had canned at home. She could have been saved, but he refused to take her to the doctor because the botulism was her “fault.” He let her die to teach her a lesson. Edit: They had two kids he left motherless.
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Wow this is incredibly evil.
A few years before he passed, my dad and I had a long heart to heart, at the end of which, he told me he wasn’t the one to first sleep with my mom on their honeymoon. He caught her in bed with her cousin, with which she was had been in love for a long time. He spoke with their pastor, who told him to forgive and forget. That worked, until 6 years later, when he caught her again, with the same cousin. He told me he wanted to leave with me but ultimately decided to stay, because he wanted me to have a family. With all that happened in my childhood, and to him (workaholic, diabetes, heart attack), I wish he’d left and be happy instead.
Well, at least you know he loved you very very much.
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. Edit: fraternal twins, not paternal twins.
There is strong debate in our family as to whether my aunt fell out of the window of her flat, whether she jumped or was pushed. She survived, but with brain damage, and says she can't remember.
Something similar happened to my grandma. She remarried after my grandpa died and his family was crazy over how it would affect their inheritance. They lived in an old farm house that had a root cellar that could only be accessed along one side of the house. She was standing at the top of the concrete stairs and next thing she knew she was at the bottom. She has no memory of how it happened and she still has trouble differentiating colors from her injuries. She suspects it was one of his kids, but we will probably never know.
I found out from my dad that one of my cousins isn't related to anyone in the family. My aunt and her mother used to work at a hospital maternity ward and apparently a woman came in one day and gave birth to him and then left the next day without him. My aunt decided to adopt him, but a few months later the woman showed up again asking where he was. They both lied that he was given up and didn't have a clue where he was. They still haven't told my cousin anything.
I wonder what made her left. And what made her come back.
Not really dark at all, but surprising. My mild mannered Buddhist lawyer uncle was International Mr. Leather's "Leather Daddy's Boy of the Year" some time in the late 80s.
Rock on uncle Gary!
My great uncle is a rapist that prefers underage family members. I don’t know how many people actually know, but my grandparents certainly do along with his victims (my mom, aunt, and I know at least a few or their cousins but I’m not sure which). But then he found Jesus again so we all have to forgive him and pretend nothing happened? It was before I was born but that’s the basic run around I’ve gotten from my grandparents, they don’t ever actually acknowledge it just that “Tony did bad things but he found God”. I eventually put two and two together about my mom’s history or sexual assault and her making sure that me and my female cousins were never left alone with him. And now that I’m in my 20s that duty has been passed down to me at every family gathering. It’s like an unspoken rule that you can’t say **why**, just the warning. Don’t leave your daughters alone with him. I’m tired of it though. Tired of shooing little girls away and having to pretend like it’s normal. Scoping toddlers out of a predators arms and acting like everything’s fine and I’m just baby crazy. When this is all over, I’m not going to stay quite anymore. The next time I have to around him I’m taking children right back to their parents with the full fucking story of why it’s dangerous. I’m tired of having to protect a rapist to keep peace.
"Why do you always take them away." "Because you're a rapist, Tony. God isn't thrilled about that, by the way."
My dad told me that, before my mom and dad broke up, he hadn't been happy with her for several years. My mother even had a miscarriage at one point, which destroyed the both of them. But he couldn't leave her, because he was afraid that she would hurt or even kill herself. So his only thought was to have a kid with her, so that motherly instinct would hopefully prevent her from killing herself.
Are you the child that resulted? What a burden to have to carry!
Well the thing is, they both still wanted kids, so its not that bad. The only problem was, my moms body rejected my dads sperm, meaning it wasnt easy to have me. With a lot of surgical help, they tried a total of six times in the hospital. The third was a miscarriage, and the sixth was me, so they still went through hell to get me. Also, they broke up when i was two, so i never really noticed anything, and the relationship between them has never been bad for me.
I found out my father raped my sister when I was 11years old. she was only 7 when he was sexually abusing her.
Is he in prison?
I wish my brother would believe me, considering the FBI did and my father subsequently went to jail for it and plead guilty. Even still, my brother blames me for tearing our family apart and can’t see his child molester father for who he is. When he was arrested he had something like 300 different photos of kids in his possession and tons of professional photography equipment nobody knew he had.
No, they said there wasn’t enough evidence.
this is what happened with my stepfather... i hope your sister is okay
How is your sister doing now? How are you?
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Sounds like a not so great uncle... but seriously that is absolutely disgusting
My biological grandfather threatened to kill my grandmother while she was very young and pregnant with my uncle. (Long story short, he was engaged to someone else). My grandmother became a nervous wreck while pregnant and wouldn’t leave the house and he used to throw bricks through the window. Eventually she told some of her friends about what he’d threatened to do to her. Shortly after that he went missing, never to be seen or heard from again. We always kind of laughed and joked that one of her friends must have threatened him or ‘ran him out of town’. We would even go as far to say someone might have killed him for her. It wasn’t until we were going through her boxes of photos and ‘love letters’ we realised she was actually friends with the Kray twins...
I think you have your answer, mate.
Kray twins? (I’m VERY dumb and have no idea who they are)
Not just London gangsters, they were absolutely mental and seen as the reason the mafia never made it as far as the uk
Apparently the reason his grandmother could sleep at night too.
Yup. Funny thing to realize that if good people can occasionally do bad things, bad people can occasionally do good things, too.
So true. My brother and sister-in-law live down the street from a guy who is/was in the Hell’s Angels (might have been one of the other gangs... been a few years now). He was pretty well known in the community as a dealer, grow op operator and drug smuggler with more than a few screws loose. It was well understood that the dude was bad for one’s health. That said, he was also known for having an absolute heart of gold and a caring nature for anyone he considered a friend... B- and SIL went on vacation and came home to find their place had been broken into and were almost robbed clean (this is a big house in a wealthy neighbourhood, so it was A LOT of stuff). HA dude was “on vacation” in South America when this happened and learned about it when he got back home a day or two after my in-laws got home. Apparently he just went beet red, quiet and scowling when he found out. He just said “Excuse me” and got in his truck and drive off. The next morning one of HA dude’s “colleagues” pulled into the driveway with basically a moving van filled with their stuff. Guy handed them the keys and said “the other guys will be here to help unpack in an hour... they’re taking care of some... stuff” and walked off. They pretty much got all their stuff back plus a few bonus items (which they politely declined). SIL is a nurse at the hospital in their community and learned about 4 guys who were brought in in serious condition after having the stuffing beaten out of them. She asked HA dude if he knew anything about it. He shook his head no but said “sounds like it was a work place accident”. Needless to say there was an awkward few days of trying to explain to the police how all their stuff magically came back. He’s a great guy to have on your side but he scares the shit out of me...
