20 Shocking Secrets People Kept From Family Friends

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4 hours ago

Reddit user _Walking_Detriment_ asked the community, "What's the most shocking thing you found out about someone you know?"
Welp, people revealed some pretty unhinged secrets that their family, friends, and close acquaintances thought they could hide. But ultimately, the cat got out of the bag.
So, here are some pretty wild, shocking, and dark things people discovered about someone they knew:
"I worked with an ex-Marine closely for years. On my last day, I asked him to help me with something, and he said, 'Oh, sure, ask the guy with one leg.' I told him he was full of shit, and he took a hammer and hit his shin, to which I heard metal. Thinking it was a joke, I asked him to lift his pants. SURE ENOUGH, THIS MAN HAD ONE LEG, AND I NEVER KNEW."
"My wife died two years ago at the young age of 49. A week after her passing, I decided to go through her personal devices to see if there were any other friends or family that needed to be contacted. What I found instead was that my wife had been chasing after other men during our entire 12 years together. When she met me, she had a side boyfriend that she was crushing on, but his life was too much of a mess for her to seriously consider him as a suitor (she was a single mom with two kids, and needed stability). But she loved the attention he showered her with, constantly begging her for sex. And there were other men that she met online. In total, I was up to six boyfriends she had during the time of our relationship. I stopped digging because each new boyfriend discovery absolutely destroyed me."
"We found out AT THE FUNERAL that my wife's grandpa had a second family. There was a group of people huddling around his widow (she was 90 at the time) that no one recognized. They were chatting it up with grandma for quite some time, and eventually, my wife's dad and aunt asked them to leave. There were kids, adults, and seniors in this group — multiple generations of people. My mother-in-law finally fessed up and said they were his 'other family.' Jaws hit the floor, and it was really weird for the rest of the ceremony. They also tried to 'claim' some of his stuff afterwards. I had to watch my grandma's house like a hawk because they would snoop around and try to say things like 'he would want us to have this.'"
"In the mid-'90s, I came home from my honeymoon to find a card in my front door from the FBI. My neighbor across the hall popped out and asked if everything was okay because there were a bunch of cops looking for me. It turned out my best friend of five years, who I thought moved away to be with his girlfriend, was seducing women around the country and robbing them, draining their bank accounts, and vanishing. He even stole their cars, drove to his next target city, and either sold the car to a chop shop or ditched it. He left a jacket behind at one of his victims' houses, and it had my name and phone number in his pocket. I went to the federal building in downtown Chicago, answered all of their questions, and convinced them I had no knowledge of any of this. After a few hours, I agreed to let them know if I ever heard from him."
"I had recently graduated as a therapist working in a forensic clinic. We were interviewing interns for their placement (part of a graduate program). This was an important interview because a lot of our clinical staff, including me, were hired out of an internship. A lot of the applicants were from the same graduate school that I went to, so I knew a lot of these people personally. One of the applicants was a guy with whom I had a bunch of classes. He was taking the program part-time, so he had been in the program when I started and was still there when I graduated. We had maybe five classes together. I knew him as a very smart, but also very sarcastic, middle-aged guy. I knew he worked as a hairdresser outside of class at his boyfriend's salon, which caused him to be very popular amongst our class for his propensity to give free haircuts."
"I found out as an adult that my stepdad (who had been around since I was seven years old) did time in prison for murder. Two decades before he met my mom, he walked in on a man having sex with his then-wife. Clearly, it didn't end well for the other guy. He did three years in prison because of the nature of the crime, and the laws in Texas being lenient on that type of stuff."
"My mother has a somewhat strange belief that after death, a person must be buried 'whole.' Decades ago, when my grandma had to have her leg amputated because of diabetes, my mother dug a hole behind our house and stored the amputated leg there. I believe it didn't rot due to formalin or something similar. When my grandmother died, my mother took that leg and placed it in her coffin. Due to the coffin's design, no one noticed her real leg was there. Everyone likely assumed it was a prosthetic leg. My mother told me this after several years, and I am still grossed out by it to this day."
"I found out a guy I knew faked a limp so he could get sympathy discounts at the movie theater..."
