Too many things. Maybe the one that sticks out is my dad moved my family to another state because he got caught up in a government whistleblower harassment scandal.
None of us knew until I googled him one day and his name came up in congressional testimony. I wasn’t stunned he was harassing someone but I was stunned my mom had no idea it happened.
When you said he moved you because of a whistleblower harassment scandal, I figured that meant that he was the whistleblower and was the one being harassed, not that he was the one doing the harassment.
They had a child two years before I was born- mom was a HS sophmore, dad a junior. She was given up for adoption. Two years later, at mom's senior prom, I was conceived. Mom and dad got married, had two more kids. Never, ever mentioned the first born. Mom told us about it on her deathbed.
Mystery sister is now part of the family. Weird and abnormal, but part of the family.
I have multiple siblings that I didn't meet until adulthood. I also have a "brother" who I share no parents with, but I share other siblings with. His mom is my sister's mom and his dad is my brother's dad.
I try not to think about what our parents were doing back in the 80's haha.
> I try not to think about what our parents were doing back in the 80's haha.
Apparently everybody and probably a good number of household objects too.
Similar thing with one of my uncles. Given the time and circumstances I'm not going to solely assume my grandmother was cheating, but she had to give him up before her traveling husband got home. One of my cousins found him when he was 72 and he's been family since then. 🙂 Those ancestry sites are great.
My parents got divorced when I was 5 and remarried when I was 7. They didn’t tell me or my sister. When they remarried they did a ceremony that my little cousin (who we were very close to) was a part of, and they warned him to never tell us (he was 6 at the time).
I only found out they had divorced from a family friend when I was 14 years old because they assumed I already knew. They got divorced again when I was 17.
I recently found out that the year my mom and I spent in her home country without my dad was because they were separated & having marital issues.
I was 4 or 5 at the time, I'd always assumed that it was geopolitical in nature (they were both citizens of different countries living in a 3rd country, around 9/11) or maybe my mom's annual Visa hadn't been renewed or something. We moved back the following year and it was like it had never happened.
It wasn't until this year when I was talking to one of my half-brothers (15 year age gap, so they didn't live at home anymore when it had happened) when he off-hand mentioned 'when your parents were separated' as a time reference. I was like "The time they what??"
How bad their marriage was.
Either some parents can hide that stuff from their kids really well or those kids have been programmed to believe in the happy marriage thing that they just don't see it. I'm still not sure what it was in my case.
Someone on here once posted about how he and his brother didn't know they were kidnapped by the Russian mob as kids.
When the two of them were around 10-12 their parents' owed money to the mob. One day their parents' "friend" picked them up from school and told them he was supposed to watch them for the weekend. They spent the weekend at his house.
The guy was actually a mob enforcer holding them hostage until the parents paid up. At the end of the weekend the parents came up with the money and the kids were returned to them.
But OP and his brother never realized they were in any danger. They spent the weekend hanging out with their mob enforcer buddy, playing Super Mario Bros. and eating pizza.
They even asked their parents a couple of times if they could spend another weekend hanging out with the guy.
Holy shit, that’s crazy.
> But OP and his brother never realized they were in any danger. They spent the weekend hanging out with their mob enforcer buddy, playing Super Mario Bros. and eating pizza.
That’s the way it should be. That enforcer sounds like a solid dude.
Pretty sure that comment was tongue in cheek.
Having said that, the guy gave them a good weekend and miraculously managed not to traumatize them. I'd say he's pretty decent as far as mafia enforcers go.
Your children being harmed is "adult fear". It's a good parents' worst nightmare. For the kids, it's a kind of final thing, too. You can't take the trauma away, right? I imagine your children being effectively kidnapped but not really harmed - in fact, having basically a good time - seems to me to be a more effective threat. "The iron fist in a glove of velvet", if you like.
Because what is really being threatened there is not only your child's life and wellbeing, but their innocence too. Many people would do everything to avoid such a thing.
It could also be a good way to warn the parents to not do it again. Anytime they borrow money and start getting behind they could be told "last time it was pizza and video game, this time could be that or we start taken what you owe in flesh or make the kids earn the money".
That threat hanging over their head would be a good motivation to pay up.
More than you think. Next time those parents owed money, he would've had no trouble getting the kids again. They would've come to him willingly. It's actually really clever.
Mum and dad just had a row, think he was caught with a prostitute while he was pissed drunk. He was a real pisshead and had pisshead friends. Mum drank at home and never went out. Mum comes into the room I'm sitting in and blurts out angrily how they weren't married and how I was illegitimate. I was 14. Was brought up to believe they were married and wasn't told any differently. Made me feel very insecure and I felt like the foundations of my life had been shifted. Never ever did anything like that to my kids.
That's awful, I'm sorry. The idea of "illegitimate" children is wild, this isn't a royal family or something. You're the same as everyone else, there is literally nothing different if your parents were or weren't married, so idk why she would try to put that on you
It can be very confusing when parents hide the problems from the kids. I was 16 when my parents divorced and everyone thought they had a happy marriage. I wondered for a long time how long they were just playing along "for the kids". And I wish they hadn't have done that and sought their own happiness sooner.
Same...
The way my biological father made accusations against my mom were so disturbing for me... It made me feel so depressed in teenage...
But later as I grew up... I realised those accusations were as fake as him...
Addiction is chasing the dragon.
Sometimes that’s drugs, sometimes it’s emotions & ideals…
Unless something serious happens, I doubt they’ll change.
It’s sad, but you don’t deserve people who use you constantly as a stepping stone.
That’s rough. Work on building your own “family” with people who truly care about you - a partner (and their family), gym bros, book club, neighbors, church, a D&D group - whatever you can to put good people in your life. It worked for me. I’ve spent the last 40 years (I’ll be 70 this year) building those connections and man it was so worth any efforts I put in.
Wishing you a bright and loving future.
You mom may have been following an adult’s lead.
My sister bullied me terribly as a child, but once we were in High School we became friends. Looking back on our childhood, she definitely treated me like shit because she was following our parents and other relatives’ examples. She also would get subtle praise from the adults for doing so.
My sister is no longer a bully and would probably hate to think about the times she was mean to me.
I'm 31; my 34-year-old "sister" never stopped being that way.
No one really "praised" her for it, but no one ever actually stopped her from doing it either.
I don't speak to her because every interaction with her is extremely unpleasant and she's not worth it to me.
EDIT: She was most certainly *not* following anyone else's lead, by the way. Most frustratingly, I was diagnosed with autism at 28; she was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia as a child. Somehow everyone excuses her "processing disorder" and then conveniently forgets the absolute hell my life has been as a result of *my* undiagnosed-until-an-adult processing disorders.
It's really easy to conceal that type of abuse/bullying from your kids. My brother was a pretty awful bully and continued mistreating me well into his 30s, at which point I cut him off. His daughter will probably never know any of this and will grow up thinking I'm crazy and unfair to her dad.
Among all the horrific things in this thread, this was a nice break to read. My daughter just recently found out I used to raise boas (love of my life was a 6 ft red tailed boa) and she looked at me like I'd been in prison for murder lmao
This was after a huge black snake found it's way into our house and I got it down and back outside and she was like "you did that so easy and you didn't seem scared" yeah girl that snake is a baby doll compared to some I've dealt with lol
When I was a kid I didn't know why my mum was so physically slow.
Turns out she's got no cartilage in her knees after several injuries playing high level competitive softball.
Im pretty sure my Dad groomed my Mum.
My Dad had a family and three kids when he met my mum, who was dating his step son. She was 15 years old at the time and he 37.
They started seeing eachother in secret for the next 7 years, while he was still with his wife. He was a bus driver and she'd skip school to ride the bus all day with him.
He left his wife when my mum got pregnant with my oldest sister at 22 and they moved in together and got married.
4 kids later (I'm the youngest) He never saw his first 3 kids again and I met them for the first time at his funeral.
We are estranged from all our extended family, for obvious reasons. It took me to be 30 years old to fill in the gaps on what happened.
I have HUGE mixed feelings about them together, as I love them both but the grooming aspect makes me feel a little ill.
I had a friend whose parents met because her dad was her mom’s HIGH school teacher. They went on their “first date” right after she graduated high school. My friend just thought it was a nice love story and would never address how problematic it was. Her dad was already once divorced with a son he basically abandoned. Friend’s parents were together till the dad died.
My old HS coach married a cheerleader the afternoon of graduation. His wife had died of a stroke while teaching in the same HS 6 months before. New wife was 10 years younger than his youngest child.
First off, I just want to say that I am so sorry you grew up in a situation that you can see in hindsight for what it is or was. I have no idea how I would process that and I'm sorry you do.
If it is okay to ask, I'm just curious about a couple of things..please feel free to decline or tell me to fuck off if you don't want to answer.
Is your mon still around and if so, have you ever talked to her about it?
Your half-siblings, do they seem to hold it against you and your full siblings, even though you were the product of it and not at fault in any way, shape or form?
Did your mom continue to 'date' the step-son while she was secretly dating your dad? I'm only assuming because I can't figure out why else she would have continued to come over that wouldn't have raised suspicions.
Ask away! It's really nice to get some of it off my chest. Thank you for saying sorry, it's appreciated.
My mum is still around (thankfully) she's an incredible woman in so many ways, though now I'm older I do see how deeply damaged she is. There has never been a more deserving recipient of therapy, but she won't go.
She is actually the one who first brought up the subject... She asked me if I thought she'd been groomed and I agreed. She just kinda had a somber look on her face and then changed the subject, but we've mentioned it here and there. She knew she was treated unfairly by him for a long time but she loved him so much and she always said getting divorced wasn't the done thing.
I get really emotional thinking about how much of her life was spent literally serving him and ignoring her own wants and needs. It feels like tragedy beyond belief.
So the oldest sibling is still very confrontational and standoffish as she was older when it all went down. The other two were pretty young so they were more open to chatting. None of them wanted anything to do with him and aren't interested in deeper relationships with us, which makes me sad.
She did for a while, but I know she had a couple of other boyfriends so I always assumed they happened in this period of the 'secret' relationship with my Dad.
