One of the best things one can do for a friend or loved one is to listen to them when they have a secret to share. Often, people will keep their darkest truths bottled up inside until they simply need to let them out. Once it's out in the open though, it becomes much easier to address the consequences of what happened.
These people learned something shocking about a person close to them, and have been asked to maintain confidentiality. But listeners also need a chance to get these heavy thoughts off their chest. They have shared their comments here anonymously through Reddit.
(Content has been edited for clarity)
Your Father Was Not The Man You Think He Was
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“My friend’s son (she’s his mother) believes his father and stepfather both had heart attacks and died around the same time.
In reality, his real father was touching him inappropriately and his stepfather went to his house and shot him in the head and then committed suicide. This boy was the stepdad’s entire world. In all ways except biological, he was this boy’s real father. It absolutely devastated my friend. For years afterward, she would wake up in the middle of the night with her son’s head on her chest. He was ‘Checking to make sure her heart wasn’t attacking her.’
It was all over the news and I always hope for his sake that he never Googles his father’s or stepfather’s names. To this day, he wants to be a heart surgeon so that no one else he loves will die of heart attacks.”
Caught In The Middle Of It
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“My parents are cheating on each other. They both don’t know. My mom accidentally texted me a dirty message that wasn’t meant for me and made me promise not to say anything to my dad. I had to use my dad’s phone a couple of weeks later when my phone died, and he got an inappropriate text from someone that wasn’t my mom. He made me promise not to tell my mom.
I’ve been keeping this secret for 2 and a half years now, it’s torturous.”
Not Quite Happily Ever After
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“My friend married his wife about 2 years ago. She’s a Thai woman, about 20 years his junior and quite statuesque. By all appearances, they’ve got a good thing going. They seem happy enough and have a little boy.
After drinking one night, he told me about how he found her on the Internet. Their basic arrangement is that she would fly over and be his wife, and he would send money to her mother back to Thailand every month. Apparently, it hasn’t been going well. He told me about how he fears she might just up and leave him. He told me he thinks he should hide her passport so she can’t run back to Thailand.
Yeah, kinda dampened my liking of the guy.”
I Showed Up To A Strange Birthday Party
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“A friend in high school had a baby that her family decided to raise and take custody of, but the way I found out is something I’ll never forget.
It was impressive how under wraps the whole thing was, and it seemed believable that her parents would’ve had another baby (she got pregnant at 13). I dropped by one weekend to drop off an item my friend loaned me for prom and saw that a birthday celebration was going on for the toddler.
Her face, when she saw me, was a mixture of emotions. I didn’t know if she was in pain, upset, angry… it seemed like everything was running through her at the same time. When I asked if she was alright, she just broke down and started crying. She cried about how hard it was waking up and calling her son ‘little brother,’ how hard it was to know she was so unfit to be a mom, that her parents wouldn’t even acknowledge the fact that biologically, it was her kid. I just listened and let her cry.
We never spoke about it after that. I don’t think there was any need to. There’s no way I could understand what she was going through. But I will always be there for her if it comes up again in our lifetime.”
He Still Feels Ashamed Of What Happened That Night
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“An older male friend of mine (he’s 54, I’m 31) and I got really wasted together and he confessed to me that his first intimate experience was when he was 15, and he was hitchhiking. He got picked up by a trucker who proceeded to point a weapon at him. The trucker then blew my friend, still holding the weapon.
The thing that my friend agonizes over is that despite his terror, he actually finished. I am the only person he has ever told. Somehow, I know a lot of these types of secrets about not only my friends but also random strangers that I meet. I don’t know what it is about me that just makes people want to confess messed up things to me.
What’s even more strange is MY (and my dad’s ) secret is that I am the illegitimate daughter of a Catholic priest, so people confess things to my dad all day. It’s like we are both paying for his secret by having to hear other people’s messed up secrets constantly.”
These Dudes Can’t Face The Truth
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“I lived with a dude back in college along with three other dudes. We’ll call him Dude #1. One night we got a handle of The Captain and decided the five of us would polish it off. Everyone got considerably hammered and Dude #1 and Dude #2 went down to the basement to smoke. By this time Dude #3 and Dude #4 was already passed out. I was too, for a while, but woke up in a stupor to take a leak.
When I got out of the bathroom I heard a series of strange noises emanating from the basement—heavy breathing, a familiar slurping sound, and what sounded like someone wringing out a wet sponge over and over again. I decided to investigate. I crept quietly down the stairs and peeked my head down below the ceiling. Even though I was half in the bag, I’ll never forget what I saw.
Dude #1 was on his knees between Dude #2’s legs (he was sitting on our smoking couch) furiously jerking himself off, while also blowing Dude #2. I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were both in long-term relationships with pretty attractive women, Dude #2 has actually since gotten married!
So I walked back up the stairs and passed out and never mentioned it to either of them or anyone for that matter, until now. Dudes, if you’re reading this: Your secret is safe with me. Sort of…”
Her Boss Wasn’t The Innocent Woman She Thought She Was
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“My old boss (and now friend) had her brother-in-law forcefully taken advantage of in prison when he was convicted of murdering his wife (my boss’s sister).
