What secrets do most of your friends & family not know about you?

[Anonymous]

I’ve been married 12 years and the entire time have had a mostly emotional affair with another man. We’ve met once to have sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll start: I had a brief, 3-year marriage in my 20s.

I also had a brief marriage in my 20s that almost no one knows about

I’ve had more than one abortion

I was sexually abused as a child, by multiple people

I am a survivor of domestic abuse

I was marginally homeless for about a year in my 20s


I am now in a very happy marriage, have three beautiful kids, have a very comfortable HHI, and have a stable, boring job. Most people would be shocked to learn these things about me.

Have you had therapy?

Does your spouse know?

Do you think there are emotional scars that influence how you I aren’t?

I am in therapy and have been on and off since I was 20 (I’m in my late 30s). Despite the deep dysfunction of my past I have always had a sense of what to do to progress forward and to improve.

My spouse knows some things, but not everything.

Of course I have emotional scars from these experiences. I am not defined by them anymore, though, and I have come to peace with my past.

I am very happy that you were able to make a great life for yourself.

You deserve nothing less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am estranged from my family of origin. My mother wasn't speaking to her mother or family of origin when she died. My father stopped speaking to me and my sister, and he remarried five years after my mother died without telling me or my sister. My sister stopped speaking to me. I still communicate with her husband via FB. My sister cleaned out my parents house. She took everything including my personal belongings from my childhood still at my mother's. I have no pictures of my childhood.

When my mother died in the hospital, my sister threw shoes at me across the room. When I called or visited my mother in the hospital, my sister would hang up the phone or interfere. She denies any of this. She tells people the nurses at the hospital didn't know she had a sister. There is a history of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse and violence among the women in my family of origin.

PP, thank you for sharing this.

I am not fully estranged from them, but have a similar story of dysfunction and abuse in my family of origin. I do not speak to any of my siblings. My parents are still alive and I maintain a distant relationship with them just to have some kind of link to my family of origin. Lying is also rampant in my family, both to one another and to others to try and cover up what has actually happened.

My husband knows about this and a few friends know I'm "not close" to my family, but don't know the extent of it. One of the hardest things is talking to be about their families. Even when people tell me about conflicts or issues with their parents or siblings, a part of me feels horribly sad and just warped and not normal. I have to work hard not to engage in self talk about it or to believe that because my family is so messed up, I must be irrevocably messed up too. I also struggle with how to present all of this to my DC. So far I haven't shared any of it (they are still very young) but I don't know what the balance is between honesty (my family of origin was very secretive in a way I think is toxic) and burdening them with this pain. I'm working on it.

I sometimes wish more people with these family histories would/could talk about it (including me) because I find it so isolating. I just feel like I don't really have family or any kind of familial support network and I often feel like this is so anomalous, but I know their are others. But I think we stay quiet out of shame, and people who talk about their families a lot tend to be people with good, loving families.

So appreciate you sharing your story because it makes me feel less alone. Hopefully my story makes you feel less alone, too. It is hard to be a chain breaker, hard to go it alone, hard to feel like your inheritance is primarily one of dysfunction and what NOT to do, and that the healthier and happier you are, the further it takes you from you family of origin. Solidarity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Had an affair with much older married prof when in grad school. He harassed me, I was petrified - saw him as father figure - but didn’t report bc I didn’t want to be responsible for him getting fired. Ended up lasting a year. It was awful.

Maybe report it now.

If he is still teaching, you could protect another young woman.

(I have done this twice. Nothing legal, but warned the employer that if anyone reported something similar...they should believe them.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I left my first husband for my second husband. We’ve been married for 15 years and have lives in a totally different part of the country for 10 of them. The way our relationship started hasn’t come up in years.

he can he trust you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH has no idea I identified as bisexual when we married and now identify as a lesbian married to a man. He doesn’t even know I’m attracted to women. If we divorce (which we very well might because we don’t get along for reasons having nothing to do with my sexuality), I’ll never date another man again.

Why do you think it is okay to lie to him about who he married?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I eliminated the man who broke into my home after following my kid home.

Do you mean killed?

What is with the euphemism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents are 1st cousins.

hmmm...that's a contender for top secret.

Not in Virginia. My first cousins married each other too.

+2. I didn’t even think this was a secret. I’ve seen several families do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m liberal but voted for Trump the past 2 elections.

For selfish/tax reasons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I eliminated the man who broke into my home after following my kid home.

Do you mean killed?

What is with the euphemism?

Maybe she means she ate him and then eliminated him after he was digested?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH has no idea I identified as bisexual when we married and now identify as a lesbian married to a man. He doesn’t even know I’m attracted to women. If we divorce (which we very well might because we don’t get along for reasons having nothing to do with my sexuality), I’ll never date another man again.

Um, ok... lol. Don't believe that for a second. You aren't being your true self, so you can't be authentic with him. Of course that causes issues and resentment on both sides over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I won the lottery. They think I just wanted to be a SAHM when DH got promoted.

Wow! Congratulations! Like how much?

Enough that I don't have to work (DH still wants to and does for our long term retirement planning) but not so much that it made the news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH has no idea I identified as bisexual when we married and now identify as a lesbian married to a man. He doesn’t even know I’m attracted to women. If we divorce (which we very well might because we don’t get along for reasons having nothing to do with my sexuality), I’ll never date another man again.

Why do you think it is okay to lie to him about who he married?

She didn’t lie. She was bisexual when she married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m liberal but voted for Trump the past 2 elections.

That's ok. It just makes you a poor racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My estranged father committed suicide 30 years ago when I was in college. I say “he died in a car accident”. Only my mother (who was abused by him when they were married) and my 2 siblings know.

I am severely depressed. I am so tired, have zero friends, and no hobbies. I am on anti depressant but stopped therapy when we moved during Covid (because it wasn’t really working). I am coping by distracting myself with Netflix and podcasts. My DH is so caught up in his career that he doesnt seem to notice. Or he thinks I’m lazy. I am fake and mask it well enough.

Although I don’t have a reason to want to live, I know I will never harm myself; because I don’t want to do that to my kids - high school junior and college freshman. I don’t know what I’m going to do when my youngest graduates next year. We are very well off 7 figure HHI but “money doesnt buy happiness”. I think my DH deserves someone better - happier and more active for the retirement years. I sometimes don’t want to try.

My 2 secrets are probably related.

Your father's cause of death is part of your medical history. You should tell, at least, your medical providers.

There are many types of treatment for depression, and they work. Do not give up.

Please please seek treatment from a psychiatrist (or start with your internist). You deserve a better life. And your children would benefit also from having a happy mom.

You have a treatable illness, that is probably genetic. Seek treatment. Depression is highly treatable.