What’s the worst thing you’ve found out about someone after they’ve died?

[Watisthis]

Going through a big shocker at the minute. Has anyone ever had something massive come out after a loved one has passed away?

That my paternal grandfather had served a prison sentence for bigamy.
He had been married five times, including to an Indian lady when he served there with the army.
Unfortunately he didn't let a little detail like getting divorced get in the way before he remarried.
We only found out as my mother decided to research her family tree after he died.
Her mum, my grandmother was his fifth and last wife, who he was still married to when he died ( she died a few years before him ) never said a word.

When my granddad's twin sister died, I found out that her husband wasn't biological father of their daughter. He thought he was. Great aunt was 2 months pregnant when they got married and he though baby was premature. Great uncle's brother was infertile, he had adopted son, which makes me think that both of them could be infertile, because GA and GU didn't have any more children apart from this one baby. Apparently everyone knew, except him. How weird.

Maternal, not paternal. Bah!

Not my family, but a family I dealt with through work. I was involved in a case of a widow claiming money of her late husband's. She came in with her DD to do the paperwork and was told that a marriage certificate was needed, she said she'd lost it in house moves. So I duly searched for it at the (US) state and county records offices. Nothing.

I called her and said there was no record and had she made a mistake in the date or place. She got a bit snippy with me and then ended the phone call. About 20 minutes later I got an apologetic call from her during which she confessed that they had never been married, her children didn't know, and DD was there during my call. Her 'husband' and she had been having an affair and had run off together in a midnight flit, started using different names and presented themselves as a married couple. She was single but he was married and had deserted a wife and children. This happened back in the late 1930s when it was easy to just 'disappear'.

She said there was no way her children were going to let her just drop her claim as it was a substantial sum of money and I could just say I'd seen the marriage cert. I just said I was sorry but that would cost me my job. A few days later the DD called me and started telling me off for not helping her mother get the marriage cert. I couldn't tell her the truth, all I could do was tell her to talk to her mother. The 'widow' called me a few days later and just tersely told me to deny the claim. I wanted to ask what had happened, but of course I couldn't.

Why they didn't think to just get married under their 'new names' (illegally, of course) after they fled I have no idea.

found out after she,died nan wasnt my bio nan. she never,really liked me,somade,sense

@Emotionalsupportviper unfortunately antisemitism is rife. At my synagogue when I was a child, the dads used to cover the security detail. How terrible is that?

It's bliddy awful.

I was shocked enough to learn that security cameras were necessary. I have visited our local Reform Synagogue on a few occasions, and participated in worship. One of the things that I like and respect about Judaism is that although Jews don't proselytise they are very open to speaking about their beliefs, and extraordinarily welcoming to non-Jews.

It was during one of these visits that I was told that they had had to relocate the synagogue after an arson attack, and that there were security cameras. It was in a very "nice" area, with a lovely hedge around the perimeter of the plot it was set in, but a very large clear area - just well-tended grass - between the hedge and the synagogue itself. This was how we got onto speaking about this, as it happens, as I commented on the well-tended lawn area and remarked that we didn't usually have that with Christian churches, because even when there wasn't a churchyard, they usually had a lot of flowerbeds, trees etc. However flowerbeds and trees provide a lot of cover, so the synagogue didn't have them.

This was the first time I realised that anti-Semitism really was alive and well in the NE. Prior to that, because I had known a lot of Jewish families, gone to school with a lot of Jewish children, and had a lot of Jewish friends throughout my schooldays, worked alongside Jewish people, it had never occurred to me that anything was amiss. Blinded by my own naiveté, I suppose.

Around three years after my father died, my mother told me that he had habitually raped her throughout their marriage, also all but confirming that all four children she bore by him were conceived via rape. By the time my father died, my parents had been divorced for about 16 years. My mother had been with my stepfather for almost that long by that point, and the three of them presented as some rare yet wholesome triangle until my father’s death. My mother’s confession was shattering to me on several levels. Fast forward seven years, and it’s apparent that she fabricated the entire story. I feel often that she is not an actual person, but rather a labyrinth of lies. The trust I had in her narrative has cost me nearly everything I’ve ever held dear. My life now is unrecognisable to that which I had when she “confessed”. She slaughtered the memory of my father, who was indeed my best friend. Thankfully, I’ve finally learned how sick and poisonous she is. I can’t get back what she stole, but I can at least now not allow her to steal anything else from my life and my future

@CrazyJoPavlova - my heart aches for you. That is one of the most dreadful things I have ever read.

What a horrible, spiteful and vindictive thing to say to your child about their father. I can only guess at how much it destroyed you emotionally and psychologically.

Your mother is a very sick woman. She deserves nothing from you or your siblings.

"And all the sympathy goes to the vile, sadistic abuser who has groomed, threatened and blackmailed the child for their own perverted purposes. Everyone shuns the child and rushes to protect the abuser - I mean, he's such a lovely man . . ."

So true @Emotionalsupportviper

Thank you @Emotionalsupportviper. It turned my world upside down, and things will never be quite the same. But at least it’s shone a light on all the other lies and dysfunctions, so that I can see more clearly the reality of who she is. X