Family Secrets

[Anne in CA]

So, another thread got me thinking about some things (on both sides of my family) that were supposed to be secrets that are now "open secrets". Everyone in the whole family knows them. Are there any family secrets that you keep that you think will die with you? I don't think so for our family. All our family secrets (that I am aware of)  came "out" at different times. Do your believe secrets can be kept in the modern age?

[gingersmom]

Not so much a family "secret", it is just not ever discussed.

 

My children don't know and I'm not sure if my nieces know.

[Ailaena]

We have one that would be devastating to the person it involves. My aunt told my dad because she was struggling with it. I always swore I'd tell this person when I grew up, but now... I don't see the need, I guess.

 

Ours is a secret that is highly unlikely to ever be uncovered, but I think that overall, so many things just will not be able to be kept secret nowadays.

 

I always wonder what other people's family secrets are. I always think they're infidelity because I have no imagination, and then i remember ours isn't! :p

[The Girls' Mom]

Yep.  There are some things that will only hurt people by being said.  There are things I will die without sharing.

 

[liber]

Family secrets here.  One is not told to the kids until they are 18.  Another I'm not sure my half siblings know about.  I don't want to ask them in case it opens up a can of worms.

[Guest]

Oh yes, we have fhem in both sides of the family. Most aren't the kind discoverable online either, so unless someone spreads it around they're going no further. Our kids are too far removed from those generations of the family to be curious or interested I'd say.

[Farrar]

Here's our classic family story on family secrets. Like, dh and I reference this all the time and nearly lose it laughing or rolling our eyes or shaking our heads or whatever. It's horrible and kind of tragic, but also, the more removed we get from it, the funnier it is in a really dark way.

 

A year after his grandfather's death, dh requested that when we were there for Thanksgiving that we visit the grave.

 

So we visit the grave. Turns out, surprise, many people in the family are buried here. So we go down the lane to see them too.

 

Surprise again. Turns out they have a whole family plot. Lots of relatives none of us really knew about from decades ago.

 

Mil's grandmother is buried there. We look at the dates on her headstone. Gosh, she sure died young, we observe. We muse about what could have killed her. So long ago, diseases more common, childbirth and all, life was sure shorter back then for many people.

 

A few minutes into these musings by dh and his sister and me and fil and sil's ex-h, mil suddenly says, "Well, she did kill herself you know."

 

NO, MIL. NO, WE DID NOT KNOW THAT.   :ohmy:

 

Mil has a lot of "family secrets" that are like that. She references them, she clearly thinks we know what they are, but she's never told us. So we don't know. Presumably most of them will one day die with her.

[Anne in CA]

That is the real issue. Without knowing what others know... how do you know the secret is safe? In my family everything did come out. But I wonder about other families.

[Barb_]

I've uncovered family secrets on ancestry.com. I know of one explosive one right now that goes nowhere until I'm OLD.

[Ailaena]

Oh! MIL had been married before she married the man with whom she had kids and she never told anybody - not even the father of her children - until she told her daughter. Only she told her when she was, like 8, or something.

 

And one day in conversation, the little girl busts out, "just like mom's first husband! :D" Only nobody else knew about mom's first husband.

 

And I'm like, how is that even a thing to keep secret? They aren't Christian, so it's a legit marriage, and there were no kids, and they never spoke again, and it was just weird.

 

Make your secrets count, people!

[BarbecueMom]

On my side, not that I can think of. As far as in-laws, I can think of one thing that's never talked about, but since it was referenced all over Facebook during a certain incident years ago, I wouldn't think of it as a secret. Certainly not included in "welcome to the family" orientation for newbies, though.

 

I imagine there *are* secrets, but *we* are probably the ones who just don't know.

[wendyroo]

I think our family has one, but I don't know what it is.

 

My grandfather has two siblings: a sister who is 18 months older than him and a brother who is about 6 years younger.  But from the time the sister was a preschooler, she lived exclusively with their aunt and uncle.  The aunt, uncle and sister ate Sunday dinner every week with her parents and brothers (and she was fully aware that they were her parents and brothers), but her room, clothes, toys, etc. were all at "her" house with the aunt and uncle.  To the best of her knowledge, the aunt and uncle were also solely responsible for her financially and to some extent legally.

