Lots of people have some small secrets they keep to themselves. Usually, they end up telling their SO and those closest to them. But, what if their boyfriend or girlfriend finds out a secret they didn't want them to know?
Here are stories from Reddit about people who found out the secret their SO didn't want them to know. Content has been edited for clarity.
Adding Insult To Injury
“She’s always insulting me behind my back. I caught her doing it twice. Both times I acted like I didn’t hear her. She made it a point to be extra nice to me after I pretended it didn’t happen. The thing is she insults everyone she knows, from her family to her friends. I actually always expected she was insulting me, only because those she loves most sometimes get the worst of it. I feel like it’s just something she does without thinking, and there’s no turning it off.
Even worse, I think she thinks I do the same to her. But I don’t. And it hurts.
Letting Lies Slide For His Daughter’s Sake
“My ex-wife talks poorly about me to her family and friends. My daughter hears it all and sometimes feels embarrassed when I have her and when we go out to do something. My ex petitioned for an anullment and got it. She doesn’t know that as part of it I got to read everything she made up about me. She propagated it all to her family. I could have shown the panel at the tribunal the racy pictures and videos she used to send to me while at work where she would ask for all kinds of things to be done to her. They could have been a defense for her claiming I made her do it all for 9 years, but at that moment I just put the phone down and said that it isn’t true and that they shouldn’t believe her.
Then, I confirmed that I was diagnosed with depression. They granted her the anullment. My daughter is dealing with it ok and seeing a shrink. I do my best to be a role model to her in every aspect and don’t touch on the subject because she doesn’t want to.”
Discovered Through An IPad
“She texts her ex all day every day. She sends him selfies, tells him he misses him, they have movie text dates where they watch the same movie at the same time, they fall asleep on the phone together. The worst part for me is they talk badly about me and she refers to me as ‘number three’ as in her third boyfriend. She makes stuff up and will tell him something I did that never happened. They will call me names and laugh about it.
She hasn’t sent nudes yet and never agrees to meet up with him in person. But, he frequently tries. She will occasionally mention to me ‘oh my ex is texting me, he’s so annoying.’ Meanwhile, she’ll be waiting for me to sleep so she can watch a movie with him. It sucks finding out through our kid’s tablet that is synced with her phone. I’m still not sure how or when I’m going to break it off.
Girlfriend Or Secret Agent?
“She has secret weapons and Meals Ready To Eat buried in the forest and a couple of locations in the US, including Yellowstone. Every five years, she takes a road trip with the ‘girls.’ She also has a false shelf in her apartment with a weapon hidden inside.
I learned about this because I was watching one of those Youtube videos about secret rooms and hidden furniture and it clicked when I saw the shelves. I checked it and when I opened it, there it was. Then I checked her computer and found nothing. But after snooping around enough, I found a go bag, with a weapon, ammo, Meals Ready To Eat, medical supplies, a medical stapler, among other things. There was also a few paper maps marking locations. One of those places was nearby enough, 30 miles, so I decided to check it myself. It was a buried hard case about four feet deep, that had a weapon, ammo, what seemed like a bucket of rations, about $400, plus ten 1oz silver coins. Everything was vacuum sealed. I think all the locations have the exact same stuff.
It’s hard to imagine, but all in all, there are seven locations marked. I’ve never brought it up, but now every once in a while, I notice that she has things hidden all over her apartment. I was going to change a light switch that was sort of not working properly. I found a key in a thin plastic container. I googled around and its a safety deposit box key for a bank in the middle of nowhere Michigan.
Like, what am I supposed to say to her? Are you James bond’s daughter? Jason Borne’s sister? Is Skynet hunting you?”
Bills, Bills, Bills
“My significant other has some substantial debt from a couple poor decisions right after high school that she thinks I don’t know about. She racked up about $25K after graduation between getting herself a car, not paying attention to her credit card, and student loans. She’s not the best with money, and she doesn’t know how much our apartment or any of the bills related to it are. We’re evenly splitting the bill across all our roommates, but she hasn’t paid her full share in about a year and a half. She thinks she has because I’ve been the one telling her how much she owes each month. I’ve been paying about $300 for her on top of my portion and the portion for my siblings.
