What's some --more-- juicy gossip that you can't share irl but can share with nosy strangers on mumsnet?

I'm very surprised by this- its normally the other way round (she wants kids but he doesn't, so she stops taking contraception without his knowledge and gets pregnant anyway (claiming an "accident" or "pill failure), making the decision for him. More common than you think (but everyone on here seems to think it isn't!)).

I have a colleague (I'm a midwife) who went on a date with a guy from Tinder, and a few months later encountered him at the hospital with his heavily pregnant partner. Another colleague attended a family home for a postnatal visit and the dad was - you guessed it - a guy she'd matched with on a dating site. And another colleague delivered a woman's baby, and a year or so later received a message from the dad saying he'd split from his wife and wondered if my colleague was single as he'd really fancied her during the birth! 😱

I seem to remember that Laurie Lee commented that the traditional village idiot was often born of intermarriage and incestuous relationships that were known about and accepted because what else would you do, in an isolated village? I’m fairly sure that he wrote about a brother and sister in his village who lived together in a sexual relationship.

last week I was reading the news about an attempted murder and the attacker is someone I know. Photo of him in the news. That was a shock and sad too for everyone

😲

Excellent thread @mumofoneAloneandwell many thanks. lt reminds me that apparently Thomas Hardy kept a large file of cuttings from his local newspaper as the basis for plot outlines for his novels, which all have those devastating and seemingly unlikely coincidences

As a kid growing up in a town in Ireland, I walked past a terrace of houses with little front gardens on my way to school/ mass/ bus stop/ main street. Always there was man in the front of a house who shouted hello and waved at everyone. He had obvious intellectual disabilities and was known as his first name only, let's say 'Jim'. He had long hair and a beard and as a teen I thought he was anything between 20 and 60. I asked how he managed to live and was told he got supplies from the local shop across the road. I saw staff over and back a few times. After a few years I saw him move from the garden to the street outside and eventually crossing over to the shop. People talked about this, Jim is outside now, good for Jim etc. One day I asked my Mum if he went to a day centre or what was the deal. She said that two single unmarried sisters lived there and one died shortly followed by the other. When the body was removed, Jim was found, a full grown man kept in a back room in the house. Presumably born out of wedlock. Everyone knew this and just accepted it. It still blows my mind. Years later I studied child psychology and child development incl attachment theory etc and there were a few examples around the world of children help captive in this way and all seemed high profile. Yet there was Jim and the whole town knew and no one made a thing of it.

I was told of a couple who adopted a child , she’s now an adult but they have never told her she was adopted yet people in the local area know she is , I worry she’ll find out and be deeply hurt by this secret .

But surely it's not ok to shag your cousin either???

My brother isn't my brother he's my cousin.....

My mum and dad split when I was young, dad moved on and remarried. He and his wife had my "half brother" turns out out she had an affair with my uncle (dad's brother). "Brother" doesn't know.

I don't have anything to do with Dad (he's a narcissist, but that's a different story) and have "brother" on my Facebook... I just haven't found the words to tell him, my dad never will.

Well done for escaping!
Has he had any luck recruiting for his hareem?

Obviously not, because the father told them to stop

Friend of mine is a human rights lawyer. Does a lot of pro bono work. There was a high profile case a few years back which made headlines globally on account of what the perpetrator did to a young child. Said child has been left with life changing injuries. My friend was his defence lawyer. She was pregnant at the time and was chilled by the complete lack of remorse he displayed.

I knew a family that imploded when the dad came to realise that two out of his three kids weren’t in fact his.

He got DNA tests without the mum knowing, and that was that.

"Any holes a goal" for those types 😳

… what?
SIL - either your brother’s wife OR the sister of your husband OR as obviously not in this case, the spouse of your spouse’s sibling
If you say your SIL is having an affair with her husband’s brother:

1. if she is the wife of OP’s brother, then the “husband’s brother” would be a brother to OP, not her DH. Wouldn’t OP have mentioned this?
2. if it’s OP’s DH’s sister (only plausible scenario), then SIL’s husband is just a random, unrelated bloke - the “husband’s brother” would not be related to anyone.
3. I assume it’s not the spouse of OP’s DH’s sibling, because only then would SIL’s husband’s brother also be OP’s DH’s brother, and again, I definitely think OP would have mentioned this.

Don't know what the bin men or any body else thinks who looks in my glass bin and sees it full of bottles every week. I live on my own and the lads next door use it but nobody but us knows.

'Really old' gossip as my family is incredibly boring these days.

My great x 3 grandmother on my Dad's side was a servant in my great x 3 grandfather's house and became pregnant by him. He was 26 years older than she was so he was in his late 40s and she her early 20s when she got pregnant. Their eldest daughter was born before they married. No one can really say why they didn't marry before the birth. My 2 x grandmother was born after their marriage.

She’s putting 3 empty spirits bottles in a neighbour’s bin just before pick up, rather than her own and not as an isolated thing. That’s a classic alcoholic’s attempt to hide the evidence.

My husband's ex-wife moved to Spain with another man after they divorced. He was a bigamist. She found out about a week before she would have been his third current wife.

Not sure how. We all abhor it and I haven’t seen her for 8 years. She doesn’t know that I know. We don’t know the Dad - nothing beyond his first name and that he lives in or near Manchester. We hate it particularly as my Dad blew up our family - although my Mum stayed with him knowing about his affairs because this was very different times. (He had a 2nd family). I just stay well away from the whole toxic mess of my entire family. I live an unremarkable life in a different country.

Well for a man a biological need to spread his genes. Sadly for a woman (in my experience) a deep seated lack of confidence meaning that her only validation is if men want her.

Oh and most men are pathetic dicks.

Another one I've debated sharing...a friend of mine's father is a convicted flasher... actually been in trouble several times....years ago. The wife divorced him because of it when my mate was young. My mate idolises his dad and no ones ever told him.

I know because my parents were friends of my mates grandparents.