 

I've asked my grandfather's sister about what it was like growing up back then (she is now 89), and she freely discusses her living arrangements, but she claims to have no knowledge of why she suddenly moved in with her aunt and uncle and never again lived with her parents or brothers.  All parties involved lived well into her adulthood, so I just cannot fathom her never asking her mother or father or aunt or uncle why this was done.

 

I figure that either the reason was kept from her, or she is keeping it from me (and the rest of the family to the best of my knowledge).  Either way, I think there is probably a secret of some kind involved.

 

Wendy

[Guest]

I've learned three -- (ETA) make that six --s tartling family secrets AFTER the main parties involved were dead. Years provide perspective and mercy. I don't know how I would have responded to the people involved if they had been alive. In some cases I was too young and I was in a very black-and-white world. I fear that I would have been deprived of many years of good relationship with people who had turned their lives around, had I known the secrets before I was older.

 

In other cases, it was good that I didn't know until after they were gone because I really don't think it would have been of benefit to talk about it.

 

As it is, I can just let it be and assume that the people were doing the best they could in the time they lived with the resources/abilities at their disposal.

[Desert Strawberry]

D's family has the worst kept secrets. It turns out mental illness runs in the family, generations and generations back. We kind of figures it out from him having GAD, his mom has GAD, his grandfather almost certainly had it. It sounds like his mother could have had it. Also great-grandma suffered depression so severe, she sent her children to live with her parents. Which seems to have been common practice in that family. 

 

A lot of things came clear after that all came out. They always expected me to send my children to live with them. Which is weird to me. But they thought it was totally normal to send your infants away for months at a time. Well, now I understand. 

 

My secrets will die with me. I can't imagine any circumstance in which I would share them. 

Edited January 12, 2017 by Desert Strawberry

[Scarlett]

My mom is pretty much an open book. One of her life goals was to be honest with her kids.

 

My xMIL? Her life has so many secrets it is one big lie.

 

She divorced her first husband. She claimed he died.

Her parents raised the child from the marriage.

That child died of AIDS. And he was a homosexual.

She was pregnant when she married her second husband.

And she is adopted.

 

Those are just the big ones. To this day she denies all of those. Well she would if anyone asked her about them. She is 87 now.

 

I am trying to put together family tree for ds.....not point asking her questions because everything is so secretive.

[Barb_]

My oldest daughter was a family secret until recently. She has a different birth dad than her siblings, and I've known his family since middle school. His next door neighbor was my best friend. Our families have remained close, except for him. He's a total jerk and has disowned my daughter. He refused to acknowledge her at his dad's funeral and at the family reunions he has told his kids she was a distant cousin. Jerk.

 

His mom finally said, "HEY GROW UP. If you don't tell your (teen aged) kids they have another sibling, I will do it."

[LMD]

Oh yes, definitely. Some are fairly open, some less so.

I learned a big one whilst doing the seating plan for my wedding. "Oh no, you can't put them on the same table because..." 😨

I would be happy to have never heard that one!

[Barb_]

Well, my grandfather thought that he had managed to take a big secret with him when he died, but he didn't count on someone doing genealogy research.

Yeah I've wasted countless hours and dollars for this exact reason.

[planner]

I so curious about your family secrets! The way some of you describe them make them sound si mysterious.

 

My dad grew up visiting Grandma J who lived up the hill. She wasn't really his grandma but it turns out she really was his younger brother's grandma. He didn't know this until his father died and his mother told him. Dad's older sister remembered a big fight between her parents when her mom was pregnant with the younger brother but never knew what it was about. My grandpa raised him like his own even though he knew better. 

[gardenmom5]

some secrets exist in records somewhere - if you can put the pieces together.  I've found some when doing genealogy.