But she’s too proud to ask for help with her debt. I don’t want to make her feel insecure by drawing her attention to it, so I’ve been doing things behind the scenes to help her out. I’ve been teaching her some about budgeting. She’s getting close to paying it all off. Once she’s done, I’m going to explain to her what I did.”
“Forgiving Not Stupid”
“About 10 years ago, my wife made out with a guy friend of hers while she was wasted at a birthday party. I only knew because she left her messaging client open where she confessed it to her best friend. I let it slide because she seemed genuinely upset that she did it and vowed to her friend that it would never happen again. We’ve been married for over 20 years now so it hasn’t dampened the relationship at all.
Now mind you, I never left the two of them together alone again. I’m forgiving, not stupid.”
At The Gym Or With Jim?
“After my car was almost stolen, I installed a tracker on my car and my ex-wife’s car for safety reasons. She saw me working on her car and I mentioned a bunch of times that I was putting it in my car as well. I kinda figured she knew what I was doing. But, that’s how I found out that when she would go to the ‘gym,’ she was actually at her ex’s house.
I confronted her about it. She lied through her teeth every time.”
Vacation Betrayal
“My girlfriend went to Hawaii with her mom over Father’s Day weekend. I had no phone during that time so our only communication was through email. She was being so lovey-dovey and telling me how much she missed me, how badly she wanted me to be there with her there, and how terrible she felt about being out of town during Father’s Day.
Fast forward two months. I was taking the recycle out one day and saw a torn up sheet of paper. I grabbed it out due to curiosity. It was a sheet from her journal talking about how she cheated on me. I tried to erase it from my memory but this one part that stuck with me: ‘I cheated in Hawaii. This is what I get for not being honest.’
What does that even mean? It sits in the back of my head sometimes. It’s really messing with me
What makes it more exciting is that she just gave me a four-week notice about her moving to Costa Rica for four months with her best friend. If she cheated on me while on vacation with her mom, imagine what she’ll do with her friend.”
She Was 16!
“He’s my ex now, obviously, but we were together for 9 years. He cheated on me for over a year with a coworker. He kept her a secret because she was underage. He was 26, she was 16. Once she turned 18, they made it public. He used to mention her in work stories here and there and I never thought of it as being anything. Then, he started driving me to work and keeping the car then picking me up. He wanted me nowhere near his workplace. He put a password on his phone. He got texts at odd hours, like at 6 am while she was waiting on the bus. I left work early and a friend took me to his workplace to meet him instead of him coming to mine to pick me up. Surprise! They left together, hand in hand, several minutes after everyone else exited the building.
I had already figured it out at this point, but I stupidly waited for him to come clean instead of calling him out. He wouldn’t. He worked as a retail manager and had a keeper box and magnet in our house. I locked his phone inside while he was in the shower and hid the magnetic key. I made him tell me everything, which he knew I already knew, before I would unlock his phone. Then I kicked him out.”
A Horrible Discovery
“My husband of 15 years was spending a couple of hours reading gay smut about young boys before coming upstairs to bed, usually I’d be asleep by then. ‘Reading’ as in stories of men with little boys, or their grandsons, sons or nephews. Stories of the scoutmaster, or the teacher enticing a boy into the barn. ‘Reading’ is legal. Pictures are not. He was very careful. Once I stumbled across it, I had to deal with the shock that our marriage had been a lie. I’d been useful for breeding, nothing else.
I also knew he was in denial about something deep. He wasn’t going to make good decisions on my behalf, or for his own life, and for our marriage, our sons and our futures. So, I put key tracking software onto the computer with the only justification being that if he spent any money or tried to contact a boy, that I would have to act. Meanwhile, I tried to work out what I was going to do. He never knew that I knew exactly what he was doing. He lied to my face when I sympathetically tried to discuss it. The story is long and sordid and didn’t end well.”
