If you know someone's secret, by it's own definition, it's no longer a secret. So, wouldn't that mean the rest of the world can already know this piece of information? Thankfully, the internet is more than willing to provide outlets for people to log-on and divulge the one tidbit they imagined they would have died before sharing.
Reddit user, u/Raliuus, wanted to know what the secrets already out there when they asked:
Not Who They Think
Two of my cousins were conceived via sperm donor.
They think their dad is their biological father and they are adults now.
What I Do With My Own Money Is My Own Business
Giphy
I'm rich as f-ck.
Family thinks I'm not doing well and I want to keep it that way, as soon as they hear anything about money they come and leech it away and use it for drugs and sh-t. I dont live fancy, I bought a nice one bedroom apartment where I live with my 2 cats, Peanut and Pipsqueek. I have a nice computer and a normal car. I just save my money or donate it to random charities every now and then.
Just Be Honest?
A friend who is outwardly happily married pulled me aside before the wedding, at which I was a groomsman, to have a word. I thought he was just having cold feet, so I rather jocularly told asked him if staring down the barrel of a life sentence had got him looking for the door.
Well, he got extremely serious and said that I was right, because he's gay and can't ever truly love his soon-to-be wife the way he should. This was a confident, swaggering dude who I thought would punch a lion in the face if it looked at him the wrong way. The kind of dude who conveys with his posture that he means business, and his business is being awesome. I always thought of him as the man with a plan, who never got flustered and always had the right answer to our silly problems. And here he was in front of me, quaking and filled with terror because he knew that he had gotten himself into a real jam by being dishonest with himself and those he cared about. I hated it. It was like watching my dad get beat up.
My advice was to be honest with his fiancee, and to talk to her before the ceremony about it. That no one would blame him, that this happens, and that while it was painful now he would be respected in the long term for being upfront and preventing further hurt. He left me saying that he would do so.
He came back 30 minutes later pale and sweaty, and told us all the ceremony was still on. It was, and they got married and we all toasted their future while he shot me pained looks all night long–looks that gradually faded the more he drank and lost himself in the celebration.
They've been married for 5 years, and have a kid. They look happy. I hope they are. It's not for me to say anything, but I will be there for both of them when he spills the beans.
"Lost To Dementia"
My mother told me, and only me, about the fact that my dad cheated on her years ago. He traveled for his job and one day a letter came addressed to him that was mangled. My mother would never open mail or pry, but this letter started with "Dearest love" - she could only see it because the mail sorter had ripped it.
I don't know the full details, as my mom did not share them all. I don't know why she decided to tell me and not my other 4 siblings. She said she decided to stay with dad because she had 5 children and didn't think she could make it alone. She loves him still at age 83, but did also say about 20 years ago that she should never have stayed with him and should have left him after the first baby. I love both my parents and my family, so I will never share this. It will go to her grave with her as she probably no longer remembers it - lost to dementia as are so many of her memories. Dad takes care of her to the best of his ability and they still live together. Mom still has her house she loves.
One I've Never Known
My mother only told me when I was an adult, that I had an older half-brother who was given up for adoption.
I grew up with the identity of being the eldest sibling, and she asked me not to tell my other siblings. We had a very stable and loving childhood, but it's odd to view things through that lens and wonder who this person is. I now carry that weight (guilt?), because I'm torn between honoring her wish, and feeling like I'm deceiving my own siblings. What would you do?
How Often Does This Happen?
We may have intentionally sabotaged an asset worth more money than everyone that reads this thread's lifetime income combined, because it was malfunctioning and the contractor refused to acknowledge it needed replacement. We forced the issue.
They replaced it.
Guessing military crap.
I used to be one of the contractors.
Sabotage was such a common way to get upgrades I suspect it's damn near taught.
Want the computers replaced but you aren't due for 3 more years? No worries, ensure the pc is on, whip out the angle grinder and start grinding whatever metal crap you can find in front of the air intake.
Weird. Whole rack is dead. No idea how that happened... Guess it's time for a full refit....
We all knew. We just didn't care.
Haven't Done That Since I Was A Baby
When I was a teenager, I got really drunk and my friend dared me to take a sh-t in someone's front garden. I did. Months later my mother moved into the house and the sh-t was still in the garden, she went mad about people not cleaning up after their dogs.
My mother cleaned my sh-t out of her garden.
A Batch Of Letters For The Ages
Giphy
I know what my grandmother tossed into the well in her back yard before it was boarded up.
It was a box of "love letters" she discovered - written by my grandfather's girlfriend. (Since she never knew of his affair, I think it broke her heart. Part of her went down that well with those letters.)
She Was Already Gone
There's part of me that's always felt so guilty about this, but the other part of me thinks that I did the right thing. When my mother-in-law was in hospice and dying, we had gotten the call that her last rights were being read to her and we should come because it was very close. The family gathered in her room, my father in law(her husband of 42 years) had been by her side and hadn't left for days. We were there for hours, my sister in laws had to take there kids home at some point, so they had left and it was just my husband, me, and my FIL left.
The nurses were saying that they might have spoken to soon because she was still hanging on, it was awful to watch. My FIL looked ragged and tired and he said he was just going to go to the other floor for a cup of coffee, my husband went with him. I said I would call if something changed but he was only going to be gone for 15 minutes maybe. About 5 minutes after they left my MIL really started to have very labored breathing, I called the nurse to see what was happening and by the time she came to the room (maybe 2 minutes) she had past.
I asked the nurse to wait for me to get my FIL and husband back to the room to pronounce her dead. They rushed back and my FIL held her and after a minute the nurse and doctor pronounced. My FIL believes he made it back to the room and was holding her while she left this life, I have never told him or my husband. Only me and that sweet nurse know she was already gone. I have debated telling my husband this but he's always said he was comforted by watching his dad hold his mom when she died.