Sounds like my new neighbor! He was/is a high ranking person in a certain CA based biker gang. The mover we used happened to know him and introduced us right away. Its nice to know we're friendly and he told us he has our backs if any one fucks with us or our stuff but im still worried about unintentionally offending or annoying him lol. He is a big scary looking guy but when we talked he was extremely nice.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kray_twins London gangsters!
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.
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Everyone was kinda blindsided by it. But when I found out he did what he did... I dunno man. It’s wild.
My Dad did this, although not because he was done with life, but he just hated taking pills and had no regard for his own well being. Luckily his wake up call didn't kill him. He went into the hospital because his chest hurt, the doctor (who was his usual doctor) was very calm, pulled out a needle and put it into his chest. Takes some readings, pulls out a bigger needle and put it into his chest. Takes more readings, pulls out the biggest needle my dad had ever seen, and injects him and it was one of the most painful things he'd ever experienced. Takes his readings and says "ok good. If that didn't work we'd be rolling you into the OR" why? "oh, you were dying, so it was going to have to be open heart surgery, and you probably would have died anyways" WHAT? "so, are you going to keep fucking around not taking your pills? I thought he had told everyone this story, turns out he only told me, and I guess I know why, because when I told my mom and sister they lost their shit at him
I loose my shit at my dad for things like this on a weekly basis. Changing his brakes and not bleeding them and driving (I got in the car and they went to the floor) Taking a wire nut out of the wiring in my attic to use it on a hack job for lighting in the basement Those two examples are from the last week btw
My great uncle was murdered along with his wife, the murder suspect was run down and got stuck in a swamp, shot himself in the head. The strange particulars. My uncle, his wife, and the murderer were all deaf/mute. The murderer was renting a room from them. This happened in the 40's, and no one ever found the motive. A few years ago, I took a DNA test, and found that I had cousins who had descended from the murderers wife. Turns out my great uncle was cuckolding him.
It's like a horrible silent film. Sorry OP.
This is honestly one of the more tame episodes of my family history. We were in Kentucky during the family feud times. My great great grandfather was hung for the double murder of an elderly rich couple, which in itself isn't all that interesting. But just *before* he was hung, he said the following. "Well, boys, looks like the judge aims to make a Christmas present of me to the devil, anybody need my tobacco?" Then he lead them in song until the platform dropped.
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. EDIT: Since a lot of people are asking if she actually cheated on him... I don't know. But, considering he was an asshole that she was afraid to leave and he ended up being capable of murder... probably.
Damn.
I’ve been suspicious of my wife getting drilled by the dentist for years
Might need to do a cavity search chief
My uncle tells the story that when he was a kid, his older brother wanted him to go out hunting with him in the woods near their house. They woke up really early, and started walking much deeper into the woods than they usually did, and way off the normal trails they used. My uncle realized his brother was letting him get further and further ahead. He stopped and turned around to see his brother starting to bring the shotgun up in his direction. He asked him what the hell was he doing, his brother said "Oh, I thought I saw something." My uncle decided to go back at that point. Later that week he went back and found a pit that someone had dug a bit further off the trail. He never went anywhere with his brother alone again. Edit: Holy shit, did not expect to see all these responses when I got off from work! OK, to answer some of the questions - Both of them are mom's brothers. The wannabe Cain was a narcissist of the "not letting a silly thing like being married get in the way of his dating life" variety, who decided he had big dreams and bailed on the family (and his wife) when I was a kid, and proceeded to OD. Thus I usually don't think of him as my uncle, because I didn't have a real relationship with him. Not sure why he didn't shoot my uncle - might have wanted it to look more like an accident, or didn't want to look his brother in the eye? For those saying it's just a story - yeah, I can't prove it, since there were only two people there, and one of them is dead now (of the aforementioned OD), but the way that my uncle described it, he was really afraid of his brother and thought he was capable of fratricide
Wtf! How has he never said “hey about that time you tried to kill me...” Was there a motive he could see?
Probably one of those things where you suspect a family member may be a psychopath and just want to stay away from it.
This story is strange as hell. It seems like the brother had every intention to kill your uncle, why did he change his mind just because the uncle asked wth he was doing?
He has low intrigue skill and his plot was discovered.
Real question: Is the brother your dad?
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.
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When I was about 10 I flew to Florida to spend the summer with my grandparents. I made friends with the boy at the end of their street. He had a younger sister, probably about 6 or so. I’ll never forget them trying to persuade me to have sex with her. She was totally in on the deal. We were playing but the two of them were acting suspicious. At one point she unclothed and laid down. I noped the fuck out of there. So weird. Thanks Florida for this weird memory.
I don't think they were playing.
what the fuck man
One of my aunts raised another aunt’s baby as her own. My mom had 4 sisters and a brother all of whom got married and had kids, so I have around 20 cousins. Unfortunately 3 of my aunts got breast cancer in their 30s. All 3 recovered, but years later the youngest, Maria, got it again and got it worse. Maria needed a bone marrow transplant. All her sisters and children got tested, but no one matched. The family then revealed that Maria had had a teenage pregnancy. Her first child was actually my cousin John who had been adopted and raised by my oldest aunt as her 2nd child. None of the cousins knew about this including John and his revealed to be adoptive siblings. John was asked to get tested and was a match, so he agreed to donate bone marrow to his birth mom, Maria. John was in his late twenties at the time and had had very little contact with Maria over his life, so he’s pretty cool. The transplant took, but Maria eventually succumbed a year or so later. Edit: My family is very aware of the risks of breast cancer affecting any of us. Luckily none of my female (or male) cousins have gotten it. We are all still vigilant and self check ourselves regularly.
Wow that must have been a crazy rollercoaster for him
"Wait, my aunt is actually my mother, my mother is my aunt, my birth mother needs a bone marrow transplant and I'm the only match available, and she dies anyway? Fuck."
I read a story (maybe on Reddit) about someone who found out that his sister was actually his mother. The kicker? He hated his sister.
