Family secrets

[brainz01]

Have you ever been told a secret by a family member that blew your mind?

My late father-in-law shared one with me years ago before he died. Things about his past.

It's pretty incredible stuff, and I have no reason to doubt him.

Trouble is, I still want to know more. But I don't think it's appropriate to ask the other family members as I'm pretty sure none of them know - - and it might upset them.

I did share it with my wife and it confused her. I'm not sure she believes it. So we don't really talk about it.

I've been thinking of sharing his story here as I suspect the Brain Trust would appreciate it and likely have some insightful comments.

What would you do?

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[Crowbob]

You are correct. Talking about it would be inappropriate. Especially if pursuing the matter is due simply to your own curiosity.

However, since you've aleady spilt the beans with your wife, her father's past WILL get talked about, but maybe not talked about with you.

(For a nickel you'll get 3 cents in change for this advice)

[fanaudical]

Secrets of the past are usually kept secret for a reason.

Does anybody in your family stand to gain in a positive way from discussing the secret? Or is there more possibility of somebody getting hurt? Will divulging the secret tarnish good memories of the deceased?

I think the only reason I would discuss with others if it would prevent further harm.

[pwd72s]

I'm sure my family has LOTS of secrets. But they all are wise enough to never have shared them with me.

[id10t]

Found out when I was 4 or 5 that I was adopted.... it was dropped casually in conversation on the way to the grocery store or something like that... talk about a shocker... not a secret to anyone else in the family though, until my uncle on mom's side remarried I was the youngest in the family by 6+ years....


Things that shocked the whole family? Found out after dad, his brother, and one of his sisters died that his brother had an illegitimate child. What makes it super weird is that my dad was the youngest of the family, his brother the oldest, and they are from 2 different fathers (dad's mom lost her first husband to WW 1), and yet said illegitimate son is the spitting image of my father.

[Crowbob]

Having lost my parents and older brother, I am the sole living witness and repository of many family secrets. None of which I will ever share with my younger sister.

[id10t]

Oh, and in your position you can probably do quite a bit of independent research and find out more without asking your family members...

[brainz01]

Indeed. My curiosity is admittedly selfish.

I doubt this gets talked about in the family. I doubt anyone would believe it - - I'm not sure my wife believes it.

Ironically, I suspect that the Trust would have the most interesting knowledge and perspectives as it relates to things that happened many decades ago.

It's an unusual ethical dilemma for me whether to discuss it, even anonymously. But is anything truly anonymous these days?

I'll probably share it with my kids many years from now as interesting family history. But the time would have to be right, especially with respect to my MIL.

It's possible one day it becomes known as true through other sources, but then that wouldn't be my doing.

Mixed emotions...

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[A930Rocket]

It’s no secret in Ms Rocket’s family...

Her great grandmother was put in an insane asylum. Sometimes I think my wife has a little bit of the crazy in her. 🤪

[id10t]

Originally Posted by brainz01

But is anything truly anonymous these days?

Well, the chat server/app I wrote is totally anonymous if no one in the "room" sends a message for 20 second... each client pulls a list of messages every 2 seconds, when the server gets a request for messages it starts by deleting any message older than 15 seconds.... and I can prove it with source code

Waffling on whether to publish or not. Easy enough to re-implement but at the same time ....

[Evans, Marv]

Flesh it out and write a book about it. Not real characters or events of course.

[rattlsnak]

Secrets are stupid.. Tell us.. please..

But seriously, a lot of secrets from my grandmothers era are simply just not shockers anymore in today's society. As an example, It was a MAJOR secret/shame for a teen school girl to get pregnant in those days. They were shuffled off to boarding schools and hidden away etc. Today? Those girls would post pics all over social media.

[craigster59]

The Wife got me an Ancestry kit for my birthday last year. Lo and behold, I was contacted by a woman in Alabama who had submitted Ancestry, 23 and Me and some other DNA test looking for her Father who was a Marine in Florida who got her Mom pregnant back in 1954.

Well, I now have an older sister I never knew existed. Very cool, never a word was mentioned in 58 years. There's skeletons in a lot of closets.

[Don Ro]

"We are as sick as our secrets."

- - John Bradshaw

[RKDinOKC]

Found out a lot of family secrets after my Mom had a mild stroke. She said she wanted to set me straight before she forgot since she was hearing other people's stories and they were mostly fabricated to make themselves sound better. I've personally heard them tell stories of events where I was there as a little kid (and I have very good memory), and they are now definitely re-writing history so to speak.

So, from my experience, if you ask around, you are NOT going to get the truth anyway. You will just give other's the chance to support their fabrications.

[pavulon]

Daylight is a disinfectant. Your FIL needed to tell someone his story. The trouble now is you have someone else’s story bothering you. If you need to be disinfected, you will need to make choices. Try to leave your FIL’s integrity intact.

[brainz01]

This was an interesting series of tests:

Originally Posted by fanaudical

Secrets of the past are usually kept secret for a reason.

Does anybody in your family stand to gain in a positive way from discussing the secret? Or is there more possibility of somebody getting hurt? Will divulging the secret tarnish good memories of the deceased?

I think the only reason I would discuss with others if it would prevent further harm.

It was a secret because at one time he might have been jailed or killed to surpress his secret - - but it's too late for any of that now, especially since he's gone. And he was smart enough to not share any details with me that would implicate or lead me to others - - but he did indicate that others like him exist.

I don't know whether he told me his secret because he just needed to offload to someone, or whether he wanted me to remember it as a cautionary tale, or perhaps as his version of the events should his story become known through other means, which is possible some day. He didn't sit me down and say "son, I want you to know this," rather he let slip a few odd statements that I finally decided to ask him about it near his end.

It would make an interesting storyline for a book or movie - - in fact my wife isn't sure he didn't just make it up based on other popular works. I only know the rough outline of his story as he recounted it to me over a few hours. I've recently written down as much of the exchange as I can remember as I was already forgetting details even though it's only been about 5 years since I heard it - - I wish I'd written it down much sooner. It's an interesting tale with some life lessons

As to whether anyone in the family would benefit or be harmed, or not be harmed. It'd be a neat story, but otherwise a non-event for most of the family. The potential emotional impact would be most focused on my MIL and maybe his sister. If they don't already know, I suspect it would confuse them as it did when I told my wife. It might make them question whether they really knew him or what else they didn't know about him. For these reasons, I have no intentions of discussing it with the family. I wouldn't want to hurt them to feed my curiosity.

I've looked up as much as I can on the internet. A lot of details he shared generally seem to fit with historical records. But I'm pretty sure a lot of the information isn't out there yet. If anything, I suspect related knowledge may be in the heads of some of the older guys here.

I need to think about discussing it in more detail with PPOT. Maybe I have Id01t setup a message board.

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[ossiblue]

I guess my question regarding this is, why do you think your FIL shared this secret with you? There are myriad other questions which follow, but without knowing anything of the substance of the secret, those other questions can only be formulated by you.

In your OP, you used many qualifiers about other family members, indicating that you really don't know if you are the only holder of this secret. Fair enough. That just underlines the question I posed--if you are the only one, why disclose it now, and why to you? If you can come up with a satisfying answer to that, it may guide you as to further inquiries with family members.

BTW, I'm another here who is anxious to hear what this secret may be.

[varmint]

After my mom died I was going through her papers. I was born in 68. The marriage certificate to my dad was dated 69.

Interesting.

[Por_sha911]

Remember in grade school when a child would sing/song "I know a secret that you don't" ?
That's how you'll come off if you bring it up but don't reveal the secret. Move on.