• Viral badge

37 Wild Lies And Secrets People Uncovered About Their Own Families, Coworkers, And Friends

"It wasn't until towards the end of our three-year relationship that I realized he was a pathological liar. ... It's over ten years later and I'm still finding out things he lied about."

Recently, we wrote about wild secrets people uncovered, including ones that were kept for years or even decades. The BuzzFeed Community* submitted some of their own, so we're back with more. Here are 36 heartbreaking and shocking secrets people discovered.

*We also included some responses from the original Reddit thread.

Note: There are mentions of suicide, abuse, and sexual assault in this post.

1. "My grandmother gave up custody of me to my uncle and then proceeded to tell me for years that he'd 'kidnapped' me because she didn't have the money to fight him in court. I'm grown now and have the actual custody agreement in my files. She didn't want to pay my medical bills and gave me up."

u/DirtySouthDoc

2. "My dad told my mom that he had been born and raised in another country (I won't mention it in case any family recognizes the story, however unlikely), so we grew up thinking ... he was just this adventurous guy who grew up somewhere exciting. He told us he'd fallen out with his siblings and hadn't spoken to them since he left his home country 50 years ago. ... [Later,] I did an Ancestry DNA test and a second cousin's son got in contact with me, and then put me in contact with his dad because he was eager to find out who I was. Turns out my dad ran away from home (in the UK), changed his name, married a girl in (in the country he told us he'd been born in) in his mid-twenties, then got divorced within a few years — but he never went home again, or spoke to anyone from his family. He just flew back to London and got a job."

"I tried to bring it up to my dad diplomatically and said someone had reached out after a DNA test, and gave him a name. He said, 'No idea who that is, but I'm asking you right now to shut this down.' He still tells his stories, but has stopped telling any stories from before his mid-twenties, probably because he's aware that I know he's lied my entire life.

He's always been so charismatic when telling a story that everyone shuts up to listen; now I just get annoyed. I have no idea what to do about it. I have no idea how to feel about knowing I have a whole other half of family out there that he never wants me to meet. I'd quite like to know my/his family, but I don't think I could betray my dad."

u/Head-Cod-8762


Two characters from a TV show with dialogue captions expressing a confession and its reason

3. "My friend had this moody girlfriend I did not like — nor did anyone else. She’d fake pregnancies and treated him like crap. Anyway, there was a big blow-up at a party where two other friends and I called her out when she was a horrible person in front of others, and they were broken up within the week. She moved away after their breakup with a new piece of crap boyfriend. Within a month, she'd died of a drug overdose by consuming the drugs her boyfriend had in his car when he was getting pulled over. Her mother called my friend to blame him and so did her cousin. Anytime we got really drunk, he’d bring her up for years. Ten years went by, and she added me on Facebook. She didn’t die; her whole family is just shitty."

"What made it extra shitty was that my friend's other ex-girlfriend/baby mama had died earlier the same year from a drug overdose and it had hit him hard, so she knew it likely would get to him."

u/Pretty_Frosting_2588

4. "I opened up to an ex-girlfriend about previous sexual assault/abuse and they immediately 'one-upped' and cited a recent sexual assault. I, of course, stopped talking about mine and went into comfort mode. But anytime I wanted to discuss things, like boundaries or triggers or my PTSD, I was immediately silenced and HER triggers and PTSD were discussed. Sex became all about her and she said that since I had 'so many rules' she’d rather just not touch me; it was too stressful for her. But I should continue to please her because it’s part of her healing journey. Her therapist said it was necessary for her. We went on like this for over a year, and before you ask, I have no idea why I stayed that long."

"Anyway, one night we were fighting and she was drunk. We were fighting because she'd cheated on me. Then in her drunken rage, she said that she'd never loved me anyway, because how could anyone possibly love me with all my baggage and 'trauma' (she used air quotes). Then she said the only reason she stayed this long was because I 'believed her made-up trauma' and accommodated her and treated her so well for so long. But now that I had boundaries about her sleeping with other people, she didn't feel it was worth it to stick around.

