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There are definitely some secrets in my extended family’s background that I’m not gonna dare talk about here because my name is on this article…
And I’m sure a lot of you out there probably feel the same way…
But, luckily for us, a whole bunch of folks on AskReddit were willing to go on the record and share the deepest, darkest secrets from their families.
Let’s see what they had to say.
1. A terrible person.
“My step-great grandfather r*ped everyone in the family. All of the kids, male or female.
Everyone pretends my great grandmother was a saint, but she gifted the kids to him and pretended not to hear them scream for her.”
2. Spy games.
“I had an uncle who hijacked a plane to Cuba, became a Soviet spy, escaped from prison, and lived under a stolen identity.
We don’t talk about him.”
3. Isn’t that ironic?
“My grandpa was an engineer who worked on the atom bomb and some missiles in New Mexico. He also designed safety mechanisms on some guns.
My family’s a bunch of pacifist vegans and my parents met at an anti-bomb rally, so this fact is generally not spoken of.”
4. N**i.
“My great grandfather was not only in the N**i party, he was in the SS.
He was ki**ed in the war and my grandfather was adopted since his whole family was ripped apart.”
5. Crazy uncle.
“One of my great great uncles beat his wife to d**th because she cooked a roast wrong.
He was so h**ed in the community that when he was sentenced to d**th, over a thousand people flocked to the town to watch him hang.”
6. A revelation.
“For 10 years my younger sister thought our dad was just away on a business trip.
He was in federal prison.
The rest of his kids knew where he really was but not her.”
7. Brutal.
“My older sister let her baby drown in the bathtub because she knew he has wasn’t mentally “all there” as she called it and couldn’t handle it.
She swore up and down to police that it was an accident and she only left the room for a second.
Was never charged with anything and was ruled a tragic accident. I still have never forgiven her and never will.”
8. D**th in the family.
“Back in the 1960s, my grandmother shot and ki**ed my grandfather with a shotgun, in front of their 16 year old daughter (my aunt).
Apparently grandmother felt she was in a bad situation, grandfather was 32 years older than her (she was his secretary before they were married) and their marriage had been very unhappy.
So she cleared it ahead of time with the small town sheriff’s office, put my aunt in the room as a witness, and blew a hole in his chest. Never faced any legal consequences.
My mom (who was only 5 at the time) found out a few years later from a nosy neighbor.”
9. Uhhhh…
“My Uncle is currently in a ‘relationship’ with a famous Japanese p*rn star.
Oh, and then there’s the time we found a body in the wall of my Grandparent’s house while we were trying to figure out where a leak was coming from. Turns out my great-grandfather ki**ed five people.
Never knew why. Still freaks me out.”
10. A cold case.
“My dad’s 6 year old sister was m**dered in Seattle in 1936, it’s still Seattle’s oldest unsolved m**der.
It was never talked about in his family. I finally found out all about for him.”
11. Home for unwed mothers.
“My mother was sent to an unwed mothers home to have her first child. In Australia this was very common place even as late as the 1970s.
This is referred to as Forced Adoption as the mother never had a chance to even try to keep their child. It was common practice for families to send their pregnant unwed daughters to these places to complete their pregnancy and give the child away without “the neighbours knowing”.
On top of that she has since found out through ancestry DNA that her father wasn’t her father and her mother was pregnant with her to another man before her parents were married. Talk about hypocrisy.”
12. What?!?!
“While visiting my mother’s native country back in 2004, I would hear someone whimpering/crying every night when it was time for bed. I would mention it to her and she thought I was crazy.
Turns out there was a room between where my aunt’s house and the neighbors are where they housed young girls for s*x trafficking.
My aunt “had” no clue this was going on, but she was always caught up in some weird sh*t. No one wants to believe my aunt was part of it, but it was just really weird.”
13. Drunk driving.
“My great grandfather was an alcoholic and drank beer daily while driving to and from work.
One day, he was on a gravel road and hit a little girl. She passed away and one of his friends took the blame.
I’m not sure why the friend took responsibility but apparently, my great grandfather wasn’t the same after that. He quit drinking and changed his ways.”
14. Revenge.
“My grandfather was ki**ed in a bar when my father was still a toddler. The official story was that he was m**dered over a pinball game (back then pinball was pretty serious, I guess).
It wasn’t until recently my grandmother confessed, on her d**th bed, that my grandfather actually ki**ed someone and buried the body, days before his own demise.
So he was actually ki**ed in retaliation for a m**der that he committed. My grandmother kept this secret for almost 65 years.”
15. Awful.
“A male blood relative went to prison for drug dealing and major theft. While in prison he was diagnosed with Hep C, likely from sharing needles.
