Have you ever found something belonging to your parents that made you see them in a different light?

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When I was a teen I found a sex toy in my mum’s drawer. I shouldn’t have been snooping.

It made me think of her differently, and I felt a bit weird about it for a bit.

I’m over it now, I think 🤔

I remember finding a very large brown envelope full of mail order Durex in my dad’s “ hanky” drawer in the early 70’s when I was about 14. My job was to put the freshly ironed hankies away. I was emotionally scarred! My mother was such a victorian prude with a sour face on her most of the time so not sure if they ever got used up!
Also found an adult magazine in my dad’s briefcase once!
My poor dad had such a difficult life with my narcissistic mother.

I did. And 10 years later it's worked out less than a ha'penny an orgasm. 😂

To whom it may concern, you get discount at Lovehoney with ya blue light card allegedly 🍆

❤️🍯

@Hons123 Sex toys are as old as sex, these things are not a perversion, you don’t have to own one but plenty of people get pleasure from them. If you listen to the audiobook version of Annabelle Hirsch’s A History of Women in 101 Objects there’s a chapter on a 16th-century glass dildo (“In a well-to-do household, masturbation was to be aided by the very finest glassware”).

How did we all get here ? After some drunken birthday fun . My dad was born January and I arrived in October almost exactly 9 months later . They only knew each other a couple of months , early sixties. Acted holier than thou all through their lives and called me a slag for living with my fiancée despite then doing it themselves. Found out many years later .

They are when you discover your mother's...and she's in her eighties...🤦🏼‍♀️😳

It’s not the whole point of this thread and I said it was going off topic - but the thread is about something that makes you see your parents in a different light and the poster said it was finding something which embarassed her dad, that he hit her. The fact that England is almost the only country in Europe to have not yet banned smacking indicates how big and serious an issue it is and how attitudes have changed drastically in just one generation. When we speak about being smacked by our parents, few of us are intending to call the police to accuse our parents of child abuse, yet if we found out our siblings or neighbours were regularly smacking their children hard it would be a matter for social services. One of the reasons parents did it was bc there was no social stigma attached to it like there is now. We accept it for ourselves but feel completely different for children now - it’s mental gymnastic surely and it’s interesting to try to reason why this is

Thanks. I’m not going down that pathway but good luck.

While my parents were away on holiday and I was at home - I was about 25/26 - my dad asked me to get some info from his work phone. I had to look through some tests and some of them were sexts to someone - the number wasn't saved.

I've never spoken to him, my mam, or my siblings about it. It has definitely changed how I see him, my mam, and my parents marriage. My siblings think he is the best person in the world and I know that if I say something to them they are braver than me and would say it out to both parents.

Yup! When I was 36 my late mom was in hospital having cancer treatment. I was sorting through her paperwork.

I came accross my parents marriage certificate (my father died when I was 18. He was 50 when I was born. Oh and it was no loss as he was an extremely difficult abusive man)

Anyhow pregnant with my youngest I sat there and looked at the marriage certificate which said for my father "previous marriage dissolved" I sat there staring at it stunned.

Ex husband walked on from work, looked at me and said "WTF is wrong?" I handed him the piece of paper in silence. I couldn't speak. When he read it he said stunned too "Did your mom know?" I'm like "how the f would I know. This is news go me. Plus she bloody signed the marriage certificate so I should think so"

Id never seen anyone get ready so fast in my life, as the ex sprinted upstairs to get ready for the hospital to go and see mom in my life as it was his turn that night.

To cut it short it turned out I had 2 half brothers 27 + 25 years older than me. My late Father said I wasn't to know. It was no one else business. When he spoke ny mom did as she was told. She always walked in his shadow even in his death.

My mom was of a high middle background. A lady that hadn't been bought up in abuse, however was of that time when divorce was still frowned on and certainly not approved of from my mom background.

I was basically born out of 1/ socialite and contractual obligations to look after mom in her old age. It was not out of love and choice. 2/ To stop her leaving my father. Yes I was told that the reason for my birth was no 1 reason. 4/ Yes the immediate family knew my father was divorced however it was covered up as it didn't look right on the family standing in the community. More on that in a bit. 5/ Mom was 30 when when she met my father and he had to be approved to date my mom. He would have been chased off if mom was younger however she needed to be got off the shelf. Because my father credentials looked good on paper it was allowed. He had divorced his 1st wife as he had money from his career in the forces. Today his 1st wife would have been divorcing him for abuse only back then it didnt happen..