I was going to have a panic attack so I stopped the conversation and told her we’d discuss this when she was sober.

Two days later, we finally discussed it. I confronted her about lying about her assault and she confessed, crying, telling me she just wanted to make me feel like she understood me and it 'went too far' so she couldn’t take it back.

For a year, she faked panic attacks and PTSD episodes, refused to accommodate my boundaries, refused to acknowledge or comfort me in my episodes, and had me pleasure her under some false therapeutic guise. I felt disgusted and betrayed and horrified and so, so hurt and angry. Honestly, I’m still not over it. I still can’t trust people and struggle with dating and even making friendships. This was seven years ago."

u/CowNovel9974

5. "My mom faked cancer on Christmas 2018. She told the whole family around midnight that she not only had cervical cancer, but that she had been refusing treatment since June. I spent a week thinking my only parent was going to die. Turns out it was all a ploy to get sympathy during a fight with my sister."

u/pennylane923

6. "I dated a boy when I was 17, and we had a very toxic up-and-down relationship for about two years. It all came to a head when we broke up right before I was starting my in-person sophomore year of college. When I got to college, we were on and off talking, and then he told me he had a brain tumor. He carried this lie on for months to keep me attached. Over time, I saw red flags that convinced me he wasn't sick. But at the time, I was naive and made excuses for him. ... About five months into this mess, I remember his 'mom' texting me from his phone saying he was going in for a procedure that he may not make it out from."

"His 'mom' texted me the funeral home he would be buried at if he succumbed. With my building skepticism and a push from a friend, I called the funeral home and stated his name, but they told me they didn’t have any arrangements for that person. Safe to say that the lie unraveled and we haven’t spoken since."

u/sassysoosa

TV show scene with two characters; one looking skeptical with subtitle "If he's sick." The other shows concern, "You think he's lying about having cancer?"

7. "My mom told me my dad died in the Gulf War. I found out later that he was arrested for raping half a dozen kids under the age of four. He went to prison and his cellmate beat him to death when word got out that he was a 'skinner.' I thought my dad was a hero all my life, and then I found out he was a monster."

u/Confederacel

8. "One night, I got a series of frantic texts from my ex while he was home and I was working. His uncle, whom he lived with and raised him during his teen years, had passed away. I left work early to comfort him. When I got to his apartment, I banged on his door and windows, but he wouldn't answer for like an hour. He finally popped his head out of his bedroom window and realized I was outside. He let me in, but he was so belligerently drunk I couldn't ask him any questions. I just tucked him into bed and stayed with him. The next few days, he was somber but positive, so I didn't want to cause an emotional breakdown by asking for more details regarding his uncle's death. Months later, I came to find out that both of his uncles are very much alive."

"I second-guessed what I knew and I couldn't bring myself to accuse him of lying in case I was the one misunderstanding something. It wasn't until toward the end of our three-year relationship that I realized he was a pathological liar. He lied about very small things to very big things. He also faked a suicide attempt (it was a manipulation tactic and I didn't find this out until later). It's over ten years later and I'm still finding out things he lied about — and they're not normal relationship things like cheating, they're very random things that he never needed to lie about. I feel like our whole relationship wasn't real. I didn't know anything real about him."

u/BrewskiBehb

9. "In the first few months of talking, an ex trauma bonded with me over my father's suicide by talking about his previous girlfriend's suicide. A few years in, he still talked about her quite a bit. I started having feelings of not being able to measure up to a dead woman. I stalked her old social media, developing an unhealthy obsession with finding out what I was lacking that she'd had. In my stalking, I realized...she's still alive."