I know I will never tell my FIL this, when he talks about her he always mentions how he was there for that moment and I don't want to take that away from him. It would crush him. Part of me thinks she waited for everyone to leave the room so they didn't have to actually see her go, she was always worried about everybody else. I've never told anyone.
***WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SENSITIVE MATERIAL. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!***
I can't think of anything hilarious at the moment. Make us LOL.
Lady
Shocked Oh No GIF by Yêu LuGiphy"I have this friend, love him to bits, but his wife has a tendency of just constantly showing everyone pictures of their son at every social event. At the start it was understandable, but now I'm just like 'Lady, it's been two years; they're not going to find him.'"
UnoriginalUse
at 9am...
"Not the most morbid but I love Anthony Jeselnik’s story about his neighbor who has Alzheimer’s. 'One of my next door neighbors is a 90 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s. And every single morning at 9am he knocks on my door and asks me if I have seen his wife.'"
"'Which means that every single morning at 9am I have to explain to a 90 year old man suffering from Alzheimer’s that his wife has been dead for quite some time. Now I’ve thought about moving. I have thought about just not answering my door in the morning. But to be honest, it’s worth it… just to see the smile on his face.”
dreagan021
Comedy?
"Why can't orphans play baseball? They don't know where home is."
GW2RNGR
"Why can't orphans play tennis? They get confused when they hear love."
JayDub506
People who make comedy are evil. LOL.
The Darkness
That 70S Show Reaction GIF by LaffGiphy"Dark humor is like food; not everyone gets it."
storm_the_castle
God Laughs?
"A Holocaust survivor dies and goes to heaven, where she meets God. To break the tension she tells God a joke about the Holocaust, but God doesn’t laugh. The lady shrugs and says 'I guess you had to be there.'"
“'I guess you had to be there' is a common expression used when someone doesn’t laugh at a joke. It means that the comedy may not translate without the context of the situation."
"In this case the Holocaust survivor is saying it, meaning that during the Holocaust God was nowhere to be found. It’s not really a joke about the Holocaust, but the absurdity of belief in a benevolent God. Hilarious right?"
semimillennial
Oh Baby
"How many dead babies does it take to fix a light bulb? More than 3 cause my garage is still dark."
sirnibs3
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Because I don't know what it says about us as people if we laugh. Oye.
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Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor Liam_Tang asked:
"People who've divorced, aside from adultery, what were the irreconcilable differences that ended the marriage?"
You think you know a person when you walk down the aisle.
These Redditors were in for a rude awakening.
Pet Neglect
"My wife divorced her ex for many reasons, but the final straw was when she went out of town for a few days, and when she got back he had not fed or given water to the dog. The dog lived a long and happy life after that."
– StrangeCrimes
Obsessed With A Crush
"Not me, but I had an old coworker that divorced his wife for spending their entire savings on candy crush and games of the same type."
– Hexis40
Compatibility Musts
"ITT: Intimacy (sex/romance), beliefs (religion/spirituality/politics), kids, and I haven’t seen it yet but it’s coming: finances."
"The big four. You REALLY need to discuss these things in detail BEFORE getting married."
– rabbiskittles
Physical violence is a legit reason for people to peace out of a relationship.
The Flattening
"She threatened to hit me with a hammer."
– michaelrohansmith
Hitting The Bottle
"She became an abusive alcoholic. It was sad but I had to get out."
– diegojones4
Emotional pain is too damaging to recover from.
Truth Hurts
"She told me as we stood in front of the judge ending our 7 year marriage, 'I never loved you, I just wanted kids.'"
– Pinch_Dogs
Can't Fix Angry
"She was beautiful/smart but an angry angry person. I thought I could be sweet to her and 'fix' that. Heh. She kicked the crap out of me emotionally. Wife II has been a walk in the roses for 32 years now :)"
– lowlandr
A change of heart is worthless if comes too late.
"We Could've Had A Nice Marriage
"He could not understand that my wants and needs were as important as his wants and needs. We tried to make it work for 7 years. During that time, for things that were really important to me, I tried explaining logically, asking nicely, begging, crying, yelling, passive aggressiveness... cycled back through all of these options multiple times."
"(If I knew something was important to him, I would do that. For example, he was really into sports, so I went to all his events, even though that is not at all my thing.) When I finally threw up my hands and told him it was time to get a divorce, he suddenly panicked and said 'What can I do? Do you want me to do half the chores? I'll do it! Do you want me to get a job? I'll do it! Do you want me to buy you presents for your birthday? I'll do it!'"
"So, in other words, he could have been doing that all along, but just couldn't be bothered. That made me so angry. We could have had a nice marriage that we both enjoyed, but no, by the time he saw the light, that ship had sailed."
"We are both happily remarried now (to different people) and I joke that his new wife owes me a thank you note. It was his experience with me that taught him to listen to her and take her needs seriously."
– Bluebird-True
"What Can I Do?"
"My ex was exactly like this. I didn't marry him but when I told him let's break up, he went all like, what can I do? Let's get engaged, let's look at houses, etc. Basically all the pre-marriage topics that we should be discussing about after being together for 7 years."
"I got so angry and straight up told him it's too late... I don't need you anymore."
– gudetarako
As much as a couple wants to stay together, unforeseen circumstances can eventually tear people apart.
Very few people can maintain healthy long-distance relationships.
When a new job opportunity takes a significant other away, would you begrudge them for wanting a better position to earn more money? Or is it better for them to reluctantly turn down the opportunity so they could stay with you? Do either scenarios breed resentment?
These were questions I've often asked myself with past relationships, and my answers varied depending on the person I was with.
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