Family Secrets

Holy smokes. Apologies for this in advance; I'm flabbergasted right now and just need to type this out. I can't tell anyone here.

I just came from the FSU super regional. They were leading 17-1 when I left. I didn't watch much. Too busy talking to my brother's girlfriend, whom I'd never met. (We went to high school together at one point, but even meeting her tonight, I don't remember her at all. I have apparently repressed my entire high school years.)

My brother doesn't speak to us. No clue why; he's just really close to the vest. The girlfriend suggested it was because he was ashamed of how he'd behaved in the past and basically wanted to put it behind him. (The behavior pisses her off.)

Anyway, she was really cool. I mentioned to her I get irritated at him because I'd like to see my niece once in a while but he doesn't communicate with us. I've been out of the country essentially since 2007 and on the few months I'm in town it'd be cool to see her, you know? And it's not like there's any animosity or anything. (And I am, hands down, the best aunt of the lot.)

The lack of communication is bizarre, to the point where I don't even know where he lives. I know he owns a house on X street, but not the number. I'm having to go through a top secret security clearance right now and it's pretty embarrassing to have to tell the State Department you have no idea where your brother lives.

Anyway, as soon as my brother took a pee break, the girlfriend leaned over and started talking fast, saying she wanted to talk to me before he came back.

Lots of things were revealed in that five minutes. But this tops it:

They're married. Have been for a while.

Holy shit. I am so stunned. My brother did this before, with his first wife, but it took like a week and he 'fessed up they'd eloped. This time, apparently these two have been hitched for some time now.

His friends know. His daughter knows. The mother of his daughter knows. His own mother (whom my SIL told me not to tell) has not a freaking clue.

Why the heck would a 41-year-old man not tell his parents he was married?

I am so glad I'm moving 2,000 miles away tomorrow. My mom picked my brain on the way home, but there was so much other information it was easy to avoid the elephant.

So, what family secrets are there in yours?

 

I'm adopted, and my mother was a 16-year-old French exchange student who got knocked up by her 27-year-old chaperone.
I was born in July...so do the math and I figure I was a Homecoming fling!

The best "secret" i came across happened with my buddy from church when we were in high school. His sister got knocked up and had the baby (but had also "joined the military" and moved at the exact same time, so no one even knew she got pregnant)
The baby was adopted by our youth group leaders and it wasn't announced that the girl was my buddy's sisters until her 18th birthday, which was a few years ago. So this little girl that we watched grow up to be an amazing person...it turns out it's his niece!

 

My dad decided to wait until I was 14 to tell me he was married before and I had a half sister. It really didn't have any affect on my life, but it's something I wish he had shared earlier. It made my parents' clicking of their tongues at other people who got divorced all the more hypocritical, though.

 

Some of the secrets in my mom's side of the family are way too icky to repeat here. Just a hint: my parents both grew up in Columbus, Miss., the same town where Tennessee Williams was born.

 

I'm pretty sure my half sister isn't my sister at all.

 

Found out at my mother's funeral that my father is not the father of my oldest brother. My father was married and divorced before he met my mother, and she had a son by someone else before they even met.

Apparently I was the only person in the family who didn't know that. But I guess my mother didn't want me to know (she probably didn't want anyone to know, as it was never spoken of in my 30 years up until that point).

 

My dad's dad killed himself. And I don't know much about my dad'd parents because they died before I was born, and my dad doesn't talk much about them.

My step mom who isn't really my step mom walked out on my dad on Easter Sunday.

I have three sisters by different dads.

 

I learned, at the age of 30, that I have a half-sister.

 

My sister-in-law, age 32, has never worked a day in her life. She's been kept up by a sugar daddy, who also happened to be my wife's father's (who died in 1997) best friend.

And I'm not talking just taking her in. Sugar daddy has paid for everything, including a $265,000 house, a $50,000 car, health insurance, gas, all her bills--you name it, it has been paid for. She used to go to the beach for weeks at a time, stay in some of the nicest houses there and not have to worry about the money. He has taken her to Vegas and to the Bahamas, usually staying in one of the high-end suites at Atlantis.

My mother-in-law tells everyone that the SIL gets her money from an insurance settlement, which isn't true, obviously.

I have also heard my MIL introduce my SIL to some of her friends as "someone who flips houses at the beach."

Now, my SIL just had a baby with an illegal immigrant, and neither of them have any kind of income. The sugar daddy has since cut her off, and they have no way of paying for any bills.

To top it off, my brother-in-law refuses to talk to my SIL because the guy she had the baby with used to work on his crew (he operates a concrete business). They have not spoken in over two years, but my MIL likes to go on and on about how she has the perfect family life.

If one of them is at a family function, the other one will not be there. At X-mas this year, they were all at our house and the BIL and SIL stayed in opposite rooms the entire time they were here, never exchanging any type of communication.

Oh yeah, and my BIL operates his business in my hometown, but his wife, their daughter, and his step-son live almost three hours away. He goes home every Friday night. While he is here, he stays in a room at my MIL's house and she continues to wash his clothes, make sure he has food (guy is 40 years old).

He went about 10 years without talking to his mother after their parents split. In fact, my MIL bailed on all three of her kids after the divorce....wasn't seen or heard from for a period of seven years.

She missed some key growing up moments in her two oldest kids' childhood.

As you might surmise, the disingenuous nature of my in-laws irks me to no end. I tolerate them as best as I can.

 

Funny growing up everyone thought i had a perfect family.
-dad did a ton of drugs until I was about two. Not weed.
-Mom kicked dad out of the house for a couple days for being a drunk when I was 13. He stopped drinking.
-sister loved heroin. Loved it. She's off it, but her scumbag boyfriend just went back to detox
-youngest sister loved weed. Now grows it professionally on the west coast.
-mom tried to kill herself when I was in college. Pills.
-My mother is batshit crazy except when it comes to caring for kids. Once all her kids moved out, she went nuts.

 

Two of my first wife's cousins were the product of incest between her aunt and her aunt's father.

One of her uncles was killed in a murder for hire set up by his wife, who wanted the insurance money. She is on death row.

Current wife's paternal grandmother was killed by her lover, while still married to her grandfather.

 

I was raised Jehovah Witness until I was 13. Mom was disfellowshipped and we all moved out to Arizona.

Dad got so pissed once he burned down our house. It was salvaged. The cops did not call it arson. Thank God my dad had friends in the police department.

My mom is now married to the guy who drove my parents to divorce way back when. My dad passed away over a decade ago and my daughter will never know him, but thinks of my current step dad as her grandfather. Unsure how I exactly feel about that.

My dad ran numbers for the mob and was a pool shark. And amazing shot who would hustle in Pittsburgh. My mom remembers him bringing back thousands in cash way back in the early 1970s. I have also heard stories about him sticking a gun in a guy's nose while out on a double date. He was a great guy, but you knew not to fuck with him.

My half sister I don't talk to since her baby's daddy is so volatile (they locked down a hospital because of him once) that we do not let her anywhere near my kid in case he shows up.

Everyone probably has something to post to this thread, it's just some have more than others.