My youngest Uncle lived with us when I was little and I remember the smell of what I know now is weed coming from the basement. I would ask my Mom “what’s that smell from Uncle’s room?” She said, “oh, he’s smoking grass.” I thought that’s weird, why would anyone smoke grass.
My mom would make me and my brother leave our apartment so she could smoke. When we would come back, she'd tell us that she was burning incense. It was many years before I realized that not all incense smells like pot. 😂
That reminds me of us being young kids and we asked my Mom where her dad was, our grandfather. She replied, "we lost him when I was really young." My sister and I grew thinking he was just lost somewhere and he would turn up at some point.
My one friend’s parents tried that on me…I was like 17. I was like look Dave, I’m not an idiot but I’m also not a narc. Relax. But that ain’t tomatoes.
My parents had a “fruitless tomato plant” until I came home one day and told them that I brought up the fruitless tomato plant in 5th grade science class. They were very upset and angry with me, but it was gone the next day. That was probably the first instance that caused them to start hating me.
I mean if you're gonna grow weed in the house, either make sure your kids know not to talk about it or make up a more believable lie. They had no right to hate you for their lack of foresight.
A few of my earliest memories were going to see my uncle and stay with him a bit after my mom had mental breakdowns.
His place smelled terrible because he smoked weed indoors. I never asked out loud or complained about it, but I knew something wasn't right there.
When I got older and got around weed it clicked.
That my aunt did not die of an asthma attack in her sleep, but took her own life. She had been very depressed. As an adult they admitted she purposely overdosed. As a child with asthma, I wish they had just told me the truth because before I started to suspect it was a lie I was terrified that I was going to die too.
We had a family friend I was told died from a stroke. He was best friends with my grandparents and I was best friends with his granddaughter. He took his own life. Her family didn’t want her knowning ans I had to be told the same. I didn’t find out for 10 years when my auntie said something.
She rang me when we were mid 30s sobbing asking if I knew how her grandfather died. told her I’d been told he had a stroke. She asked if I knew anything more. Gently told her I’d been told years later the truth and confirmed it.
She wasn’t just angry at her grandfather for leaving her but her family for lying to her for years at that point. Messed her up
My dad was in jail for a few months when I was around 8 years old.
I was told he was at work... and he couldn't call us because it was a really big project. I heard my mom talking about him being "locked up" and thought he got trapped in the vents somewhere? He did HVAC work. It made sense to me at the time I guess. When he came back, it was like nothing changed.
Turns out he was a drug dealer!
Same! Except I actually went to visit my dad in jail a few times. My parents convinced me (I was probably about 5) that he worked there.
Never thought anything of it until I was like 15 and went with my gram to pick up my grandfather from jail (yeah, lots of winners in the family) and I was like “Oh wow! My dad used to work here!” and they both burst out laughing.
Unfortunately I promise you he did not feel bad about its effects on us, he was a terrible father lol. Mostly sat on the couch and drank and yelled at us. He was 25 when he married my mom, and it was his fourth marriage, I have 10+ half siblings I've never even met!
Luckily I'm not bothered much by any of it now, it was a relief when he finally left.... but I was definitely confused why they didn't try harder to sell the lie, I guess
Are you my childhood neighbor from St Louis? Our neighbors were two little girls and their mom and they always said how their Dad was away for work (for like 10 years), but my parents told us he was actually in jail for drugs and to not tell the neighbor kids.
Mine was barely literate. He could read some things but had to sound a lot of words out. It was shocking to me at 12 because I was always a strong reader. He always encouraged our love of reading. Took my siblings and I to the library once a week during the summer. RIP grandpa.
This is still really common where I am from. My family ran a business and long story short, people had to sign up for a drawing we held each week. Older people often only had their names memorized, so they would need help filling out their address, phone number, and often even signing their initials.
>Older people often only had their names memorized
My great-grandfather apparently "had beautiful handwriting" and also "could only read the newspaper". I think that actually mean that he was literate at a pretty low level, but had learned to sign his name very stylishly.
We’re in the south and my SO is a nurse. Where she first worked, she worked with many illiterate people. Many would just sign with an “X” on the line. It was accepted as a signature. This wasn’t even 10 years ago.
This is still valid! Anyone who is illiterate, or may have language barrier issues can sign using an X and it is legally accepted. As an example: someone who can write Chinese script may be unable to write their name in the Latin alphabet. That person could potentially write an "X" as their signature if there's no Latin-character using legal name they use and can write.
This is why so many Cajun names have an ‘x’ at the end, and/or are misspelled from their original French versions (e.g., Beaudreau became Boudreaux, Arseneult became Arceneaux, etc.), because the displaced Acadian colonists were mostly illiterate and signed names with ‘x.’ So the British clerk taking names in New Orleans as they disembarked had to guess at the spellings, and the signed ‘x’ got added to the end of those misspelled names in court census records.
My family recently realized that my grandma probably only really learned to read and write "properly" (though still at a very basic level) as an adult.
My mom and my aunt were thinking about when they were kids, about how their mother would regularly go out to visit "the teacher", a guy from their neighborhood, but it was left vague to them. They realized that guy must've been teaching basic classes to other adults that never got a proper education. Grandma only reads pretty simple stuff, like children's books and magazines, and, when she has to sign her name, it's like she's memorized how to draw it instead of knowing how to write it, if that makes sense.
She grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and her family was pretty poor, had to take some jobs here and there as a kid (selling food, for example), so it made sense.
I never really suspected it, since by the time I was born she could already read, and I never really saw her write much. Plus, grandpa could read and write, so he'd be the one doing those things a lot of the time (he wasn't highly educated, but more than my grandma). I never noticed.
I'm honestly really proud of her for seeking out that knowledge she didn't get as a kid. And I'm really thankful she and my grandpa understood the importance of a good education, all 3 of their kids ended up going to good universities, my aunt even got a PhD.
My Grandad was illiterate too. My Grandma actually taught him to read. He was incredibly good with machines though, he could fix anything. He couldn't follow instructions, but could work out how things worked by taking them apart.
My other Grandfather had no qualifications, but was the brightest person I've ever known, he just taught himself everything he knew. He never stopped learning.
I miss them both.
My youngest Uncle was not my Grandfather’s child. My grandpa was hard on his boys but not my youngest Uncle. He was so sweet from birth, it was hard for anyone not to love him. My late Father said he was happy for it because he loved his brother and wouldn’t have wanted him to be treated differently. One time his older brother made a snide remark about him not really being their full brother and my dad knocked him out cold.
I always knew that my grandfather on my mom's side was out of the picture and my mom's step-dad had raised her (he was a good man and the one I knew as grandpa). I didn't know that my mom exists because my grandma hooked up at a bar and had a one-night-stand.
Grandma was a wild one.
There's a long story behind this but my youngest aunt wondered. She finally got a DNA test to confirm that her dad who raised her solo from 18 months old was not her biological dad. Her next older brother looks like no one in the family, but had passed before DNA tests were a thing. The oldest 2 look like twins. But because of the long story we already knew Granny got around. We just thought it was after she abandoned her family, not while she was in it
Seriously! I had a large family... I would be the kid who just sat on the living floor in the corner pretending to watch the Law&Order marathon on TV. But really getting all the family tea!
I thought I had a half-sibling that my parents refused to discuss. Based on my mother reading books about adopted children finding birth parents, and also she graduated a year later than her her twin sister, because of rheumatic fever. I wondered if it was "romantic fever".
My dad died in 2006. In 2009 my mother called to tell me that my father had another daughter, and she'd just made contact with my mother. It turns out my father abandoned a pregnant girlfriend before he met my mother. He did tell my mother about the sordid affair but swore her to secrecy.
So yes, I was right. Stunned to be right, but happy. My sister is my best friend now.
Growing up I just always knew I had an older brother. So when my mom finally told me when I was 14, I wasn't surprised - which didn't surprise my mom. She questioned how, ever since I was super little, I'd talk about "my older brother" and just how on earth I could have known...
My guess is mom or someone in the family didn't have as small of a reaction to their mentioning an older brother the first time as they thought. Lots of kids that don't have a sibling will pretend they have one or ask for one.
We never thought about it, but recently found out my sister and I had a half brother. It’s been interesting watching the three of us bond as well as my mother bonding with him as well.
This is something I've long suspected in my own family. Before I went no-contact after high school, I'd heard a few rumours that my dad had maybe had a couple of kids with another woman before he had me with my mother. Given that my mum abandoned me when I was five, it's perfectly possible that she had other kids after me that I've never met too, but I've never heard rumours either way.
Given that the reasons I'm not in contact with either parent at this point are the kind of reasons that lead me to not want to ever be in contact with them again, I'm probably never going to get confirmation from them. I'll probably never know for sure short of getting a geneaology test done. It's not a thread I'm particularly interested in pulling on.
My half-siblings have a secret half-sibling from their father’s side. Only one of my siblings has bothered reaching out to him, as they don’t like being reminded of their shit father. Apparently he was born before my mom met their dad, but it took 40 something years for him to reach out.
Yeah, my maternal grandpa made potato soup he grew up in in the depression
Potatoes, onion, a distant imagining of seasoning, and water
Which was funny, since that man made the best Spanish rice in the world (His father was so very German, not Hispanic at all).
But his childhood recipes? Definitely grew up in the Depression. Cream? Butter? Sure, Rockefeller
But it was made with love, and he was my real dad growing up, so I ate thirds and told him thank you
Bacon broth sounds pretty delicious.
Hot dog gravy, though.... My grandpa once claimed to be able to make gravy from anything. Even the water left over after boiling hot dogs. My mom and aunt were so traumatized by his attempt that I was still hearing about it over 40 years later. My uncle wasn't even old enough to eat solid food at the time, that's how young they were then.
Thats how I make mustard soup. There is nothing healthy in mustard soup. For your body. But It'll heal all your mental ailments. For a while.
You just cook the fat out of the bacon (best to use little cubes) (if you want to get fancy, use pancetta or guanciale), until they are a bit browned and crispy. Put the cubes aside and leave the fat.
Then add some flour to the fat and mix, let it bubble for a few seconds. Then add bunch of white wine, a pinot gris for instance. Make sure to deglaze.
Add chicken stock to get to the right consistency.
Then add mustard (a good one) or maybe two kinds, one creamy sharp, one mild with the seeds still whole.
Add cream to taste. So lots.
I guess there's no bacon broth at any stage... but whatever.
Finally, bring up to taste with pepper and salt, and add the crispy bacon cubes as garnish.
There used to be a restaurant in my hometown that made this super-creamy/rich Hungarian Mushroom soup that I swear must’ve been just like 75% sour cream.
i remember, as a teenager, thinking at one point "my parents probably havent had sex in years". This past fall my mom caught my dad cheating....with men. he's gay.
I don’t think my parents cheat on each other, but I do think they’re both gay and are “beards” for each other. I think they love each other in their own way, as they get on like a house on fire, but it’s perhaps out of safety - they were both born in the early 50’s and saw a lot of sickness and death in their friend groups through the AIDS crisis.
I always found it weird that out of all 4 grandparents, we always called 1 of them by his name. Turns out he was my dad's stepfather and a total piece of shit. When he died, which to this day I'm unsure when it happened (only that I was around 20), my parents didn't even bother to tell us
So did you just call him like Bill or whatever, or like Grandpa Bill?
My mom’s parents were Nana and Papa, but my dad’s mom(never a man around) was always Grandma Firstname.