When he got out of prison, he r*ped his 13 y/o stepdaughter. There’s a high likelihood that he r*ped his other daughters – one died from a drug overdose and the other committed suicide.
He died in prison from Hep C complications and liver cancer.”
16. A sad story.
“It’s me. My dad never told his family I existed.
I was shameful, maybe he was more ashamed. After he died they found out about me and kindly asked me not to come to the funeral.
I get why he never told them.”
17. Totally random.
“As part of opening a home daycare, mom found somebody on the s*x offender registry with our family’s very unusual last name.
Mom called grandpa. He confirmed that he is related to us, he hadn’t seen him in decades, he didn’t know he had been convicted for statutory but thought that sounded about right.
We’re not supposed to ask about him again.”
18. Long-lost cousin.
“My dad gave a job to a cousin.
I remember as a kid that this cousin I’d never heard of just suddenly popped up out of nowhere without explanation but I was a kid so didn’t really think of it, but everyone made a big deal out of how great it was for my dad to give him a job.
I found out 20 years later that the cousin had been in prison for having a s*xual relationship with a student.”
19. Wow.
“A year or two after her adoptive mother died, my mom went looking for information about her birth parents, and found that her birth mom and her husband had been gruesomely m**dered by a drug cartel.
There was an article about their m**der in Rolling Stone magazine that had gory pictures of their bodies.”
20. A survivor.
“My cousin, once removed (my parent’s cousin) was kidnapped, r*ped and tortured by a serial ki**er.
She was (after many days) dropped off near a running path with her neck slit. She lived (unlike the other 3) and she could lead the police to his home.
He is still in prison. As a child I heard whispering of it and didn’t find out the whole truth until I was older.”
21. Rage.
“My dad’s cousin ki**ed a dude and his 9 year old son in a c**aine rage in 1990. He was living in my parents’ basement at the time.
Investigators first questioned my dad, and then they found my cousin’s bloody shoes in the house. The dude used to babysit me and my siblings. I didn’t know any of this until I was almost an adult. He used to call me from prison on our shared birthday and it always gave me the creeps.
Stopped answering when I discovered the truth. My dad and grandma swear he is innocent but… I read into the case. He’s definitely not.”
22. Addiction.
“I found out 6 months before my dad died that he was a heroin addict earlier in his life. He was dying of liver disease and tried to overdose one night.
I didn’t live with him at the time but knew something was wrong and that’s when my mom and I went and found him on the floor of his bathroom with a needle in his arm.”
23. It’s a secret.
“No one in my family can give me a honest answer about how many siblings I have.
My father is 72 and I’m in my early 20s. He has 8 kids that I know of. My brother from my mother’s side said he recently ran into my sister from my father’s side…I had no idea who she was.
Most of the family members say they’ve lost track!”
24. That’s ironic.
“Dad’s cousin was a prominent Catholic priest known for his staunchly anti-LGBT views.
Well, it was quite the surprise when he was arrested trying to solicit a bl*wjob from an undercover cop at a gay bookstore in New Orleans.”
25. I am the secret.
“I am actually the dark family secret.
All of my brothers and sister know but they don’t know that I know. They’ve kept the secret from everyone except one person, and that person told me.
My mother had a secret affair that resulted in pregnancy and my father raised me like I was his own. I sometimes contemplate about whether to tell my sons, but probably won’t.
I actually recalled having met the other father when I was really young but not since and not interested in meeting him now. Both of my parents have passed so I’m not going to make any issues out of it.”
26. Some stories to tell…
“Multiple parts:
My great grandfather was the illegitimate child of an Italian doctor and was born somewhere in southern Italy. Supposedly the doctor had an affair and to cover it up he sent my great grandfather to northern Italy as an infant where he became an orphan.
As an adult my great grandfather immigrates to the US where he had multiple children, mostly women, who I’ve been told he s*xually abused for the majority of their childhoods. This was not spoken about until the last of his children were on their d**th beds.
My great grandfather’s eldest daughter has a child about my mother’s age, her “cousin”, who she grew up with. The father of the child is forever kept a secret and never spoken about, but I personally believe that my mother’s “cousin” may be the child of my great grandfather.
My great grandfather supposedly got involved with the Italian mafia at some point, robs a bank with 2 other family members (my young grandmother supposedly the get away driver) and eventually gets caught and all go to prison for a time (with the exception of my grandmother). All are released from prison and all die of natural causes, supposedly.
I just found all of this out about 2 years ago. I’m 33 years old. I cringe.”
How about you?
What’s your deepest, darkest family secret?
Talk to us in the comments, please!