"He lied to me for years. He bonded with me over this lie. He let me believe there was some dead woman who was forever immortalized as his perfect girl in his mind every time I told him how I felt. When I confronted him, he blew up. He was mad at me for looking into it. He was mad at me for bringing it up and causing him to feel pain over what really happened: she cheated. But I don't give a shit what she did. That lie was woven into every aspect of our relationship. It lured me in and then broke me down. It was shared in response to my story of my father's very real suicide. I hated him for years after I ended things. Now, I just feel disgust when I think about him."

u/FishingDifficult5183

10. "Very early on in my recently ended seven-year relationship, my now-ex shared with me that she had cancer. Considering the three kids she had and the lack of participation of their fathers in their lives, I entered the relationship knowing full well what could be down the road. Naturally, I developed a very strong sense of responsibility and eventually felt as if her kids were basically my kids, too, and the paternal role I felt seemed to be reciprocated by everyone involved. Ex and I got engaged. In time, unconditional love developed, and within maybe 18 months, I was 'Dad' to a 12-year-old girl, her eight-year-old sister, and a two-year-old younger brother. This was a big deal to me, and I took it seriously. I was so happy and proud to be a good father and partner."

"I was also extremely busy working and oftentimes managed my new family life solo when the ex was struggling to find good days in the unpredictably uncomfortable challenges she/we faced in the landscape of her cancer diagnosis. Difficult as life can become, I persevere for those I care about and carry on I did. I always focused on the happiness and health of my new family.

Maybe three years in, I began to realize how seldom my ex went to the doctor. It seemed like she was going to her pain management appointments regularly, but that was it. I noticed little in the way of actual disease treatment. Eventually, I became concerned my ex wasn't making any efforts towards therapies that could potentially improve her condition, possibly extending her overall wellness and life expectancy. As we are both still in our thirties, I felt this was an important aspect for everyone involved. It's bad enough that so many younger kids don't have one or both parents, so why not do what we can to prevent those kids from unnecessary tragic loss if at all possible, right? Obviously, I'd prefer not to lose my fiancé sooner rather than later. Long story short, my inquiry regarding her lack of treatment beyond pain meds blew up in my face and revealed a very different, very aggressive, and loud response from my ex than I'd known previously. I may have crossed a line. I get that. But the disproportionate response I got raised flags. Flags bordering on verbal and emotional abuse in response to a gently proposed conversation about her long-term health. It seemed kind of like it was a deterrent to prevent me from EVER bringing it up again. So, I didn't bring it up for three more years. During that time, nothing changed in regard to her health or treatment. She seemed pretty healthy unless she was too high on her meds to stay awake and take care of her/our kids while I was at work. 

Turned out she never had cancer. Or any health issues outside of a drug addiction. I myself am a recovering addict, so I didn't leave her, shame her, or even change what I was doing as a dad to her kids after I came to my conclusion. But when her secret had been discovered, and she knew I knew, the covert narcissist made sure I would regret discovering her well-hidden truth. Within two months of my revelation, I was suddenly receiving every imaginable form of domestic abuse. After just dealing with it for another couple of months, for the kids' sake, holding out for better times to come, I was summarily told to leave under threat of calling the cops, for some reason. The family I'd given every waking moment of myself to for years is suddenly no longer my own. Like, how can she do that to her kids? I get it now that I got used, hard. Where do we draw the line? How do people disregard kids like that? Still messes me up to this day."

u/LunatiCriminaLove

Two TV show characters in dialogue, male expressing concern, female asserting a decision

11. "My mum's a narcissist, so I have some big ones. She kept insisting my dad abused me when he never did, and insisted that's why I was a 'problem' and acted out, saying I just couldn't remember it. She reminded me daily that I was defective because he touched me when I was three (she was the true abusive one). It never happened. She made it up to get custody."

"I also kept feeling like I was missing family members and my mom told me I was imagining things. Well, 30 years later through a DNA kit I found my cousins who I used to play with and who even babysat for me from infancy until I was about five. She hid my whole family from me for 30 years, and threatened to hurt me if they contacted me as well, so they were afraid to."

u/warkifiedchocobo

12. "My cousin died from a brain aneurysm caused by intravenous drug use. She had been clean for two years and had a one-year-old daughter. My aunt told her granddaughter that my cousin was on vacation for yeeeeaaars. Eventually, a neighbor kid told her her mum was dead. She went down a very dark route after that."

