Every family has its secrets.

Mine. Yours. All of us.

And sometimes certain family members keep those things hidden from others in order to protect them or just because they don’t think certain folks need to know specific info.

People on AskReddit discussed the big family secrets that came spilling out.

Let’s get wild!

1. Uh oh.

“One week before my younger sister’s wedding, my dad decided to call myself, both my sisters, and my mother (his ex-wife) to meet at his house for something “very important he needed to tell us.” We all thought he had cancer or something. We were very worried.

Once we were all there, he sobbingly confessed to having a 5 year old son living in the town next to ours, which means the kid was conceived and born while my parents were still married. He claimed he didn’t know for sure that the kid was his, and he had only recently gotten a DNA test.

He showed us a picture of our half-brother. He looks EXACTLY like my dad.

My mother was devastated.”

2. In denial.

“A cousin in my family had been secretly stalking/harassing another cousin for like 3 years, to a really bad degree. He eventually admitted it, however didn’t face any consequences.

Never gave any good reason for it at all and didn’t even know the other cousin very well, he just randomly decided to start doing it.

A lot of family was in denial over it because he seemed like a nice guy.”

3. Uncle.

“When I was in my early 20s I got a very distressed call from my mother.

It turns out my uncle (married for many years and father of 3 adult children) was in the hospital for trying to commit s**cide.

He had tried to commit s**cide by overdosing on his antidepressants.

He was on antidepressants because he was depressed that he was HIV+.

He was HIV+ because he had been having s** with male s** workers.

Everything was kept hush hush and my uncle and aunt remain married to this day, 10+ years later.

I don’t have contact with my family anymore for other reasons so I haven’t seen my uncle for over 5 years but I’m glad HIV medications have come such a long way.”

4. Roots.

“Grandma admitted on her d**thbed that her maiden name wasn’t Asher (English), it was Oscher (Jewish). Confirmed by DNA testing my dad.

My grandfather was off-the-boat Irish, so my dad spent his entire life thinking he was half English and half Irish. The DNA test said 49% Irish, 50% Ashkenazi, so grandma was as ethnically Jewish as can be.

In retrospect, my dad and grandma had a set of about 20 Yiddish words that they’d use in casual conversation, but we always assumed that was just a Queens thing.”

5. The truth came out.

“When my dad was about 18 he got into an argument with his younger brother (my uncle, bit of a d**k now, about 15 at the time) ended the argument by telling my dad that his dad wasnt his biological father.

He confronted my nan and the truth came out. The worst part was the whole village knew but not my dad.

Mad respect for my grandad though, he married a woman who already had a child in the 50s.

Something which was quite controversial back then.”

6. An affair.

“My grandmother had an affair with the gynecologist who delivered my dad.

We found some of the letters they exchanged years after she d**d.

The best part? His name was Dr. TACTILE.”

7. Shocked.

“My dad passed away 2 years ago.

He and my mom were married for 34 years. He was a good dad and husband, I have no ill-memories of him.

Just found out that for the middle 10 years he was living a double life and had many mistresses on the side.

Now my whole childhood feels like a sham. I don’t know what was real and what was fabricated.”

8. A private person.

“That my uncle was married for ten years.

When we read his wife’s book obituary in the newspaper. He never mentioned getting married, and he hasn’t mentioned her passing since.

We always knew that he liked his privacy, but dang…”

9. Revenge.

“This happened in the 1960s or 70s. One of my mom’s like 2nd or 3rd cousins shot and k**led his father.

The father was a raging al**holic and very abusive to his wife and the son, especially when he was dr**k.

The father came home d**nk one night, started abusing the mom, and son had had enough and shot his father, k**ling him.

The guy spent a few years in prison for maybe manslaughter or something. I think he lives a fairly normal life now.”

10. The fixer.

“My grandfather went to prison for trying to fix a professional baseball game.

Originally he was caught up in a vice sting for procuring white s** workers for professional Black athletes but they couldn’t make that charge stick because the athletes’ identities were all kept secret (the one relative who probably knew just passed this week) and nobody was going to believe the testimony of a white girl who had s** with Black men for money in 1959.”

11. The real story.

“That my uncle was not m**dered by his wife. That he actually d**d from auto erotic asphyxiation.

We were all told as kids that his wife lured him into the bathroom and hung him from the door knob.

A few years ago my aunt let slip that he was jerking off and had his d**k in his hand when they found him.”

12. Wow.

“I started having problems with my teeth. Spontaneous abscess that resulted in multiple root canals.

My dentist did some looking into what the cause might be and found some really odd abnormalities with my incisors roots and nerves ( the teeth that had been afflicting me)…so he sent out requests for help to a couple of professors he knew in the field.

When my next appointment came up he was really quiet for a bit before verbally stumbling about… It turns out that what was happening with my teeth was a classic sign of inbreeding and he was super uncomfortable giving me the news.

I brought it up to my mom and she just was like: “Oh well yeah, didn’t you know?” WTF!? of course I didn’t know!!! Turns out that not very far back in the family tree, several of my relatives decided that it was a good idea to get married to one another….and no one bothered to mention it…ever.

The small town where I live is 85% my relatives, no joke. I hadn’t even met all of them, that’s how many there are.”

How about you?

Have any major secrets come out in your family lately?

Talk to us in the comments!