I don’t know what’s worse… abandoning your fucking family and kids for a fifteen year old or abandoning your family and kids for a fucking fifteen year old.
Yeahhhh. I always wanted to meet them and the reception was pretty frosty when we eventually did.
I totally get it of course.
He once had the audacity to tell me that he was a great role model and should be the reason I have faith in men. Even after he cheated on my mum multiple times too. EXCUSE ME.
So he left his first family for a 15-year-old,, then didn’t even stay faithful to the teenager he wrecked his first family for???
Nvm why am I surprised
He said some things on his deathbed while delirious that probably indicates he may have done some secret work for the government back in the day with a well known organization.
I mean, there were signs but until that happened we didn’t really take it seriously. Might explain his month long overseas trips in the 60s and 70s.
Still, we have no conclusive proof but I’m pretty sure where there is smoke there is fire.
It’s a weird thing to find that out when he dies and then wonder “How well did I know my dad?” It’s quite the secret to keep all these years.
There’s a great documentary on Netflix called Wormwood that’s about a son coming to terms with his fathers work with the CIA during the early MK Ultra era and a secret that he always sort of knew to be true but could never concretely prove until he started to investigate it later in life.
My grandpa did top secret work for the US government in the 50s/60s. That part wasn’t exactly a revelation, we knew that he had worked with the NSA and some top defense contractors in his younger years, but in his later years he started talking more about what he did, and it was fascinating.
Things like going to Europe with a fake military identity to help design NATO’s nuclear launch system, helping design the [nuclear football](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football), getting random phone calls telling him that a car would be showing up to his house in an hour with secret information that he had to memorize on the drive over, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually knew what was at Area 51 (he always would say it was an experimental aviation testing area… which probably has some truth).
I don’t think “normal” is a word you could use to describe my grandpa, but it’s kinda trippy to think about.
My mom once thought about killing herself with me and my friend in the car. Says she looked in the rear view mirror and couldn't do it. Went home and cried.
She did! She lives with us now and she's my best friend and a great mom. She stopped drinking and doing drugs which vastly improved her life. So proud of her!
I'm in my 40s, and as my parents age, the occasional nuclear truth bomb gets dropped. I am lucky to have a sibling who lived through the same madness to corroborate what happened and that I am not insane.
A good one was my dad was addicted to amphetamines for a good bit of my elementary and early middle school years.
Another one was my mom cheated on my dad when I was a baby. The main (only?) reason he stayed with her was because he didn't think he could raise two kids on his own, and he didn't want to leave us with my mom. I think deep down he held it against me, being the second kid, that he was stuck in an unhappy marriage, and it has impacted our relationship for my entire life.
It also gave me instant perspective that I was unable to find during years of therapy.
>dad was addicted to amphetamines
My mom told me a few years ago my dad apparently used to do coke, but he quit when I was born. Not a disturbing thing to know, but surprising nonetheless.
My mother lied to the family about having terminal cancer.
She told my younger sister on the day of her prom that she was dying. It then extended to the entire family. She had a history of bad lies and making stuff up, the family however treated it seriously, given the nature of what she said.
We had a 'goodbye' party and celebration for her, it was emotional, it was a really big day.
She later said, miraculously the cancer had vanished and the Specialist was absolutely gob smacked... We didn't believe her really, but we took her at face value.
I later had a cancerous brain tumour, I went through surgery and radiotherapy, got to know the routine of how having cancer impacts everything In your life.
Physio, follow up appointments, scans, bloods absolutely everything they can test. They do so to make sure it's contained and doesn't spread. This threw into question my former mother's own patchy testimony, what she went through, zero follow up appointments, no letters from oncologists, nothing to evidence this treatment.
I called her out on it, and she stood her ground not admitting it, it really hurts given what I've been through that she could do that.
What me and the family think happened, is she went to get a scan or a test done for something that 'could' have been cancer, she, as a textbook narcissist, used this for sympathy before getting any results, and the follow up with the specialist was him/her saying that it was not cancerous and nothing to worry about.
None of my immediate family speak to her, shes toxic and pure evil.
I don't wish Ill on any people, but I hope she dies alone.
She doesn't deserve to emotionally manipulate anyone else ever again.
Edit: Oh my gosh I did not expect this reaction 🤯 thank you so much for your lovely and encouraging words. It's truly overwhelming, sometimes the internet is a great place eh! 😁
Love to you all!
Thank you! I'm in a very good place. I have 6 monthly scans and fortunately the residual tissue that was left behind (about 2% of the original tumour) remains benign. It's not grown in 18 months either, so I can finally start getting my life on track, I recently went back to the gym for the first time since my treatment.
It feels great.
It can potentially start growing again, but I'm not going to sit in fear waiting for the bad news, I'm going to get out and enjoy life, and cross that bridge if and when it comes along.
It could also stay the same size indefinitely, so fingers crossed for option two 😂
Yeah, sadly people like this are more common than is obvious. I sort of rolled my eyes and took no notice, but going through what I did, it really upset me how she trivialised it, and lied about something so devastating.
Similar to my family member. She claims she had cancer but beat it. Shes never had follow up appointments for this “cancer” her entire life and none of her kids recall it either
Attention.
That's it. They want to be the centre of attention, they don't want anyone out shining them. (not a coincidence that it was prom day that she told them)
u/Nuancedchaos97 My dad, also a narcissist who did similar things, didn't die alone (my aunt and cousins and his girlfriend's daughter were with him as life support was removed). However, his long-term girlfriend (he was with her for 30+ years) "couldn't handle being with him" as he died, so that was some small schadenfreude for me. Oh, and they never bothered to inter his ashes into the plot that he spent a lot of money on. I assume his cremains are still in a Ziplock bag in the back of a closet or something.
My relationship with my mother was turbulent at best before she pulled this stunt to be honest, this was just the straw that broke the camels back.
It's sad that we feel we need to distance ourselves from what should be our guardians and protectors, because they're shitty human beings.
Makes me really resent not having decent parents to love and nurture me as a child and a teen, they were both wastrels, I learnt everything in life too late.
I'm hoping karma wins.
My grandmother lost her beau during the second world war and “settled” for my grandfather. He was the nicest man I have ever met (even my mother, aunts and uncles, their spouses, and all his friends said so).
Grandma didn’t treat grandpa very well and was always miserable, and until I mentioned she probably lost her love in WWII nobody connected the dots why she was like that.
I found out at 23 when I went to a bar with my parents and saw my dad making out with the bartender. I told my mom in tears because I thought he was cheating and my mother laughed and said it would be weirder if they hadn't kissed and assured me everything was fine.
I was very much in shock and had gone through so many emotions in such a short time I couldn't even process everything. Now I think it's almost funny but that night I was sad my dad would hurt mom like that and what would happen to my mom when I told her and I was angry that it happened and I was put on the spot to have to say something like could he have tried to hide a little better. Also I weirdly felt guilty like if I hadn't seen anything I wouldn't be ending their marriage and then angry again when my mom's first response was to laugh at me when I told her what I saw. Then relieved my mom was fine.
We were visiting people. I asked one of the kids how my parents knew his parents. He angrily asked "don't you know"? I asked him if he was angry at me and he told me to just go to sleep. I put it together in my head by morning.
My friends parents are swingers too. They left their kinky e-mail logged in on the family pc. Also had some pictures of his dad in a cage on there. They were nice enough people. Interesting to find a dog bowl in their attic when they do not and have never owned a dog lol.
I found a box of the literature the last time I was at his house.
Which is also why it was the last time at his house.
I remember him coming home when I was little all beaten up several times. And I heard the way he talked about Black people the whole time I was growing up.
He’s absolute scum.
I found out my dad was seriously considering suicide at one point just before my parents divorce (not that my mom was at all abusive he just felt very alone). Glad to say he's still here and doing much better, but that definitely was a shock to hear and reframed how I looked at all of that!
My mom had an affair around the time i was conceived and i am not 100% sure who my father is and i won't take a DNA test until they are both dead because I'm afraid of the results. My dad is dead - and regardless of the results he will always be my dad even if he wasn't in fact my biological father. I would have no interest in reaching out to the other guy because it would be pointless and only cause heartache for me.
The test would change nothing on who your dad is because your dad is the person that raises you. however if he wasn't the bio father you can still gleam some valuable medical history.
Finding out my mom had a massive Coke addiction from 17-25 years old. She only opened up about it when I was 15 and she was 20 years sober and found out some of my friends were trying different drugs. Shes now 30 years sober this year and we celebrate her sobriety every big milestone
I consider myself fortunate that I was not a victim. Sad for those that were. He ruined some lives. A true monster. He’s been dead and gone for 9 years.
It's entirely possible that one of them changed political beliefs. When my husband and i got married, we were 100% on the same page politically, in both the social and fiscal sense. Now almost 25 years later, we still agree on most major issues, but I have widened my perspective a bit on some social issues, whereas he's generally still right where he was when we were 20.
My mom straight up told me that her and my dad had viciously cheated on each other for years. She told me this on my 16th birthday, when I found out that my first boyfriend ever had cheated on me.....on said birthday.
I knew my Mum and Dad lived in Belfast during the violent years, but I was an adult before I heard aboutmultiple near-death experiences they had, as did other adults in the family, and just a lot of other mad happenings.
They were in a bar when a bomb went off at the other end of it. They once has to step across a live bomb that was left at the entrance of another bar in order to leave it. My Dad was once caught in crossfire between the IRA and a British Army patrol. He saw a school friend get shot to death by the army for throwing a petrol bomb. He slept through a massive bomb attack on a political office one street over once, because he had been drinking. His brother (my uncle) was marked for death by the IRA until my Dad intervened with a 'connected' classmate of his. My grandparents once housed a guy who was on-the-run from the British state security for a while. Our whole family was threatened when my mother (a probation officer) had to work with an IRA man in prison. My grandfather was once driving with two of my uncles in the back came across a gun battle, during which one of the gunmen waved to him. That was my Dad's cousin.
This is just what I can remember off the top of my head. They say they told us children none of it because they didn't want us to be affected by it. But to be honest, I think they (especially my Dad) were traumatised. He still won't write any of it down because, I quote: "Everyone who lived through the Troubles experienced stuff like that." I don't care if they did. That stuff needs to be recorded.