 

others don't.  I have one I have shared with my husband and children - but not my brother and sister.  I've actually mentioned it on the board.   it's about something my brother did - and the repercussions that came.  some of those repercussions do exist in a database and/or medical file somewhere.  but - HIPPA - will never see the light of day.  I haven't told my sister because - what's the point?  it's something I think would just be more painful for her.

[MaeFlowers]

My family doesn't so much have secrets as they do things not talked about.

 

However, when my grandmother died, I found out one big one when I was going through a box of papers. It was funny because when I asked my mom about it, she didn't know. I assumed she did. It turned out no one did. They all actually laughed about it so I didn't feel so bad for letting the cat out of the bag.

 

As to previous post about not hiding a past marriage...My kids don't know that I was married before dh. It's not so much a secret as a can of bad memories I just don't want to open. People have lots of reasons for hiding things.

[Janeway]

So, another thread got me thinking about some things (on both sides of my family) that were supposed to be secrets that are now "open secrets". Everyone in the whole family knows them. Are there any family secrets that you keep that you think will die with you? I don't think so for our family. All our family secrets (that I am aware of) came "out" at different times. Do your believe secrets can be kept in the modern age?

They can be kept a secret when everyone wants them to be. But not all "family secrets" are true. Sometimes, the real secret is that the things being "outed" are lies.

[Carol in Cal.]

I know someone who adopted her druggie sister's kid as a baby, with the proviso that the baby was never to know this.

But hey.  The whole family knows it.

And, she told me.  I hardly know her.  Now granted, I'm a discreet older mom, but still, she's not really being closelipped about it.

At some point the kid will find out, I am quite sure.

[Guest]

I so curious about your family secrets! The way some of you describe them make them sound si mysterious.

 

The most dramatic: Murder, most probably. Never accused or indicted. . The community often minded its own business about what happened to wife abusers back in the day. Justice was not likely to be served by bringing charges.

 

The person in question had been dead, as had all her generation, for 30 years by the time I learned this.

[kiwik]

In most cases the secrets in my family are well known to the people of the generation involved just not generally discussed. It is not that 'we don't talk about it' just that we don't need to talk about it. Of course there are probably secrets I don't know.

 

Now I think about there are a few stories that are a bit improbable - the 16 year old who accidenatally hung himself in a tree 60 years ago and the baby that happened to die the same day the doctor told the baby's mother it would be a blessing if the baby just died. But since they are just possible and tragic people just accepted whatever their private reservations.

Edited January 12, 2017 by kiwik

[Plink]

We have weird secrets in my family. The pedophile is fair game for conversation, but don't tell anyone that so-and-so is 6 months pregnant (married. no complications or drama) or severely ill.

 

I can never quite figure out the rules to this odd game, so tend to either isolate myself to avoid hearing things that aren't allowed, or get in trouble a lot.

[mellifera33]

Out big family secret was a faked wedding anniversary--the actual date was five months before my aunt's birthday, not nine. Grandpa let the cat out of the bag as soon as Grandma had passed on. I don't know how it was kept quiet for so long--everyone in that generation knew about it, but somehow mom and auntie never figured it out. They did finally understand why grandma never wanted an anniversary party, or a card, or flowers. :)

[Amira]

Yes, there's one that I've come across doing genealogy that's pretty horrible. There were hints but I didn't think it would be as bad as it was until I read the newspaper reports and prison records. I haven't been able to get access to the court records or mental hospital records though. I can understand why no one talked about it. Figuring out how to tell the story fairly has been hard. It's all 100 years in the past now and everyone directly involved died at least 30 years ago, although I think there's still negative fallout from it.

[Tap]

..

Edited March 6, 2017 by Tap

[Tap]

...

Edited March 6, 2017 by Tap

[IfIOnly]

Yes, my two younger sisters don't know their fathers. Well, I know the name of my sister 10 years younger than me because I was old enough to remember mom's boyfriend. She found out he lied about his age and was really young and never even told him and moved. Sister 2 has made it clear she doesn't care after gently prodding, so I've never said anything.

 

My first stepdad, with the help of his brother, killed his other brother, my uncle in law, and buried him in my grandma in laws yard when my mom was married to him and where I used to play. Horrible.