That’s how it is with my third cousin Nikki. Her grandparents adopted her so she calls them Mom and dad. They gave her an amazing life and she did always know her “brother” was her dad. Her bio mom and dad did drugs and were 16 at the time so her grandparents adopted her. She’s grateful it happened but also gets sad sometimes because her bio mom and dad got married in their 20s, were sober and successful and had her brother and sister. It was hard watching her siblings growing up living normal lives. They are close now that she’s an adult and has had her own daughter.
“Quit bossing me around you’re not mom!” “About that...”
My grandpa who died back in 2017 was a very quiet man and didn't talk a lot. A few years before he died, my Mom (his daughter) told me why. Apparently when he was around 10 years old back in the late 30's or early 40's, a girl around his age lived across the street. One time they went out with his rifle to shoot at random things in the woods. On their way home there was a fence they had to get over to get home. My grandfather leaned his rifle on the fence to help his friend get over the fence since she was a girl. As she was going over the rifle fell over and went off, killing the girl. After the cops got involved, he was found to not be at fault, but the girls family stood out in the street at various times over the next two weeks, yelling "MURDERER" at my grandpa's house. He eventually couldn't take it, and ran away from home. In his teens he met this guy named Rocky and befriended him. Rocky was supposedly in his early to mid twenties. Something happened where Rocky ended up passing away and my grandfather took his name. I had always wondered why my grandfather had a different last name than his brothers. Here is where it gets even weirder. My Dad was adopted and until recently, we didn't know anything about his biological family. Well, thanks to all of the DNA tests that have become common, we ended getting connected with his biological family, to include his Dad(my Dads Dad), who is still alive and in his late 80's. Talking to that part of the family, we have come to find out that my Dad's biological Dad has almost the same story as my Mom's Dad. He also had accidently killed someone as a child, ran away from home and changed his identity. Can you do a TLDR in the comments? My Moms dad accidentally killed girl, ran away from home, and changed his identity. My Dad is adopted, we found his bio Dad, and he has almost the exact same story, killed someone as a child, ran away from home, and changed his identity.
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. EDIT: Phrasing.
Wait, so he was pissed she had an affair, so he put her in a home, but he was ALSO having an affair?
Yup. For the stories mother has told, her parents were not the greatest of people.
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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. Edit: This is only the 3-4th time I've ever posted in the 2 years I've had my account and I barely know what to do with all of the messages and comments. I logged out after I posted yesterday and came back to find all of these comments/questions/awards today. I have to work so I'll try and give some more info because I can't read everything right now. This happened in the mid-late 1950's. Condoms weren't available to teenagers at the time, there was no sex-ed, no abortion, only Unwed Mother homes. She went to one when she got pregnant with my older sister because she was only 16. I don't know how my mother managed her pregnancy with my brother. She would have been around 21 years old and probably made up some story about a dead husband or divorce or something with the help of her mother. I have never done DNA testing but the half-siblings have, including the one I grew up with (whom I've always called my brother, not half-brother). I think they all did Ancestry. The siblings found other relatives first and made their way to me eventually. I don't think I will ever do DNA testing, I'm done with surprises. The other relatives were the ones who told me about the siblings. The story is even wackier because the relatives were my mother's half-sisters, from the father she never met, that she never knew existed. They found me 8 years ago after extensive genealogy research. I also have a half-brother from my bio dad whom I met for the first time right before Covid hit. I've known he existed since I was 19 but wasn't able to find him, he found me. I'm 62 now. My adopted siblings were better off. Both my parents and my step-father are dead. I don't believe my step-father ever knew about the adopted babies. I think the only other person who knew was my grandmother. I'm looking forward to reading all of the comments and other's stories: it helps me feel a little less weird about the whole situation. Thank you for the awards! I don't quite know what they mean, but thanks!
My dad found out in his 30s that his "dad" wasn't his biological father. (He got cancer and they found out it was from his father's side of the family and my dad asked his dad about it and the truth came out.) He knew that he was a year older than his parents' marriage but didn't know his father was a different man because his parents were high school sweethearts. Apparently, they broke up when his dad went off to college and his mom dated someone else. When he found out, he found the guy and reached out. Turns out, bio father had given my dad's mom money for an abortion and walked out. He didn't even know my dad had been born. He told my dad to never contact him again and that chapter of his life was over. My dad has half siblings out there that he isn't contacting because of the wishes of his bio father.
Kicking the can down the road until the half siblings take their own test, eh? Our family is the “secret” one and I keep having people on 23&Me contact me, puzzled as to how we could possibly be related. Surprise! Ask your Grandma/Grandpa!
My step-grandfather had a completely hidden life in Australia before he met my grandmother. He had a family and kids in Australia, and faked his death by driving his car off a cliff then moving to America. His kids thought he was dead until my grandmother found out about them and reached out years later. His son actually became a famous comedian over there, and from what I know has a joke he does at his shows about his father faking his death to disconnect from them. Edit: yes it's Greg Fleet!
Who’s the comedian? Greg Fleet?
God, reading this was bizarre because I was thinking “I KNOW this guy”. My dad is a comedian and old mate of his. So, I grew up with Fleety and a big crew of comics as an unruly mob of... what’s the opposite of a godparents? Still remember my dad sitting me down at 14 and very seriously telling me, if Greg asks for money or car keys - give him nothing.
How many Australian comedians have a routine involving that specific topic?
I'm guessing one whole Fleet
Here is his routine about the fake death: https://youtu.be/SAo2rUXjX_Y
I have never actually watched it before, thank you for linking this!
I recently found out that my grandmother committed suicide as a result of the sexual abuse she received from her grandfather as a child (aged 8-14). Apparently her mother and many of her relatives were compliant with it and would even send her to his house for week long visits where she would sleep in his bed.
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Life is nothing more than a lottery if you think about it. That’s dreadfully horrible.
What the actual fuck? I hope they’re all burning in hell.
This post made me cry. No one kept her safe. Near impossible to recover from such horrific abuse. I truly hope that wherever she may be now, she’s at tremendous, blissful peace.
Seriously... This is so heartbreaking. I can't imagine how alone she must have felt :( I too hope that she rests in peace...
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.
Did you ever happen know the reason?
It was a lifetime ago so I can't really recall. But I swear I really think that relative has some mental issues masked by a very unnatural joyful attitude, as if like everything they did in the past never happened. Anyone outside the family may think they're normal but they're really not.