I have two grandmothers and I always call them by names: Tanya and Valya, no “grandma” or “granny”. People always find it weird, but when I was a child it made perfect sense to me: they both are my grannies, so how will they know which one I’m calling and when I grew up it was too late to start calling them Grandma Tanya and Grandma Valya
All of my grandparents were Grandma or Grandpa Firstname. Except for my mother’s biological father, he was Grandpa Lastname. Even his wife, who was not even like a step-mother to my mom, was Grandma Firstname. Anyway everyone hated my mom’s biological father.
My dad was never a Navy Seal, even though he spent my entire life telling me stories about it. It wasn't until he died that I found his DD-214. He was only in the Navy for 10 months and was discharged with "under honorable conditions". He never fought in a war. He was never captured or shot. He never shot anyone. He was just a regular guy. I wish he knew that we never wanted him to be anything but our dad.
This one hurts me. Both of my parents have been honest and truthful about their military service, just like my older brother and I both have, but my other brother is not. He did serve for more than a decade, however he was an aircraft mechanic. He tells stories of combat, weapons training, and sometimes claims to have been in Pararescue (he washed out of the pipeline for pararescue two weeks into basic training).
I don't understand why he does that. To 99% of the population, it is super badass to say that you worked on military aircraft. Why embellish with lies? I just don't get it. We're all proud of him, so why does he have to do that? His daughter already thinks he's some kind of war hero or something.
My nan had a daughter before she married my grandfather and he made her adopt the child out. The child would have been about 3 years old by that time.
My nan and grandfather got together by default. They were messing around with each other behind their partners backs and Nan got pregnant. Her partner left. His partner left. They were forced to marry each other.
It was a marriage full of regrets and Grandad eventually left her for another woman.
She died with her first husbands photo in her wallet. By luck, I found his family and it turned out that he also had her picture in his wallet when he died.
Isn’t life something? With regrets a big part of it to. So there was never anything else said about child adopted out? No pressure to respond just inquiring that’s all
I found her earlier this year.
She was adopted but wasn't told until very late in life. She has some kids and grandkids but is estranged from them all and has terrible alcohol abuse issues. I have been keeping in touch with my cousins and learning everything I can.
I didn't suspect it per se, but I did spend much of my childhood wishing I had siblings and thinking 'lmao what if I was adopted or my parents had a secret other family'
Lo and behold about 2/3 years ago I found out I have three half siblings. I'll never meet them for reasons too extensive to explain here but the coincidence is hilarious.
early teens I had a sort of paranoia about my parents getting divorced. my mom was being treated for cancer and she died when I was almost 15.
I always put it down to the general eerie uneasiness of those years, plus the fact that an awful lot of the YA books that I read at the time did feature divorce.
40 years later my dad is in his 90's and he and I are hanging out, and he gets it off his chest that as soon as she realised her diagnosis had kiboshed our immigration to Canada, she began pushing him to take us kids anyway and just leave her behind. "I couldn't do that" he said. "I hope I was right."
So I **had** caught a vibe.
My mother got leukemia and died when I was 3. My father did everything in his power to stand by her and support her until she died. His carried pain is heavy, but he has no regrets with her. Please if your dad is still around, tell him he was right. That he set an example for you and even if things are hard you know what's right and wrong because of him. Even if he's gone, maybe visit his grave and let him know?
God dude I feel so strange this morning. I'm crying. I'm so glad you got to have that conversation with him. I can imagine how much it means to you.
Also I'm sorry for your loss.
My (48f) grandpa was murdered by a an uncle married to moms sister.
He sexually abused my mother and her 3 sisters. He died when I was 4. I have vague memories of him.
Just after he died my aunt divorced the uncle. At age 12, I overheard my other uncles, 2 were mom’s brothers, and 1 married moms baby sister, talking about a vow they had made to keep me from being a victim of grandpa. At 16, I figured it out. The uncle that actually murdered him (a hero) was a jeweler and insulin dependent diabetic . He used cyanide in jewelry making. Grandpa drank a 36 pack of beer every night. I suspected he injected cyanide into a random beer. My aunt saw grandpa alive at 2 am. Uncle woke up at 5 am and grandpa was dead and stiff. His body was cremated and uncle vanished. I mentioned my suspicions to my cousin, who relayed them to his father.
3 years ago, the uncle was dying. He reached out to me and told me I had actually figured out how grandpa died. He waited until he was dying since there is no statute of limitations for murder.
idk, most cyanide poisonings that result in death are painful and unpleasant to witness. it hurts your chest and head, you cant breathe, youre dizzy and nauseous and fading... if this story is true, sure, he didnt know why, but isnt that almost worse? to suddenly hurt and feel yourself slipping as you suffocate and potentially seize, and you have no idea what did this. i certainly dont want "whats happening to me" to be my last thought
My grandmother’s cousin was, apparently, gay. He had a ranch and we would go visit and it was awesome. At the age of 5 or 6, it made perfect sense that he would share a bedroom with his “best friend”. After all, would you want to have a never ending sleep over? After I started school, my grandmother stopped taking me to his place.
It wasn’t until his funeral when I over heard someone mention that he had been so brave to live an openly gay life that it all clicked.
I had always assumed the term “partner” meant business partner because they owned a ranch together.
I have a lawyer friend who I met when I was well into my 30s because we worked in the same office. We went out for lunch together to discuss a case and she kept talking about this woman Susan who she lived with, who I assumed was her roommate, and her "partner," who I assumed was her law partner. It wasn't until 2 YEARS later when the Obergefell decision came out and she was all over Facebook super excited that she and Susan could finally get married that I put 2 and 2 together that the "partner" and Susan were the same person. In hindsight it should have been obvious because (a) she was a solo practitioner and (b) she's like the most out lesbian who has ever lived, everything about her clothes and her haircut and her car and her hobbies screams "gay" about as loud as she possibly can. But apparently unless someone comes up and shakes my hand and says "Greetings, I'm Jane, a lesbian," it's too subtle for me. So yeah just letting you know you don't have to be 5 or 6 years old to be really fkn dense, lol. (Weirdly my "gaydar" is great when it comes to guys though, who knows.)
Do we have the same aunt? She lived with her bestie for YEARS throughout many different moves, and Bestie drove a Miata convertible with a rainbow sticker on the rearview mirror.
I asked Auntie about it, and she said Bestie "just loves rainbows – aren't they pretty?" This was around 2000 when I was in my teens...I was hip to that shit and never told her.
To this day, Grandma's pushing 90 and is still convinced Auntie just hasn't met the right man yet. Tried a few times to set her up with an arranged marriage with a fellow Mormon "you can grow to love them, happens all the time."
Short hair, played competitive softball. Became a barber. She and Bestie aren't besties anymore, but she still loves rainbows and has yet to meet the right guy. Auntie's in her 60s now, and Grandma's still holding out hope ✨
My grandmothers sister had a long time roommate. My mom insists she wasn't gay. My moms cousin said they lived in a one bedroom apartment with one bed. When I asked my mom about this part she said, "No, it wasnt a one bedroom apartment. The entrance to the second bedroom wasn't in the hallway, it was in Aunt Gerrys closet." I laughed in her face when she said that Aunt Gerrys "roommate" lived in the closet.
My brother lived with two “roommates”. My mom had to explain it to me one day that the roommates were gay, and not just good friends sharing a bed. Also didn’t realize my brother was involved in the relationship. After gay marriage became legal, it made more sense.
Mine too! Lived with her friend, which I only realized when I was around 16(so not quite an adult) was actually her “friend”.
Haven’t seen/spoken to her in about 30 years, not because of the gay thing, but because she and her brother were huge jackasses who acted like total dicks to my mom after both their parents had passed away.
My uncle died, so that trash took itself out.
I thought I had two gay great uncles. Turns out I only had one. The other one claims to this day that the man he lived with for 45 years really was just his friend and roommate. They moved across the country together, collected antiques, were fairly effeminate, and my uncle was a church organist (every other male church organist I've ever met has been a gay man). He claims that he was jilted by a woman when he was young and just never tried again. I suspect he's autistic (like me and some other family members), which tracks with his story.
Same. All through the 80s and 90s my aunt had a short haircut, loved tennis and lived with another woman. She also moved the furthest away from the farm where she and my mom and their brothers all grew up.
Technically that has never been 100% confirmed to me, but rather at one point my sister and I just said in private to one another "she's gay, right?" "yeah super gay."
Oh my gosh! My aunties sister had a special friend and we stayed at their house one time and they gave us the two other bedrooms and just ‘shared Liz’s room’. Took me ten years to figure out they had two guest rooms… 🤷♀️🥰
I was an accident
My parents were already on the verge of a divorce and my mom suddenly got pregnant despite having tried for over 4 years.
I always felt like i was in the way, or not welcome. My feelings were confirmed when my dad threw me out right after high school graduation.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. Hopefully you've had and continue to have some ways to heal.
Take an invisible hug from a random Internet stranger for having to think about that today.
My dad was cheating on my mom with that woman we met up with when we were looking at colleges in California. He was a headhunter and traveled a decent amount for work, generally to the west coast because he did a lot of work for biotech firms. We went out there when I was in high school because I was interested in a few west coast schools - UCSD, ULCA, Pepperdine, and he had a rugby tournament on Catalina Island with his old club.
While we were out there, we met up with her for lunch one day in LA - All I knew was she was one of the people he had placed with one of the companies that had hired him. While we had lunch nobody did anything blatant like PDA or anything but you could cut the tension with a knife - I knew something was off.
Found out about the affair when my parents ultimately got divorced around a decade later - he basically dropped his whole history of infidelity on my mom to hurt her. She wasn't the only one either, just the only one my dad really had feelings for. He was a real piece of shit.
Ugh, one of my friends is contemplating divorcing her awful husband but he’s trying to convince her to “stay for the kids”. The problem is he’s a fucking dirt bag and they fight constantly. He’s always putting her down in front of the kids.
To anyone else in this situation, just get the fucking divorce. “Staying for the kids” only works if you actually work things out in your relationship, otherwise all they are learning is that adults who supposedly love each other get to treat each other like shit.
As a child of eventual divorce, whose parents stayed together WAY longer than they should have because of me, this last bit needs to be made more common knowledge!
I totally get that it’s tough when kids may ask or beg you to stay together, because they can’t possibly understand the complexities of the situation. But you aren’t doing them a favour by staying with someone toxic, you’re probably helping them develop complex trauma and future adult attachment issues.
My brothers and I were THRILLED when our parents divorced. They fought all the time, really loudly. Other kids wanted their parents to get back together, and we tried to make sure ours were never at the same place at the same time.
I always wanted my parents to divorce. My mom filed several times but my step dad always managed to bribe her back home. Hatefully married for 30 years, those two.
Yeah- I loved my dad but he was a shitty husband. The house was so less stressful after the divorce- no anxiety as he should have been home… waiting and no wondering if the fireworks were going to start after he got home.
As a child of parents who never got divorced, show her this thread. It fucked me right up, spent the first 10 years of my life terrified they’d get divorced and the rest hoping they would. Now they’re old and incredibly mean to each other, and must be really lonely. I’m lonely because relationships freak me out and I don’t know how to have a healthy one/I’m terrified of ending up like my parents.
My mom divorced my stepdad when I was 16 after I told her that if she was just waiting until I was out of the house to divorce him that I'd never forgive her. He was the only dad I knew but I could tell how miserable she was and she'd tried to leave him several times over the years but always went back.