 

ETA: don't quote

 

ETA 2: Mom didn't know. The truth came out after a custody battle and exuncle in law by then had confessed to his wife, she informed the police.

Edited January 12, 2017 by ifIonlyhadabrain

[lailasmum]

My husband's family history is hard to put together because of all the secrets on both his mum and dad's sides. I think his dad's side is more because they're very private and just don't talk about things even when they're really quite minor. They just seem to feel a lot of shame. The other side I don't have much of a handle on. I can't keep track of the things they do/don't know because there seems to be a lot. They're mostly all dead too which makes it hard to unravel.

Edited January 12, 2017 by lailasmum

[Carrie12345]

I was about to say I have no knowledge of any secrets in my family, and then I remembered that I do, lol. 

 

I'm not always sure what's a secret and what isn't.  My family over-discusses some things and doesn't discuss others.  We all know who talks to whom and with what degree of confidence, so there are things about some people I wouldn't bring up with others, though it's possible they know about them because they weren't declared secrets.

 

There's a non-secret that surprised me when I was in my late teens or early 20s.  My grandmother had had two more children that no one had ever mentioned before.  One died as a toddler, and another was institutionalized at an early age for some unspecified reason, though the speculation *** is Cystic Fibrosis and Down's Syndrome.  While shocking to me today, I guess it was "what was done back then", for the most part.  The family visited her regularly, until another family asked to adopt her.  None of this was hidden at the time, it just never got mentioned by anyone as I was growing up.

 

*** What's very upsetting to me is that I didn't hear the CF speculation until I had already had 2 or 3 kids.  So I didn't ask to be tested until I was pregnant with #3 or #4 (I can't remember which it was when I heard that.)  When I tried to casually bring it up to siblings or cousins when talking about having babies, they've all surprised me by already knowing and having been tested!  So I guess I just got skipped over.

 

The other surprise about all that was, not long after I learned of the other children (from my aunt), my grandmother began bringing up the toddler, as if I had always known.  I was glad to be hearing stories about her, but it really was odd after two decades of not knowing of her existence.

[Closeacademy]

I hate family secrets and think it's so wrong to keep them. I felt so betrayed by everyone when I found out important things that I had been lied to about. It upsets me that the older generation thought it was OK.  So with my kids I've been very open about family history and there are no secrets.

 

Secrets hurt families.  They really do.

[Scarlett]

I hate family secrets and think it's so wrong to keep them. I felt so betrayed by everyone when I found out important things that I had been lied to about. It upsets me that the older generation thought it was OK. So with my kids I've been very open about family history and there are no secrets.

 

Secrets hurt families. They really do.

I agree. Sometimes as time goes n I can see how they happen. For instance, my mom, who is a very religious woman, had me out of wedlock in 1965. This has never been a secret but naturally as she married my step dad number one, had my brother, divorced, moved 2000 miles across country people just didn't know----or care. She always told her friends though.....which at the time bugged me because I felt so different growing up.

 

Anyway,,fast forward to when my son was about 8. I had never told him. How would that come up? And then my bio sister found me on FB and when we decided to meet I had to tell ds.

 

Not sure when I would have told him if my sister had not come int my life. I remember thinking at the time I told him how it had never occurred to me to tell him. I didn't feel like I was keeping a secret.

[Guest]

..

Edited April 28, 2017 by Heigh Ho

[Junie]

Since I've been working on family genealogy, there is a member of my family who has fewer secrets than she thinks she has.

[BigMamaBird]

I've uncovered family secrets on ancestry.com. I know of one explosive one right now that goes nowhere until I'm OLD.

 

I found one on Ancestry too.  My very uptight, proper aunts would be spinning in their graves if they knew I knew.  

[J-rap]

We have one big very sad family secret.  If the person it most closely affects knew, I think they'd be devastated, and there is absolutely no need for them to know at this point.  So those of us who do know are committed to keeping it a secret.  I've told my (adult) kids though, because I think it's one of those secrets that should still be kept in an oral family history. 