—Anonymous

13. "My ex-husband told me when we first met that he’d had an appointment for a vasectomy but canceled it. He, in fact did not and I spent the next decade suffering with PCOS and endometriosis on birth control and then eventually, infertility. When my doctor told me I was out of time, he got it secretly reversed and I magically got pregnant within two months. He told me this eight months after the birth of our TWINS, ya know, since I was on fertility treatments and all…."

u/SnooPeanuts4336

14. "[The lie was] that I'm an only child. My mom has two daughters who are much older than me. One of them lived down the street from me growing up. I played with her son — my nephew — regularly after school. He was hospitalized when we were children and I thought it was odd that my mom was so knowledgeable about his rare condition. When I was 15, I specifically asked my mom if she had any children other than me. She looked me in the eye and told me no. About two weeks later, one of my sisters contacted me online and told me the whole story. My aunts and uncles confirmed it. My mom found out, blocked both my sisters on all my social media platforms, and threatened to disown me if I ever spoke to them again. Her reasoning was that she 'never wanted me to think that she would do to me what she did to them,' as she had disowned them."

u/staccatodelareina

Two characters from a TV show, one stands confidently asserting relation while the other denies it, with bystanders looking on

15. "An ex-boyfriend and I were pretty serious, then suddenly he started pulling away. We had talked kids, marriage, everything. He had his sister and her two small kids move in with him because she'd left her husband, so that put a stop to us spending time at his house. Around the same time, his best friend got killed in a quad accident, so he was over there helping out his friend's family for a while. Then one day he told me he had colon cancer. Having treatments would prevent him from having kids (which he knew I wanted), so he thought it was best that we part ways. I was devastated. A month later, a friend of mine showed me in the paper that he was applying for a marriage license…to his dead best friend’s widow."

"He’d thrown his sister out and moved this woman and her three kids in. Well, they got married, and she basically treated him like garbage. She was after his money and his big house. They were married for eight years when one night he tripped and smacked his head against the sink. A few days later he passed out, was rushed to the hospital, and never woke up. I don’t want to say karma…but…"

u/Illustrious-Bunch572

16. "That my dad was dead. I was told this all my childhood by my grandma. I asked my mom when I was older, and she got mad at my grandma and told her to tell me the truth. He wasn't dead; he was a womanizer and he dumped my mum because she was pregnant with me. He even hit her in the stomach and broke her heart. I was glad to know the truth but also sad. I've got a fantastic stepdad who IS my dad now. He's been around since I was 10 years old. ANYONE can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad."

u/helensmelon

17. "I found out when I was 19 and just given birth to my son that my father was not my biological father and my mother married him when I was three months old. Her cousin told me. Out of the blue ... I met my biological father a month later. The cousin took me. He was a rich doctor who promptly rejected me. He did say he was my biological father, but to never, ever contact him again. He had a family who knew nothing. I never reached out again."

acidicminion91

Four-panel image of two men having a conversation, one younger, one older, ending with a closed door

18. "I THOUGHT I was dating a single navy guy. He ghosted me, so I texted him telling him just to be an adult and use his words. He then tried to convince me that he was kidnapped. ... He lived on base. He was also married. He was with his wife when he texted me he was kidnapped; they were posting pics on their very public Facebook pages. ... I just sent him screenshots of what I found and then sent screenshots of my convos with him to his wife to let her know he’s a cheater."

u/not_a_milk_drinker

19. "I was married at 21 and divorced at 29. My ex-wife passed away two years after our divorce. We had a six-year-old daughter at the time. I was told my ex-wife passed away with no life insurance, which was odd considering we both had life insurance while together. I later found out she did have a small policy that went to her mother with instructions to use it for our daughter. My daughter graduates college this coming May and has never seen a dime of it."

u/CarolinaRod06

20. "[The lie was] that I was adopted. My mother cheated, got pregnant, and didn't want anyone to know...so they told the family that they planned on adopting. When I was about two, we traveled overseas to meet the whole family, under the pretense that I was just adopted, and that's why I looked different. My mother told me right before she passed away, and my father also confirmed it. I lived for 17 years thinking I was neither my nor my father's actual child."