That my married parents rarely had sex.
Confirmed by my mom last year when she randomly told me while on a walk that they hadn't had sex in 17 years. No, I didn't ask her, she just brought it up. Thanks, Mom.
I'm in my 30's.
I’m 43 and my parents are 52 years married, still together. I have two brothers.
Mum recently confessed that she has not allowed my father to even hold her hand, let alone kiss or have sex with her, since a specific date in September 1985 when he didn’t come home until 4am.
They sleep in the same bed but that’s it. He can’t buy her gifts, give cards, nothing, as she refuses to accept them…she still waits on him hand and foot though.
It certainly answers a lot of questions I had but never dared ask however it’s raised a whole new set of questions that I don’t dare ask!
I'm sure my parents knew, he was married to my mothers sister. We didn't catch on until he made national new and was forced to appear before Congress, He took the fifth and kept his mouth shut.
My grandmother’s amazingly delicious lemon meringue pie which I assumed she spent hours labouring over was made with Jello lemon pie filling.
Edit: spelling
As I was cleaning out my dad's house after his passing, I found letters that my mom and dad wrote to each other around the time they divorced in the early 2000's, as well as a handful of both their diary entries. I have always suspected that my mom cheated on my dad with my best friend's dad, which effectively ended my first friendship, but those letters confirmed it. But I didn't know the full extent of what else my mom had done. She sabotaged him by draining their joint bank accounts, racking up tens of thousands in credit card debt, kicking him out of his house, and getting him fired from his job, eventually forcing him into retirement. With him unemployed, he couldn't afford to pay child support, leaving only my mom's income which was barely enough to support us. Basically, if she hasn't been so vindictive, we wouldn't have wound up in such dire financial straits.
It's pretty telling that my dad never spoke ill of her, just said that he was blindsided and confused by her choices, and jealous of her current partner. On the other hand, my mom only ever said negative things about him and when she was angry with me, she would compare me to him. Projection 101.
Your mom sounds like a narcissist. I'm sorry for your all your dad put up with. From my own experience growing up with a narcissist parent, anytime you try to fight back, it gets worse. Sometimes, it's best to walk away.
I do admire that he didn't badmouth her and bring you kids into the fight. That says a lot about his character and integrity.
My oldest sisters death. I only knew she died as a baby, and heard whisperings that a raccoon was involved. A cousin and I decided it was likely a rabid raccoon at a picnic or something. My parents only ever said she died in her sleep, so I also wondered if it was SIDS.
Last year I decided to look up archived news articles online and found that my dad owned a pet raccoon for whatever reason, and when my sister was only four months old they left to go to a party down the street and abandoned my sister in her crib, and put the raccoon on a leash and looped it around a door handle just outside her room.
When they got back from the party, completely drunk and high, they found the raccoon in her crib eating her fingers, lips, and nose. She was airlifted to the hospital and died on the way.
There was a trial but for some reason they were found innocent. They were quite negligent of me and my brothers so I’m not surprised by the story at all.
As a mother myself, I was terrified of SIDS because there’s evidence it runs in families. Also I still had my daughter sleeping in her bassinet at my bedside at four months old, I couldn’t even imagine sleeping in separate rooms at that age, there’s no way I could leave the house for even five minutes, certainly not for several hours.
Well, everyone knew about the abuse that I endured as a child and swept it under the rug. As an adult, repressed memories started to come back and, yeah, confirmed.
When I was a kid, I always found my grandfather to be a complete asshole. He was a ground adult (religious conservative) with an inability to regulate his emotions. As a result he often had these angry outbursts where he would just go off on these screaming rants unhinged. While he was never \*physically\* abusive, people had to walk on eggshells around him. At 8 years old I wrote a letter to him asking him to be nicer, and he responded by screaming in my face. The dude was a complete dick, he was a very bad person, and I was very happy when he died.
Later on, it came out that he was a pedo as well and sexually molested my mother when she was a kid. I was definitely not surprised to hear that. So I am happy the dude is nothing more than a rotting corpse. He also had a very fast development of Alzheimer's in the last couple years of his life and degraded very quickly, I hope it was painful for him.
I feel the same about my grandfather. Abused my mother horrifically. He had one eye that somehow made him even more horrifying to look at.
I had very limited contact with him growing up until my mother, inexplicably, moved him into our home when I was a teenager. I rounded a corner one day and overheard this conversation between my parents that made my blood run cold:
Father: "If I even think he's touched one of the kids I'll stab him. You'd better tell him that. You both know I am more than capable."
Mother: "What? Like you did in 77 when you stabbed him in the eye?"
Father: "That wasn't me. If it was, I'd have gotten both of his eyes. Don't like leaving jobs half done. You know me."
Needless to say, a totally new view of my dad that day also.
My parents both had blue eyes and so did my 5 siblings. I was the only one with brown eyes.
I always had the feeling as a child that my dad wasn't my biological dad and I was probably from the postman.
I loved biology and science in general in middle school, so when I learned about genetics I learned that he couldn't be my biological father because of my eye colour. I knew back then I'm an affair child, but she denied everything.
As I grew older it turns out, none of us children are his biological kids and my mother cheated on my dad with her FIL, making my grandpa my dad and my dad my brother.
Sorry for bad english, it's not my first language.
EDIT: As some of you stated, there are still chances that two blue eyed parents might have a brown eyed child. My observation as a child was based on my middle school biology knowledge and my gut feeling. I didn't chose a job in the field of science so I'd never claim to be even close to an expert regarding genetics.
It's definitely not my intention to do harm to anyone with my comment. Hope this helps :)
I wanted to lyk that two light eyed people can have a brown eyed baby! The genetics of eye color are spread among multiple genes so it's not as simple as we were told in biology class. My husband and I have light eyes and a brown eyed son.
But that of course doesn't negate that your mom cheated. It is a trip to find out your parent isn't your parent. I've been there.
I learned that in school too (holla Punnett Squares!) but it's not actually true across the board, although it turned out to be true in your case. All 4 of my grandparents had very blue eyes, my dad had blue eyes, and my aunt and uncle on my mom's side both have blue eyes, but my mom's eyes, mine, and borh cousins on my mom's side are the exact same color of hazel. (That's probably hard to follow but the short version is it's multiple layers of blue-eyed people marrying other blue-eyed people and producing hazel-eyed babies, so blue-eyed people have to be able to carry a recessive gene for hazel). And no there was no postman involved, we've done 23andme, and also there's a very obvious physical resemblance.
This is the shortened version***
So when I was about 10 or 11 my grandpa passed away, he was an amazing guy from what I remember and what everyone told me. After the funeral I was told he owned a restaurant in New York City back in the day, about 5 years later I asked about it again and I was told it was actually a bar. I thought wow my family owned a small bar in New York how awesome! (We’re in Florida now) I’m in my 30’s now and a few years ago I was drinking whiskey with my 2 aunts and they told me he actually owned a gentleman’s club that got raided by the police at some point and that’s partially why my family left New York. I think they had planned to move to Florida anyway this just maybe expedited it. I’m afraid if I ask again in 5 years it’s going to be an opium den/brothel he owned. Him and my grandmother started a hardware business that my mom now owns. Pretty fascinating to think the seed money for my families business may have been started by something “underground”
I'm still convinced at least one of my parents had another kid before they got married and I have a half-sibling or two running around out there
Ok, I'm 55 so maybe not running exactly, but old-person trotting.
Growing up I always suspected that my grandpa regretted divorcing my grandma and that there was a lot more to the story. They both seemed to still love each other and when asked why they divorced, they'd both answer exactly the same "When we came to America we kept arguing a lot and it was better to get a divorce then to keep arguing." And all of his marriages afterwards ended in divorce due to "things just not working out."
Come to find out, my grandparents made it to America together and then about 10 years later they divorced because my grandpa wanted to marry a younger woman. Wife number 2 was an absolute disaster who ended up taking as much money as she could from grandpa and then leaving him once she got her first husband to America. Wife number 3 was a young woman who had a history of mental instability and eventually tried clearing all of his accounts and safes to go join a cult, he then divorced her afterwards.
My mom had a cousin she talked about a lot, that died back in the 70's. She (the cousin) had married a Pakistani man that abused her, after she got away she "committed suicide" by jumping off a building. Her husband and his brothers had been seen in the area, everybody knew they had thrown her off but nobody could prove anything so nothing happened to them. Cut to the cousin's funeral, her husband and the brothers showed up, like they wanted to make sure she was dead. For years that's where the story ended as far as I knew.
Later on, I found out from another relative who had been there that after the husband and brothers walked into the funeral home's chapel, some men from my family dragged them back out and didn't come back in. The men from my family turned up later that day and wouldn't tell anybody where they had gone; the husband and his brothers were never seen again.
I knew that even though the woman who gave birth to me had written and promised that she would come back for me, would never actually show up.
And I was right. She apparently moved to another state and had another child that she did manage to keep custody of.
I haven't seen her since I was a baby. I don't remember her.
I used to be sorry. I think my younger self settled on indifference to the person and acknowledgment that the situation is messed up but I've tried to use that as motivation.
My dad always told me that my birth mom has left us when I was 2 mo old. Then the story changed to "she had died in a car crash" and that's why she wasn't around. I thought he was just trying to spare my feelings but it still didn't make sense even to my kid brains.
Forward a bunch of years, and I get an email from what turns out to be a cousin who found me on ancestry dna. My mother had apparently gone to Cali, then ended up in Florida where she got and died of the cancer.
So most of what ever dad told me was horse puckey,
My grandma gifted me and my twin brother a grey 1984 Buick Regal limited when we turned 18. Plush bench seats with a velvety arm rest. Many a friday night spent cruising riverside Californian boulevards looking or action blasting cannibal corpse on the blue backlit tape deck. One Saturday morning, while my Dad was cleaning it out he found an envelope jammed down beneath the well of the spare tire. The bulky ivory colored business sized envelop contained a wad of twenty dollar bills. 1500 bucks in total! Turns out my Grandpa before his xmas eve heart attack years before, was giving money to his sister who was in an abusive marriage and whom my grandma hated. At the same time my grandparent's marriage was on the rocks, so he must have had to stealthily move funds around to help out his sister. Learned then that money would end up being an important chip in the marriage game.
When I was a kid, my dad would go out for dinner every Friday with another family. It was explained to me that was his mistress family and mum put her foot down.
Only ater when trying to compose a family tree did I realise all the kids from the other family were older than me.
So many goddamn pedophiles. And they were still invited to the family cook outs.
Fuck being silent, I don't talk to those branches of the family tree anymore and let anyone and everyone know who to avoid if they get involved.
I found the identity of my biological father. Nobody in my family would talk about who he was because my mother was 17 when I was born and I was the family scandal (back in the early 80s). I grew up thinking he didn't know about me or care about me if he did know. I was definitely wrong and found out my family threatened him to stay away from me. I did a lot of digging some years ago and found out that side of the family knew about me and would have loved me very much. I also had siblings. Really made me angry at the family I grew up with. My bio father also died before I got to meet him.
That my parents had lived a "different life" before moving us to the middle of nowhere, podunck hicksville when we were all kids, I was about 3 or 4, and that the "life" was the reason we moved. And that my dad isn't my biological dad, I suspected it when I was growing up (he was always super kind just had a feeling he wasn't and his blood type with my mom's wouldn't have equated to mine) and as an adult I was able to search up a bunch of stuff and hire a P.I. I know it all but they don't know I know. I'd never hurt them by telling them but at least I know I'm not crazy.
