A lot of family members keep secrets from other members of their family, often to try and shield them from a painful or embarrassing truth. However, no matter how well these people try to hide these truths, they always come out in the end.
One person took to Reddit to find out some secrets that people had discovered about others only after that person had passed on, by asking, “What disturbing thing did you learn about someone only after their death?”
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The responses varied from quite humorous to heartbreaking, and below are a collection of the most interesting and shocking.
The Affair
“I received a phone call from my late husband’s girlfriend on the day of his funeral. She was phoning his cell phone which I had turned off while he was in the hospital. She told me that my husband had been paying her rent for the last year. The bank had recently foreclosed on our house. I had no idea he was unfaithful to me but she knew all about me.” — Chardagoat
Apparently it took this person 7 years to start dating again. It can be difficult to learn how to trust someone again after something such as this happens; however, not everyone is so untrustworthy.
Paranoid Delusions
“I had a brother who had some paranoid delusions (FBI, CIA following him, spying on his apartment, etc). We (my brothers and I) had tried to get him help and he would just have no part of it. After a few years, it seemed like it had gotten better. He stopped bringing it up and we felt like it must have just passed. After he died, we found his journal and it was just horrifying. Right up until the night he died, he detailed all of the torture that they were inflicting on him – weird shit that I can’t even write in here. It was just incredibly disturbing to read what a tortured life he was living inside his mind while acting relatively normal outside.” — emejim
An update was posted in which this person tried to explain some of the things that their brother had experienced, including thinking that the FBI was using some type of focused energy beam to torture him. Seeing someone live under the influence of an illness such as this can be heartbreaking.
Hiding Money
“My grandpa had stashed what would be worth millions today and proceeded to convince his family they were poor and had almost no money. His family lived in poverty while he lied to them all.” — TrueChaosUnleashed
People were curious as to why he would do such a thing. This person said the only reason they could think was selfishness.
Restraining Order
“Not really disturbing but I found a restraining order against my mom banning her from entering our local grocery store. I will never know that story.” — werikaa
What on Earth could you do in a grocery store that would get you banned? You know what, on second thoughts I don’t want to know.
Going Through A Dead Person’s Phone
“My BIL died in an accident, and his wife found out by going through his phone that he was sleeping with several other women. Many of whom were pretty close in our ‘friend group’ and some were also married. It was quite awkward and got pretty messy.” — DeeSkwared
Drunk Driver
“I once had a friend whose dad died.. and he never really talked about it but he was pretty troubled. Every year on his death date, they would have a celebration of life party. He invited our friend group one year and we were all excited to be there to support him. Turns out his dad died in a car accident involving a drunk driver. The dad was the drunk driver and also killed the family he hit.” — taybear13
This person went on to say that it was hard for the dead father’s son to admit what his father had done, yet he still tries his hardest to honor his life.
Vigilante Justice
“My great grandmother went into the military after committing a crime and in the military, she confessed to a judge who punished her by extending her military contract and forcing her to serve in the war.
“I never knew what happened until way after she died and I had asked my dad about it. There was a pedophile in her neighborhood who was touching kids and he was going after boys. My G’ momma beat the crap out of him when she saw him try to lift two boys.” — Relic_of_Suns
Perhaps one of the most shocking on the thread! I can imagine she must have been one stern grandmother growing up.
Unexpected Pregnancy
“That for the first few months my mother was pregnant with me the entire family thought she was dying from an ovarian tumor. She was 41 and it was the 1960s, her doctor at the navy hospital just assumed she was too old to get pregnant.” — MSeanF
This person found out about this from their sister just after their parents died. It’s strange to think that there is stuff that your parents are keeping from you.
Hiding Things In The Closet
“My grandpa was one strict, by-the-book son of a bitch but after he died, we found a bunch of weed in his closet.” — Cloaked25
Some people handle old age in their own way I guess!
The Truth About Their Time In The War
“Not really disturbing but definitely raised some questions. When my great oma passed away last year we found a photo album she had hidden in a closet that was full of photos from WWII. We don’t know for sure because she never talked about it but from the photos, it looked like my great Opa was a nazi and they lived quite the lavish life during the war. It caused a bit of a rift in the family but still, we don’t know the actual facts. We do know that my great opa was captured in France and when the war ended they came to Canada. Neither of them ever talked about the details.” — Moosepoop26
This person had difficulty tracking down information on their relatives due to the fact that they had changed their name when they moved to Canada. However, their mother recalls them making odd comments now and again which suggested that they had indeed supported the Nazi party.
Childhood Abuse
“That my grandfather molested my mom when she was a child. It started after my grandmother died and ended after he found someone else. I was pretty shocked, especially since my mom didn’t seem to carry any kind of baggage from it, though of course, I don’t know what went and still goes on in her head.
