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Original poster

Do most people have a terrible secret which could ruin their life?

500 replies

aurynne · 18/05/2020 07:59

Yesterday my DH and I were watching an episode of The Honourable Woman, and I found myself thinking back to all the movies, novels and series in which it appears that every character is carrying a dark, terrible secret which would ruin their life if it came to light. Often there is someone in the plot who, at some point, says something like "Everybody has a secret to protect", and the main character nods wisely, as if this was widely known and accepted.

I know it's fiction, but do you believe this is mostly true? Do you have a secret which, if revealed, would affect your or your loved ones' lives in a significant way? Of course I am not asking you to reveal it here (although if you wish, please be my guest, I am very nosey!), but please just feed my curiosity by saying YES (I have a dark secret) or NO (I don't have any dark secrets).

Personally, I think I must be very boring. The best detective in the World could not really find anything juicy to blackmail me with. My family is not going to find any skeletons in my closet (perhaps just some dust balls). I obviously have parts of my life that I prefer to remain in the private arena, but nothing worth going viral for, nothing that would really shock anyone or turn my life upside down by far if I published it today in The New York Times.

What about you?

OP posts:
Abbcccus · 18/05/2020 12:59

"One of my big fears is that I get dementia one day and start telling everyone all about it."

And mine!

MysteryFrog · 18/05/2020 13:00

No. I am a deeply boring person Grin

ZaphodBeeblerox · 18/05/2020 13:01

A fair bit of sleeping with inappropriate people when I was younger. Nothing mad, but not stuff I'd be proud to own up to now that I'm middle-aged. I hid some smoking from my DH for a bit, but came clean and then quit. He and my sister probably know all my 'secrets' anyway - I have a really transparent face and it is super obvious when I try to lie to people I'm close to so I don't bother.

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The8eves · 18/05/2020 13:01

After we had broken up but were still in contact, an ex told me a secret (not a life ruining one, just embarrassing). Soon after we had a final falling out and I told the secret to anyone and everyone.

I now realise how petty and awful that was, so ironically the fact that I did it has become my own embarrassing secret!

worriedmum20 · 18/05/2020 13:02

Yes, one that I let go that literally did ruin my life and effects my mental health massively nearly a year later. Several related ones that could make my life much worse. All secret. Apart from a close friend who knows. They could mean I would have to basically get out of here.

MsAwesomeDragon · 18/05/2020 13:05

No, no secrets here.
I suppose there are things people might not realise about me, but I don't have anything that's actually secret. I think I'm quite open about stuff, but keep it quiet at work because I'm supposed to be setting a good example to secondary school pupils (so they shouldn't really know about my "wilder" years)

Lweji · 18/05/2020 13:07

NO

Nothing dark anyway. Certainly nothing that would put me in jail, make me lose my job, or friends and family turn on me.

CrawleyJ · 18/05/2020 13:09

Yes. A number of affairs, lies, horrible things.

And one big massive one which would see a number of people’s lives ruined.

MummyOfZog · 18/05/2020 13:10

Yes.

BenchScruff · 18/05/2020 13:12

OMG I literally have so many. I have namechanged to spill a few

I used to be a lapdancer, absolutely no one knows that

I got with my husband when he left his first wife for me, thats not a secret as such, but our kids don't know, and one day I worry they will think bad of us for it

I have committed fraud on more than one occasion

I have a very big asset due to slightly iffy but technically legal behaviour

at the very beginning of mine and my H's relationship, we were on and off, during the off times I was secretly shagging an ex who H absolutely hated with a passion and still does. I am not sure he would ever forgive me if he knew

Blush
CrouchingTraceyHiddenLadders · 18/05/2020 13:19

Yes I've got a secret from my past.
I've never told anyone, it's not unlawful but it would definitely lose me a few friends and my family would be shocked.Sad

AlecTrevelyan006 · 18/05/2020 13:19

Yes I do. Haunts me everyday.

LetTheSecretOut · 18/05/2020 13:20

I have tons, some that some people know and others that are proper secrets.

OK my stepdad abused me as a teenager - some people know but I don't advertise it.

I am not sure of the parentage of either DS or DD, exhusband knows about DD but not DS. No one knows about DS.

I worked as an escort when I became a single parent and my tax credit claim had to be cancelled and a new claim issued.

I have been paid to store drugs before and the actual dealer got raided. I was so scared that I was next.