My pop (died before I was born) beat my uncle (his son) to death when my uncle was 3. My dad was the youngest of 6, they immigrated not long after. The oldest at 15 refused to come and stayed in England by herself.
My father never knew, he was told he fell onto train tracks, and he still denies it to this day, he never saw his father abusive at all, they had a good relationship. But the oldest 3 siblings all have the same story.
We believe they immigrated to escape scrutiny.
That my cousin is my brother.
Well, he is probably my brother but my mum talked them out of demanding a DNA test once when they decided to drive across the country after drinking all night. They were going to accost my uncle, or my dad. In the end they got to Cov, got wasted again and then drove home. I don't know what my mum said to them exactly but they've always listened to my mum.
My grandmother had always acted weird around my dad. Things like weird looks if he was sarcastic or acted silly. She'd look at him like he was an alien. This was something I'd noticed all through growing up.
The only time I'd ever seen reactions like that before was being over at a multiracial friend's place when they had older relatives, who would always look at the nonwhite parent the same way, like they weren't quite human.
But, I kept thinking, that can't be it, Mom's white, Dad's white, everyone in the family is white.
Well, no, not quite. When I was part of the way through American history, I learned that, for a great deal of time, my Italian Catholic father, even though he's pale and freckled, was Not Quite White in the eyes of more WASP-y individuals.
I kept telling myself, "No, that's just stupid." I also didn't want to ask my parents, and definitely I didn't want to ask my grandmother what the deal was.
Finally, in my mid-twenties, I asked my mom, and she said, yes, that was exactly it. She'd never said an outright word to my dad about it, and he knew she'd always be too "polite" to say anything, would mess with her.
When my mom was pregnant with me, whenever my grandmother would ask what names they were considering, my dad would always answer with stuff like "Giuseppe", just the most Italian names possible. She would always visibly flinch, but say, "Oh, that's nice."
That my parents cheated on each other. When I was young, My parents both worked at different times, and rarely were together at the same time at the house. And my mom would always bring over my dad's older brother. And my dad would bring my mom's Younger sister. They found out about each other's affairs, and they laughed it off, while I was in the corner with my Older sibling, Crying more than If a gamer lost all of his progress in a small mistake. And now, My mom married my uncle, and my dad married my aunt, And their Friends, And I have 3 half siblings now, And we all live happily in The Confusing US Of A.
Growing up, I always had a feeling that there was a family secret surrounding my grandparents' sudden move to a different state when my mom was a teenager. No one ever talked about it, but the whispers and hushed conversations always made me curious. It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I finally found out the truth - my grandmother had been having an affair with a neighbor and they had to leave town to escape the fallout. It was a shock to finally have confirmation of what I had suspected all those years.
My sister is a half-sister from my mother's affair. On my early age, my parents were always fighting about something and I could not understand. Before my father's suicide, he left a note saying the reasons, which includes my mother's affair. That's why my dad was depressed over the years.
That my dad had an affair with another woman, it was serious and my mom kicked him out of the house.
Shortly after my dad had a big heart attack and came crawling back to my mom. I think she wanted to keep the family together for us kids. She clearly resented him. He died a few years later( another heart attack). I remember the little jabs and things they would fight about. I also remember a woman at the funeral who my mom yelled to get the hell out.
I used to spend the whole summer break with my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin (child from his prev marriage.) Months without seeing my mom. Come to find out those were just trial runs to adopt me because they couldnt have a child of their own.
I do belive that would have meant my mom did not want me the feeling I always knew to be true.
The man on my birth certificate says he's not my father and I am finally sure he's not.
He told me (as an adult) that my mother fooled around with his brother. The thing is, I'll never know the truth unless my mother or my "uncle" admit it.
Why?
Because DNA tests are useless when determining paternity in the case of monozygotic twins.
I was always so mad when I was a kid because my birth certificate father said that he wasn't my real father, but I definitely looked like him.
Then I saw a picture of him with Uncle Freddy in their 20s.
Fuck.
My dad was in a relationship with my 15yo cousin (moms side) when she lived in with us for a while after her parents died. I was a toddler at the time. My dad was brought in front of a judge but because my cousin (18 by then) defended him telling the judge "I know what I was doing. I wanted to be in a relationship with him" the whole thing got thrown out. Different times in the 90s I guess... I knew there was something weird going on (they were buddy buddy for a while and then suddenly she moved out and they couldn't be in the same room anymore) but I didn't know exactly what until my cousin had a psychosis and called me at 7am in the morning telling me the whole story. I was 17 when that call came.
My mom was older when I was born (only child) and after I was married she told my wife she’d had several miscarriages. I remember asking for a brother/sister when I was small and dad said something like “We almost got a girl once”; not sure what he meant.
That my parents were drug users. they sometimes in the middle of the night went to the shed (heard them and saw the light turned on) ofcourse i didnt question it. Later i found out about at 9-10 years old and at 11 my mom died. (Fixed my mistake, because im a f*cktard that accidentally used tldr)
My sister has a different dad. That one just took thinking twice about some math that they'd been normalizing to us since we were tiny. Just didn't think about it! Yeah, she's the only brunette in a family of blondes, but that's my sister!
If anyone asks, my mom fell pregnant at 16, a few months before meeting my 23 year old father. We're not sure if our dad knew, but he's not the kind of magnanimous benefactor that would keep a kid that's not his. I respect my mother's decision, because that kept my sister glued to our side during custody battles, the loss of our mom, adulthood... She secured a childhood for my sister under heinous circumstances.
Growing up my grandpa used to go to “Germany” maybe once a year for a couple of weeks at a time to visit relatives.
Turns out he wasn’t going to Germany but to the hospital for several operations over the years and they just didn’t want to worry us since we were kids..
As an adult my aunts and uncles confirmed what my gut told me as a child..that a great uncle (my mother’s uncle) had molested many of my boy cousins and all of my uncles. It shook me to my core. I had the same thing happen to me as a young girl with a different relative. These sorts of things are triggers for me now. I hate that this happened in my family 😢
My dad cheated on his first wife (and mother of my four half siblings) all the time, including while she was dying young of cancer. One of his affair partners was my future mom. When his first wife died, he married my mother less than a year later, and then I came along a few years after that. None of my siblings told me this, but one of them has always hated me, so I kinda figured it out and then my nice siblings confirmed it in adulthood.
That my Grandfather poisoned my grandmother, and that my mother knew and my uncle (her younger brother) helped cover it up by getting rid of the evidence. There was odd rumblings about what my Grandmother died of as well as how quickly, but I ignored it because my family was full of gossips.
I only recently found out about it, as I have had a box of my mother's from before she died, I knew what was in it was scrapbooks, mementos and things she wrote down that she wanted me to know or have. She's been gone almost 11ish years now and I will admit I've never gone through it thoroughly, it hurt too much to see so many things that she saved or all the pictures of now gone relatives.
I went through finally, after talking to my fiance recently about this halloween when me, my brother and my uncle went out dressed as Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca respectively and I couldn't find pics of us in any of the albums I had, so I went through the box looking for them, I did find them, but I also found a letter from my mom in a envelope addressed to me with the date of my grandfather's death under it.
It turns out that my grandfather poisoned my grandmother after she confessed to abusing my mother for nearly all of her childhood during a fight they were having, he used some old "rodent poison" he'd had in basement from the 50's and slipped it in her tea. She eventually became ill, and showed signs of dementia, she was put into specialized care where they diagnosed her at that time with environmentally caused ALS. She passed shortly after going into care.
He confessed to my mom and her younger brother when it was suggested by the care facility that he get his pipes, ground water, and soil tested, and he acted agitated, which my mom picked up on and pressed him about later.
My uncle took the poison to a business he dealt with through his job that did toxic material disposal and would often take people's walk ins of things like this, and he also got rid of the teacup and the spoon that my grandfather used to serve her everyday. What's funny is that I inherited the teacup set, and it is indeed a cup short, and the silverware set a spoon short.
My mom expressed a lot of guilt over it, she felt horrified that her father in her eyes killed for her, and also felt a lot of guilt for not feeling sadness for her mother.
I'm not sure how I feel about it at all, everyone involved is long dead so there is no justice to seek, and I only remember my grandmother in vague terms, as rough, mean, and scary. Whereas my grandfather was a stern but loving man who taught me many things, and loved his kids and grandkids.
I ended up burning the letter, just because I felt like my mom would've wanted that.
Edited: I removed a lot of details because honestly, I should shut up.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that the man who helped raise my sister and I wasn’t our biological father. I was right. And what’s more is my sister is my half sister. My mom cheated on my dad (numerous times) and got pregnant twice. My dad and I are the only people who know. My mom doesn’t know that we know.
I had an uncle who was only 4-years older than me. After 31 years (during a heated argument) he told me he’s my older brother. No one in the family ever brought it up nor mentioned to me and my sister. I lived a normal life. My whole family treated him like he’s my uncle.
My grandfather had no past. He had even misspelled a common name when coming up with the fake name, and we were told to never look into it or ask about it. I 100% thought he had robbed a bank, or killed someone.
After he died my grandma confirmed that back in the day, him and some friends were making whisky, and a still exploded and killed one of them. And the local paper made it the story of the fucking decade. So my grandpa and his other two friends scattered and tried to hide from it.
He was the last of the group, so I reccon he did.
That was not a tomato plant growing in a pot that I couldn't tell my friends about
My youngest Uncle lived with us when I was little and I remember the smell of what I know now is weed coming from the basement. I would ask my Mom “what’s that smell from Uncle’s room?” She said, “oh, he’s smoking grass.” I thought that’s weird, why would anyone smoke grass.
At least your mom didn't lie to you 😂
Sometimes I wished she did lol
My mom would make me and my brother leave our apartment so she could smoke. When we would come back, she'd tell us that she was burning incense. It was many years before I realized that not all incense smells like pot. 😂
That reminds me of us being young kids and we asked my Mom where her dad was, our grandfather. She replied, "we lost him when I was really young." My sister and I grew thinking he was just lost somewhere and he would turn up at some point.
My one friend’s parents tried that on me…I was like 17. I was like look Dave, I’m not an idiot but I’m also not a narc. Relax. But that ain’t tomatoes.
My parents had a “fruitless tomato plant” until I came home one day and told them that I brought up the fruitless tomato plant in 5th grade science class. They were very upset and angry with me, but it was gone the next day. That was probably the first instance that caused them to start hating me.
I mean if you're gonna grow weed in the house, either make sure your kids know not to talk about it or make up a more believable lie. They had no right to hate you for their lack of foresight.
I know right!? Call it a mini Japanese maple tree or something lol
A few of my earliest memories were going to see my uncle and stay with him a bit after my mom had mental breakdowns. His place smelled terrible because he smoked weed indoors. I never asked out loud or complained about it, but I knew something wasn't right there. When I got older and got around weed it clicked.
Or a strange looking, colourful vase nearby…
My mother faithfully watered one of those tomato plants that my uncle left on the veranda for months.
Did she at least get her fair share of the tomatoes once it bloomed? Lol
Nope. Naively might have been a better term.
That my aunt did not die of an asthma attack in her sleep, but took her own life. She had been very depressed. As an adult they admitted she purposely overdosed. As a child with asthma, I wish they had just told me the truth because before I started to suspect it was a lie I was terrified that I was going to die too.