“Something that made sense though was how she always made sure my brother and I were either in her room to sleep whenever we stayed at Grandpa’s place (which wasn’t too often) or in the room next to hers. We were never alone with my grandfather, and we never had a warm or loving relationship with him. He was cold to us and we never really got attached to him, and we visited him maybe once a year. I think my mom felt obligated to have a relationship with him for some reason, but she was always very protective of us and my brother and I were never victims of his.” — TheBitchIsBack666
Murder
“My buddy’s mom totally killed my buddy’s dad. She had taken a $200k life insurance policy out on him 6 months before he died, and he died from not taking his medication that he’d taken no problem all of his life. My buddy was away for the weekend so wasn’t home when his dad died.
“After his mom died, we found out she’d taken a life insurance policy out on my buddy at some point too, and she’d also forged his signature to sign over $100k my buddy’s dad had left to him. She also faked illnesses to get prescription drugs and had little books filled with info on what she’d sold and how much she’d made from selling them.” — rebel_nature
Apparently, the mother also took a massive portion of their grandmother’s inheritance intended for this person’s friend.
Suicide
“So my neighbor sadly committed suicide 2 years ago and from what I had always seen was that she was really happy and positive and nice. But apparently she had attempted over 10 times to commit suicide. So that was really sad.” — MeLikeSpooky
You can never really tell what is going on in someone’s head. It’s a strange thing to process discovering that someone is really struggling deep down, even if they present a positive facade.
Trying To Buy Sex
“An old, rich man my mom use to run errands for not only offered her $5000 to sleep with him, but he also told her he couldn’t wait till I was 18 (I was younger than 12 at the time) and tried to make an arrangement to pay for my presence once I was 18.” — TwistedNoctrnlBtrfly
This person’s mother stopped working for this man and moved away after he had tried this. They also discovered later that the man’s son was also a convicted murderer.
Suspicious Hair
“Found out my grandfather was wearing a toupee for most of my (and his) life that I had known him. Only found out about it when we were going through old photos and my dad remarked about it. Never saw him the same in photos again.” — shartnite
The most wholesome one on the list by far! Discovering someone is wearing a wig can really change the way you look at pictures of people, as you have to get out the magnifying glass to work out whether they had real hair or fake at that point in time.
Mother’s Betrayal
“I went through a nasty break up with my oldest kids mom that lasted several years. We were never married and she was crazy as hell so she told the hospital she didn’t know our kid’s father just so she could have leverage over me. You know, like a sane person does. Years later and after several investigations into child abuse she lost custody.
“Over the next several years we kept getting oddly specific complaints about things going on in my house and my daughter and her step mom specifically. Dumb shit like matching clothes or details about how we do time out.
“My mom died 2 years ago and when we switched her Facebook to memorial mode I saw that she had been talking bad about me for years to my ex and was essentially spying on me for her and twisting information. I’m guessing it’s because she felt bad for a mother that lost her kid but it was still a dick move. It’s been 2 years and I still refuse to visit her grave with my siblings and haven’t shed a tear for her since.” — SketchesFromMidgard
This is a horrific betrayal to learn about. How would the mother not know that they would find out about this? Perhaps she just didn’t care.
Caught At A Brothel
“My uncle killed himself after he was caught at a bestiality brothel in Nevada. Course we only found out why he killed himself when the police showed up at my parents’ house wanting to know if he had any pets at home. He did not.” — Haloasis
I don’t even know how you would even begin to process this information. That sort of thing would really taint your view of that person in a very specific way!
Hidden Identity
“Brother in law’s best friend rang him distraught after going through his recently deceased (much) older sister’s papers. He had discovered that she wasn’t his sister as he had thought for the last seventy years, she was his mother.
“Usual story, teenage pregnancy, went to a convent to have the baby, gave it to mum to bring up. He apparently had a good relationship with her, and he was upset because she couldn’t tell him the truth.” — Partly_Dave
This sort of mixup, as it turns out, is not uncommon. In fact, this happened to actor Jack Nicholson amongst others.
Lying About The Death Of A Family Member
“Here’s the deal. My mom was raised by her mom (now 92, and an evil old bat) and her stepfather, who molested her. Where was dad? Died when she was 11, allegedly. That’s what my grandmother said. This would have been around 1961.
“Flash forward to 2015 and my sister is doing genealogy work on the family. Finds out not only did my biological grandfather not die in 1961, he died in 2005. And had five more daughters, one of which he gave the same name as my mom. So my mom got cheated out of a potential relationship with her dad by her liar of a mom (who moved and remained hidden from her ex, my mom’s real dad).
“My grandmother moved down to Texas from Virginia to stay in a nursing home and basically make my mom and dad’s life hell. We went to visit one weekend and she came over for dinner. And I dropped the bomb on her that we’d figured out she’d been full of shit for 50 years. She then had the nerve to act offended. My dad told her to STFU.” — txwildcard12
“It Was An Awful Way To Find Out The Truth”
“After my grandfather’s death we were cleaning out his old house and I found an envelope with paperwork that basically said my dad had died by suicide. I had been told as a kid that it was a heart attack. It was a sh*tty way to find out the truth.” — Counselurrr
They went on to write that they think their brother still doesn’t know, and they don’t plan on bringing it up until after their mother has died.