I found out because when I was 16, my stepfather was found guilty of abusing me throughout my teenage years and was sent to prison. I told my boss what was going on so she would know why I had been missing so much work, as I felt she would fire me otherwise. She took me out the back of the shop, told me how her sister had been murdered by her husband, and how she and her husband had paid a lot of money to some shady people to arrange for him to be taken advantage of in the prison showers. My boss was a normal, motherly, middle-aged woman, so this blew my mind.
She then offered to have the same thing done to my stepfather in prison for me. I politely declined, but to be honest I was kind of touched that she cared about me enough to do that for me. Obviously what she did was super illegal, even though nothing would probably come of it if it did get out.
Her brother-in-law stabbed her sister to death in front of their two young children because he was abusive and she had decided to leave him, so I can’t really judge her for wanting to inflict as much pain as possible on that piece of garbage. I have no idea how she organized it or how she knew they followed through with it, I was too shocked to ask any follow-up questions. She did imply that she knew a few people inside the prison though.
Almost 10 years later, we’re still friends, even though neither of us works at that shop anymore and there’s more than a 20-year age gap between us. We’ve never spoken of that conversation again though, I wonder if she even remembers it.”
The Most Disturbing Sound He Will Ever Hear
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“This kid I went to high school would get it on with his dog.
Now, a little backstory. I was over at his house hanging out with him. At one point he went into his room to change his clothes. About 5 minutes later, his parents ask me if I could go get his dog Rowdy and put him outside. So I’m walking to the back of the house to where I hear Rowdy making some noises. I open the door to the laundry room (where Rowdy slept), and there’s this guy pounding down on his dog. In the calmest, blank face I could muster I said, ‘Your mother wants Rowdy outside… he needs to take a… bath’ and walked away.
I then proceeded to get completely hammered that night hoping I could forget I had ever witnessed it. I did not succeed.”
They Were Sitting Together Behind The School When, Out Of Nowhere, She Said It
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“When I was 12 a school friend told me that her older brother had been assaulting her and she was worried that she would get pregnant now that she got her period. The worst thing was that her parents knew.
I told, and just not our peers. I told her teacher and I guess that blew up. I’m fairly sure that older brother got what was coming to him. Evil little psycho.
To add some background, I didn’t know her very well but she was a very sweet, vulnerable child. Kids tended to stay away from her because she was a little ‘off.’ To this day I remember her face so well. She was very striking. White blonde hair and blue, blue eyes. She had this really goofy laugh too.
I was 12 but she was 13. We ended up hanging out one day behind our classroom and she told me. I’ve noticed that these kinds of things just come out. There was no preamble. One minute we were talking about nothing much and next thing she offloaded all this heavy stuff. I questioned her about it, found out more detail because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It’s like she just needed someone to talk too. I won’t get too detailed because it’s been ten years since I’ve seen her and her business is her business.
I kept that secret for a day. The weight of it just suffocated me. Even at 12 I could not just sit by and let this happen to another girl. I was worried that she would become pregnant. I would not let that happen. So I told her teacher. She took me seriously and as far as I know the family broke up and she moved with her mother. I distinctly remember her teacher crying over it later on.
These days I feel like it never happened. I think of her from time to time and hope to god that things got better for her. She really was a sweet, kind child.”
A Tragedy That Could Have Been Avoided
“This is pretty sad. When I was only 1 week old, my parents were asked to babysit my twin cousins (age 4, 1 male and 1 female). Including myself, and my siblings (1, and 4 years old), there were 5 children in the house.
Well, at about 1:00 in the morning when everyone was asleep, the male twin gets up by himself and starts playing with a lighter he found. (Most of the adults in our family smoke, so lighters were a common sight.) Well, my cousin sets the house on fire and runs to wake up my parents. ‘The house is on fire, the house is on fire!’ he yells. For some reason, the fire alarms didn’t go off. They rush to get everyone out. After getting outside, my dad does a headcount and realizes that one of the kids is missing. It’s the female twin, she’s still in the house.
My dad rushes back inside and at this point, the house is completely in flames. He tries to save the female twin, after several minutes of looking, he passes out from smoke inhalation and is badly burned. Paramedics save him (although he’s in ICU for a long time), but are unable to find the female twin in time. She doesn’t make it. After the fire is put out, they find the female twin crouched in a corner in the fetal position, having died of smoke inhalation.
Everyone in the family pretends that someone left a lit smoke in an ashtray, which started the fire. As far as we know, nobody ever told my cousin that he started the fire that killed his sister, and they hope he was too young to remember.
As many have told me if anyone is to blame it would be my parents for leaving a lighter within reach. They were young (20 and 21), uneducated, and poor. It was a horrible thing, and they accepted responsibility, and never emotionally recovered from the incident. Please make sure to check your fire alarms, and make sure your house is childproof!”
He Offered Soda In Exchange For Silence
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“A friend of my parents used to rob houses in his late teens and early twenties. I only know this because he brought me along on one job when he was supposed to be babysitting me. I was 6 at the time. We were driving in his truck and pulled up to a gate at a farm several miles out of town. He tells me to stay put as he stepped out to cut the lock on the gate.