"I have childhood friends who discovered after their dad's death (the kids were adults by then) that their dad had fraudulently taken out full powers of attorney on them. He refinanced his house in their names, and never paid any taxes."
"The guy who put the roof on my parents' house and came out and did some repairs and whatnot around their home turned out to be a legit hitman. Years before he was a roofer, he was hired to murder a couple. Then he ended up murdering the people who hired him to do the hit. I believe he eventually confessed to killing four people total, but authorities suspected it could've been more. I kind of vaguely remember the guy. Of course, my dad was like, 'Nice fellow and a good handyman — hate to lose him!'"
"I worked with two different people at two different places. They both ended up going to prison for making counterfeit US money. Both workplaces were printing companies. I had replaced the first guy, who had been demoted for not being a good leader/supervisor. When the Secret Service approached his mobile home, he stuffed hoards of bills in PLASTIC trash bags and tried to make his escape by running through the woods. These tore multiple holes in the bags, leaving a scattering of counterfeit bills trailing behind him through the forest before his inevitable capture."
"I found out that my aunt's first husband wasn't killed in a car accident while visiting family overseas like I was told when I was younger. He was in witness protection because he had pissed off some affiliates of an Irish cartel. My aunt even thought he was dead. After four years, the authorities got in touch with her saying that he had been alive, but he was eventually killed by the men he was hiding from. They sent his body back to be buried in the US."
"I know of the girl who was married to my uncle (my dad's brother). They were divorced before I was born. She became a foster parent and was big into exotic animals. She tried to 'trade' one of her adopted kids for a monkey. It was all over the news. I saw it and was like, 'That's messed up.' Then, my aunt called me and asked me about the story, and then told me who it was."
"I worked with a guy in the mid-'80s who killed his best friend. They were drinking at a bar and somehow got into an argument (I was told they were as tight as they could be). The guy punched his best friend. The guy fell, hit his head, and died. He was lucky and somehow got work release. His father picked him up from prison every morning and came to take him back when our shift was over. l always wondered what happened to him and when he was fully released."
"I'm sure I'm not the only '70s kid who found this out, but my mom revealed that she and my dad had an 'open marriage.' The kind where he said: 'I'm going to fuck other women, and you can fuck these friends of mine — let me have my fun, or I'm out of here.' Apparently, what followed was three bad years together, as my dad tried to convince my mom to participate in swinging, orgies, a poly relationship — the works. And my mom, who was barely 22 with two babies, went along with all of it to keep him happy and 'save their marriage.'"
"My father told me that my mom (a teacher) used to steal the money for school trips where she worked. For some twisted reason, she moved my sister and me to the same school. I never understood why the other teachers were so bitter towards us. Apparently, there was a big scandal between the teachers, but we had no idea — the worst years of my life, finally explained."
"After my grandmother died, we found out she'd been married before my grandfather, and had four kids. When she and the first guy decided to split, they just dumped the kids off at an orphanage and went their separate ways. She then married my grandpa, had another family, and just never mentioned the fact that she had four other kids. Apparently, my grandpa knew the whole time and never said anything about it either."
"My mom suffered from cancer, and one night, while she was on strong medication for pain, she grabbed my arm and told me, 'I know the truth about your college letters. You didn't get rejected — you got accepted, and that's why you didn't go.'"
"My mom attempted to miscarry me so she wouldn't have to get an abortion. She is now very jealous that I am leading the life she always wanted (educated, childless, and climbing the corporate ladder), and frequently takes it out on me in passive-aggressive ways. I'm just glad the drinking and drugs she did while she was pregnant didn't seem to have a lasting impact on me (other than maybe the fact that I black out quickly when drinking)."
And finally, "About 25 years ago, one of my friends was killed in a house fire. He had been rooming with another friend at their mother's house. Our friend group thought that the fire was just an unfortunate accident for a couple of weeks. The surviving friend even stayed at my house, where all of our friend group kept hugging and comforting him as he weaved heroic stories. He tried getting his mom out of the house first and then tried his best to go back in for our friend, but by then, the flames and smoke were just too bad. Then one day, the police showed up and arrested him."