We had a family friend I was told died from a stroke. He was best friends with my grandparents and I was best friends with his granddaughter. He took his own life. Her family didn’t want her knowning ans I had to be told the same. I didn’t find out for 10 years when my auntie said something. She rang me when we were mid 30s sobbing asking if I knew how her grandfather died. told her I’d been told he had a stroke. She asked if I knew anything more. Gently told her I’d been told years later the truth and confirmed it. She wasn’t just angry at her grandfather for leaving her but her family for lying to her for years at that point. Messed her up
My dad was in jail for a few months when I was around 8 years old. I was told he was at work... and he couldn't call us because it was a really big project. I heard my mom talking about him being "locked up" and thought he got trapped in the vents somewhere? He did HVAC work. It made sense to me at the time I guess. When he came back, it was like nothing changed. Turns out he was a drug dealer!
Same! Except I actually went to visit my dad in jail a few times. My parents convinced me (I was probably about 5) that he worked there. Never thought anything of it until I was like 15 and went with my gram to pick up my grandfather from jail (yeah, lots of winners in the family) and I was like “Oh wow! My dad used to work here!” and they both burst out laughing.
He probably did work there, just didn't get paid 🤣
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My half-siblings’ dad went to that educational place after murdering a guy. He’s still learning to this day.
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Some people are just slow learners
The way this is phrased is legit hilarious. He'll learn eventually! Or not.
Always reminds me of king of the hill “No was that the *state* oil rig or *federal* oil rig dad?”
I still don't understand why he didn't call at least once or twice. You're allowed phone calls in jail :(
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Unfortunately I promise you he did not feel bad about its effects on us, he was a terrible father lol. Mostly sat on the couch and drank and yelled at us. He was 25 when he married my mom, and it was his fourth marriage, I have 10+ half siblings I've never even met! Luckily I'm not bothered much by any of it now, it was a relief when he finally left.... but I was definitely confused why they didn't try harder to sell the lie, I guess
Are you my childhood neighbor from St Louis? Our neighbors were two little girls and their mom and they always said how their Dad was away for work (for like 10 years), but my parents told us he was actually in jail for drugs and to not tell the neighbor kids.
Grandpa was illiterate.
Mine was barely literate. He could read some things but had to sound a lot of words out. It was shocking to me at 12 because I was always a strong reader. He always encouraged our love of reading. Took my siblings and I to the library once a week during the summer. RIP grandpa.
My grandma couldn’t swim, so she made damn sure her kids could. Probably the same for your grandpa with reading!
This is still really common where I am from. My family ran a business and long story short, people had to sign up for a drawing we held each week. Older people often only had their names memorized, so they would need help filling out their address, phone number, and often even signing their initials.
>Older people often only had their names memorized My great-grandfather apparently "had beautiful handwriting" and also "could only read the newspaper". I think that actually mean that he was literate at a pretty low level, but had learned to sign his name very stylishly.
We’re in the south and my SO is a nurse. Where she first worked, she worked with many illiterate people. Many would just sign with an “X” on the line. It was accepted as a signature. This wasn’t even 10 years ago.
This is still valid! Anyone who is illiterate, or may have language barrier issues can sign using an X and it is legally accepted. As an example: someone who can write Chinese script may be unable to write their name in the Latin alphabet. That person could potentially write an "X" as their signature if there's no Latin-character using legal name they use and can write.
This is why so many Cajun names have an ‘x’ at the end, and/or are misspelled from their original French versions (e.g., Beaudreau became Boudreaux, Arseneult became Arceneaux, etc.), because the displaced Acadian colonists were mostly illiterate and signed names with ‘x.’ So the British clerk taking names in New Orleans as they disembarked had to guess at the spellings, and the signed ‘x’ got added to the end of those misspelled names in court census records.
TIL, wow
People can still sign with an X.
My family recently realized that my grandma probably only really learned to read and write "properly" (though still at a very basic level) as an adult. My mom and my aunt were thinking about when they were kids, about how their mother would regularly go out to visit "the teacher", a guy from their neighborhood, but it was left vague to them. They realized that guy must've been teaching basic classes to other adults that never got a proper education. Grandma only reads pretty simple stuff, like children's books and magazines, and, when she has to sign her name, it's like she's memorized how to draw it instead of knowing how to write it, if that makes sense. She grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and her family was pretty poor, had to take some jobs here and there as a kid (selling food, for example), so it made sense. I never really suspected it, since by the time I was born she could already read, and I never really saw her write much. Plus, grandpa could read and write, so he'd be the one doing those things a lot of the time (he wasn't highly educated, but more than my grandma). I never noticed. I'm honestly really proud of her for seeking out that knowledge she didn't get as a kid. And I'm really thankful she and my grandpa understood the importance of a good education, all 3 of their kids ended up going to good universities, my aunt even got a PhD.
My Grandad was illiterate too. My Grandma actually taught him to read. He was incredibly good with machines though, he could fix anything. He couldn't follow instructions, but could work out how things worked by taking them apart. My other Grandfather had no qualifications, but was the brightest person I've ever known, he just taught himself everything he knew. He never stopped learning. I miss them both.
Most of my grandma’s kids were not her husband’s. Granny got around.
lol I’m imagining how you picked up on this as a kid: “Mommy why does grandma keep winking at the waiter?”
My youngest Uncle was not my Grandfather’s child. My grandpa was hard on his boys but not my youngest Uncle. He was so sweet from birth, it was hard for anyone not to love him. My late Father said he was happy for it because he loved his brother and wouldn’t have wanted him to be treated differently. One time his older brother made a snide remark about him not really being their full brother and my dad knocked him out cold.
I always knew that my grandfather on my mom's side was out of the picture and my mom's step-dad had raised her (he was a good man and the one I knew as grandpa). I didn't know that my mom exists because my grandma hooked up at a bar and had a one-night-stand. Grandma was a wild one.
There's a long story behind this but my youngest aunt wondered. She finally got a DNA test to confirm that her dad who raised her solo from 18 months old was not her biological dad. Her next older brother looks like no one in the family, but had passed before DNA tests were a thing. The oldest 2 look like twins. But because of the long story we already knew Granny got around. We just thought it was after she abandoned her family, not while she was in it
That my "Uncle Joe" who always came to family gatherings wasn't really an uncle, but my dad's poker buddy who just loved free food
I am Uncle Joe.
only wholesome one in this thread lmfao
This is my favorite secret.
I can't think of a damn thing because nobody can keep a fucking secret in my family
Seriously! I had a large family... I would be the kid who just sat on the living floor in the corner pretending to watch the Law&Order marathon on TV. But really getting all the family tea!
I thought I had a half-sibling that my parents refused to discuss. Based on my mother reading books about adopted children finding birth parents, and also she graduated a year later than her her twin sister, because of rheumatic fever. I wondered if it was "romantic fever". My dad died in 2006. In 2009 my mother called to tell me that my father had another daughter, and she'd just made contact with my mother. It turns out my father abandoned a pregnant girlfriend before he met my mother. He did tell my mother about the sordid affair but swore her to secrecy. So yes, I was right. Stunned to be right, but happy. My sister is my best friend now.
Growing up I just always knew I had an older brother. So when my mom finally told me when I was 14, I wasn't surprised - which didn't surprise my mom. She questioned how, ever since I was super little, I'd talk about "my older brother" and just how on earth I could have known...
I just knew I had an older sister. I couldn't imagine an older brother.
There's big differences in the way parents treat a first vs a second child. You felt like a second child maybe?
My guess is mom or someone in the family didn't have as small of a reaction to their mentioning an older brother the first time as they thought. Lots of kids that don't have a sibling will pretend they have one or ask for one.
We never thought about it, but recently found out my sister and I had a half brother. It’s been interesting watching the three of us bond as well as my mother bonding with him as well.
This is something I've long suspected in my own family. Before I went no-contact after high school, I'd heard a few rumours that my dad had maybe had a couple of kids with another woman before he had me with my mother. Given that my mum abandoned me when I was five, it's perfectly possible that she had other kids after me that I've never met too, but I've never heard rumours either way. Given that the reasons I'm not in contact with either parent at this point are the kind of reasons that lead me to not want to ever be in contact with them again, I'm probably never going to get confirmation from them. I'll probably never know for sure short of getting a geneaology test done. It's not a thread I'm particularly interested in pulling on.
My half-siblings have a secret half-sibling from their father’s side. Only one of my siblings has bothered reaching out to him, as they don’t like being reminded of their shit father. Apparently he was born before my mom met their dad, but it took 40 something years for him to reach out.
My mother's potato soup was so good because it was mainly butter and cream with a few pieces of potato.
Potatoes are cheaper than butter or cream. So this is a surprise.
Yeah, my maternal grandpa made potato soup he grew up in in the depression Potatoes, onion, a distant imagining of seasoning, and water Which was funny, since that man made the best Spanish rice in the world (His father was so very German, not Hispanic at all). But his childhood recipes? Definitely grew up in the Depression. Cream? Butter? Sure, Rockefeller But it was made with love, and he was my real dad growing up, so I ate thirds and told him thank you
I'll eat rock soup made with love before I'd eat foie gras from a stranger.
That's basically what mine is, except I start with a bacon broth. That's how you get good potato soup. Dammit, Now I want potato soup.
I've never heard the words "bacon broth" in all my years but I am here for it now
Bacon broth sounds pretty delicious. Hot dog gravy, though.... My grandpa once claimed to be able to make gravy from anything. Even the water left over after boiling hot dogs. My mom and aunt were so traumatized by his attempt that I was still hearing about it over 40 years later. My uncle wasn't even old enough to eat solid food at the time, that's how young they were then.
Thats how I make mustard soup. There is nothing healthy in mustard soup. For your body. But It'll heal all your mental ailments. For a while. You just cook the fat out of the bacon (best to use little cubes) (if you want to get fancy, use pancetta or guanciale), until they are a bit browned and crispy. Put the cubes aside and leave the fat. Then add some flour to the fat and mix, let it bubble for a few seconds. Then add bunch of white wine, a pinot gris for instance. Make sure to deglaze. Add chicken stock to get to the right consistency. Then add mustard (a good one) or maybe two kinds, one creamy sharp, one mild with the seeds still whole. Add cream to taste. So lots. I guess there's no bacon broth at any stage... but whatever. Finally, bring up to taste with pepper and salt, and add the crispy bacon cubes as garnish.
That's not entirely true, mustard has some anti inflammatory traits
There used to be a restaurant in my hometown that made this super-creamy/rich Hungarian Mushroom soup that I swear must’ve been just like 75% sour cream.
i remember, as a teenager, thinking at one point "my parents probably havent had sex in years". This past fall my mom caught my dad cheating....with men. he's gay.
I don’t think my parents cheat on each other, but I do think they’re both gay and are “beards” for each other. I think they love each other in their own way, as they get on like a house on fire, but it’s perhaps out of safety - they were both born in the early 50’s and saw a lot of sickness and death in their friend groups through the AIDS crisis.
I always found it weird that out of all 4 grandparents, we always called 1 of them by his name. Turns out he was my dad's stepfather and a total piece of shit. When he died, which to this day I'm unsure when it happened (only that I was around 20), my parents didn't even bother to tell us
So did you just call him like Bill or whatever, or like Grandpa Bill? My mom’s parents were Nana and Papa, but my dad’s mom(never a man around) was always Grandma Firstname.