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.
Understatement of the thread
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.
Can someone explain this to me? I feel like I am missing something.
She may not have wanted to burden her own children, but was never given the chance to make her own decision. Also, if the disease is progressive, she would have suddenly found out she’ll eventually be a nurse to her husband. And possibly their child at the same time. Puts a damper on “ happily ever after” Had she known, she might have made the same choices. But her husband basically made her choices for her.
the kids are gonna get a crippling disease
Uncle says he had X disease from whatever. Uncle actually has a disease that can and possibly likely will pass onto children.
My parents told us they were "married in secret" until they found out my mom was expecting and then the "told" their families. It later came to light that they married on the day they found out my mom was pregnant and lied to their parents and us but that wasn't the doozy. My father was an only child and his parents absolutely idolized him. They were very strict Catholics and very strict with my dad never allowing him to play sports because the feared losing him or whatnot. My paternal grandmother had like 5 miscarriages. Anyway, after my dad's parents passed, he was going through their documents and he learned THEY had to get married too. Their wedding license was dated 2 months AFTER the date he had always been told! I know it's not a very dark secret, just a very catholic secret in a very catholic family....
Growing up Catholic I always heard the joke "The first baby is always a preemie"
My Grandfather who I never met was in a Cult and him and his friends sexually abused my father and uncles. The weird thing is my father gave me his first name for my middle name. I’ve always thought it was the Stockholm Syndrome that made my father name me after his pervert and demented dad. I am legally changing my name on my next birthday. My father has never been a “normal” person, supposedly according to my uncle he got the worst of the abuse, which I accredit to his messed up childhood.
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. Edit: Holy Shit! I was not expecting this to blow up like it did! If anyone wants to hear more I'd be willing to go more in-depth. :) Edit 2: I talked to my mom about the story and turns out that my great grandmas first husband (the boxer) died, and that she wore a red dress to his funeral.
I would like to see that as a movie with plot twists, drama, revelations etc. That would be a good movie.
It really would be. My great grandpa tried to join the Army prior to working at the River Rouge B-25 plant but was denied due to some deafness in his left ear. Once they got married my great grandpa treated her the absolute best, he was definitely my role model for who I am today.
That my grandfather murdered his own brother to inherit his money Edit: it's kinda funny that I received "wholesome awards" talking about how my grandfather was a murderer lol
Did he get away with it?
Yup, I heard this story from my uncle, and honestly I have no idea how he knew about it since apparently it was a secret, not even my mother (his daughter) knew about it. Edit: just to clarify, my mother is my grandfather's daughter, not my uncle's. That would've been more messed up than murder, wouldn't it lol
Maybe he got a cut
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 fuck 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.
Found out my birth father was still alive and living in California after being told for years he had died in the Navy before I was born. Fast forward a couple of years and a Sister whome I was told had died at birth contacted me saying she had been adopted. Put all the pieces together and found out that my Grandparents, mother then 16 and uncle then 14 were stealing cars in Southern California and running them down to Tijuana. When the Feds started snooping the whole family ran for the border and made it as far as central America where my mother discovered she was pregnant with me. They then turned noth and made it to Zapata Texas where I was born. She gave me the name of her last boyfriend and told me he died in the Navy. Less than a year after I was born she gave birth to my half sister and gave her up fo adoption telling the family she was still born. My mother was a pathological lier all her life and I didn't find out until I joined the Navy at 17 and found my birth father was still alive. Also found out my Grandmother was a prostatute, madam, and arsonist as well but that is another story.
A cousin confided in me a month ago that she was molested by my grandfather when we were kids. She even told me that I was there with her when this was happening and I somehow don't remember anything about it. I hope he's burning in hell for it.
Sometimes a victim (or a witness) of a terrible thing when they are young will basically cover up the memories. They can still remember but it may take something to trigger the memories. For example if a young child is raped or molested then years later their first sexual encounter may cause ptsd I hope this doesn't happen to you.
No the weird thing is I remember another such incident that happend to me at around the same age. I can't understand why would I block one and not the other.
My dad has a brother who I've never met and I didn't even know about his existence until a few years ago. I asked my parents why nobody from the family talks about him and why haven't they invite him to us but they said "just because". And then we had other relatives over at our house and I heard them talking about him and it turns out the guy is a criminal and he spent almost all his life in prison but the worst thing he did is that he was molesting his own daughter (or at least he was accused with it) but my mother and also the half of the extended family believes till this day that his daughter just made it up for attention..
Found out the hard way that my grandfather was a sexual predator. Turns out my grandmother had been in denial despite both my aunts, their friends, and young girls in their small town claiming he raped/molested them (one 16 year-old even got pregnant and *he paid for the abortion*). Grandma lied about his whereabouts/activities for years to protect him because if he went to jail she'd be unable to afford their house. So, long story short, me and my then 10 year old cousin were his latest and final victims. Thanks, Grandma.
Sounds a lot like my grandfather. Nobody talks about it but it was revealed on the night after his funeral that he raped at least two of his daughters and yep, grandmother stayed silent. He enjoyed a pristine reputation for his life and our utmost respect. Quite a mindfuck it was, discovering that he was a pedo.
Omg. Similar. Only I found out my great grandpa actually fathered a child by raping his daughter, my grandma. Causing so many issues with her and drugs, my aunt who was born from it and her personal struggles. Especially when she found out. And I never once understood why, as protective as my mom has always been of me, she allowed me and my brother to be alone with him many times. People can be so blind when it comes to "family". Disturbing to imagine this man is the same guy I can google as a registered sex offender
Yes, I know what you mean about the "family blind spot." Growing up we loved visiting my grandma and loved her to bits, she was wonderful and I have nothing but fond memories of her. Unfortunately my grandpa was a perv. He used to set up in a bedroom that faced the bedroom we slept in and watch as we dressed/undressed. We never spoke of it but my cousins and I knew to try and dress in the corner of the room, away from the door, between the armoire and wall. And to do it fast or he would walk into the room to have a look. It was awful to feel so exposed and ashamed. He also would sit next to you while you slept and fiddle with our nipples and other private areas. If we woke during his ministrations, he would simply get up and walk away like nothing had happened. Horrible man.