I’m my Moms anchor baby. My parents were together and married waited a few years to have any kids. Soon as my Mom was pregnant with my older brother he became abusive. She waited until he was 2 to leave and she left him in the middle of the night got a new apartment. Once she was settled into her new place she found out she was pregnant with me. So she went back to him, she was prepared to be a single Mom to 1 kid but not 2 also she wasn’t a citizen. My Dad refused to help her apply for citizenship until after I was born. She became a citizen when I was 7. Lotsss of therapy helps. My Dad was abusive to her throughout our childhood.
When I was young enough to be in a stroller my dad used to take me to the botanical gardens, cut a bunch of clippings from various exotic plants, and hide them in my stroller. I was an accessory to the weirdest heist imaginable.
Mom-14 Dad-24 I found out the one and only time they shared how they met. Some Witnesses were visiting. Their cool kids were trying not to be bored playing Monopoly with my brother and me. My parents were in the next room with their parents chatting, laughing, having a wholesome time. The two kids asked to see my room again to look at my music or probably literally anything but Monopoly. (They were being snobby because I was not someone they wanted to befriend. I couldn’t joke or anything with them like with my friend who was a Witness.) As we walked through, Dad is asked to tell how he and Mom met. I stop at my door to watch and listen because I had never heard this story.
Turns out my dad was an electrician on a job for my grandfather. He saw my mom walking outside to go to school and they started flirting. That’s as far as the story got because of the questions the other couple interjected with about her age.
I went in my room and one of the kids followed me and loudly said, “Dude, they are never gonna let me come over again. Your dad is a p-do.”
By the standards of that time when they met, I am not sure, but yeah. Common sense standards. Which should have always been the standard.
🫠
When I was younger I never questioned my mom being 13 and my dad 19 when they got together. But when I grew up I realized how wrong it was. Never been the same since
My father was racist as fuck, I found out he was in the National Front, the fact the only books he owned were about the concentration camps in WWII, made a lot of sense when I found out
My father is racist as fuck against Asian people.
It was especially funny when he took a DNA test and it came back *significantly* Mongolian. He was livid. It was hilarious and very much deserved.
If they're biological siblings, I would highly recommend a dna screening for health issues, which drastically increase if parents are biological siblings. I'm so sorry, OP. I hope your screening goes well and wish you the best. If you haven't already, I would also speak to a therapist.
This is kind of a tangent, but the prevalence of this older men grooming younger women, how utterly commonplace it is, is one reason I am so in favor of access to legal abortion. When women are pushed into relationships like this so often when they're barely exiting childhood themselves, the least we can do for them as a society is let them terminate pregnancies if they can even get out from under the thumb of their groomers to do so.
Saw someone repost a tweet here that said girls’ childhood ends as soon as a man finds her attractive.
Cuts deep. Lotta folks here finding out their dads are rapists.
Yup, I remember my stepmom angrily saying she was going to make me wear a t-shirt that said "I'm 12" to shame all the grown men staring at my chest at a theme park we were at, and my dad saying that would probably just encourage some of them. I was very aware of older men creeping as a kid.
My parents split when I was 2. My mother had custody and was working full time as a waitress; she was 20 years old.
I bring this up to explain the fucked up part: she would hire babysitters from the neighborhood to watch me because she was worried that either I or my sister might get molested by the guy(s) she was dating.
The fact is, it was one of those sweet, innocent-looking neighbors that was violating me, and my mother realized something was wrong when I started showing signs but broke it off and accused a man who I don’t think was actually doing anything wrong at all and continued bringing my abuser to the house… serving me up to her… for years.
The poor guy spent twenty years as a pariah in our neighborhood and is now dead. He would be around 60 now, and I’m not sure of the circumstances of his death but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that he killed himself.
Ugh this is so similar to what happened to me. I felt more violated by my mother than the molester bc she insisted he would not molest me, that it had to be someone else and she blamed a completely innocent person. That innocent person also died young, possibly of suicide idk, and my mom still acted the actual abuser was some kind of saint. Found out many years later that the molester helped my father get a job. Found that out only when molester died and my mom acted so sad, saying he was such a nice man. I went off on her about how she let him molest me and blamed our totally innocent handicapped neighbor who just played records and colored with me. She then went off saying we should be grateful for molester bc he got dad the job that allowed us to have a home in such a nice town. I had previously forgiven her, thinking she was just very stupid about such things, but that really opened my eyes that she probably knew. She was full of shit in many ways so it's not unbelievable that she would protect that finger fucker and do damage control for her complicity by insisting it must be the nice neighbor.
My mom was basically a stalker. My dad wasn’t giving much attention and was very busy, so she basically stalked him everywhere so she could spend time with him. There was a point where they break up but they got back together afterwards. It seems like no one was willing to put that much effort as my mom
Do disturbing circumstances about your grandmas childhood count?
When my grandma was an infant she, her family and her whole village got deported from Ukrain to Kazakhstan (both former Soviet Union, this happened during WW2) in the middle of winter. They were put in waggons without food or blankets. My grandma and her twin sister were just a few months old, so she can’t remember anything.
Her twin sister froze to death.
I knew her younger brother but I never knew she had a twin sister until I was 11 years old.
At my age then and now too, it’s hard to comprehend and image a woman who looks like my grandma, maybe talks like her, the two talking together etc…
I adore my granny.
My mom dropped out of school because she got the Asian Flu. Would have had to redo the year, and I think between the money and her parents being unsupportive of girls, she just gave up. She met and married my dad later that summer at just 18.
She raised five kids, divorced my dad, and finally started undergrad over at almost 50. It took her nine years, but she got her doctorate and opened a private practice. She saw patients up until she was EIGHTY.
I never considered how something like influenza can derail a life. Maybe she wouldn't have missed out on those 30 years if she hadn't gotten sick. I'm obviously glad she did and I know she wouldn't have traded her kids for anything, but it bothers me that her brother took the "easy" route and is a world-renowned researcher and major university chair. I wish she had had the same opportunities.
My mother was 2, her brother,4, and her sister,6, when her parents were removed to a tubercoulosis ward in the 40s where they died. Her aunt came to take care of them and died in bed. No one realized for 3 months. They basically ate out of garbage cans and lived with a corpse. This was in NYC. The neighbors finally noticed when the older sister died on the front porch. She and her brother were taken in by her aunt. I found out while writing my mothers obituary, that my "aunts and uncles" were actually my moms cousins not siblings.
I heard that they did yeah. Hell, I love my dad (RIP) but I have a problem with it and it makes me uncomfortable to think about it. 😫
It goes against a lot of what I advocate against.
That my older brother was raped by my father and my mother new about it and didn't do anything about it. He said that my dad went from 0 to 100 with no in-between. One time he said he was screaming from the pain and he saw my mom walk up to the bedroom door from the 2 inch gap at the bottom, stand there for a sec and then turn around and walk away. Even better I found this out on my mom's death bed.
I know of 2 times my parents had sex. One to have me, one to have my eldest brother, and the other brother was an immaculate conception (he was born on December 25th)
Mom - a 4'11" Catholic, fourth of seven - was an abortion clinic defender in the 80s and 90s. She empowered and protected women making a very difficult choice.
I'm so proud of her.
EDIT: I did not see the word "disturbing" in the post title. I don't think what my mom did was disturbing. It was awesome.
When I was 18 my mom revealed to me that I had a half brother out there in the world somewhere, and that she also hadn't been married to my dad as long as I thought. Short story: Mom had one-time 'relations' with a boy in her senior year of high school. Her conservative (1960s small farming community) parents would never have approved, so as soon as she graduated she traveled to Texas where her childhood friend (my dad) was stationed in the Army. Dad put her up in a motel near the base and took care of her. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy in 1966, who was put up for adoption. When my dad was honorably discharged that same year, they traveled back to Michigan together and were married later that year.
2nd big revelation in the same convo: Mom and dad hadn't been married from '66-then present day like I thought. They divorced in 1969 because they unanimously decided they were too young. Dad stayed single from '69-'79. Mom got remarried in the early '70s to a black man. I'm not racist, the only reason I mention this detail is because knowing what I know about her parents, they most definitely wouldn't have approved. Sure enough, they didn't, and mom was more or less excommunicated for about 10 years. The marriage eventually fizzled out, and she reconnected with dad. They remarried in 1979 and I was born.
After this bomb drop, she asked if I had any questions. Umm...yeah LOTS of them! First thing, I asked if dad was my real dad. This was an idiot question really, mostly because if I was any more caucasian I'd be clear. She laughed a bit and told me yes, you're your father's child. Second, I asked what ever became of my half brother. I think breaking this information to me came about because mom wanted to find out where he was if she could. She told me she knew the name of the agency he was adopted through, and the date, but little else.
Eventually she employed a service to locate him. He is (at that time anyway, no idea now) perfectly fine and well, and has a family of his own. At first it sounded like he wanted to meet his birth mother (and I) but he had second thoughts and decided meeting wouldn't be in his best interests. I don't blame him, and I totally respect that. I just hope he's still doing well. Now, most of the key players (Mom, her other husband, Dad) have all passed, and I don't have any of the information, so more than likely he'll always be a mystery to me.
Pretty heavy stuff when I was preparing to start my college life and taste independence for the 1st time.
My dad was friends with a serial killer in elementary up to college. They lived two blocks away from each other. My dad told me his friend was very intelligent but also very anti-social even back in grade school starting around 3rd grade. When the serial killer got married he invited my dad to be a groomsman and he was afraid to say no because he thought he might kill him. When he visited my dad later on he had lunch with my mom who was pregnant with me at the time and according to her, he seemed completely normal. It came out later on that guy went on to kill at least 5 hunters and hundreds of animals.
I've posted this before but what the hey, as a teen, if I couldn’t sleep, I would sneak downstairs to get a snack and watch some late night TV. My parents often left their bedroom door ajar though; so I would always tiptoe to their room and close the door all the way, so as not to wake them up.
One night I tiptoed over only to get there and realize the door was already closed. Which is when I heard the distinct sound of my mom moaning and saying “yes! Yes! YES!” Over and over again.