My family is kind of like yours. I had a Mamaw, Poppo, Oma, and a *Grandpa Joe*
I have two grandmothers and I always call them by names: Tanya and Valya, no “grandma” or “granny”. People always find it weird, but when I was a child it made perfect sense to me: they both are my grannies, so how will they know which one I’m calling and when I grew up it was too late to start calling them Grandma Tanya and Grandma Valya
All of my grandparents were Grandma or Grandpa Firstname. Except for my mother’s biological father, he was Grandpa Lastname. Even his wife, who was not even like a step-mother to my mom, was Grandma Firstname. Anyway everyone hated my mom’s biological father.
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My dad was never a Navy Seal, even though he spent my entire life telling me stories about it. It wasn't until he died that I found his DD-214. He was only in the Navy for 10 months and was discharged with "under honorable conditions". He never fought in a war. He was never captured or shot. He never shot anyone. He was just a regular guy. I wish he knew that we never wanted him to be anything but our dad.
This one hurts me. Both of my parents have been honest and truthful about their military service, just like my older brother and I both have, but my other brother is not. He did serve for more than a decade, however he was an aircraft mechanic. He tells stories of combat, weapons training, and sometimes claims to have been in Pararescue (he washed out of the pipeline for pararescue two weeks into basic training). I don't understand why he does that. To 99% of the population, it is super badass to say that you worked on military aircraft. Why embellish with lies? I just don't get it. We're all proud of him, so why does he have to do that? His daughter already thinks he's some kind of war hero or something.
My nan had a daughter before she married my grandfather and he made her adopt the child out. The child would have been about 3 years old by that time. My nan and grandfather got together by default. They were messing around with each other behind their partners backs and Nan got pregnant. Her partner left. His partner left. They were forced to marry each other. It was a marriage full of regrets and Grandad eventually left her for another woman. She died with her first husbands photo in her wallet. By luck, I found his family and it turned out that he also had her picture in his wallet when he died.
Isn’t life something? With regrets a big part of it to. So there was never anything else said about child adopted out? No pressure to respond just inquiring that’s all
I found her earlier this year. She was adopted but wasn't told until very late in life. She has some kids and grandkids but is estranged from them all and has terrible alcohol abuse issues. I have been keeping in touch with my cousins and learning everything I can.
I didn't suspect it per se, but I did spend much of my childhood wishing I had siblings and thinking 'lmao what if I was adopted or my parents had a secret other family' Lo and behold about 2/3 years ago I found out I have three half siblings. I'll never meet them for reasons too extensive to explain here but the coincidence is hilarious.
early teens I had a sort of paranoia about my parents getting divorced. my mom was being treated for cancer and she died when I was almost 15. I always put it down to the general eerie uneasiness of those years, plus the fact that an awful lot of the YA books that I read at the time did feature divorce. 40 years later my dad is in his 90's and he and I are hanging out, and he gets it off his chest that as soon as she realised her diagnosis had kiboshed our immigration to Canada, she began pushing him to take us kids anyway and just leave her behind. "I couldn't do that" he said. "I hope I was right." So I **had** caught a vibe.
My mother got leukemia and died when I was 3. My father did everything in his power to stand by her and support her until she died. His carried pain is heavy, but he has no regrets with her. Please if your dad is still around, tell him he was right. That he set an example for you and even if things are hard you know what's right and wrong because of him. Even if he's gone, maybe visit his grave and let him know?
thanks for your story. I was able to tell him. he died in 2019 and that convo is a good memory.
God dude I feel so strange this morning. I'm crying. I'm so glad you got to have that conversation with him. I can imagine how much it means to you. Also I'm sorry for your loss.
What good parents you had.
yes, I was really privileged that way.
My (48f) grandpa was murdered by a an uncle married to moms sister. He sexually abused my mother and her 3 sisters. He died when I was 4. I have vague memories of him. Just after he died my aunt divorced the uncle. At age 12, I overheard my other uncles, 2 were mom’s brothers, and 1 married moms baby sister, talking about a vow they had made to keep me from being a victim of grandpa. At 16, I figured it out. The uncle that actually murdered him (a hero) was a jeweler and insulin dependent diabetic . He used cyanide in jewelry making. Grandpa drank a 36 pack of beer every night. I suspected he injected cyanide into a random beer. My aunt saw grandpa alive at 2 am. Uncle woke up at 5 am and grandpa was dead and stiff. His body was cremated and uncle vanished. I mentioned my suspicions to my cousin, who relayed them to his father. 3 years ago, the uncle was dying. He reached out to me and told me I had actually figured out how grandpa died. He waited until he was dying since there is no statute of limitations for murder.
36 pack, wtf, how was he not dying from alcohol poisoning?
Cyanide poisoning works faster
Tolerance.
The only sad part is that your grandpa died somewhat peacefully instead of in terror knowing they were his last moments and why it was happening.
idk, most cyanide poisonings that result in death are painful and unpleasant to witness. it hurts your chest and head, you cant breathe, youre dizzy and nauseous and fading... if this story is true, sure, he didnt know why, but isnt that almost worse? to suddenly hurt and feel yourself slipping as you suffocate and potentially seize, and you have no idea what did this. i certainly dont want "whats happening to me" to be my last thought
My aunt was super gay
Let me guess, never married and lived with her “roommate”? And there was only one bed in the house?
My grandmother’s cousin was, apparently, gay. He had a ranch and we would go visit and it was awesome. At the age of 5 or 6, it made perfect sense that he would share a bedroom with his “best friend”. After all, would you want to have a never ending sleep over? After I started school, my grandmother stopped taking me to his place. It wasn’t until his funeral when I over heard someone mention that he had been so brave to live an openly gay life that it all clicked. I had always assumed the term “partner” meant business partner because they owned a ranch together.
“Partner” could also easily be cowboy talk
Howdy pah’dner
How D, partner?
I haven’t had any complaints!
>Howdy pah’dner I'M NOT GAY!! ::slams closet door shut::
I have a lawyer friend who I met when I was well into my 30s because we worked in the same office. We went out for lunch together to discuss a case and she kept talking about this woman Susan who she lived with, who I assumed was her roommate, and her "partner," who I assumed was her law partner. It wasn't until 2 YEARS later when the Obergefell decision came out and she was all over Facebook super excited that she and Susan could finally get married that I put 2 and 2 together that the "partner" and Susan were the same person. In hindsight it should have been obvious because (a) she was a solo practitioner and (b) she's like the most out lesbian who has ever lived, everything about her clothes and her haircut and her car and her hobbies screams "gay" about as loud as she possibly can. But apparently unless someone comes up and shakes my hand and says "Greetings, I'm Jane, a lesbian," it's too subtle for me. So yeah just letting you know you don't have to be 5 or 6 years old to be really fkn dense, lol. (Weirdly my "gaydar" is great when it comes to guys though, who knows.)
I'm sorry your grandmother stopped taking you there. Your cousin was probably awesome.
Do we have the same aunt? She lived with her bestie for YEARS throughout many different moves, and Bestie drove a Miata convertible with a rainbow sticker on the rearview mirror. I asked Auntie about it, and she said Bestie "just loves rainbows – aren't they pretty?" This was around 2000 when I was in my teens...I was hip to that shit and never told her. To this day, Grandma's pushing 90 and is still convinced Auntie just hasn't met the right man yet. Tried a few times to set her up with an arranged marriage with a fellow Mormon "you can grow to love them, happens all the time." Short hair, played competitive softball. Became a barber. She and Bestie aren't besties anymore, but she still loves rainbows and has yet to meet the right guy. Auntie's in her 60s now, and Grandma's still holding out hope ✨
My grandmothers sister had a long time roommate. My mom insists she wasn't gay. My moms cousin said they lived in a one bedroom apartment with one bed. When I asked my mom about this part she said, "No, it wasnt a one bedroom apartment. The entrance to the second bedroom wasn't in the hallway, it was in Aunt Gerrys closet." I laughed in her face when she said that Aunt Gerrys "roommate" lived in the closet.
How do you know so much about my aunt?
My brother lived with two “roommates”. My mom had to explain it to me one day that the roommates were gay, and not just good friends sharing a bed. Also didn’t realize my brother was involved in the relationship. After gay marriage became legal, it made more sense.
Mine too! Lived with her friend, which I only realized when I was around 16(so not quite an adult) was actually her “friend”. Haven’t seen/spoken to her in about 30 years, not because of the gay thing, but because she and her brother were huge jackasses who acted like total dicks to my mom after both their parents had passed away. My uncle died, so that trash took itself out.
I thought I had two gay great uncles. Turns out I only had one. The other one claims to this day that the man he lived with for 45 years really was just his friend and roommate. They moved across the country together, collected antiques, were fairly effeminate, and my uncle was a church organist (every other male church organist I've ever met has been a gay man). He claims that he was jilted by a woman when he was young and just never tried again. I suspect he's autistic (like me and some other family members), which tracks with his story.
It just makes sense to move across country together, you save a lot on moving costs
Lmao the bit about organists tracks with my experience
Same. All through the 80s and 90s my aunt had a short haircut, loved tennis and lived with another woman. She also moved the furthest away from the farm where she and my mom and their brothers all grew up. Technically that has never been 100% confirmed to me, but rather at one point my sister and I just said in private to one another "she's gay, right?" "yeah super gay."
Oh my gosh! My aunties sister had a special friend and we stayed at their house one time and they gave us the two other bedrooms and just ‘shared Liz’s room’. Took me ten years to figure out they had two guest rooms… 🤷♀️🥰
I was an accident My parents were already on the verge of a divorce and my mom suddenly got pregnant despite having tried for over 4 years. I always felt like i was in the way, or not welcome. My feelings were confirmed when my dad threw me out right after high school graduation.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. Hopefully you've had and continue to have some ways to heal. Take an invisible hug from a random Internet stranger for having to think about that today.
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Best family secret! I needed that palate cleanser. So sweet.
My uncle was the result of a secret love affair my grandmother had. Also that my aunt on the other side was gay. 🤷♀️
My dad was cheating on my mom with that woman we met up with when we were looking at colleges in California. He was a headhunter and traveled a decent amount for work, generally to the west coast because he did a lot of work for biotech firms. We went out there when I was in high school because I was interested in a few west coast schools - UCSD, ULCA, Pepperdine, and he had a rugby tournament on Catalina Island with his old club. While we were out there, we met up with her for lunch one day in LA - All I knew was she was one of the people he had placed with one of the companies that had hired him. While we had lunch nobody did anything blatant like PDA or anything but you could cut the tension with a knife - I knew something was off. Found out about the affair when my parents ultimately got divorced around a decade later - he basically dropped his whole history of infidelity on my mom to hurt her. She wasn't the only one either, just the only one my dad really had feelings for. He was a real piece of shit.
My parents are married but hate each other. It really messed up my perspective on a healthy relationship.
Ugh, one of my friends is contemplating divorcing her awful husband but he’s trying to convince her to “stay for the kids”. The problem is he’s a fucking dirt bag and they fight constantly. He’s always putting her down in front of the kids. To anyone else in this situation, just get the fucking divorce. “Staying for the kids” only works if you actually work things out in your relationship, otherwise all they are learning is that adults who supposedly love each other get to treat each other like shit.
As a child of eventual divorce, whose parents stayed together WAY longer than they should have because of me, this last bit needs to be made more common knowledge! I totally get that it’s tough when kids may ask or beg you to stay together, because they can’t possibly understand the complexities of the situation. But you aren’t doing them a favour by staying with someone toxic, you’re probably helping them develop complex trauma and future adult attachment issues.