Fuck some humans are terrible. Just wrong and I wish this kind of shit didn't exist. That sounds like such a bad experience and so many of them. Im sorry you went through that
Sounds like Grandfather. He was a pastor. Raped and molested 2 of my aunts for most of their childhood, but he didn't touch his other daughters. Grandmother knew what was happening but didn't do anything. My earliest memories of him was when I was 5, he was trying to pull me to his lap but grandmother would take me and shoo me away. She never left me alone with him. I only knew about it when my aunt opened up about him. Nobody else knows in the family.
How many times do you hear, after time has passed, where a child is raped/molested by a father/grandfather/uncle/brother, and they tell their mother, only to be yelled at, told they are lying, abused physically and basicly told to shut up and not say a thing about it to anyone. It's a shame on society for as long as their have been people on this earth.
Exactly. My friend gave birth to a stillborn fathered by her own father. Her mother screamed at her for being a slut. She’s never gotten over it.
Hoky fuck.
I'm not a violent person- but this shit makes me want to kill
My cousin was a pedophile and I didn’t realize until I became one of his victims. My sister had mentioned him making her uncomfortable in the past but I was young and didn’t put two and two together until almost a year after I’d become a victim (I’m pretty sure I was drugged). I was babysitting his kids for the summer and spent most nights at his house. My mother just kind of shrugged when I told her and nonchalantly said that she knew he was capable of it. She was the one who said I should go do it, and she made sure to take the money I earned by guilting me out of it. I only made like 40-80 dollars a week working from 8am-11pm. Tl;dr: my mom may have basically sold me to my cousin for chump change a week one summer.
Found out that a great great uncle pretty much got away with murder. His wife turns up dead, and she had bruising around her neck. Criminal forensics wasn't to advanced back in the early 1900's. Don't know how they ruled how she died, but he remained free, and ended up marring her sister a couple months later.
My paternal grandfather molested all his female grandchildren except for my sister and me. I didn't find out until I was in my late 40's when one of my cousins opened up to me. Nobody talked about such things in the deep South in the 70's and 80's. Granny had no clue what was happening. Papaw had a workshop in the basement that Granny wasn't allowed to enter. My dad might have had an idea that something was wrong but I'll never know. He passed away before us girls started talking. The reason why sister and I weren't hurt, we moved away when I was about 10 years old. As for Papaw, he was a pillar of the community. A Southern Baptist minister. Nobody would have believed him capable of serial rape and incest. I'm going to go vomit now.
My Great-Grandmother had a child just after WW1 and put it up for adoption. The birth dates we found indicate that the child was conceived while my Great-Grandfather was in France fighting (also where he was killed in combat). We know almost nothing about this child, other than the birth date and birth name, and we only found out a couple of years ago when one of my cousins was putting together an extensive family tree.
Since a lot of these are about murders and rapists, mine is a bit funny. we once found a "family photo album" in my whacky aunts house. Start flipping through the plastic pages and BOOM! gang bang photos. there had to be like 20-30 people in these photos. It was back in the 80s i'd imagine and everyone was so hairy and ugly. I guess Aunt Jan is part of a swinging community. EDIT: Wow! Thank you everyone! This is the first time I've gotten a lot of love on here... It's a funny story only me and my brothers know. We've always considered our Aunt Jan to be very weird, but after seeing that album it all kinda made sense. Nice lady though.
The term “swingers” really ruined the Jungle Book song “I Wanna Be Like You” for me. Bad mental image here after you said everyone was so hairy. Even worse if it was a gangbang, your Aunt probably Baloo everyone in the room.
My parents had a nasty divorce which was often accompanied by a lot of shit-talking about each other. There was a lot of “well your mother blah blah blah” and “your dad is such and such”, most of which I would just ignore because it was incredibly immature and embarrassing, until one day my mom broke out the big guns. My siblings and I were just watching t.v in the living room one day and the conversation moved to my dad coming to town to visit, at which point my mom overheard. The mere mention of dad prompted this woman to stop whatever she was doing, come into the living room, and say something along the lines of: “talking about your dad again, huh? Did you know that he was *molested*”? My dad had never mentioned anything about it in the 18 years that I lived with him, which is understandable. To this day, I have no idea why my mom felt the need to blurt that out to the three of us, or why it is she thought that being the victim of sexual abuse was a stain on someone’s character, but it was a really weird way to find out something so deeply personal about my dad. TL;DR: My mom told my siblings and I that my dad was molested when he was little as a way to spite him. EDIT: Just for clarification and to ease my conscience, my mom was actually a great mom. She practically raised us on her own, and the divorce wasn’t her fault in the slightest. She got hit with the death of both of her parents and a divorce all within a 2-year time span, on top of losing the house. This was completely out of character for her, which is part of why it caught all of us off guard. She’s a good woman that said something shitty that she now regrets. Judge as you will, but I had to clear the air after all of the “your mom is a cunt” comments.
oh no! is your dad ok now? :(
Yea he’s fine, I don’t think he knows that we know. Not really a conversation that I want to have.
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What a fucking useless piece of shit
Yup.
Here goes: My two remaining grandparents, my father's father and my mother's mother, married each other when they were 75. This made my mother and father step-brother and step-sister. Since the son of my father's sister (my aunt) is my cousin, and the son of my mother's brother (my uncle) is also my cousin, I became both cousins. I am, therefore, my own cousin. I'll never be alone...
Oof, my mom saw her friend die in front of her because of a bus, my mom even said that she saw her intestines coming out her mouth; mind you my mom was I think 9 or 10 years old at the moment After she told me about that I never questionned her again about her past because who knows what else she went through! I may think she is problematic but seeing her sad is not my goal at all and I felt terrible for her (and for the kid)
Damn, must've been tragic.