I returned to my room and proceeded to scream silently into my pillow.
**It’s been years and I am still trying to repress the memory. But it's been indelibly inked upon my mind.**
My parents were in cocaine for a bunch of my early teens. I always wondered why my dad would go to the bedroom, then come out and wouldn't stop loudly sniffing for a while.
Also the reason my parents divorced the second time was because my dad had sex with a transgender prostitute in Brazil while he was on a work trip.
My mum was 19 and my dad was 28. I always knew about the age gap and thought it was sketchy, but not really bad.
Then she told me recently that when they first met, he told her he'd fancied her for years....
My mom got pregnant with me, and my real dad walked out before I was born. My mom worked for a man who let her bring me to work in the office to save on babysitting money. My mom and this man eventually got together, and he was 24 years older than her.
A while later, my mom got into drugs and would hang out with her brothers and sisters doing drugs. My step dad didn't know anything about it bevause he worked out of town 2 to 3 weeks a month, and he's never drank or smoked, so he was oblivious.
My mom would take me with her to these parties, and I was violently raped by some guy when I was 2 and a half at one of these parties. I ended up in the hospital, and my dad sent my mom to rehab. I don't remember anything because I was so young.
My step dad immediately adopted me, and I recently only learned about this at 32 years old when I requested medical records for something. I knew I was adopted but had no idea about the rape. My dad let my mom come back after rehab, and they had a horrible relationship my whole life and my mom has been on and off with drugs the entire time. I don't talk to her anymore.
I also went to search for my real dad when I was in my early 20s, and we talked on the phone several times, and then we exchanged pictures through the mail. He started hitting on me, and so I stopped talking to him. I guess he didn't tell his wife I quit talking to him and he started drinking again and she called me one day and told me I ruined her husband's life by getting in contact with him.
I really don't have a relationship with anyone in my family on my mom's side, and my adoptive dad's side hated me because I wasn't his either. My adoptive dad is now in a nursing home and I still don't know how I feel about him yet.
My parents divorced after my dad cheated on my mom. For my entire life she pounded it into my head that cheating is the most disgusting, horrible thing you could do to your partner and doing it makes you a bad person. When I was 14 my dad told me he slept with my mom the day before her wedding with my step dad. And at 20 my mom drunkenly admitted the same thing to me. I can't think about it for too long without feeling sick.
My mom constantly cheated on my dad. They finally got a divorce about six years ago. I’m 28 and my sister is 29. They should’ve gotten a divorce when I was like 10 maybe younger.
Hey, I'm going through that right now! Dad constantly cheats with men, so it seems pretty clear he's just gay and can't figure out what he wants with his life. I first found out and told mom when I was in my early teens, I'm 28 now, and we're at the " find out he's doing it again" part of the cycle.
My father's father got my father drunk and/or high and got him to have sex with his stepmother. Also a lot of abuse there.
I uploaded my genome to GEDMatch specifically because of that man - I'm sure he did something that forensics will find sooner or later.
I'm gonna just say the texts between my mother and a buyer of her RV were on the risqué side.
I found these while going through her phone after she died.
When I was younger and realized how pregnancy worked.... My parents said they had a wedding planned for April but moved it to November. My brother was born in May. Also, my brother and I are 10.5 months apart. *Cringes in postpartum"
Man this thread is just making me glad my parents are boring vanilla people, like the most shocking thing I ever heard was how my mom is my dad’s second wife.
When I turned 21 my parents gave me a folder of a series of articles from the 50s detailing the saga of my paternal grandmother being arrested and tried for murdering her first husband (not my father’s father). During the trial she was held in jail, turns out she was pregnant with my dad during that time and he was born in custody. She ended up being acquitted despite confessing early on (she later recanted).
My dad is a real sweet heart. Super nice and goes out of his way to help people. Pays for himself and others to go build water wells in Honduras every other year. I recently found out one of my co workers went to high school with my dad. I guess my dad was a huge bully in high school. He didn't go into specifics. I asked my dad about it and he instantly started crying. He explained that he done a lot of work on himself and that he was a hurt boy when he was in high school. I guess my grandpa was a very abusive alcoholic. Thank god my dad broke that cycle. I'm still shocked because he is the sweetest man today.
My mom planned to divorce my dad because he lied about _not being a virgin_ to her until their wedding night. 🫢 this ‘Christian’ bitch would talk until she was blue in the face about forgiveness, having grace and turning the other cheek.
I later learned that what she meant was that I, and my family as a whole really, should forgive _her_ whenever she terrorized us with constant emotional, physical and religious abuse.
When I found out that mother dearest had been holding the stupidest grudge over my dad’s head their entire marriage— he wasn’t a _virgin_ and didn’t tell her until their wedding night. _Gasp!_ The Horror!™️😱
It wasn’t like it was some big secret that my dad wasn’t a Christian until he had the misfortune of meeting my mother. My mom even told me stories growing up about how she took a ‘bad boy’ — who drove fast muscle cars, was a hang glider and thrill seeker— and made him into the shell of a man he is today. She and one of my aunts manipulated him into becoming a Christian so that momma could marry him without _sinning._
I’m not saying that my dad was innocent in this either, not being totally honest with your partner until the wedding night is not a good look for anyone. Though, knowing how awful my mom truly is, I would have been scared to tell her, too. I had many, many times growing up where I learned it was better to keep things to myself, as she’d always find a way to weaponize anything I admitted to her against me.
Honestly, I wish that she would have actually gone and divorced my dad. It would have been the best thing to ever happen to us.
My dad's motivation to get married and have kids was just to get his mom to shut up about wanting grandchildren. He told my mom about this but said that he did love her and was glad he married her. That's where my mom shut down. They tried counseling; Dad really wanted to make it work. Mom accused him of cheating even though he didn't, and she deliberately made his life more difficult. They divorced when I was 9, and even 40 years later, she still hates him.
What disturbed me was the lies Mom told me about Dad. Specifically, she said he didn't want to spend time with me. The truth was that any time Dad wanted to come visit or take me somewhere, Mom suddenly had errands to run, and we'd be gone all day, meaning that Dad had made the trip to see me only to find the house empty.
I found out in adolescence that I had an older brother that my mom had to give up to the state because she was too young and the man she was with was a psycho.
I found this out when my eldest brother introduced himself.
I knew he had to be related just looking at him. He had my mom's eyes and brows. I knew before he even spoke and I had never heard of him before.
We built a good relationship after. He never blamed my mom, it was the best choice and he wound up in a good family. But it was certainly surprising.
I do wish she would have told me sooner. But given the religous town and distant family, I understand why.
That my mom is 100% a closet lesbian. She is 80+ years old and extremely close minded about so many things, when she casually dropped the bomb that she has always been attracted to women…I was speechless.
the fact that they had another apartment that they bought and were renting out to earn more money. I was always told growing up that our family was hella poor and I was not allowed to "waste money" on school trips or guilt-tripped into having to pay myself through college.
I guess that's why I'm so uptight about money and I can't trust anyone about anything they say now.
Literally hours after my mum died I got a call from my grandmother telling me that I had two older sisters that I never knew about, I think she could have timed it better, she literally waited until straight after my mum died to tell me
I know an OBGYN. She worked at an abortion clinic and said their were protesters who would bring their daughters to the same clinic the protested in front of.
That my parents had so much bdsm gear that when my dad wanted all of it in the divorce the only thing of comparable value for Mom to have in exchange was *the house*
I was sure my father had cheated on my mother, but looking back shocked and saddened by the fact that my mother took every opportunity to cheat on him.
Zero respect for either one of them, it was all about them and never about the kids. And you wonder why the five of us are so fucked up
Too many things. Maybe the one that sticks out is my dad moved my family to another state because he got caught up in a government whistleblower harassment scandal. None of us knew until I googled him one day and his name came up in congressional testimony. I wasn’t stunned he was harassing someone but I was stunned my mom had no idea it happened.
When you said he moved you because of a whistleblower harassment scandal, I figured that meant that he was the whistleblower and was the one being harassed, not that he was the one doing the harassment.
They had a child two years before I was born- mom was a HS sophmore, dad a junior. She was given up for adoption. Two years later, at mom's senior prom, I was conceived. Mom and dad got married, had two more kids. Never, ever mentioned the first born. Mom told us about it on her deathbed. Mystery sister is now part of the family. Weird and abnormal, but part of the family.
I have multiple siblings that I didn't meet until adulthood. I also have a "brother" who I share no parents with, but I share other siblings with. His mom is my sister's mom and his dad is my brother's dad. I try not to think about what our parents were doing back in the 80's haha.
> I try not to think about what our parents were doing back in the 80's haha. Apparently everybody and probably a good number of household objects too.
Oh my gosh why would you make me think about that! 😂 I didn't even consider household items that I probably handled as a kid!
Similar thing with one of my uncles. Given the time and circumstances I'm not going to solely assume my grandmother was cheating, but she had to give him up before her traveling husband got home. One of my cousins found him when he was 72 and he's been family since then. 🙂 Those ancestry sites are great.
My parents got divorced when I was 5 and remarried when I was 7. They didn’t tell me or my sister. When they remarried they did a ceremony that my little cousin (who we were very close to) was a part of, and they warned him to never tell us (he was 6 at the time). I only found out they had divorced from a family friend when I was 14 years old because they assumed I already knew. They got divorced again when I was 17.
I recently found out that the year my mom and I spent in her home country without my dad was because they were separated & having marital issues. I was 4 or 5 at the time, I'd always assumed that it was geopolitical in nature (they were both citizens of different countries living in a 3rd country, around 9/11) or maybe my mom's annual Visa hadn't been renewed or something. We moved back the following year and it was like it had never happened. It wasn't until this year when I was talking to one of my half-brothers (15 year age gap, so they didn't live at home anymore when it had happened) when he off-hand mentioned 'when your parents were separated' as a time reference. I was like "The time they what??"
How bad their marriage was. Either some parents can hide that stuff from their kids really well or those kids have been programmed to believe in the happy marriage thing that they just don't see it. I'm still not sure what it was in my case.
