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

[aurynne]

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?

No, but I often think that if I suddenly became famous, or a politician, then I might feature in a number of salacious stories in the press (probably involving the word 'romp') if old acquaintances decided to make a buck.

Ha ha. This has definitely occurred to me if I ever went into politics.

No.

Yes

Yes.

Some events in my teenage years resulted in something that could have been criminally prosecuted and would have prevented me working in my current field. It also led me to contemplate suicide at the time, and I still think about it regularly. It actually stops me moving back home (which is a shame for my mum) in case it dredges it back up.

And I have a current secret. Huge. Will say no more!

Blimey! I'm surprised so many people have a big secret, I can't think of anything in my life, I must be very boring!

No major secrets here, certainly nothing that would be life changing or hurt others. I'm not aware of any huge secrets either. There's one I can think of that shouldn't have to be a secret but is because of the way the world is-relating to HIV status; person in question is entirely upfront with people it could impact directly - eg partners, but doesn't want extended family etc to know.

Does anyone else think that if they type 'yes' they are going to be bombarded with lots of 'I know what you did last summer' type messages?

Or have I just watched too much TV?

Yes. There's no way any of you lot are finding out anything at all about it. Only two people know about it.

Yes.
From the beginning (ie the circs of my birth were 'secret')
During early childhood I was inappropriately made party to big and dodgy family 'secrets'
My first job, I was very unlucky and the person i worked for was a fraudster (unbeknown to me) and I was being interviewed by the Serious Fraud Office aged 21 (terrifying).
I have some dark ones all of my own too.
Plus, I then went into Psychotherapy so am party to some pretty sensitive information about clients, 1 or 2 of whom (over a 20 year span) are still in the public eye (in a minor way)

There is a LOT of it about, imo.

Yes

Yes and I would be scared of being so delirious with medication if Ill and revealing all .

Yes (and I'm not at all the kind of person you'd expect to). I'm not telling though.

NC's for this as I am terribly ashamed, even though it is in the past and not a secret any more.

I fell in love with a married man and had his baby. I told nobody who the father was. He loved me too but decided to stay with his family until his kids were adult. When his younger kid turned 18 he left his wife and we had another baby. We married and stayed together for 25 years, then hs got ill and died. His ex had died before him.

We had a happy marriage but I know his guilt was always there nagging away at him, because his ex wife had been devastated, and turned to alcohol, and his kids from that marriage never forgave him. They still hate me and in the end his son tried to ruin us financially, used my husband's terrible guilt to influence his will so that dh signed over his entire inheritance from his own parents to them!

Doesn't matter now and it didn't ruin us, dh had a good salary and pension, but I still don't own my own house whereas those two kids both sit pretty in their own rather nice homes, which should have been dh's! I suppose it's just karma, though.

So that's my dark secret, which hasn't been a secret from the time we "came out". But I still feel bad about it. My advice to my own kids was to run a mile from married people, no matter how much you love them. Just run.

Only one that absolutely no-one else knows about. It's not terrible exactly but it is weird and quite horrible. I've sometimes considered telling my husband (who is my best friend) just to make it less awful in my head, but I'm too worried about his reaction to go through with it. One of my big fears is that I get dementia one day and start telling everyone all about it.

I have one of my own and also exh confided in me that he once pleasured a dog and vice versa 😩 when he was young.I wish hed never told me.

Yes I have a few dark secrets. If I was famous I'd worry about them getting out tbh but they are unlikely to be uncovered now. I thought everyone did!

Yes. Things I've done which I'm not proud of.
And things that have happened to me which would upset my family & DH if they found out about them.

I would hate to be famous as there's quite a lot of dirt on me!

@PrincessHoneysuckle
How on earth did you handle that?
Were you understanding or?
I would not be able to look at them the same!

Most of these seem to read as affairs/infidelity or otherwise sexual such as escorting. I'm wondering how many aren't in those categories?

I don’t consider infidelity a dark secret. I’m not saying it’s no big deal for people cheated on but it’s not a dark secret, is it?

Mine have nothing to do with affairs though I suppose the incest thing would have technically been one. I can’t even think of it without my stomach turning.

I also kept someone else's dark secret. When I was a child in a far off country, I had a little friend, a boy slightly younger than me, whom I shall call John. His mother, I'll call her Aunt Jane, was a good friend of my mother.

When I was an adult, my mother told me that Aunt Jane had been her brother's lover when he'd been in England years before. John was my uncle's son, and so my first cousin. By this time Jane and John had moved back to England/Wales and I was not in touch with them. I think my mother still corresponded with her, though.

My uncle was married with four children. They are an extremely close family, all of them. It would have broken his family to know. My uncle's wife is a darling. He died many years ago but she is still alive and well looked after by all four kids.

I once got John's address from my mother and wrote him a letter. I thought he might like to have at least some contact with a biological cousin from his father's side. He never replied.

I wondered often about John, how he felt growing up without a dad. Those were the 50's and 60's and it was pretty scandalous in those days. Not just that, a mixed race. Elizabeth was English and white, my uncle mixed race.

When their mum dies (she's now late 80's) , I wonder if I should tell my four cousins that they have a half-brother in Wales? They are not in the UK. It's something I would certainly like to know. But it might ruin their image of their dad. Then again, it might not.

Yes, I would possibly have gone to jail if my secret was known to anyone but myself at the time. I would definitely have got a criminal record. I think one person suspected, but had no proof of what I'd done.

@ArthurBloom I was shocked I'm v open minded but that's a different league.He was mortified about it but I'll still never understand why he told me. Noone needs to know that!

I have some secrets,

Not that would be ruinous but have known of a secret that completely exposed one family.

The parents were honestly the BEST parents and so supportive and so much fun. As kids you always wanted to go to their house for sleepovers because they planned such special things as were so thoughtful and kind and funny, we all have amazing memories of them. And on top of that they went on to make a lot of money, worked hard and made it big with investments. Very big. So later kids went to top schools, world class holidays, had properties bought for them. And still were the loveliest family, big on helping and charity. A lot of charity - that’s also what one of their kids does now.

Well... As it happens, turns out the dad had a first family, and his kids in that family all had additional needs. He walked out and screwed over his first wife, leaving her with the kids and absolutely no financial support. Nothing - we do know that for a fact. He has never seen them since walking out. More horrifying is the second wife had helped him, especially in dragging out the divorce and bullying first wife. First family kids all really needed help, instead were on state handouts and nearly put in care when the mum was close to breakdowns a lot of the time from exhaustion... Incredibly shocking if you knew the family, so unjust. The second family kids don’t mention it, don’t seem to care - it’s like a generational screw-over scheme they’ve bought into. Most people don’t know about it, and the family didn’t reveal it... only came out by complete accident as the two families live in different countries. So we thought they were this perfect family (I mean loving, supportive, fun and successful) for 20+ years. Turns out they’ve abandoned emotionally, financially these kids (now adults), their own flesh and blood.

Makes me sick... none of us know personally the first family, we know people who do (someone here completely met them by accident). If you are the first family’s mother, please believe none of us knew - and none of us are in touch with them now, we’d never support this.

Yes, and it would ruin my life and the lives of everyone around me. There is no reason why I would ever spill the beans. I just have to hope I never go senile and talk too much. Also the reason why I never ever drink alcohol.