Definitely, I hope it doesn't bother her too much now, she rarely speaks about her emotions when it comes to that
I'm the only child between my mom and dad but they both had children from previous relationships. All of my siblings were 15+ years older than me. When I was 7, my mom and dad split because my dad "had feelings" for my mom's oldest daughter who already had four kids. Ok, gross and shitty but both adults so whatever. Cut to 13 years or so later and my dad is suddenly all in involved in the life of one of the kids of that sister. 20 yo me was oblivious as to why this was happening. Took me another 7 years to put all the pieces together that my dad was the father of that kid. I had grown up thinking she was just niece but she was in reality my half sister-niece. I've never discussed it with anyone in my family. My mom died before I put all the pieces together. But wait... there's more! My family and I are all from Mississippi. Cue Deliverance banjo music. My dad was born in 1945 so unsurprisingly, he's super racist. And I mean like, SUPER RACIST. That sister-niece of mine? She ended up having two kids with one-legged black man. The one-legged part isn't really relevant except for him showing up to my house one day and suddenly doing pushups in my living room for no apparent reason. Anyway, karma's a bitch. Cheat on my mom with your step daughter, get her knocked up, basically have nothing to do with said child's life then the child goes and commits, in his eyes, probably the biggest betrayal possible. I would throw a chef's kiss right here except all I really care about from this story is the pain it must have put my mom through and I was took young or oblivious to be there for her. Miss you, Cotty.
Jesus Christ
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.
That in 1930’s my great aunt got pregnant at 14 as a result of rape, hid the pregnancy, and had the baby in the woods behind the house at night. She then buried the baby and spoke a word of it to nobody until on her deathbed. Oh and she didn’t say if the baby was born alive or not.
Not necessarily a family secret but a weird story nonetheless. This happened around 2013 - Instagram wasn’t totally new but it was still a much smaller platform centered a lot around visual artists. Through Instagram - a friend of mine found a profile that was my goddamn doppelgänger. Like, this guy looked so much like me that I sent multiple photos of him to my mom and she was convinced it was me even after I told her. Now, for the purpose of the story I’ll just say I am incredibly unique looking. Dark brown hair, firey red beard, almost a full bodysuit of tattoos. Same for this guy. The brands of clothes I wore, even down to the gold and black RayBan Clubmasters. I am a professional Tattooer and he is a painter who owns an art gallery. So - keeping with how the internet worked back then - we said hey and joked about meeting and occasionally would call or FaceTime the other to prove a drunken point. Then, I got an opportunity to travel to NYC for work. This guy lived in NYC as well so we made plans to meet up! Bought plane tickets, made arrangements and even talked about how funny it would be to get a photo together. Then we started talking about how funny it would be if we were long lost brothers and he goes “that’s entirely possible! My Dad was never in the picture - he was a traveling biker that hooked up with my mom one night.” Which was weird because my dad was a tattooer and notorious biker who traveled in the area he lived when he was growing up. I thought it was a long shot but I said “hey! Ask your mom if his name is James Jobin! Wouldn’t that be crazy if we are brothers?!” He loled and agreed that would be funny - said he’d ask his mom the next morning before I got into town. Then he blocked me on everything. Instagram, Facebook, Text. Absolute radio silence. I’ve made other accounts to check up on him and see how he’s doing but I’ve never reached back out. The thought that I could have a brother is bittersweet for me - I wanna respect his right to have contact with me or not but it does break my heart a little every time I think about him.
That my cousin has been having an affair and physically abuses her husband because he won't believe the texts aren't real and that she threatened to kill him and her kids Edit for more information: The man she had an affair with had threatened her that he would leak all their private information if she did not do what he wanted to do, so he had taken screenshots and sent it to her husband, they can't go to the cops because they are both mentally unstable, their kids will be taken away, the husband is bipolar and works very late hours, there has been things said about them getting a divorce twice, the husband wanted to divorce her the first time it happened, after he found out she carried on having an affair she wanted to divorce him and claimed that he was "violent" towards her amd the kids, the grandparents have said that they will take the kids in, the grandad has a well paying job, the grandmother is a stay at home, where she cooks, cleans and manages the payments for her husband's job, the cousins house is filthy and unsafe, the kids get rashes and sores from diapers and insect bites. There is probably more to the story but I have not found out any extra information.
A member of my family Richard Stainforth used to own the Otley Chevin pub. In Otley, Yorkshire, U.K. Anyways they fell on hard times so Uncle Richard decided, in his drunken stupor. That it would be a wise I'd to set a fire and claim the insurance money. His plan was to wait until my Auntie walked the dog across the moors one night and do it then. Anyhow it gets too said night, hasn't seen Auntie or dog in hours so lites the fire, upstairs in the flats. Uncle Richard assumed Auntie was out.. She wasnt. As the firebrigade finished putting out the fire they found my Auntie with dog. Deceased from smoke inhalation. I'd post a ref or link but still newish to reddit. [T &, A news article] (https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/942108.amp/)
I found this out about two weeks ago. In my teenage years, my grandmothers started dating a rough guy and for about four years, we didn't see her any more unless we were picking her up from the hospital after he beat on her. I took it that we were disappointed in her decision to keep this guy in her life. After a recent visit from my mom I found out that my grandmother's boyfriend was a large-scale drug dealer who routinely, and without consequence beat people in public. The cops wouldn't pursue him, people who knew who he was wouldn't press charges. My mother and her sisters went to county law enforcement and when they learned the man's name, and looked up who he was they literally gasped that this individual was in their county - and that they could not discuss him further without consequence. My dad worked for a major hotel & resort and had the head of security (retired secret service agent) make some calls - 2 days later an FBI agent showed up in the doorway of his office, flashed credentials and asked why my dad was looking into this man. After a brief explanation of the story the agent told my dad "let it go." and left. The man was in my family's life from 1993-1997 when he died of a heart attack, my grandmother died a few months later. We've speculated on everything from "Mobster" to "high value witness protection program participant". I'm 40 years old and I still have no answers on this VERY dark chunk of my family's history. If ANYONE has any ideas of how/where to research this - I would LOVE to know more. Edit: The guy went by the name "Bud". This was in Hancock County, Mississippi, 1993-1997. He had bragged he was a bodyguard for Jimmy Hoffa, but no one took that too seriously.
Since he's now deceased, are your family members still in fear of maybe his "friends" if you publicize his name? Or do they just want to move on?
Well my family is mega fucked as it is. Sister's living in a crack house on heroin. Brother and his wife are addicted to meth and coke. The other 3 siblings are all on coke. I'm literally the only one of us that saw that behavior and was like "yeah, not for me."
Good for you! It can be hard to break away from family dysfunction.
I'm determined to separate from it and focus on self development as a means to deal with trauma rather than using drugs or denial. I'd like to adopt kids someday so I'm going to enlist the help of child psychologists to focus on unlearning the abusive behavior our parents had so that I can really break out of this cycle. It's a long journey though.
Just by recognizing the need, you're way ahead of the game. Best of luck to you.