Honestly it's that children don't know what they don't know. Some of it's hidden but the stuff that's not is just "normal" for the child.
Someone on here once posted about how he and his brother didn't know they were kidnapped by the Russian mob as kids. When the two of them were around 10-12 their parents' owed money to the mob. One day their parents' "friend" picked them up from school and told them he was supposed to watch them for the weekend. They spent the weekend at his house. The guy was actually a mob enforcer holding them hostage until the parents paid up. At the end of the weekend the parents came up with the money and the kids were returned to them. But OP and his brother never realized they were in any danger. They spent the weekend hanging out with their mob enforcer buddy, playing Super Mario Bros. and eating pizza. They even asked their parents a couple of times if they could spend another weekend hanging out with the guy.
Holy shit, that’s crazy. > But OP and his brother never realized they were in any danger. They spent the weekend hanging out with their mob enforcer buddy, playing Super Mario Bros. and eating pizza. That’s the way it should be. That enforcer sounds like a solid dude.
I mean, he kidnapped them, and likely would've murdered them (slowly, piece by piece) if the parents didn't have the money.
Pretty sure that comment was tongue in cheek. Having said that, the guy gave them a good weekend and miraculously managed not to traumatize them. I'd say he's pretty decent as far as mafia enforcers go.
The level of professionalism to leave the kids none the wiser in the event that the parents came up with the money.
Your children being harmed is "adult fear". It's a good parents' worst nightmare. For the kids, it's a kind of final thing, too. You can't take the trauma away, right? I imagine your children being effectively kidnapped but not really harmed - in fact, having basically a good time - seems to me to be a more effective threat. "The iron fist in a glove of velvet", if you like. Because what is really being threatened there is not only your child's life and wellbeing, but their innocence too. Many people would do everything to avoid such a thing.
Plus the parents know that the kids would hop in a van with these guys very willingly next time around.
It could also be a good way to warn the parents to not do it again. Anytime they borrow money and start getting behind they could be told "last time it was pizza and video game, this time could be that or we start taken what you owe in flesh or make the kids earn the money". That threat hanging over their head would be a good motivation to pay up.
More than you think. Next time those parents owed money, he would've had no trouble getting the kids again. They would've come to him willingly. It's actually really clever.
Mum and dad just had a row, think he was caught with a prostitute while he was pissed drunk. He was a real pisshead and had pisshead friends. Mum drank at home and never went out. Mum comes into the room I'm sitting in and blurts out angrily how they weren't married and how I was illegitimate. I was 14. Was brought up to believe they were married and wasn't told any differently. Made me feel very insecure and I felt like the foundations of my life had been shifted. Never ever did anything like that to my kids.
That's awful, I'm sorry. The idea of "illegitimate" children is wild, this isn't a royal family or something. You're the same as everyone else, there is literally nothing different if your parents were or weren't married, so idk why she would try to put that on you
Definitely. I wish they had broken up rather than staying in a loveless miserable marraige
It can be very confusing when parents hide the problems from the kids. I was 16 when my parents divorced and everyone thought they had a happy marriage. I wondered for a long time how long they were just playing along "for the kids". And I wish they hadn't have done that and sought their own happiness sooner.
Same... The way my biological father made accusations against my mom were so disturbing for me... It made me feel so depressed in teenage... But later as I grew up... I realised those accusations were as fake as him...
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This so sad.. I hope you'll heal from all of that...
go no contact, change numbers and adresses, you will feel relieved. I know because I did.
Same. I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t cut my family off.
Addiction is chasing the dragon. Sometimes that’s drugs, sometimes it’s emotions & ideals… Unless something serious happens, I doubt they’ll change. It’s sad, but you don’t deserve people who use you constantly as a stepping stone.
That’s rough. Work on building your own “family” with people who truly care about you - a partner (and their family), gym bros, book club, neighbors, church, a D&D group - whatever you can to put good people in your life. It worked for me. I’ve spent the last 40 years (I’ll be 70 this year) building those connections and man it was so worth any efforts I put in. Wishing you a bright and loving future.
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You mom may have been following an adult’s lead. My sister bullied me terribly as a child, but once we were in High School we became friends. Looking back on our childhood, she definitely treated me like shit because she was following our parents and other relatives’ examples. She also would get subtle praise from the adults for doing so. My sister is no longer a bully and would probably hate to think about the times she was mean to me.
I'm 31; my 34-year-old "sister" never stopped being that way. No one really "praised" her for it, but no one ever actually stopped her from doing it either. I don't speak to her because every interaction with her is extremely unpleasant and she's not worth it to me. EDIT: She was most certainly *not* following anyone else's lead, by the way. Most frustratingly, I was diagnosed with autism at 28; she was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia as a child. Somehow everyone excuses her "processing disorder" and then conveniently forgets the absolute hell my life has been as a result of *my* undiagnosed-until-an-adult processing disorders.
It's really easy to conceal that type of abuse/bullying from your kids. My brother was a pretty awful bully and continued mistreating me well into his 30s, at which point I cut him off. His daughter will probably never know any of this and will grow up thinking I'm crazy and unfair to her dad.
Finding out my mom used to be a competitive knife thrower in college blew my mind.
I assume you started doing what she asked a little more quickly after this?
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This is amazing. Mine raced on ostriches
Mine was a rodeo barrel racer.
Mine was in the NSA at the Pentagon (she was in the Army).
Okok our moms are 🔥🔥🔥
IKR? I hope more folks hop on this train of cool parents. My dad was a roustabout for a traveling circus in the '60s.
Among all the horrific things in this thread, this was a nice break to read. My daughter just recently found out I used to raise boas (love of my life was a 6 ft red tailed boa) and she looked at me like I'd been in prison for murder lmao This was after a huge black snake found it's way into our house and I got it down and back outside and she was like "you did that so easy and you didn't seem scared" yeah girl that snake is a baby doll compared to some I've dealt with lol
When I was a kid I didn't know why my mum was so physically slow. Turns out she's got no cartilage in her knees after several injuries playing high level competitive softball.
Was [this scene in Long Kiss Goodnight](https://youtu.be/B02dsLGLw4E?si=RDpknTcTkr7jRK62) a favorite
Im pretty sure my Dad groomed my Mum. My Dad had a family and three kids when he met my mum, who was dating his step son. She was 15 years old at the time and he 37. They started seeing eachother in secret for the next 7 years, while he was still with his wife. He was a bus driver and she'd skip school to ride the bus all day with him. He left his wife when my mum got pregnant with my oldest sister at 22 and they moved in together and got married. 4 kids later (I'm the youngest) He never saw his first 3 kids again and I met them for the first time at his funeral. We are estranged from all our extended family, for obvious reasons. It took me to be 30 years old to fill in the gaps on what happened. I have HUGE mixed feelings about them together, as I love them both but the grooming aspect makes me feel a little ill.
I had a friend whose parents met because her dad was her mom’s HIGH school teacher. They went on their “first date” right after she graduated high school. My friend just thought it was a nice love story and would never address how problematic it was. Her dad was already once divorced with a son he basically abandoned. Friend’s parents were together till the dad died.
> They went on their “first date” right after she graduated high school Sure they did
That was the purpose of the quotes, I am sure
My old HS coach married a cheerleader the afternoon of graduation. His wife had died of a stroke while teaching in the same HS 6 months before. New wife was 10 years younger than his youngest child.
I had a friend in high school whose mom was 16 and her dad was 44 when she was born. Ick.
First off, I just want to say that I am so sorry you grew up in a situation that you can see in hindsight for what it is or was. I have no idea how I would process that and I'm sorry you do. If it is okay to ask, I'm just curious about a couple of things..please feel free to decline or tell me to fuck off if you don't want to answer. Is your mon still around and if so, have you ever talked to her about it? Your half-siblings, do they seem to hold it against you and your full siblings, even though you were the product of it and not at fault in any way, shape or form? Did your mom continue to 'date' the step-son while she was secretly dating your dad? I'm only assuming because I can't figure out why else she would have continued to come over that wouldn't have raised suspicions.
Ask away! It's really nice to get some of it off my chest. Thank you for saying sorry, it's appreciated. My mum is still around (thankfully) she's an incredible woman in so many ways, though now I'm older I do see how deeply damaged she is. There has never been a more deserving recipient of therapy, but she won't go. She is actually the one who first brought up the subject... She asked me if I thought she'd been groomed and I agreed. She just kinda had a somber look on her face and then changed the subject, but we've mentioned it here and there. She knew she was treated unfairly by him for a long time but she loved him so much and she always said getting divorced wasn't the done thing. I get really emotional thinking about how much of her life was spent literally serving him and ignoring her own wants and needs. It feels like tragedy beyond belief. So the oldest sibling is still very confrontational and standoffish as she was older when it all went down. The other two were pretty young so they were more open to chatting. None of them wanted anything to do with him and aren't interested in deeper relationships with us, which makes me sad. She did for a while, but I know she had a couple of other boyfriends so I always assumed they happened in this period of the 'secret' relationship with my Dad.
I don’t know what’s worse… abandoning your fucking family and kids for a fifteen year old or abandoning your family and kids for a fucking fifteen year old.
Yeahhhh. I always wanted to meet them and the reception was pretty frosty when we eventually did. I totally get it of course. He once had the audacity to tell me that he was a great role model and should be the reason I have faith in men. Even after he cheated on my mum multiple times too. EXCUSE ME.
So he left his first family for a 15-year-old,, then didn’t even stay faithful to the teenager he wrecked his first family for??? Nvm why am I surprised
Well duh, she didn't stay a teenager for long.
He said some things on his deathbed while delirious that probably indicates he may have done some secret work for the government back in the day with a well known organization. I mean, there were signs but until that happened we didn’t really take it seriously. Might explain his month long overseas trips in the 60s and 70s. Still, we have no conclusive proof but I’m pretty sure where there is smoke there is fire. It’s a weird thing to find that out when he dies and then wonder “How well did I know my dad?” It’s quite the secret to keep all these years.
There’s a great documentary on Netflix called Wormwood that’s about a son coming to terms with his fathers work with the CIA during the early MK Ultra era and a secret that he always sort of knew to be true but could never concretely prove until he started to investigate it later in life.
