The Most Disturbing Secrets People Have Discovered About Someone Close To Them

You think you know your family.

Last Words

"The 24 hours before my dad died (stage 4 lung cancer) he was in the ER and then the ICU and we were unable to be with him because of hospital Covid rules. My mother, sister and myself had been texting and calling him all day and got no response. My mother even called the hospital and spoke with one of his ICU nurses who said he was awake and communicating fine. He passed very quickly at 3:30am the next morning. We were allowed to be at his bedside but by then he was no longer conscious so we said our goodbyes and he was gone. Later that morning while my mom slept I was calling cremation services to schedule his body for pick up at the hospital and going through his bag of belongings the hospital had returned to us. His phone was in there and I wanted to read all our texts and take some comfort in my last words to him."

"I opened his phone and all our texts had not been read, not mine or my mom and sister’s. I thought this was so odd but figured he must have been suffering so much he couldn’t find the strength. I began to scroll through his apps and noticed a chat app I’d vaguely heard of. I can’t recall the name but it essentially works like WhatsApp."

"I opened the app and saw a single contact with a female name. I started reading and realized my dad has been chatting with this girl hourly for the last 24 hours and as far back as I could scroll. He was calling her princess and telling her he loved her and she was saying she was scared for him and wanted to know what was going on, why was he in the ER, etc. I scrolled back enough to know that this was someone he was having at the very least, an emotional affair with."

"My grief was completely hijacked by hurt and anger and a week later I tracked the girl down and spoke to her (via dms) and found out she was 19 years old. She was 17 when they met. He was her high school bus driver and she told me they had been dating for almost 2 years."

"My dad was 66 years old when he died and dating someone younger than his grandchildren, someone he chose to spend his last moments with and say his last goodbyes to. I hope it made him happy but it sure is a sh**ty secret to live the rest of my life with. A secret that will forever overshadow my entire relationship with my dad with no chance to ever speak to him about it. It’s the one secret I wish I’d never found out."

– Fuzzy_Central

Ancestry

"I don't know how disturbing this is; it turned out pretty fantastic for one. But not for another."

"I was adopted, and told a silly, magical story about my birth parents that most certainly did not seem true even when I was a child."

"At 57, I learned I was the result of a college affair between a very seriously Jewish young man and a very Baptist young woman. She was rushed off to a home for wayward girls to give birth. He followed her there (many states away), begging her to keep me and live a life together. But their families both said absolutely not. Jewish people were not viewed as 'white' in the mid-60s, and her family most certainly did not want her marrying a non-white. Plus, she was a very committed Christian and did not want to convert to Judaism."

"So off I went, into another family. I recently discovered three lovely half-siblings and we are all pro or semi-pro musicians and get along well. I never got to meet my mother; she died a year before I searched. My father is out of the picture and wants to be left alone. And I'm fine with that; I'm grateful for the love he gave me. It was enough."

"Endings to our searching are not always happy."

– cybersaint2k

The Shrine

"Found a scrapbook of my mom and a guy I didn’t recognize from her immediately post-college days. Turns out he was a long term boyfriend of hers who killed himself when she broke up with him. My grandfather found his body. I learned at age 20, by finding the book/shrine to him."

– olivep224

You think you know your friends.

Crazy Best Friend

"She was my best friend of 7 years, we had literally been through it all together. I moved out of state with my now husband, but she convinced us both to move back to be closer with her, after about a year. We had no real ties to the state we had tried out, so we said screw it, let’s go back, she’s basically family. We were all so happy to be reunited; she was over almost every night for dinner, we all laughed and talked and had a blast. Best year of my life."

"Then slowly, she started trying to turn my husband and I against each other. Anytime we had an argument (like any couple does) she would text each of us about how right we were; trying to foster animosity between the two of us."

"With me, she started talking about how she had a plan b for 'us', that if my husband and I couldn’t make it work, I could move in with her and we’d live happy lives together."

"With my husband, she started talking about her infertility issues and how she wanted to have a kid just like him, she just needed a sperm donor."

"This all happened at around the same time, and my husband and I compared texts and figured it out."

"She wanted to take his sperm, and have a baby with me. When confronted about it she refused to admit anything and started lashing out at both of us. It got to the point where she would show up unannounced, banging on the door, demanding a place in our home. It was so terrifying and panic inducing that we ended up having to move and change our phone numbers."

"I guess it’s so disturbing because I had never had a friend like her, only to find out that she, well she cared about me, but in such an unhealthy and scary way. But yeah, that’s my story."

"Husband and I are great now btw."

– lillylenore

His Fraudulent Degrees

"A work colleague appeared on the front page of a national newspaper for a life of fraudulent qualifications. He claimed medical and law degrees, was a brigadier in the army (reserves) and was the CEO for a major heath fund. He actually was a Brigadier in the army reserves but that and the heath fund role were largely built on the fraudulent qualifications and a progression of jobs also based on this claims. In reality, the only qualification he actually held was as a mortuary assistant. Not even his wife knew. The fraudulent degrees had been gained when he was in the army reserves recruiting and he had access to submitted position applications. He came undone when he applied for a government job and some flags were raised by the recruitment people. He tried to withdraw the application but didn’t realise that an application for a government role has the same weight as a statutory declaration and cannot be withdrawn. It all went south very quickly and he ended up doing jail time."

– crosstherubicon

You never truly know everything about people–even those who are closest to you.

They say ignorance is bliss, and that applies to many of examples provided by Redditors.

But if you were in their shoes, and depending on the circumstances, would you rather know the deepest and darkest secrets about those you care about?