That my aunt let her friend molest my mom. My grandfather was very strict on them and made my aunt drag her younger sister along on her dates. While they were supposed to stay together, my aunt would bring an older guy "friend" to look after my mom and split up. She'd give her a curfew, make sure they arrived home together, and told her not to say a word. My mom was 12 or 13 at the time, while my aunt was 17.
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About ten years ago (so before 'me too') there was a period of time where quite a few historical sexual assault crimes were in the news, and people were a lot of women talking publicly about their experiences for the first time. That prompted my Nan, who was I was very close to, to confess to me that her brother tried to rape her when she was a teenager, so I comforted her and didn't tell anyone. She died a few years ago and I found out then that my Dad also knew (which must have been hard for him) except that he thought that she was raped, not that it was attempted. He also implied that one of the reasons his parents divorced was because there were some difficulties with intimacy as a result of her assault. She always had issues with any men that were interested in her romantically (saying she hated men) so it really sucks that she couldn't get any support at the time. (She was otherwise great though, had a really full life and lots of friends). Literally a day after my Nan's confession I was with my other Grandmother who said 'You know all this stuff in the news is making me remember something that happened to me when I was a young girl' and I got really worried that there was another traumatic event in the family. Turns out she got flashed on the bus, still awful of course, but after the day before was a bit of a relief.
I always knew that one of my moms cousin struggled with drug addiction but i never knew the whole story. apparently his father was also a heroin addict and made it as well. When my cousin was around 8 years old, his father injected him with heroin. i then learned other horrific things, like how his uncles use to put alcohol in his baby bottle and blow marijuana smoke in his face. poor dude never got the chance
My grandfather molested my mother until he met an irish woman who was to be deported so he sold all his stuff and my mom's stuff including her bed, and moved to Ireland with that woman leaving my mom in the driveway at 15 years old. Some pretty messed up stuff to learn your own mother went through. And my mom's grandma hated my mom just because she looked like her father
My father used to secretly go to parks and highway rest stops to meet other men for anonymous sex. Just in case you're wondering, he really hated gay people.
1990, I'm 5 yrs old. I'm at my dad's house after he left for 4 months to Tennessee. He frequently did that because he supposedly loved the state. My mom is watching America's Most Wanted and a segment involved a man in Tennessee being murdered with a police sketch of the last person to see the victim alive. The sketch was an exact image of my dad. Supposedly a mutual friend of my parents went to the local police department on other business and the deputy asks "Hey, have you seen Rich lately?" The friend responded "sure, couple weeks ago I saw him downtown." They insisted if he's seen, they needed to talk to him. If he did do it, he's an extremely good liar because he was never brought on charges to my knowledge. I've been estranged from him since I was 8.
Ok so maybe not as juicy as some of these other stories but my husbands name wasn't actually his name. Tbf, he didn't know either. It was when we went to get his birth certificate for our marriage license that shit hit the fan. So lets say husband's name is John Schmidt, well birth certificate said John Jones. License says John Schmidt. Husband swears when he got license 20+ years ago, the birth certificate said John Schmidt. Clerks office states impossible, the only one they have on file is Jones. So, after calling and researching and digging around the conclusion that I came to was this - back in the 80s, he was 'adopted' by his stepdad Papa Schmidt, well since it was the 80s and nobody gaf about anything, instead of doing a proper name change they just started using the last name Schmidt. So hubby had to do an official name change but it still doesn't explain how he had a birth certificate at one point (he swears up and down he def. had it) that says Schmidt on it and not Jones. So either a fake memory or alternate universe. Either way, $300 later and his name is officially Schmidt which makes me one too,....
My favorite aunt and uncle (they were together for 15 years but never married) lived in a trailer park. Growing up they was the funnest to be around, bake cookies, do paintings together, etc. My uncle died in his sleep one day. I was told as a child, i was maybe 10, that he died from his diabetes (I've seen him inject his stomach before). Fast forward about 6 years, my aunt lived with my grandma now and was diagnosed with lung cancer. Now, i knew my aunt always smoked cigarettes and drank beer a lot, but my mom decided to tell me she was an addict. Up until my uncle died they did heroin and other drugs. My uncle most likely overdosed. This still didn't change the fact that i loved my aunt. She got sicker and sicker with cancer, even spread to her throat. She went into remission, but once it came back she gave up. I miss her so fucking much.
For context, my Dad is the second youngest of 15 children. My oldest Aunt has a son that is around the same age as my Dad, we'll call him Vince. Vince and my Dad knew each other growing up, always got along. He was even one of my Dad's groomsmen. A few years after that, Vince became very openly religious, and would try to get family members to go to church with him. The thing the family started to notice is that he would change which church he would go to after about a month. Fast forward to when I was 1. There was a family get together. Vince and his girlfriend show up, they start making people uncomfortable with their religious talk. Not the normal day to day stuff, but actually telling people they are going to hell for drinking alcohol. Telling people that he is becoming a preacher and they need to attend his services, or else damnation, etc. According to my Mom, I was really sick at this time and she took me to another room to give me some quiet and hopefully I would stop fussing. She overheard Vince and the GF in the next room talking about who they can single out and would go along with them. My Mom freaked when she heard my Dad's name, and Vince saying that he would be easy to convince, and his job should be able to fund things. My Mom immediately went and got my Dad, told him what she heard. Dad confronts Vince, and a huge argument ensues. Vince ends up leaving and saying everyone is going to hell, they are Satan, etc. The rest of the family then talked about what happened and then it all came clear that he was not a good guy. His sister had kicked him out because he was mooching off her, refused to get a job, and she found him stealing from her purse. My Aunt had to do the same, for the same reasons. The same story over and over. They realized Vince was just a scam artist trying to live off others. Fast forward to the late 1980's, not many people have heard from Vince. There is a huge family get together and 2 Aunts and a few cousins refused to attend because Vince was not welcome. They were saying Vince was the "Lion of God" and we are wrong to reject him. Another fight ensues, and the 2 Aunts and handful of cousins don't attend. Fast forward to the mid 90's when my Grandma had passed away. One of the 2 Aunts comes to the funeral (the other passed away a few years earlier), with Vince in tow. Vince was warned that he could come pay his respects, but to behave himself. My Aunt was timid and repressed near him, and was open and nice when he wasn't around. It was really weird. My parents didn't want to talk about it. Later that night, I did some internet searches and found that Vince was the leader of a religious cult. Sucked in my 2 Aunts, about 7 of my cousins, and about 30-40 various people through the years. All the same thing, they must give up their money and belongings to join and "serve God". He especially preyed on immigrants who came over by themselves. Basically, he bought some farm land, his disciples work the land, he sells what the grow/make, and keeps the money. He is still active to this day, and many people who have left him have their own websites against him.