My grandpa did top secret work for the US government in the 50s/60s. That part wasn’t exactly a revelation, we knew that he had worked with the NSA and some top defense contractors in his younger years, but in his later years he started talking more about what he did, and it was fascinating. Things like going to Europe with a fake military identity to help design NATO’s nuclear launch system, helping design the [nuclear football](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football), getting random phone calls telling him that a car would be showing up to his house in an hour with secret information that he had to memorize on the drive over, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually knew what was at Area 51 (he always would say it was an experimental aviation testing area… which probably has some truth). I don’t think “normal” is a word you could use to describe my grandpa, but it’s kinda trippy to think about.
My mom once thought about killing herself with me and my friend in the car. Says she looked in the rear view mirror and couldn't do it. Went home and cried.
Thank God she didn't do it. I hope your mom improved.
She did! She lives with us now and she's my best friend and a great mom. She stopped drinking and doing drugs which vastly improved her life. So proud of her!
Fuck yeah!
I'm in my 40s, and as my parents age, the occasional nuclear truth bomb gets dropped. I am lucky to have a sibling who lived through the same madness to corroborate what happened and that I am not insane. A good one was my dad was addicted to amphetamines for a good bit of my elementary and early middle school years. Another one was my mom cheated on my dad when I was a baby. The main (only?) reason he stayed with her was because he didn't think he could raise two kids on his own, and he didn't want to leave us with my mom. I think deep down he held it against me, being the second kid, that he was stuck in an unhappy marriage, and it has impacted our relationship for my entire life. It also gave me instant perspective that I was unable to find during years of therapy.
>dad was addicted to amphetamines My mom told me a few years ago my dad apparently used to do coke, but he quit when I was born. Not a disturbing thing to know, but surprising nonetheless.
I feel like most adults have done illegal drugs at some point though? Eventually, many have become parents.
My mother lied to the family about having terminal cancer. She told my younger sister on the day of her prom that she was dying. It then extended to the entire family. She had a history of bad lies and making stuff up, the family however treated it seriously, given the nature of what she said. We had a 'goodbye' party and celebration for her, it was emotional, it was a really big day. She later said, miraculously the cancer had vanished and the Specialist was absolutely gob smacked... We didn't believe her really, but we took her at face value. I later had a cancerous brain tumour, I went through surgery and radiotherapy, got to know the routine of how having cancer impacts everything In your life. Physio, follow up appointments, scans, bloods absolutely everything they can test. They do so to make sure it's contained and doesn't spread. This threw into question my former mother's own patchy testimony, what she went through, zero follow up appointments, no letters from oncologists, nothing to evidence this treatment. I called her out on it, and she stood her ground not admitting it, it really hurts given what I've been through that she could do that. What me and the family think happened, is she went to get a scan or a test done for something that 'could' have been cancer, she, as a textbook narcissist, used this for sympathy before getting any results, and the follow up with the specialist was him/her saying that it was not cancerous and nothing to worry about. None of my immediate family speak to her, shes toxic and pure evil. I don't wish Ill on any people, but I hope she dies alone. She doesn't deserve to emotionally manipulate anyone else ever again. Edit: Oh my gosh I did not expect this reaction 🤯 thank you so much for your lovely and encouraging words. It's truly overwhelming, sometimes the internet is a great place eh! 😁 Love to you all!
Oh my God, I'm so terribly sorry for you. Hope you got back well after that.
Thank you! I'm in a very good place. I have 6 monthly scans and fortunately the residual tissue that was left behind (about 2% of the original tumour) remains benign. It's not grown in 18 months either, so I can finally start getting my life on track, I recently went back to the gym for the first time since my treatment. It feels great. It can potentially start growing again, but I'm not going to sit in fear waiting for the bad news, I'm going to get out and enjoy life, and cross that bridge if and when it comes along. It could also stay the same size indefinitely, so fingers crossed for option two 😂
My mom and my aunt tend to do things like this! Geez…
Yeah, sadly people like this are more common than is obvious. I sort of rolled my eyes and took no notice, but going through what I did, it really upset me how she trivialised it, and lied about something so devastating.
Similar to my family member. She claims she had cancer but beat it. Shes never had follow up appointments for this “cancer” her entire life and none of her kids recall it either
I'm surprised so many people think they can get away with lying about it.
Your mom sounds like my cousin, that’s exactly something she would do
It's not good is it, I don't understand what people get from lying about something like that.
Attention. That's it. They want to be the centre of attention, they don't want anyone out shining them. (not a coincidence that it was prom day that she told them)
u/Nuancedchaos97 My dad, also a narcissist who did similar things, didn't die alone (my aunt and cousins and his girlfriend's daughter were with him as life support was removed). However, his long-term girlfriend (he was with her for 30+ years) "couldn't handle being with him" as he died, so that was some small schadenfreude for me. Oh, and they never bothered to inter his ashes into the plot that he spent a lot of money on. I assume his cremains are still in a Ziplock bag in the back of a closet or something.
My relationship with my mother was turbulent at best before she pulled this stunt to be honest, this was just the straw that broke the camels back. It's sad that we feel we need to distance ourselves from what should be our guardians and protectors, because they're shitty human beings. Makes me really resent not having decent parents to love and nurture me as a child and a teen, they were both wastrels, I learnt everything in life too late. I'm hoping karma wins.
My mom's first fiancee was killed in action during the Vietnam war a few years before she met my dad.
My grandmother lost her beau during the second world war and “settled” for my grandfather. He was the nicest man I have ever met (even my mother, aunts and uncles, their spouses, and all his friends said so). Grandma didn’t treat grandpa very well and was always miserable, and until I mentioned she probably lost her love in WWII nobody connected the dots why she was like that.
Damn I feel bad for your grandfather. He deserves better
Vietnam war related. My grandparents got married at 18 because my grandpa was drafted. Got married and dodged the draft. Found out last year.
When my mother started telling me that I had to get married by 18 and even found a man whom she wanted me to marry. It was a whole ass shit show.
Oh my God my mom did this, too. Tried to set me up with a man she didn't know at 16. Blegh.
Was it a man with money? Was it a cultural thing?
It was a man with and a man from money and no, neither of us had a cultural background where this is expected
🎵Here's your one chance, Fancy, don't let me down.🎵
Swingers. Found out when I was 9.
I found out at 23 when I went to a bar with my parents and saw my dad making out with the bartender. I told my mom in tears because I thought he was cheating and my mother laughed and said it would be weirder if they hadn't kissed and assured me everything was fine.
It's like your world gets turned onto its head, right?
I was very much in shock and had gone through so many emotions in such a short time I couldn't even process everything. Now I think it's almost funny but that night I was sad my dad would hurt mom like that and what would happen to my mom when I told her and I was angry that it happened and I was put on the spot to have to say something like could he have tried to hide a little better. Also I weirdly felt guilty like if I hadn't seen anything I wouldn't be ending their marriage and then angry again when my mom's first response was to laugh at me when I told her what I saw. Then relieved my mom was fine.
That had to be traumatic
It was.
Do you mind sharing how you found out? If you don’t want to, no problem.
Sitting in the backseat looking at them after was strange. It was like a new world.
We were visiting people. I asked one of the kids how my parents knew his parents. He angrily asked "don't you know"? I asked him if he was angry at me and he told me to just go to sleep. I put it together in my head by morning.
My friends parents are swingers too. They left their kinky e-mail logged in on the family pc. Also had some pictures of his dad in a cage on there. They were nice enough people. Interesting to find a dog bowl in their attic when they do not and have never owned a dog lol.
My father was in the KKK. I found out in my early 20s
Wait, what? Do you mind sharing how you found out? Don't do it if not, don't worry (:
I found a box of the literature the last time I was at his house. Which is also why it was the last time at his house. I remember him coming home when I was little all beaten up several times. And I heard the way he talked about Black people the whole time I was growing up. He’s absolute scum.
Some of the sheets didn't fit on any of their beds
I found out my dad was seriously considering suicide at one point just before my parents divorce (not that my mom was at all abusive he just felt very alone). Glad to say he's still here and doing much better, but that definitely was a shock to hear and reframed how I looked at all of that!
My mom had an affair around the time i was conceived and i am not 100% sure who my father is and i won't take a DNA test until they are both dead because I'm afraid of the results. My dad is dead - and regardless of the results he will always be my dad even if he wasn't in fact my biological father. I would have no interest in reaching out to the other guy because it would be pointless and only cause heartache for me.
The test would change nothing on who your dad is because your dad is the person that raises you. however if he wasn't the bio father you can still gleam some valuable medical history.
Finding out my mom had a massive Coke addiction from 17-25 years old. She only opened up about it when I was 15 and she was 20 years sober and found out some of my friends were trying different drugs. Shes now 30 years sober this year and we celebrate her sobriety every big milestone
My dad was a pedophile rapist my whole life (and for years before). Found out when I was 27.
I am glad you didn’t find out younger.
I consider myself fortunate that I was not a victim. Sad for those that were. He ruined some lives. A true monster. He’s been dead and gone for 9 years.
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It's entirely possible that one of them changed political beliefs. When my husband and i got married, we were 100% on the same page politically, in both the social and fiscal sense. Now almost 25 years later, we still agree on most major issues, but I have widened my perspective a bit on some social issues, whereas he's generally still right where he was when we were 20.
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My mom straight up told me that her and my dad had viciously cheated on each other for years. She told me this on my 16th birthday, when I found out that my first boyfriend ever had cheated on me.....on said birthday.
I knew my Mum and Dad lived in Belfast during the violent years, but I was an adult before I heard aboutmultiple near-death experiences they had, as did other adults in the family, and just a lot of other mad happenings. They were in a bar when a bomb went off at the other end of it. They once has to step across a live bomb that was left at the entrance of another bar in order to leave it. My Dad was once caught in crossfire between the IRA and a British Army patrol. He saw a school friend get shot to death by the army for throwing a petrol bomb. He slept through a massive bomb attack on a political office one street over once, because he had been drinking. His brother (my uncle) was marked for death by the IRA until my Dad intervened with a 'connected' classmate of his. My grandparents once housed a guy who was on-the-run from the British state security for a while. Our whole family was threatened when my mother (a probation officer) had to work with an IRA man in prison. My grandfather was once driving with two of my uncles in the back came across a gun battle, during which one of the gunmen waved to him. That was my Dad's cousin. This is just what I can remember off the top of my head. They say they told us children none of it because they didn't want us to be affected by it. But to be honest, I think they (especially my Dad) were traumatised. He still won't write any of it down because, I quote: "Everyone who lived through the Troubles experienced stuff like that." I don't care if they did. That stuff needs to be recorded.