I have a criminal conviction which saw me on tag for 9 months. I wore boots the whole time to hide it and only my younger sister knows.

I had an affair with a married man.

All of this happened whilst I was employed in a decent but low paid job in a really nice company. I would be mortified if anyone found out. Its like I have a work me and a home me. I am a quiet, boring person at work and have worked with these people for over 20 years.

CrouchingTraceyHiddenLadders · 18/05/2020 13:20

And I'm so glad I didn't grow up in the time of camera phones. I was a bit rampant when my teenage hormones kicked inGrin

lowlandLucky · 18/05/2020 13:25

Vampirethriller Well done you for fighting through.

AcrossthePond55 · 18/05/2020 13:31

Nothing that's 'blackmail-worthy' or would land me in jail. An 'ex' friend knows a couple of things that I'd prefer others close to me not know. Mainly because I wouldn't want them to know how stupid I was back in the day. When I ended the friendship (she'd become really toxic) I worried for a bit that she'd 'tell on me'. But then I realized that she's known to be such a liar that no one would believe her if she did.

But I expect most people have something in their past that they'd simply prefer to keep there because they are not the same person that they were when they did whatever it was. But people can be so 'judgy'.

Stingeray · 18/05/2020 13:32

Yes I have one that only me and one other person know. Would ruin both of our lives if anyone found out (not an affair)

Shatandfattered · 18/05/2020 13:33

I have commited fraud by not declaring a partner living with me when I was receiving benefits.
I've slept with several people I shouldn't have.
I was abused as a child and have only started disclosing it to family but would hate for grandparents to find out.
I shoplifted clothes regularly with a friend as a teen.
Myself and ex partner went through a period of selling cocaine, or at least trying to but being weekend users ourselves seen zero profit and actually made a probably huge loss when added up.

Can't think of anything else but someone had to spill their dirt a bit more explicitly than these teasing replies that are making me nosy 😂

Lovelymonkeyninetynine · 18/05/2020 13:34

To those that do have secrets, are they mostly infidelity related?

BenchScruff · 18/05/2020 13:34

Also

I conceived my first child deliberately, his dad thinks it was an accident. but by that point in the relationship I couldn't stand him, but wanted a child, had no issues with being a single mum, so I was using him to get pregnant. I left him when dc was a few months old and I had saved up a "running away" fund

jackparlabane · 18/05/2020 13:35

I have no secrets from DH, few from my close friends.
But I'm a person that people tell their secrets to - why, I don't know, as I have the counselling skills of a brick, but they're right that they can trust me.

By the time I left school I knew two girls subjected to sexual abuse at home and one who had been abused by a nanny, plus a couple who had had abortions, one who had had a gang-bang with a whole sports team of lads which I doubt was completely consensual.

Now, so many cases of rape and abuse, drug use (heroin and coke are the only ones people don't want to get out), stays in mental hospitals...

A good friend self-medicated with every drug going before getting his bipolar diagnosed. Also ended up getting a couple convictions for assaulting police and waving a knife around A&E.
Since getting useful meds, he's done a medical degree and been an upstanding member of society, but as a junior doctor he was hounded out of two hospitals when senior staff found out about his past.
He's now a great psychiatrist and exactly the sort of person the NHS needs to stay in the role, but just needs some small-minded person to grass him up to the Daily Fail...

I suspect there are many people who know their friends and families would be disgusted if they found out they'd voted Tory.

rosecreakybex · 18/05/2020 13:38

Yep I do!

EdersonsSmileyTattoo · 18/05/2020 13:39

Something happened to me twenty years ago that I have never, ever told anyone about, I’m too ashamed.

I could never tell my amazing DH, as it would break his heart so I just carry it around in my head and will take it to the grave.

rosecreakybex · 18/05/2020 13:39

I often worry that I will be murdered and everything will come out during the investigation

Orphlids · 18/05/2020 13:40

I know a something about a member of my DP’s family. Some of the other members of the family know, but it is kept a secret from some of the others. It is a foul, dirty secret, and they are keeping it a secret to protect this one particular family member. I think the ones who are in the dark should be told. I have had to choose between telling them the truth, and my relationship. I want to stay with my partner more than I want to do what’s right. I never see that side of the family, so it’s not too difficult to bury my head in the sand. But when I stop to think about it, I can hardly bear it. The ones who know have made sure I’ve been whitewashed out of the family, because they know I know, and they know I, unlike them, have no desire to protect this one despicable individual.