u/maryjanelae

21. "A girl I used to work with told everyone she was pregnant. She didn't look pregnant, but some people don't balloon, so fair play. She then had the baby, but wayyyyyy too early; we all put some money into a fund for her to buy a pram and other baby-related stuff; she had some time away from work, then updated us all that the baby hadn't made it. Cue tears from 80% of the workforce, weeks of mourning and tears from concerned colleagues, etc. — flowers, gifts, and so forth…all bullshit. She was never pregnant. It was all a lie to trap a one-night stand into paying her child support payments in cash."

u/Jeht88

TV show scene with two characters, a man and a woman, emotionally discussing a sensitive topic

22. "My dad’s side of the family would always tell me about these college savings they had put aside for me in a trust. They would hold it over my head and call me ungrateful when I was just acting like a kid most of the time. When college time finally came, my maternal grandmother called them to ask how much was in the trust so she could coordinate how much she was going to put toward my college along with their contribution. Surprise surprise, there was never any trust or college savings. Just a big lie they held over my head for 17 years."

michelangelofangirl

23. "All my life I thought I had a spring birthday with the tulips. I was an Aries, which totally suited me. One day my dad pulled me aside and told me my birthday was a fake. I was born too close to the wedding. This was back when such things mattered. So my family was shipped off to another state and returned with a baby they passed off as much younger. They were even able to get a baptism certificate with the fake birthdate and the official seal of the church. I can still legally prove two birthdays."

—Anonymous

24. "The worst lie told to me was by my mother who said to me and everyone else that I beat her up regularly. She beat me every few days from the age of eight to the age of fifteen. She even threatened to kill me when I was twelve, and not in a throwaway manner that people do when they’re angry — more in a manner that left me in no doubt she was capable. Then one day she raised her hand to strike me and I just grabbed her arm and told her to stop. From that point on, whenever she came at me intending to strike me, I could just push her away. I think at that point she realized that she ran the risk of me doing to her what she had spent the last six or so years doing to me, so she started telling everyone I was out of control and beating her up."

"My sisters, who witnessed her beating me, still bought her lies and still think I beat her up. I was diagnosed with PTSD in my early twenties and it took 20 years from when I left home aged 16 to recover. I’m now in my forties in a very successful and long-term marriage with two beautiful children, and verbal and physical violence haven’t been a part of my life since I left home. It tears me up that my sisters think I’m a reformed woman beater when I’m actually a healed victim of serious domestic child abuse."

u/Over_Bend_9839

25. "I always wished that I had more siblings. Specifically a brother. But I was their last kid, and they were very open on that. (I did have two older sisters.) But then one day when I was like 10, we were at the grocery store where this guy came up to my mom, kissed her on the cheek, and told her he loved her. I waited until we got back to the car and I was like, 'So, does dad know about him?', thinking she was having an affair. She was like, 'Of course he does, that's your brother."

"She dropped the whole thing so nonchalantly, like I hadn't gone my whole life with things being how they were only to have them completely changed on a trip to the grocery store. The kicker? 'You have another sister too.' What kills me still, 20 years later, is how not just my parents and siblings were able to keep so tight-lipped about these siblings who were 15 years older than me, but that the extended family did as well. Not one slip-up in 10 years from any of them. They are incredibly good at hiding things. I'm a mom and couldn't imagine just hiding two kids from only one of my other children. That's wild. And no one seems to think that that is absolutely nuts. It's a huge thing and I was literally the only one in our massive family that had no clue. Cue distrust being born lol. Anyways, I loved both my older siblings immediately."

u/endangeredbear

Close-up of a character with a serious expression and some smudges on face

26. "One early morning, my partner's alarm went off. I knew things had been bad before, but thought he’d learned his lesson. I didn't even mean to open his messages, but one popped in, and I assumed it was work asking if he was coming in or sick or something — it was past time for him to be gone, but he was still asleep. Keep in mind I never snoop; I provided the place to live, I provided food and bills and extra money as necessary, all while maintaining an excellent credit rating. This was all even though he never contributed — I live on disability, and he easily earned twice in one paycheck what I earned in a month. I picked up the phone and opened the message, and it was a first name, followed by 'Grindr' behind the name. I read. And I read. And I read. Name after name, photo after photo — all explicit, times and dates for meet-ups."