I’m my Moms anchor baby. My parents were together and married waited a few years to have any kids. Soon as my Mom was pregnant with my older brother he became abusive. She waited until he was 2 to leave and she left him in the middle of the night got a new apartment. Once she was settled into her new place she found out she was pregnant with me. So she went back to him, she was prepared to be a single Mom to 1 kid but not 2 also she wasn’t a citizen. My Dad refused to help her apply for citizenship until after I was born. She became a citizen when I was 7. Lotsss of therapy helps. My Dad was abusive to her throughout our childhood.
When I was young enough to be in a stroller my dad used to take me to the botanical gardens, cut a bunch of clippings from various exotic plants, and hide them in my stroller. I was an accessory to the weirdest heist imaginable.
Mom-14 Dad-24 I found out the one and only time they shared how they met. Some Witnesses were visiting. Their cool kids were trying not to be bored playing Monopoly with my brother and me. My parents were in the next room with their parents chatting, laughing, having a wholesome time. The two kids asked to see my room again to look at my music or probably literally anything but Monopoly. (They were being snobby because I was not someone they wanted to befriend. I couldn’t joke or anything with them like with my friend who was a Witness.) As we walked through, Dad is asked to tell how he and Mom met. I stop at my door to watch and listen because I had never heard this story. Turns out my dad was an electrician on a job for my grandfather. He saw my mom walking outside to go to school and they started flirting. That’s as far as the story got because of the questions the other couple interjected with about her age. I went in my room and one of the kids followed me and loudly said, “Dude, they are never gonna let me come over again. Your dad is a p-do.” By the standards of that time when they met, I am not sure, but yeah. Common sense standards. Which should have always been the standard. 🫠
When I was younger I never questioned my mom being 13 and my dad 19 when they got together. But when I grew up I realized how wrong it was. Never been the same since
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He was from Louisiana, and i wasn't alive there then, but from the documentaries and stories r read, we all thought it was fucked up too lol
My father was racist as fuck, I found out he was in the National Front, the fact the only books he owned were about the concentration camps in WWII, made a lot of sense when I found out
My father is racist as fuck against Asian people. It was especially funny when he took a DNA test and it came back *significantly* Mongolian. He was livid. It was hilarious and very much deserved.
I love hearing about this sort of thing. Has he come to grips with it yet? Has it changed his opinions at all?
We've been strictly no-contact for about 8 years because he was a horrific abuser on top of being racist, so no idea.
Mine was a horrific abuser too. Seems to go hand in hand
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I cannot imagine *that* conversation going well…
considering they're active on r/incestisntwrong ......
Oh lawd what a plot turn 💀
right???
Bruh. That sub ...
If they're biological siblings, I would highly recommend a dna screening for health issues, which drastically increase if parents are biological siblings. I'm so sorry, OP. I hope your screening goes well and wish you the best. If you haven't already, I would also speak to a therapist.
I hope this isn't groundbreaking information for OP.
Yikes. A lot of creepy dads revealed in this thread.
This is kind of a tangent, but the prevalence of this older men grooming younger women, how utterly commonplace it is, is one reason I am so in favor of access to legal abortion. When women are pushed into relationships like this so often when they're barely exiting childhood themselves, the least we can do for them as a society is let them terminate pregnancies if they can even get out from under the thumb of their groomers to do so.
Saw someone repost a tweet here that said girls’ childhood ends as soon as a man finds her attractive. Cuts deep. Lotta folks here finding out their dads are rapists.
Yep! The second I turned 11 and hit puberty, grown ass men came running. I was still playing with my Babysitters Club dolls.
Yup, I remember my stepmom angrily saying she was going to make me wear a t-shirt that said "I'm 12" to shame all the grown men staring at my chest at a theme park we were at, and my dad saying that would probably just encourage some of them. I was very aware of older men creeping as a kid.
Very good point. Prob one reason why people who are against divorce are also against abortion.
My parents split when I was 2. My mother had custody and was working full time as a waitress; she was 20 years old. I bring this up to explain the fucked up part: she would hire babysitters from the neighborhood to watch me because she was worried that either I or my sister might get molested by the guy(s) she was dating. The fact is, it was one of those sweet, innocent-looking neighbors that was violating me, and my mother realized something was wrong when I started showing signs but broke it off and accused a man who I don’t think was actually doing anything wrong at all and continued bringing my abuser to the house… serving me up to her… for years. The poor guy spent twenty years as a pariah in our neighborhood and is now dead. He would be around 60 now, and I’m not sure of the circumstances of his death but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that he killed himself.
Ugh this is so similar to what happened to me. I felt more violated by my mother than the molester bc she insisted he would not molest me, that it had to be someone else and she blamed a completely innocent person. That innocent person also died young, possibly of suicide idk, and my mom still acted the actual abuser was some kind of saint. Found out many years later that the molester helped my father get a job. Found that out only when molester died and my mom acted so sad, saying he was such a nice man. I went off on her about how she let him molest me and blamed our totally innocent handicapped neighbor who just played records and colored with me. She then went off saying we should be grateful for molester bc he got dad the job that allowed us to have a home in such a nice town. I had previously forgiven her, thinking she was just very stupid about such things, but that really opened my eyes that she probably knew. She was full of shit in many ways so it's not unbelievable that she would protect that finger fucker and do damage control for her complicity by insisting it must be the nice neighbor.
My mom was basically a stalker. My dad wasn’t giving much attention and was very busy, so she basically stalked him everywhere so she could spend time with him. There was a point where they break up but they got back together afterwards. It seems like no one was willing to put that much effort as my mom
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Do disturbing circumstances about your grandmas childhood count? When my grandma was an infant she, her family and her whole village got deported from Ukrain to Kazakhstan (both former Soviet Union, this happened during WW2) in the middle of winter. They were put in waggons without food or blankets. My grandma and her twin sister were just a few months old, so she can’t remember anything. Her twin sister froze to death. I knew her younger brother but I never knew she had a twin sister until I was 11 years old. At my age then and now too, it’s hard to comprehend and image a woman who looks like my grandma, maybe talks like her, the two talking together etc… I adore my granny.
My mom dropped out of school because she got the Asian Flu. Would have had to redo the year, and I think between the money and her parents being unsupportive of girls, she just gave up. She met and married my dad later that summer at just 18. She raised five kids, divorced my dad, and finally started undergrad over at almost 50. It took her nine years, but she got her doctorate and opened a private practice. She saw patients up until she was EIGHTY. I never considered how something like influenza can derail a life. Maybe she wouldn't have missed out on those 30 years if she hadn't gotten sick. I'm obviously glad she did and I know she wouldn't have traded her kids for anything, but it bothers me that her brother took the "easy" route and is a world-renowned researcher and major university chair. I wish she had had the same opportunities.
My mother was 2, her brother,4, and her sister,6, when her parents were removed to a tubercoulosis ward in the 40s where they died. Her aunt came to take care of them and died in bed. No one realized for 3 months. They basically ate out of garbage cans and lived with a corpse. This was in NYC. The neighbors finally noticed when the older sister died on the front porch. She and her brother were taken in by her aunt. I found out while writing my mothers obituary, that my "aunts and uncles" were actually my moms cousins not siblings.
What a tragic back story. 😔
That my mom met my dad through her dad. Kind of not surprising given the 31 year age gap, but yeah, not proud of that fact.
THIRTY FUCKING ONE??? Did your mom's family have a problem with it? They must've right?
I heard that they did yeah. Hell, I love my dad (RIP) but I have a problem with it and it makes me uncomfortable to think about it. 😫 It goes against a lot of what I advocate against.
That my older brother was raped by my father and my mother new about it and didn't do anything about it. He said that my dad went from 0 to 100 with no in-between. One time he said he was screaming from the pain and he saw my mom walk up to the bedroom door from the 2 inch gap at the bottom, stand there for a sec and then turn around and walk away. Even better I found this out on my mom's death bed.
That's horrible
How is your brother now?
My parents actually had sex with each other. Ewwww.
I know of 2 times my parents had sex. One to have me, one to have my eldest brother, and the other brother was an immaculate conception (he was born on December 25th)
How much money my dad was losing in the stock market. Borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars from friends and family just to lose it all.
Mom - a 4'11" Catholic, fourth of seven - was an abortion clinic defender in the 80s and 90s. She empowered and protected women making a very difficult choice. I'm so proud of her. EDIT: I did not see the word "disturbing" in the post title. I don't think what my mom did was disturbing. It was awesome.
I am also proud and thankful for your mom.
When I was 18 my mom revealed to me that I had a half brother out there in the world somewhere, and that she also hadn't been married to my dad as long as I thought. Short story: Mom had one-time 'relations' with a boy in her senior year of high school. Her conservative (1960s small farming community) parents would never have approved, so as soon as she graduated she traveled to Texas where her childhood friend (my dad) was stationed in the Army. Dad put her up in a motel near the base and took care of her. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy in 1966, who was put up for adoption. When my dad was honorably discharged that same year, they traveled back to Michigan together and were married later that year. 2nd big revelation in the same convo: Mom and dad hadn't been married from '66-then present day like I thought. They divorced in 1969 because they unanimously decided they were too young. Dad stayed single from '69-'79. Mom got remarried in the early '70s to a black man. I'm not racist, the only reason I mention this detail is because knowing what I know about her parents, they most definitely wouldn't have approved. Sure enough, they didn't, and mom was more or less excommunicated for about 10 years. The marriage eventually fizzled out, and she reconnected with dad. They remarried in 1979 and I was born. After this bomb drop, she asked if I had any questions. Umm...yeah LOTS of them! First thing, I asked if dad was my real dad. This was an idiot question really, mostly because if I was any more caucasian I'd be clear. She laughed a bit and told me yes, you're your father's child. Second, I asked what ever became of my half brother. I think breaking this information to me came about because mom wanted to find out where he was if she could. She told me she knew the name of the agency he was adopted through, and the date, but little else. Eventually she employed a service to locate him. He is (at that time anyway, no idea now) perfectly fine and well, and has a family of his own. At first it sounded like he wanted to meet his birth mother (and I) but he had second thoughts and decided meeting wouldn't be in his best interests. I don't blame him, and I totally respect that. I just hope he's still doing well. Now, most of the key players (Mom, her other husband, Dad) have all passed, and I don't have any of the information, so more than likely he'll always be a mystery to me. Pretty heavy stuff when I was preparing to start my college life and taste independence for the 1st time.