Edited January 12, 2017 by J-rap

[Elizabeth 2]

BIL had an open secret. My nephew killed himself two years ago next week as a result of finally being told combined with all the other behaviors over the years. We had to move across the country due to the fallout of it all.

 

My family is an open book. The worst we can find is that first cousins married about six generations back. My mom found out my stepdad has a half sister, but they opted not to pursue it.

[elegantlion]

There is one secret, or rumor of a secret, on my mom's side and unfortunately the two people that know the truth are now deceased. It involves my mom and she gets upset when she thinks about it because she asked and neither person would share the truth. There is one more avenue we could use to find out truth and tie some evidence together and we probably will at some point. 

[PeachyDoodle]

In most cases the secrets in my family are well known to the people of the generation involved just not generally discussed. It is not that 'we don't talk about it' just that we don't need to talk about it. Of course there are probably secrets I don't know.

 

That's how my family is too. My paternal grandfather was killed in a driving accident when my grandmother was only 35. She had five children, ranging in age from 16 to 4. Apparently she had a short-lived second marriage sometime shortly after being widowed. When I found out about it when I was around 12, I was scandalized and accused my mother of keeping secrets. She said, "It's not exactly a secret, just not something we discuss."

 

Obviously all the children knew about it, and probably a lot of the grandchildren too. My mom is the youngest by a wide margin, so most of my cousins are significantly older. But my grandmother took back the name from her first husband. The one time I asked her about her second husband (when I'd come across a photo of her with him), she just said, "Oh, we don't need to talk about him." From a few vague things my mom has said, I think he may have been abuse to her and/or my grandmother. I've never worked up the nerve to ask her point-blank. Fortunately, my grandmother was a strong woman who wouldn't put up with nonsense like that, and she kicked him to the curb.

[Carol in Cal.]

I've always wondered about this one guy.

 

He was the husband of a cousin of my grandfather's, and he seemed just a little too eager to have me kiss him on the mouth when I was very young--maybe 4-5 or something like that.  I remember this feeling very 'off'/repugnant to me at the time, even though kissing like that was fairly common in our family (German heritage).  

 

Maybe he was just a nice old guy.  Maybe he was a lech.  I imagine that if he was a lech, my mother knows.  But she will never say.

[Scarlett]

This is not exactly the same but I have a friend right now who won't say who the father of her baby is.  She acts like she wants to be close to me, she always tells me how much she appreciates my friendship....but she says she has to keep that separate.  I can't see how that works as baby gets older. But I am trying to honor her wishes.  I just don't see how a child's father should ever be 'a secret'.  

[Lady Florida.]

If we do have any family secrets I'm not in on them because I don't know of any. Same with dh and his family. :D

Edited January 12, 2017 by Lady Florida.

[lavender's green]

I don't like family secrets - they can really hurt the family dynamic. Or jerks can use them as leverage against others.

 

In middle and high school I had a feeling something was a little off and dark in our household. I understand why it was kept from me. It mainly affected another person and that person wanted privacy as they worked through their issues. The thing is, it was just the most obvious (to those in the know) symptom of larger family dysfunction. The dysfunction started becoming obvious when I transitioned into adulthood, and we're still dealing with severe fall-out from it. I wish someone had recognized the dysfunction and gotten us into family therapy way back when. It's not like I needed to know the details. I get the need for privacy. But someone could have validated my feelings that something was really off, and could have helped me and everyone else work through it.

 

I think there must be some secrets in my mom's family. I've been shocked at how easily and naturally she's told me to lie. Like in college when I was invited with a +1 to my cousin's wedding. I brought my boyfriend, who was of a different race. Right before we went in the church, my mom took me aside and told me to lie to everyone and say we were just friends. I refused. If some people find mixed-race dating scandalous, that's their problem, not mine. Besides, what was I supposed to do? "Sorry, BF, we can't dance, hold hands, or kiss for a whole day because someone in my extended family might have a problem with interracial dating." Mom knew who I was bringing and approved of him. I guess she thought that last-minute lying would make her look not-racist to me and him, but also prevent scandal or wagging tongues. :huh:  Later on when DH (different guy, nice and white, lol) and I moved in together a little before marriage, she took me aside and asked me to lie about that too. It's not like I had plans to shout it from the rooftops or anything. I refused that too. I cannot look someone in the face and lie. If my actions (completely normal in my university town) scandalize someone else, well, sorry (and I'd never rub it in someone's face - I just won't conceal the truth and definitely won't lie in response to a point-blank question). I'd rather own my actions than lie about them.