"And this was not long after I forgave maybe the third time he cheated. I stopped counting after 18. He also had syphilis but we hadn’t been intimate in a long while because I knew something was wrong. ... When I saw those messages, I gently woke him, said, 'I know everything. You are leaving right now, this moment, and anything you leave behind I will sell or trash.' 

After four years of supporting him, I snapped, and when he tried to become violent and intimidate me I bent my cane chasing him back while holding mace in the other hand. I have never met a worse person in my entire life and now I make it my mission to make sure everyone knows what he did because we live in a rather rural area, and all gay men know each other here essentially. Anytime his name comes up I say, 'Oh, you mean the guy with syphilis that cheats constantly and lies every chance he gets?' Right before this, he also made the stupidest financial decisions — like taking out 7500 dollars from his 401k plus a huge overtime check to 'pay bills.' Never gave me a dime to put toward the household or help me accomplish anything that would help us both. From what I know, every bit of that money was wasted on drugs, hotel rooms, and sex workers, and I still get declined credit applications in the mail for him, as if anyone would loan someone with a 500 credit score anything at all. Moral of the story: when someone shows you who they are the first time, believe them."

—Anonymous

27. “'You’re just like your dad’s mom.' 'You get your depression from your dad’s side of the family.' I found out a few weeks ago I was conceived via sperm donation and not even related to the woman with mental illness who I was compared to my whole life. She died 10 years before I was born."

u/00icrievertim00

28. "My mother lied to me about who my father was. Growing up, I was always closer to my dad. People always commented how lucky I was to have my Dad's eye color or how I had his chin. Fast forward to my 20s, I got mugged, and my birth certificate, which was a small wallet card, got stolen. I had to get it replaced. It seemed to take forever. One day, I got a call saying my father's information didn't match the form. I told them that I was fairly positive as to where my Dad was born. They told me that the name they had was completely different."

—Anonymous

29. "My dad isn't my bio dad (thanks, 23 and me). Explains why that side of the family never cared for me yet loved my younger brother! They told me my older half-sister, whom I had never met from my mom's first marriage, was kidnapped at gunpoint and that her ex was some mafia dude who left her for an older woman and threatened to kill her sister and mom if she did anything about it (I still have no idea wtf is true here. Found the half-sister on Facebook in 2008, but she quickly blocked me)."

"Oh yeah, and at like 28 they never told me my grandpa was sick and dying in the hospital until he was 'going to be just fine' only for it to be like a fluke and for him to die like two days later…then they didn’t tell me for a month. It’s like they think I’m going to break or something? Like holy shit, you put me through enough lies over the years, I’m pretty immune! Especially considering I started babysitting my little brother home alone when I was 5, took 30 minutes of public transportation to kindergarten each way, and that I was constantly vented to about our financial problems as a child and told we were losing our house meanwhile they would spend money on the stupidest shit."

Grinchbettahavemymoney

Close-up of an emotional woman with a concerned expression

30. "[The lie was]: 'Your brother and sister are our biological children, and you were adopted.' It turned out to be one-third true. I was adopted."

"After my adoptive mom passed, my adoptive dad remarried. My younger brother stood with him as Best Man. He didn't even think to ask me, and why would he? Even though I was his 'oldest son,' I wasn't his biological son.

... Due to 23andMe, I discovered I have a half-brother who is one week younger than me. Our dad died in a car wreck at 33 and never knew I was born. My brother and I are close now. I have other half-siblings from both my biological parents. I found all that around in my early forties.