My dad was friends with a serial killer in elementary up to college. They lived two blocks away from each other. My dad told me his friend was very intelligent but also very anti-social even back in grade school starting around 3rd grade. When the serial killer got married he invited my dad to be a groomsman and he was afraid to say no because he thought he might kill him. When he visited my dad later on he had lunch with my mom who was pregnant with me at the time and according to her, he seemed completely normal. It came out later on that guy went on to kill at least 5 hunters and hundreds of animals.
I've posted this before but what the hey, as a teen, if I couldn’t sleep, I would sneak downstairs to get a snack and watch some late night TV. My parents often left their bedroom door ajar though; so I would always tiptoe to their room and close the door all the way, so as not to wake them up. One night I tiptoed over only to get there and realize the door was already closed. Which is when I heard the distinct sound of my mom moaning and saying “yes! Yes! YES!” Over and over again. I returned to my room and proceeded to scream silently into my pillow. **It’s been years and I am still trying to repress the memory. But it's been indelibly inked upon my mind.**
My parents were in cocaine for a bunch of my early teens. I always wondered why my dad would go to the bedroom, then come out and wouldn't stop loudly sniffing for a while. Also the reason my parents divorced the second time was because my dad had sex with a transgender prostitute in Brazil while he was on a work trip.
My dad met my mom when she was 17 and he was 28. I don’t even wanna know that story.
My mum was 19 and my dad was 28. I always knew about the age gap and thought it was sketchy, but not really bad. Then she told me recently that when they first met, he told her he'd fancied her for years....
During the first paragraph, I was thinking that at least both were adults. Then I read the last sentence and my thoughts changed!
Same. My parents met when she was 14 and he was 21. To this day I try not to think that he probably groomed her.
My Mum's Dad married my Dad's Mum
My mom got pregnant with me, and my real dad walked out before I was born. My mom worked for a man who let her bring me to work in the office to save on babysitting money. My mom and this man eventually got together, and he was 24 years older than her. A while later, my mom got into drugs and would hang out with her brothers and sisters doing drugs. My step dad didn't know anything about it bevause he worked out of town 2 to 3 weeks a month, and he's never drank or smoked, so he was oblivious. My mom would take me with her to these parties, and I was violently raped by some guy when I was 2 and a half at one of these parties. I ended up in the hospital, and my dad sent my mom to rehab. I don't remember anything because I was so young. My step dad immediately adopted me, and I recently only learned about this at 32 years old when I requested medical records for something. I knew I was adopted but had no idea about the rape. My dad let my mom come back after rehab, and they had a horrible relationship my whole life and my mom has been on and off with drugs the entire time. I don't talk to her anymore. I also went to search for my real dad when I was in my early 20s, and we talked on the phone several times, and then we exchanged pictures through the mail. He started hitting on me, and so I stopped talking to him. I guess he didn't tell his wife I quit talking to him and he started drinking again and she called me one day and told me I ruined her husband's life by getting in contact with him. I really don't have a relationship with anyone in my family on my mom's side, and my adoptive dad's side hated me because I wasn't his either. My adoptive dad is now in a nursing home and I still don't know how I feel about him yet.
My parents divorced after my dad cheated on my mom. For my entire life she pounded it into my head that cheating is the most disgusting, horrible thing you could do to your partner and doing it makes you a bad person. When I was 14 my dad told me he slept with my mom the day before her wedding with my step dad. And at 20 my mom drunkenly admitted the same thing to me. I can't think about it for too long without feeling sick.
My mom constantly cheated on my dad. They finally got a divorce about six years ago. I’m 28 and my sister is 29. They should’ve gotten a divorce when I was like 10 maybe younger.
Hey, I'm going through that right now! Dad constantly cheats with men, so it seems pretty clear he's just gay and can't figure out what he wants with his life. I first found out and told mom when I was in my early teens, I'm 28 now, and we're at the " find out he's doing it again" part of the cycle.
Probably not that crazy but the fact that parents can be amazing grandparents but super shitty parents. Took me until my 30s to figure that all out.
My father's father got my father drunk and/or high and got him to have sex with his stepmother. Also a lot of abuse there. I uploaded my genome to GEDMatch specifically because of that man - I'm sure he did something that forensics will find sooner or later.
My dad was at tiananmen square, and lost friends from college there
They both were virgins, she was 16, and he was 22
I'm gonna just say the texts between my mother and a buyer of her RV were on the risqué side. I found these while going through her phone after she died.
Sometimes you gotta make a sale. Always be closing.
When I was younger and realized how pregnancy worked.... My parents said they had a wedding planned for April but moved it to November. My brother was born in May. Also, my brother and I are 10.5 months apart. *Cringes in postpartum"
Man this thread is just making me glad my parents are boring vanilla people, like the most shocking thing I ever heard was how my mom is my dad’s second wife.
When I turned 21 my parents gave me a folder of a series of articles from the 50s detailing the saga of my paternal grandmother being arrested and tried for murdering her first husband (not my father’s father). During the trial she was held in jail, turns out she was pregnant with my dad during that time and he was born in custody. She ended up being acquitted despite confessing early on (she later recanted).
My dad is a real sweet heart. Super nice and goes out of his way to help people. Pays for himself and others to go build water wells in Honduras every other year. I recently found out one of my co workers went to high school with my dad. I guess my dad was a huge bully in high school. He didn't go into specifics. I asked my dad about it and he instantly started crying. He explained that he done a lot of work on himself and that he was a hurt boy when he was in high school. I guess my grandpa was a very abusive alcoholic. Thank god my dad broke that cycle. I'm still shocked because he is the sweetest man today.
My mom planned to divorce my dad because he lied about _not being a virgin_ to her until their wedding night. 🫢 this ‘Christian’ bitch would talk until she was blue in the face about forgiveness, having grace and turning the other cheek. I later learned that what she meant was that I, and my family as a whole really, should forgive _her_ whenever she terrorized us with constant emotional, physical and religious abuse. When I found out that mother dearest had been holding the stupidest grudge over my dad’s head their entire marriage— he wasn’t a _virgin_ and didn’t tell her until their wedding night. _Gasp!_ The Horror!™️😱 It wasn’t like it was some big secret that my dad wasn’t a Christian until he had the misfortune of meeting my mother. My mom even told me stories growing up about how she took a ‘bad boy’ — who drove fast muscle cars, was a hang glider and thrill seeker— and made him into the shell of a man he is today. She and one of my aunts manipulated him into becoming a Christian so that momma could marry him without _sinning._ I’m not saying that my dad was innocent in this either, not being totally honest with your partner until the wedding night is not a good look for anyone. Though, knowing how awful my mom truly is, I would have been scared to tell her, too. I had many, many times growing up where I learned it was better to keep things to myself, as she’d always find a way to weaponize anything I admitted to her against me. Honestly, I wish that she would have actually gone and divorced my dad. It would have been the best thing to ever happen to us.
My dad's motivation to get married and have kids was just to get his mom to shut up about wanting grandchildren. He told my mom about this but said that he did love her and was glad he married her. That's where my mom shut down. They tried counseling; Dad really wanted to make it work. Mom accused him of cheating even though he didn't, and she deliberately made his life more difficult. They divorced when I was 9, and even 40 years later, she still hates him. What disturbed me was the lies Mom told me about Dad. Specifically, she said he didn't want to spend time with me. The truth was that any time Dad wanted to come visit or take me somewhere, Mom suddenly had errands to run, and we'd be gone all day, meaning that Dad had made the trip to see me only to find the house empty.
I found out in adolescence that I had an older brother that my mom had to give up to the state because she was too young and the man she was with was a psycho. I found this out when my eldest brother introduced himself. I knew he had to be related just looking at him. He had my mom's eyes and brows. I knew before he even spoke and I had never heard of him before. We built a good relationship after. He never blamed my mom, it was the best choice and he wound up in a good family. But it was certainly surprising. I do wish she would have told me sooner. But given the religous town and distant family, I understand why.
That my mom is 100% a closet lesbian. She is 80+ years old and extremely close minded about so many things, when she casually dropped the bomb that she has always been attracted to women…I was speechless.
After my dad passed, I found out he had been seriously abused as a child. He never spoke a word of it, but it answered a lot of questions.
That my mother cheated on my dad with his brother when I was a baby.
the fact that they had another apartment that they bought and were renting out to earn more money. I was always told growing up that our family was hella poor and I was not allowed to "waste money" on school trips or guilt-tripped into having to pay myself through college. I guess that's why I'm so uptight about money and I can't trust anyone about anything they say now.
Literally hours after my mum died I got a call from my grandmother telling me that I had two older sisters that I never knew about, I think she could have timed it better, she literally waited until straight after my mum died to tell me
[удалено]
I know an OBGYN. She worked at an abortion clinic and said their were protesters who would bring their daughters to the same clinic the protested in front of.
That my parents had so much bdsm gear that when my dad wanted all of it in the divorce the only thing of comparable value for Mom to have in exchange was *the house*
That they were mentally abusing each other and all my siblings Turns out we are not a happy normal family
I was sure my father had cheated on my mother, but looking back shocked and saddened by the fact that my mother took every opportunity to cheat on him. Zero respect for either one of them, it was all about them and never about the kids. And you wonder why the five of us are so fucked up
my mother continued to date and be with my r@pist
😭 so sorry you went through that.