An Obvious Hiding Place
“One day, I walked into the bedroom and my longtime girlfriend was kneeling by the bed on her side where she sleeps. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but eventually, it got into my head. So one day I went to her side and picked up the mattress, I found a short length of straw and a bottle of painkiller medicine with her mother’s name on it. I put it back. I called my mom and my friends to see what I should do. Then I called her mom, who asked me what the date on the bottle was. I was only like 90% sure on the date, but turns out they were the prescription that had gone missing from her mailbox.
It took me a few more days to work up the courage to actually confront her. Just before I did, I lifted up the mattress again and there was nothing there. Despite that, later that night, I caught her falling asleep standing up and I confronted her. She, of course, denied it and denied it so well I started to question what I had even seen. I think the kids call it gaslighting. She was obviously too high to leave, so I left and got a room at the closest fleabag motel. She did finally confess. I wish I could say that was the end of the relationship, but it wasn’t.”
Sneaky Selfies
“We broke up a few days ago. She would send lewd snaps of herself before or after showering to her guy friend. One time, I was just laying in bed and she went to shower. She turned the water on and I heard her clothes fall to the floor. Then, I heard the iPhone camera sound. I didn’t think anything of it but weeks later there was a similar situation. I walked in to use the restroom and see her camera right as she took a Snapchat.
It was a picture of her posing suggestively and biting her lip. I couldn’t read the name of the recipient, but the name had unmistakable emojis on it. I knew who it for. I just said, ‘Oookay’ and did my business. She kind of fumbled some sort of excuse but I just didn’t say anything. We broke up the following week for a multitude of reasons, but that definitely didn’t help any.”
Two Secrets In One
“I found out my then-girlfriend was bulimic. After living together for a few months I came home, while she was at work, to cook chicken in the oven. I could not find the cooking dish to put the chicken on. I looked everywhere in the kitchen and all around the house. The last place to look was under our bed.
I found the tray with crumbs of brownies. I immediately knew what was up. I confronted her right away when she came home. She screamed at me and said it was wrong of me to find out. Also found out she was using illegal substances.”
He Texts His Ex But It’s Not What You Think
“He talks poorly about my son and me behind our back to his daughter’s mother. I’m a no-nonsense parent who doesn’t allow children to run the house. His daughter’s mother loves to text him complaining about us. He has complaining sessions about how awful we are every time she does it. I don’t know if he really thinks we are awful or just likes to complain.
I found this out about seven years ago. I think it is a combination of thinking his child can do no wrong and his ignorance of children on the spectrum, like my son. I could have confronted him. I knew if I was confrontational, he would be defensive and shut down. I took the approach of having our family do in-home therapy. My husband has come a long way through in-home therapy. He obviously still struggles with being a prick. I haven’t checked in recently to see if he still does it. I would say he still does because he did it so often for so long. I hope not though. I try not to think about it always bothers me.”
She Wasn’t At A Friends For “No Reason”
“My ex cheated for the better part of our relationship. I knew about most of it but stuck it out for the kid. At one point, she stayed at a friend’s house for a few days. She gave no reason why. A couple months later, while looking in her wallet, I noticed an ultrasound with date stamps for around the time she was gone.
I assumed she had an abortion during that time. I finally worked up the courage to leave that ‘relationship’ about a year later for many reasons. I have never talked to her about that. I don’t ever plan to. But I can’t help wonder if it could have been mine? Probably not, but you never know.”
Covert College Application
“I’m a high school senior in California. My girlfriend and I are applying for college.
Her family is mostly in Colorado and she considered college there before dating me. However, we understand that we will stay here now and not move out of state. We’ve been dating for almost a year now and she’s applied to two universities there in Colorado.
I know the real reason is to have those colleges as backups in case we break up. Obviously, it’s a reasonable thing to do, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sting.”
A Message From A Lawyer
“I know that my girlfriend has joined a lawsuit against a certain taxi/carpooling company regarding being assaulted by one of their drivers.
I know about the assault, but she hasn’t told me about the lawsuit. I just saw a message from the lawyer handling her case one day. I haven’t asked her about it or brought it up.”