 

But to return to my first point...yeah, I really wonder what's up in my mom's family if they find lying so normal and easy. There's plenty of evidence that it's not just my mom who does it.
 

[Spryte]

I hate family secrets. My family is full of them. Bursting at the seams. It is not a good thing, it's divisive and hurtful. Mostly they're of the "don't tell so and so but ... " variety. One family member didn't finish her degree but lied to her husband about it. She has other secrets she keeps from him, that would be quite painful for him. I imagine they are painful for her as well. And that is only one example - it seems like everyone has these things, in my family. Except for my mother, who is an open book for better or worse. I tend the same way, and have openly said, "don't tell me secrets, I don't do secrets." Because, frankly, I think secrets like these hurt people.

[Bluegoat]

I think our family has one, but I don't know what it is.

 

My grandfather has two siblings: a sister who is 18 months older than him and a brother who is about 6 years younger.  But from the time the sister was a preschooler, she lived exclusively with their aunt and uncle.  The aunt, uncle and sister ate Sunday dinner every week with her parents and brothers (and she was fully aware that they were her parents and brothers), but her room, clothes, toys, etc. were all at "her" house with the aunt and uncle.  To the best of her knowledge, the aunt and uncle were also solely responsible for her financially and to some extent legally.

 

I've asked my grandfather's sister about what it was like growing up back then (she is now 89), and she freely discusses her living arrangements, but she claims to have no knowledge of why she suddenly moved in with her aunt and uncle and never again lived with her parents or brothers.  All parties involved lived well into her adulthood, so I just cannot fathom her never asking her mother or father or aunt or uncle why this was done.

 

I figure that either the reason was kept from her, or she is keeping it from me (and the rest of the family to the best of my knowledge).  Either way, I think there is probably a secret of some kind involved.

 

Wendy

 

I know of a family where something like this this happened.  The girl went to live with the aunt and uncle when she was ill and needed nursing, and never went back.  The aunt and uncle had no kids, and her family was quite large, so the original change was because the aunt had more time.  But also there were financial considerations and then perhaps some issue of the aunt wanting a child while the mother was overwhelmed.

 

The thing is, most of this stuff was never said out loud to the child, also from her POV she just never went home again, even though they just lived down the street.  She had to make guesses as an adult as to why it happened.

[AnnE-girl]

I'm not sure if this is a discussion for a spin-off thread, but where is the line between something that doesn't really need to be talked about and a secret? As in, is it a family secret if we don't tell our kids that DH was engaged before? And that it was a bit of a scandal in his small hometown when he broke up with her and started dating me? It's all a long time ago and not a big deal. But at the same time I don't want some in-law mentioning it to them someday if we haven't said anything. But at the same time it's not like we need to make a big thing about telling them ourselves. Does that make sense?

 

And for the record, I don't think we have any real secrets in either DH or my families. If there are, I don't know them.

[scholarly]

We have one that I don't know. When I was a teenager, my mom asked me if I wanted her to tell me something she didn't think I knew. I said no. I still have no idea what it was, but I haven't yet been in a place where I have wanted to invite drama into my life, so I have never asked about it.

 

I am much older than my siblings and have offhandedly mentioned things that they didn't know about, but that I remember.  I was born when my parents and aunts/uncles were very young, so I remember their wild days, while my siblings can't imagine the boring, settled older parents getting up to anything. Some of the things that have come up were a relative's two previous marriages, a relative who ran away permanently, a relative who used to be a drug dealer, and -my favorite- that Dad used to have an earring! And a perm! (Dad would really have preferred to take that to the grave!)