... But the latest 23andMe shocker was that my adoptive brother and sister aren't biologically related to my adoptive dad. So yeah. He still didn't have 'his blood' up there as Best Man anyway."

u/MaleficentBasket4737

31. "My ex-wife told me that she was maxing out her retirement account just like I was. I never questioned it and I never saw her statements, because she ran her own business and her accountant did all of our taxes. When we went through the finances during the divorce, I had something like $300k in my account. She had maybe $300. All that money evidently had been going to fund her recent escapades with her supposed ex-boyfriend."

u/Broad_Adz

32. "Everything my dad ever said about my mom and their divorce. No, she wasn’t petty and controlling, she just didn’t want to be married to a closeted man who, as a high school teacher, fucked his male students!"

—Anonymous

33. "I was in a car accident when I was 16. My best friend was driving, and it resulted in a severe concussion for me. My friend immediately refused to have anything to do with me. She spread vicious rumors about me in school. She stated there wasn’t an accident. It was absolutely bizarre, as we were so close. My memory from that time is a blur. I remember going back to school; my grades were awful, and I could not graduate. Years later, my new physician asked me to obtain my medical records from my former primary care physician as I told him that I'd had a concussion when I was a teenager. "

"My mother had passed away, and my brother and sister were absolutely useless. I didn't know the name of the doctor. I just didn't remember. One of my friends helped me trace my former physician, and I picked up the records. No wonder why my memory was a blur. I was severely concussed. I had mobility issues, cognitive issues, you name it, and in my file, there were letters to my mother stating that I should not return to school as I was physically unable, but I should have the school provide a tutor so I could finish up my education. She sent me back to school because she couldn't be bothered. No wonder why I was an absolute mess. I have no contact whatsoever with my older brother and sister because I know they were aware of the situation and did nothing. My brother is 13 years older than I am, and my sister is eight years older, so they weren't children. I was very good to my mother to the day she died from cancer. It took everything in me just to give her that type of care and compassion because she was a brutal mother. She lied about everything under the sun, and only after her death did I find out how awful she truly was, not only to me but to my aunt, who tried to help her. I am lucky to have good friends that I consider family. My husband and I have been married for almost 40 years, and he is still stunned about my mother's behavior."

—Anonymous

Two characters from a TV show in a dialogue scene with subtitles expressing feelings of lost friendship

34. "When I was 18, I was told that my mother was not my biological mother. I'm a child born as the result of an affair, and my birth mother died from stage four melanoma when I was two months old."

u/fi0ritura

35. "Until I was 20, I believed my parents were my parents and that my mom had a daughter with a man from a different state when she was 16, and that daughter was my half-sister. Just before my 21st birthday, I was helping my mom copy documents for a work background check. One of them was the legal name of everyone she'd shared a residence with throughout her life. I was on there with a different last name. It turned out that my 'half-sister' was biologically my mother. The story of my adoptive mom having her in high school with a man from a different state is true, but they adopted me. This was a big mindfuck because they used me as a do-over child and abused and controlled me, with the goal of not having a kid that ran away and got into drugs and pregnant irresponsibly this time around. They managed that goal; I'm child-free and had surgery to ensure that continues. But in the process, they fucked up a perfectly good human with all kinds of trauma."

u/SilverArabian

36. "My brother married a woman fairly quickly. The first red flag was when she insisted they get married in Hawaii, knowing that no one else could afford to go. The only people who could go were them and our parents. Come to find out, she had her first marriage there. One year later, she got pregnant. 12 weeks to the day of her pregnancy, she wanted a divorce."

"So many people tried to help them save their marriage, but she refused and made excuse after excuse why she didn't want to save it. She sold the house out from under him, moved to the other side of the country, and had the baby without telling my brother. It was a month before he found out she had the baby, and it was from a friend who saw it on her social media page. He has tried so hard to get in contact with her to get some sort of custody agreement, but she will not respond to him. It really messed him up mentally, knowing he was just used so she could have a baby. I wholeheartedly believe sooner or later, God is going to cut her down."

—Anonymous

37. And finally..."When I was like 10, I had a pet guinea pig that I loved. My first pet. One day, I came home from school and the cage was open and Rocky was gone. I lived my whole life thinking I had left it open and he had gotten out and met some unfortunate demise. 40 years later I learned my Mom didn't like having a 'rat' in the house and got rid of it. She let me think it was my fault."

u/codius_maximus