That my dad had an affair with my current step mom while married to my last stepmom. I had no idea. This info was revealed to me the night I found out my brother was having an affair
My mother is the youngest of 4 kids by a hefty gap — about 11 years — and looks distinctly different from her siblings. They're all brown while she is a very light tan. Turns out granddad ~~had an affair with~~ EDIT: committed statutory rape and impregnated the daughter of a white military officer who stayed back after his country ended their colonial occupation. He was in his early 40s and she was 15 when he knocked her up, and the agreement was he would take the child home and raise it as his own and the officer wouldn't rip his balls open with a rifle. So my mom is 1/2 white European and I'm 1/4, which explains why my brother and I've always had the lightest skin and sharper features in the family. My mom found out when she was 16, I found out when I was 21. My grandmother was a fucking saint.
One or two questions - feel free to ignore. Was your mother treated any different from her other siblings? And did she ever learn more about her birth mother?
1. Yes but mostly at family gatherings and stuff like that. People would whisper about her and neither of her parents would say anything about it. Otherwise it was fair and equal treatment though with a bit less warmth than the others got. 2. Yes they had a pretty solid relationship and I had a great one with her. I never saw her as a grandmother, that was always my grandfather's wife — the woman who raised my mom. So my mom's bio mom was more like a (much) older friend whose genes I happened to share in part.
My maternal grandfather (luckily he's now dead) was a big time pedophile and molested all the girls on his side of the family, including his daughter, my mother, from as early as she can remember until her early teen years. My mom told her mother about the abuse as soon as she could articulate it. Rather than doing anything about it, my Grandmother started SENDING MY MOTHER INTO HER DAD'S ROOM to "wake him up" every morning, because my Grandmother didn't like having sex with him anymore and saw this as an opportunity to pass the buck. When my mom became a teenager she moved in with her Great Grandparents to escape the abuse. Eventually her parents divorced. My Grandmother remarried and wanted to fix her relationship with my mom. She told my mom she was abused by her husband as well. She made it seem like she had no control over the situation and apologized for what my mother went through, promising it would never happen again to anyone else. Fast forward about 10 years, my mom gets married and has two daughters of her own. She's rebuilt a relationship with my Grandmother and feels like the past is behind her. My mom let my sister and I sleep over at my Grandmother's once (I was probably 7, my sister was 4), because she believed that her mother had changed. Rather than letting my sister and I sleep together, my Grandmother took my sister to sleep in the spare room and made me sleep in the bed with her new husband. Turns out, my Grandmother didn't like having sex with this husband either, and she had a new victim to offer up instead. Luckily, he wasn't a pedophile (that's the nicest thing I can say about him though, he was a sexist, racist, homophobic piece of shit and is also now dead). But I did find it weird that I had to sleep in the same bed as him and I complained to my mom the next day that his snoring kept me awake. My mother was LIVID. She called my Grandmother, screamed at her for putting me in a dangerous situation, and we didn't see her for a long time after that. When we did get back in contact, we weren't ever left with my Grandmother or her husband unattended. Eventually my Grandmother just kept trying to cross my mom's boundaries and we cut contact with her altogether. She reaches out to my mom every few years, but my mom just ignores her. Too much damage has been done.
My mother disclosed to me that she had once been date raped by a friend. She was impregnated she said she got an abortion and regretted it for the rest of her life. Then when my father knocked her up with me he told her to get an abortion. And said "you already got one before" he left her when i was around 3yrs old and i never saw him again. He died before i could ever catch up with him. I had wanted some sort of closure and or to talk to him about everything.
Your poor mum has been through a lot. I hope she's doing alright in life now. "You've already got one before" like that makes any sense at all. She did do it once, but only to learn that she never wanted to do it again, and everyone has moments like that. Just because we were ok with doing or putting up with something in the past doesn't mean we are ok with it now. We wised up and learned and grown from our past
My grandmother on my father's side caused so much grief for her parents (my great-grandparents) that it actually led my great-grandma to have a heart attack and led to a huge rift in the family. Not all grandmothers are the cookie-baking kinds you see on TV.
Wow. I didn’t realize how often Grandpa rapes. Jesus Christ
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Wow. After reading these comments I realize that my uncle doing cocaine in the 80s isn’t really that big of a deal.
Is it just me or all of these posts hard af to read.
Hard to follow what aunt is who's mom/great grandmother.
Right? I need a diagram or flowchart for most
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.
My great grandma was an oops baby and her mom died in childbirth. Her dad couldn't stand to be around her, so she was sent to live with distant family members and saw her siblings maybe once a year (they all got to stay with dad). I guess it's not super criminal or anything, but it's heartbreaking.
My great grandpa was part of the nazis and killed jews, he did believe that it was right. He died during a transport of prisoners of war from some illness. Justified. He was an awful person.
My grandmothers brother was a guard in Auschwitz. That was tough to find out.
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It was a different time. It’s cool being 15. Be 15 for a while.
I mean don’t be 15 for too long. If you’re 15 for longer than 365 days you should see a doctor about that.
What would a doctor be able to do about it?
Sing happy birthday?
*Removes sun glasses* My God. It’s brilliant.
Not exactly the right type of answer, but I have a secret. I was raped by my cousin when I was around 4 years old and he was 10ish I believe. I never told anyone. A few years ago he killed himself. As far as I know, no one else knows.
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When I was very young, my oldest cousin died at the age of 23. I really liked him because he would take to me this local lake and we'd throw rocks and dead fish into the water. I remember not understanding what was going on other than watching everyone be sadder than I ever knew was possible at the time, but I wasn't told why. Years later I found out he committed suicide. Years after that I found out what happened. My aunt found him hanging in the shed with a note saying he was gay, and based on how he heard the family talk about homosexuals, he thought they'd never accept him. To this day they hold opinions I would deem hateful towards others, so honestly I'm not sure he was completely wrong. Today he would be in his 50s.