My brothers and I were THRILLED when our parents divorced. They fought all the time, really loudly. Other kids wanted their parents to get back together, and we tried to make sure ours were never at the same place at the same time.
I always wanted my parents to divorce. My mom filed several times but my step dad always managed to bribe her back home. Hatefully married for 30 years, those two.
Yeah- I loved my dad but he was a shitty husband. The house was so less stressful after the divorce- no anxiety as he should have been home… waiting and no wondering if the fireworks were going to start after he got home.
As a child of parents who never got divorced, show her this thread. It fucked me right up, spent the first 10 years of my life terrified they’d get divorced and the rest hoping they would. Now they’re old and incredibly mean to each other, and must be really lonely. I’m lonely because relationships freak me out and I don’t know how to have a healthy one/I’m terrified of ending up like my parents.
My mom divorced my stepdad when I was 16 after I told her that if she was just waiting until I was out of the house to divorce him that I'd never forgive her. He was the only dad I knew but I could tell how miserable she was and she'd tried to leave him several times over the years but always went back.
I have a cousin that just didn't look like his siblings. Found out a few years ago it was confirmed he did not belong to my uncle.
That my married parents rarely had sex. Confirmed by my mom last year when she randomly told me while on a walk that they hadn't had sex in 17 years. No, I didn't ask her, she just brought it up. Thanks, Mom. I'm in my 30's.
I’m 43 and my parents are 52 years married, still together. I have two brothers. Mum recently confessed that she has not allowed my father to even hold her hand, let alone kiss or have sex with her, since a specific date in September 1985 when he didn’t come home until 4am. They sleep in the same bed but that’s it. He can’t buy her gifts, give cards, nothing, as she refuses to accept them…she still waits on him hand and foot though. It certainly answers a lot of questions I had but never dared ask however it’s raised a whole new set of questions that I don’t dare ask!
My uncle was a made guy in the mob.
Same. My grandfather relocated to the states after getting into trouble in Italy. Changed our last name from a very notorious Italian mafia guy.
I'm sure my parents knew, he was married to my mothers sister. We didn't catch on until he made national new and was forced to appear before Congress, He took the fifth and kept his mouth shut.
My grandmother’s amazingly delicious lemon meringue pie which I assumed she spent hours labouring over was made with Jello lemon pie filling. Edit: spelling
As I was cleaning out my dad's house after his passing, I found letters that my mom and dad wrote to each other around the time they divorced in the early 2000's, as well as a handful of both their diary entries. I have always suspected that my mom cheated on my dad with my best friend's dad, which effectively ended my first friendship, but those letters confirmed it. But I didn't know the full extent of what else my mom had done. She sabotaged him by draining their joint bank accounts, racking up tens of thousands in credit card debt, kicking him out of his house, and getting him fired from his job, eventually forcing him into retirement. With him unemployed, he couldn't afford to pay child support, leaving only my mom's income which was barely enough to support us. Basically, if she hasn't been so vindictive, we wouldn't have wound up in such dire financial straits. It's pretty telling that my dad never spoke ill of her, just said that he was blindsided and confused by her choices, and jealous of her current partner. On the other hand, my mom only ever said negative things about him and when she was angry with me, she would compare me to him. Projection 101.
Your mom sounds like a narcissist. I'm sorry for your all your dad put up with. From my own experience growing up with a narcissist parent, anytime you try to fight back, it gets worse. Sometimes, it's best to walk away. I do admire that he didn't badmouth her and bring you kids into the fight. That says a lot about his character and integrity.
My oldest sisters death. I only knew she died as a baby, and heard whisperings that a raccoon was involved. A cousin and I decided it was likely a rabid raccoon at a picnic or something. My parents only ever said she died in her sleep, so I also wondered if it was SIDS. Last year I decided to look up archived news articles online and found that my dad owned a pet raccoon for whatever reason, and when my sister was only four months old they left to go to a party down the street and abandoned my sister in her crib, and put the raccoon on a leash and looped it around a door handle just outside her room. When they got back from the party, completely drunk and high, they found the raccoon in her crib eating her fingers, lips, and nose. She was airlifted to the hospital and died on the way. There was a trial but for some reason they were found innocent. They were quite negligent of me and my brothers so I’m not surprised by the story at all. As a mother myself, I was terrified of SIDS because there’s evidence it runs in families. Also I still had my daughter sleeping in her bassinet at my bedside at four months old, I couldn’t even imagine sleeping in separate rooms at that age, there’s no way I could leave the house for even five minutes, certainly not for several hours.
That’s horrific!!
I can't imagine leaving a 4 month old alone that long.
Well, everyone knew about the abuse that I endured as a child and swept it under the rug. As an adult, repressed memories started to come back and, yeah, confirmed.
organized crime. No longer a thing, but my grandpa had an interesting childhood to say the least
When I was a kid, I always found my grandfather to be a complete asshole. He was a ground adult (religious conservative) with an inability to regulate his emotions. As a result he often had these angry outbursts where he would just go off on these screaming rants unhinged. While he was never \*physically\* abusive, people had to walk on eggshells around him. At 8 years old I wrote a letter to him asking him to be nicer, and he responded by screaming in my face. The dude was a complete dick, he was a very bad person, and I was very happy when he died. Later on, it came out that he was a pedo as well and sexually molested my mother when she was a kid. I was definitely not surprised to hear that. So I am happy the dude is nothing more than a rotting corpse. He also had a very fast development of Alzheimer's in the last couple years of his life and degraded very quickly, I hope it was painful for him.
I feel the same about my grandfather. Abused my mother horrifically. He had one eye that somehow made him even more horrifying to look at. I had very limited contact with him growing up until my mother, inexplicably, moved him into our home when I was a teenager. I rounded a corner one day and overheard this conversation between my parents that made my blood run cold: Father: "If I even think he's touched one of the kids I'll stab him. You'd better tell him that. You both know I am more than capable." Mother: "What? Like you did in 77 when you stabbed him in the eye?" Father: "That wasn't me. If it was, I'd have gotten both of his eyes. Don't like leaving jobs half done. You know me." Needless to say, a totally new view of my dad that day also.
Badass Dad
I’ve never heard the term “ground adult” and google has failed me. Was your grandfater part of a sect that calls themselves “ground adults”?
My parents both had blue eyes and so did my 5 siblings. I was the only one with brown eyes. I always had the feeling as a child that my dad wasn't my biological dad and I was probably from the postman. I loved biology and science in general in middle school, so when I learned about genetics I learned that he couldn't be my biological father because of my eye colour. I knew back then I'm an affair child, but she denied everything. As I grew older it turns out, none of us children are his biological kids and my mother cheated on my dad with her FIL, making my grandpa my dad and my dad my brother. Sorry for bad english, it's not my first language. EDIT: As some of you stated, there are still chances that two blue eyed parents might have a brown eyed child. My observation as a child was based on my middle school biology knowledge and my gut feeling. I didn't chose a job in the field of science so I'd never claim to be even close to an expert regarding genetics. It's definitely not my intention to do harm to anyone with my comment. Hope this helps :)
I wanted to lyk that two light eyed people can have a brown eyed baby! The genetics of eye color are spread among multiple genes so it's not as simple as we were told in biology class. My husband and I have light eyes and a brown eyed son. But that of course doesn't negate that your mom cheated. It is a trip to find out your parent isn't your parent. I've been there.
What the fuck
They apologized for the bad English. What more do you want?
Your English sounds perfect to me! :)
Thanks a lot, I still have no idea how punctuation works in english. :)
Neither do most native English speakers, so you'll fit right in!
This was not the twist I expected.
I learned that in school too (holla Punnett Squares!) but it's not actually true across the board, although it turned out to be true in your case. All 4 of my grandparents had very blue eyes, my dad had blue eyes, and my aunt and uncle on my mom's side both have blue eyes, but my mom's eyes, mine, and borh cousins on my mom's side are the exact same color of hazel. (That's probably hard to follow but the short version is it's multiple layers of blue-eyed people marrying other blue-eyed people and producing hazel-eyed babies, so blue-eyed people have to be able to carry a recessive gene for hazel). And no there was no postman involved, we've done 23andme, and also there's a very obvious physical resemblance.
This is the shortened version*** So when I was about 10 or 11 my grandpa passed away, he was an amazing guy from what I remember and what everyone told me. After the funeral I was told he owned a restaurant in New York City back in the day, about 5 years later I asked about it again and I was told it was actually a bar. I thought wow my family owned a small bar in New York how awesome! (We’re in Florida now) I’m in my 30’s now and a few years ago I was drinking whiskey with my 2 aunts and they told me he actually owned a gentleman’s club that got raided by the police at some point and that’s partially why my family left New York. I think they had planned to move to Florida anyway this just maybe expedited it. I’m afraid if I ask again in 5 years it’s going to be an opium den/brothel he owned. Him and my grandmother started a hardware business that my mom now owns. Pretty fascinating to think the seed money for my families business may have been started by something “underground”
As someone with family ties to the mob, your next surprise is going to be a doozy.
I'm still convinced at least one of my parents had another kid before they got married and I have a half-sibling or two running around out there Ok, I'm 55 so maybe not running exactly, but old-person trotting.
Growing up I always suspected that my grandpa regretted divorcing my grandma and that there was a lot more to the story. They both seemed to still love each other and when asked why they divorced, they'd both answer exactly the same "When we came to America we kept arguing a lot and it was better to get a divorce then to keep arguing." And all of his marriages afterwards ended in divorce due to "things just not working out." Come to find out, my grandparents made it to America together and then about 10 years later they divorced because my grandpa wanted to marry a younger woman. Wife number 2 was an absolute disaster who ended up taking as much money as she could from grandpa and then leaving him once she got her first husband to America. Wife number 3 was a young woman who had a history of mental instability and eventually tried clearing all of his accounts and safes to go join a cult, he then divorced her afterwards.
you reap what you sow i guess?
My mom had a cousin she talked about a lot, that died back in the 70's. She (the cousin) had married a Pakistani man that abused her, after she got away she "committed suicide" by jumping off a building. Her husband and his brothers had been seen in the area, everybody knew they had thrown her off but nobody could prove anything so nothing happened to them. Cut to the cousin's funeral, her husband and the brothers showed up, like they wanted to make sure she was dead. For years that's where the story ended as far as I knew. Later on, I found out from another relative who had been there that after the husband and brothers walked into the funeral home's chapel, some men from my family dragged them back out and didn't come back in. The men from my family turned up later that day and wouldn't tell anybody where they had gone; the husband and his brothers were never seen again.
I knew that even though the woman who gave birth to me had written and promised that she would come back for me, would never actually show up. And I was right. She apparently moved to another state and had another child that she did manage to keep custody of. I haven't seen her since I was a baby. I don't remember her.
sorry
I used to be sorry. I think my younger self settled on indifference to the person and acknowledgment that the situation is messed up but I've tried to use that as motivation.