‘This is a friend’s house. Don’t worry.’
We drive up to the house, and once again he tells me to stay put. He disappears for a few minutes. He puts a couple of power tools, a small TV and a toolbox in the back of the truck. He has also grabbed a case of pop from inside and only promised to share if I didn’t tell anybody about anything that night. And until now, I haven’t.
He went back to school a few years after that and almost 20 years later is now happily married with children and a mildly successful business.”
You Will Never Be Forgiven For Your Crimes
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“My ex-husband is a child abuser. He touched my niece when she was 7-8 years old, and she confided in me around age 11. I did tell her parents, who decided not to press charges ‘because it would be too hard on her.’ Personally, I think that is a cop-out response because they just want to sweep it under the rug. I spoke to the police, but as I’m not a guardian or teacher, they can press no charges on my word.
I approached him about it and he straight-faced admitted to it. I have emails from him where he admits to and attempts to justify it. I want to scream from every mountaintop here so that everyone can know what monster hides behind that friendly face, but I can’t. All I can do is tell my niece I’m sorry I brought him into her life, and that any help she needs, I will move heaven and earth to get it.”
She Has Her Own Secret, And She Knows Her Friend’s Secret Too
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“I was touched inappropriately by my step-brother. Repeatedly for six months. I haven’t told anyone, ever. God, it messed me up.
On top of that, my friend from high school was pretty messed up. When she was fourteen she got into an overly serious relationship with a 24-year-old. He proceeded to forcefully take advantage of her. Ever since that experience, she has felt unworthy of love and degraded herself daily.
Another not-so-secret secret of hers: she got fingered daily for a week in class. I couldn’t believe my ears.
Another one: my girlfriend’s mother was taken advantage of, resulting in the birth of my girlfriend’s older sister. Her mother told me while she was wasted that sometimes she wishes she had aborted her.”
In One Phone Call, Her Father Shattered Her Spirits
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“Not exactly a dark secret, but it certainly caused a lot of shame for this person.
I was in an elevator at my university and the girl next to me was someone I recognized. I said hi, and she starts telling me about how she just came from the advisor’s office, having changed her major… again. She told me, in tears by this point that her 24th birthday was the same week, and she spent the day crying because her dad called her first thing and asked if he would finally see her walk the stage that year.
In a 3-floor elevator ride, this girl was completely reduced to a puddle of tears. I don’t remember what I did, but I wish I had taken the time to talk to her, maybe buy her a coffee or tea. I hope she made it.”
She Was The Victim Of Sick People On The Internet
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“A friend of mine, who posted pictures of herself on Tumblr, found out that some freak had downloaded all of them to his computer. After she had taken them down, some messed-up online group he was a part of re-posted the pictures and started to worship her, jerking off to the images, looking up her real address.
The guy then posted the pictures on an adult content website. Because of this, she took 7 downer pills to try and relax (she wasn’t trying to kill herself) and wound up going to the hospital. A few friends know what really happened, but everyone else just knows it was an ‘incident,’ and her parents haven’t a clue.”
She’ll Find Out Eventually, Won’t She?
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“My entire family has been lying to one of my cousins about who her dad is. My uncle fell in love with and married a teenage girl (my aunt) who already had a baby with an estranged father and, since they’re old-school Mexican, my uncle claimed the baby as his to outsiders. They tell my cousin that the reason they don’t have pictures of her as a baby with my uncle is that their house burned down and that this is the reason they left Mexico. She has NO IDEA her dad isn’t her biological dad even though literally everyone else in our family knows. She seems pretty messed up though, so she might suspect something is up.
I also have an aunt that has been married for 20+ years that cheats on her husband like mad. Her husband is the nicest, funniest, and humblest man I’ve ever met and the least deserving of this. Shes not subtle about it either, receiving flowers and her lovers showing up at her house. My uncle is either REALLY oblivious or he’s the best actor I know.”
They Were Having A Very Merry Christmas, Indeed
“In college, my grandmother was terrible at math. She only needed one more credit to graduate but was hovering just below a passing grade. She returned home for holiday break. A classmate of hers actually lived just across the street from her. She saw the classmate’s car pull up and went over to say hi. Before she could get there, though, out comes her sixty-something-year-old married math professor. Apparently, he had been having a long-term affair with his student.
So, grandma did what any kind neighbor would do and went over to wish the two of them a very merry Christmas! Her math grades went up considerably after that.”
I Can’t Believe They Are Still Together After That
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“An ex-friend of mine who I was very close to at the time had an affair with a guy who got her pregnant. This guy was pushing her to abort the baby and basically mentally tormented her to the point where she was physically stressed and had a miscarriage. She sat at home and lost her baby.
After that, she was never the same. She obviously never told her long-time boyfriend and 5 years later they are still together. I don’t know how she deals with it, not being able to tell the one person you should be able to confide in. I don’t know how ‘dark’ this is but I know it’d eat me up.”