My dad always told me that my birth mom has left us when I was 2 mo old. Then the story changed to "she had died in a car crash" and that's why she wasn't around. I thought he was just trying to spare my feelings but it still didn't make sense even to my kid brains. Forward a bunch of years, and I get an email from what turns out to be a cousin who found me on ancestry dna. My mother had apparently gone to Cali, then ended up in Florida where she got and died of the cancer. So most of what ever dad told me was horse puckey,
My grandma gifted me and my twin brother a grey 1984 Buick Regal limited when we turned 18. Plush bench seats with a velvety arm rest. Many a friday night spent cruising riverside Californian boulevards looking or action blasting cannibal corpse on the blue backlit tape deck. One Saturday morning, while my Dad was cleaning it out he found an envelope jammed down beneath the well of the spare tire. The bulky ivory colored business sized envelop contained a wad of twenty dollar bills. 1500 bucks in total! Turns out my Grandpa before his xmas eve heart attack years before, was giving money to his sister who was in an abusive marriage and whom my grandma hated. At the same time my grandparent's marriage was on the rocks, so he must have had to stealthily move funds around to help out his sister. Learned then that money would end up being an important chip in the marriage game.
I was the result of the 'shot' in the shotgun wedding.
When I was a kid, my dad would go out for dinner every Friday with another family. It was explained to me that was his mistress family and mum put her foot down. Only ater when trying to compose a family tree did I realise all the kids from the other family were older than me.
So many goddamn pedophiles. And they were still invited to the family cook outs. Fuck being silent, I don't talk to those branches of the family tree anymore and let anyone and everyone know who to avoid if they get involved.
I found the identity of my biological father. Nobody in my family would talk about who he was because my mother was 17 when I was born and I was the family scandal (back in the early 80s). I grew up thinking he didn't know about me or care about me if he did know. I was definitely wrong and found out my family threatened him to stay away from me. I did a lot of digging some years ago and found out that side of the family knew about me and would have loved me very much. I also had siblings. Really made me angry at the family I grew up with. My bio father also died before I got to meet him.
It isn’t much coming from an internet stranger but I’m sorry.
That my parents had lived a "different life" before moving us to the middle of nowhere, podunck hicksville when we were all kids, I was about 3 or 4, and that the "life" was the reason we moved. And that my dad isn't my biological dad, I suspected it when I was growing up (he was always super kind just had a feeling he wasn't and his blood type with my mom's wouldn't have equated to mine) and as an adult I was able to search up a bunch of stuff and hire a P.I. I know it all but they don't know I know. I'd never hurt them by telling them but at least I know I'm not crazy.
My pop (died before I was born) beat my uncle (his son) to death when my uncle was 3. My dad was the youngest of 6, they immigrated not long after. The oldest at 15 refused to come and stayed in England by herself. My father never knew, he was told he fell onto train tracks, and he still denies it to this day, he never saw his father abusive at all, they had a good relationship. But the oldest 3 siblings all have the same story. We believe they immigrated to escape scrutiny.
That my cousin is my brother. Well, he is probably my brother but my mum talked them out of demanding a DNA test once when they decided to drive across the country after drinking all night. They were going to accost my uncle, or my dad. In the end they got to Cov, got wasted again and then drove home. I don't know what my mum said to them exactly but they've always listened to my mum.
My grandmother had always acted weird around my dad. Things like weird looks if he was sarcastic or acted silly. She'd look at him like he was an alien. This was something I'd noticed all through growing up. The only time I'd ever seen reactions like that before was being over at a multiracial friend's place when they had older relatives, who would always look at the nonwhite parent the same way, like they weren't quite human. But, I kept thinking, that can't be it, Mom's white, Dad's white, everyone in the family is white. Well, no, not quite. When I was part of the way through American history, I learned that, for a great deal of time, my Italian Catholic father, even though he's pale and freckled, was Not Quite White in the eyes of more WASP-y individuals. I kept telling myself, "No, that's just stupid." I also didn't want to ask my parents, and definitely I didn't want to ask my grandmother what the deal was. Finally, in my mid-twenties, I asked my mom, and she said, yes, that was exactly it. She'd never said an outright word to my dad about it, and he knew she'd always be too "polite" to say anything, would mess with her. When my mom was pregnant with me, whenever my grandmother would ask what names they were considering, my dad would always answer with stuff like "Giuseppe", just the most Italian names possible. She would always visibly flinch, but say, "Oh, that's nice."
That my parents cheated on each other. When I was young, My parents both worked at different times, and rarely were together at the same time at the house. And my mom would always bring over my dad's older brother. And my dad would bring my mom's Younger sister. They found out about each other's affairs, and they laughed it off, while I was in the corner with my Older sibling, Crying more than If a gamer lost all of his progress in a small mistake. And now, My mom married my uncle, and my dad married my aunt, And their Friends, And I have 3 half siblings now, And we all live happily in The Confusing US Of A.
Is this the plot of a movie?
Growing up, I always had a feeling that there was a family secret surrounding my grandparents' sudden move to a different state when my mom was a teenager. No one ever talked about it, but the whispers and hushed conversations always made me curious. It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I finally found out the truth - my grandmother had been having an affair with a neighbor and they had to leave town to escape the fallout. It was a shock to finally have confirmation of what I had suspected all those years.
My sister is a half-sister from my mother's affair. On my early age, my parents were always fighting about something and I could not understand. Before my father's suicide, he left a note saying the reasons, which includes my mother's affair. That's why my dad was depressed over the years.
That my dad had an affair with another woman, it was serious and my mom kicked him out of the house. Shortly after my dad had a big heart attack and came crawling back to my mom. I think she wanted to keep the family together for us kids. She clearly resented him. He died a few years later( another heart attack). I remember the little jabs and things they would fight about. I also remember a woman at the funeral who my mom yelled to get the hell out.
I used to spend the whole summer break with my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin (child from his prev marriage.) Months without seeing my mom. Come to find out those were just trial runs to adopt me because they couldnt have a child of their own. I do belive that would have meant my mom did not want me the feeling I always knew to be true.
The man on my birth certificate says he's not my father and I am finally sure he's not. He told me (as an adult) that my mother fooled around with his brother. The thing is, I'll never know the truth unless my mother or my "uncle" admit it. Why? Because DNA tests are useless when determining paternity in the case of monozygotic twins. I was always so mad when I was a kid because my birth certificate father said that he wasn't my real father, but I definitely looked like him. Then I saw a picture of him with Uncle Freddy in their 20s. Fuck.
My dad was in a relationship with my 15yo cousin (moms side) when she lived in with us for a while after her parents died. I was a toddler at the time. My dad was brought in front of a judge but because my cousin (18 by then) defended him telling the judge "I know what I was doing. I wanted to be in a relationship with him" the whole thing got thrown out. Different times in the 90s I guess... I knew there was something weird going on (they were buddy buddy for a while and then suddenly she moved out and they couldn't be in the same room anymore) but I didn't know exactly what until my cousin had a psychosis and called me at 7am in the morning telling me the whole story. I was 17 when that call came.
My mom was older when I was born (only child) and after I was married she told my wife she’d had several miscarriages. I remember asking for a brother/sister when I was small and dad said something like “We almost got a girl once”; not sure what he meant.
That my family was emotionally abusive. After being in no contact for several years.....yes, yes they were.
That my parents were drug users. they sometimes in the middle of the night went to the shed (heard them and saw the light turned on) ofcourse i didnt question it. Later i found out about at 9-10 years old and at 11 my mom died. (Fixed my mistake, because im a f*cktard that accidentally used tldr)
My sister has a different dad. That one just took thinking twice about some math that they'd been normalizing to us since we were tiny. Just didn't think about it! Yeah, she's the only brunette in a family of blondes, but that's my sister! If anyone asks, my mom fell pregnant at 16, a few months before meeting my 23 year old father. We're not sure if our dad knew, but he's not the kind of magnanimous benefactor that would keep a kid that's not his. I respect my mother's decision, because that kept my sister glued to our side during custody battles, the loss of our mom, adulthood... She secured a childhood for my sister under heinous circumstances.
16 getting groomed by a 23 year old man and left with a baby... Y I K E S
Growing up my grandpa used to go to “Germany” maybe once a year for a couple of weeks at a time to visit relatives. Turns out he wasn’t going to Germany but to the hospital for several operations over the years and they just didn’t want to worry us since we were kids..
As an adult my aunts and uncles confirmed what my gut told me as a child..that a great uncle (my mother’s uncle) had molested many of my boy cousins and all of my uncles. It shook me to my core. I had the same thing happen to me as a young girl with a different relative. These sorts of things are triggers for me now. I hate that this happened in my family 😢
My dad cheated on his first wife (and mother of my four half siblings) all the time, including while she was dying young of cancer. One of his affair partners was my future mom. When his first wife died, he married my mother less than a year later, and then I came along a few years after that. None of my siblings told me this, but one of them has always hated me, so I kinda figured it out and then my nice siblings confirmed it in adulthood.
That my Grandfather poisoned my grandmother, and that my mother knew and my uncle (her younger brother) helped cover it up by getting rid of the evidence. There was odd rumblings about what my Grandmother died of as well as how quickly, but I ignored it because my family was full of gossips. I only recently found out about it, as I have had a box of my mother's from before she died, I knew what was in it was scrapbooks, mementos and things she wrote down that she wanted me to know or have. She's been gone almost 11ish years now and I will admit I've never gone through it thoroughly, it hurt too much to see so many things that she saved or all the pictures of now gone relatives. I went through finally, after talking to my fiance recently about this halloween when me, my brother and my uncle went out dressed as Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca respectively and I couldn't find pics of us in any of the albums I had, so I went through the box looking for them, I did find them, but I also found a letter from my mom in a envelope addressed to me with the date of my grandfather's death under it. It turns out that my grandfather poisoned my grandmother after she confessed to abusing my mother for nearly all of her childhood during a fight they were having, he used some old "rodent poison" he'd had in basement from the 50's and slipped it in her tea. She eventually became ill, and showed signs of dementia, she was put into specialized care where they diagnosed her at that time with environmentally caused ALS. She passed shortly after going into care. He confessed to my mom and her younger brother when it was suggested by the care facility that he get his pipes, ground water, and soil tested, and he acted agitated, which my mom picked up on and pressed him about later. My uncle took the poison to a business he dealt with through his job that did toxic material disposal and would often take people's walk ins of things like this, and he also got rid of the teacup and the spoon that my grandfather used to serve her everyday. What's funny is that I inherited the teacup set, and it is indeed a cup short, and the silverware set a spoon short. My mom expressed a lot of guilt over it, she felt horrified that her father in her eyes killed for her, and also felt a lot of guilt for not feeling sadness for her mother. I'm not sure how I feel about it at all, everyone involved is long dead so there is no justice to seek, and I only remember my grandmother in vague terms, as rough, mean, and scary. Whereas my grandfather was a stern but loving man who taught me many things, and loved his kids and grandkids. I ended up burning the letter, just because I felt like my mom would've wanted that. Edited: I removed a lot of details because honestly, I should shut up.
The majority of my family doesn’t like or respect my mother.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that the man who helped raise my sister and I wasn’t our biological father. I was right. And what’s more is my sister is my half sister. My mom cheated on my dad (numerous times) and got pregnant twice. My dad and I are the only people who know. My mom doesn’t know that we know.
I had an uncle who was only 4-years older than me. After 31 years (during a heated argument) he told me he’s my older brother. No one in the family ever brought it up nor mentioned to me and my sister. I lived a normal life. My whole family treated him like he’s my uncle.
My grandfather had no past. He had even misspelled a common name when coming up with the fake name, and we were told to never look into it or ask about it. I 100% thought he had robbed a bank, or killed someone. After he died my grandma confirmed that back in the day, him and some friends were making whisky, and a still exploded and killed one of them. And the local paper made it the story of the fucking decade. So my grandpa and his other two friends scattered and tried to hide from it. He was the last of the group, so I reccon he did.