This is the briefing of my background. I was born into trauma. I always knew something wasn't right as a child. It's called "Family secrets - what you don't know can hurt you" John Bradshaw.

It was only when I fled the ex with my children by him years ago and I got into long-term recovery and started having various types of therapy over the years (still every couple of years) I started to unravel my trauma pass.

That's the very brief of my story. You will be wow that's interesting as some would say. I'm like "Erm if might be interesting to you however my mental health is shot though I manage it today rather than it manage me, and the trauma from has caused a mirage of health conditions, among them Complex PTSD leading to Fibromyalgia and CFS.

So yes I was bought up in an extremely dysfunctional professional middle class family with extended influential family and friends. My family was well known and revered where I grew up because of the family standing in the wider community.

I was made a scapegoat for everything as a child hence my strong identification and support of Prince Harry whose has happened in the public arena. Mine played out in the private arena and like H it was like the Trueman Show

So yes that's the briefing of my very bizarre life. Yes I know it reads like out of a Cathleen Cookson or Victoria Holt novel, or TV drama like Upstairs, downstairs, The Forsyths (Saga) etc however it is true

So yes I think is the answer to that question Ha

When my mum died we had to move my dad who has dementia into a care home. They were hoarders of the highest order and we found all sorts in there we didn't expect. I'd like to say they were private people but it turns out they were secretive and maybe a little unnecessarily embarrassed.

It turns out the surname I grew up with, which I was told to be very proud of and had the history of it all, complete with ancestral family homes, rammed down my throat as something to be proud of, wasn't actually my dads surname at all. It seems my grandmas husband, my uncles dad, died during the war and we never could find out who my dads dad is as my grandma died when my dad was a teenager, he was given the same surname as my uncle. Lots more of this family drama and details of my dads side of the family has come to light - all a big shocking really when you almost get to your 50s thinking one thing but it turns out to be totally different.

My dad knew this but obviously can't tell us anything so we are very thankful to my uncle who I think realises that he is going to be be the only person who can tell us anything really.. its been the biggest emotional rollercoaster of a year.

@keffie12 did you look for your brothers?

My mum and dad split up when we kids were all in our thirties and my dad went to live in the South of France (he'd been born in Paris so had thought of himself as French). But he got some kind of dementia and my mum and sister went down to bring him back to the UK where he could be properly looked after. My sister found a load of porn dvds. My dad said to her (I kid you not) - "You could lend these to all your friends - they're very good." Eeek! Not sure what the PTA would have thought of that. My sister binned them asap.

Absolute lols

I'm early 40s, so when I was a child like 30 years back or similar, when you went to see the GP (I lived in Europe, not UK, so not sure how it was here back then), even the child was given their own personal file while waiting to see the doctor. So once while waiting I was going through information, I saw some personal info about mom and me. It says number of pregnancy: 2, miscarriage 1. This is how I found out my mom had a miscarriage a year prior she gave birth to me. I have a younger brother though. I saw her in a different way since. She never told me about it and till this day I didn't tell her that I know. It's been like 30 years.

Event the late Queen had her favorite. See how that ended up.

I've got all my late DM's diaries. Including a 5 year one she started in sixth form and it went through college years (early 60s). Eye-opening, hilarious, moving, fascinating. Made me understand her as a daughter to my GPs, and a woman pre-marriage and children. Made me feel my teens and early 20s were really boring by comparison.

Looking for my brothers birth cert when we were teens we found a letter, it showed our parents weren't married. We had presumed they were divorced. It explained our certs being hidden. This was 1960s.

You can get them much cheaper on Amazon. I got a lecture from DD20 about buying them from elsewhere and a lecture on quality and a discussion of the ones she had. All a bit much. Time for her to have her own Amazon account.

In what way do you feel differently towards her? Just wondering as I've never told my dc about my mcs.

Oh God, you just reminded me I have a small photo album with my nude (and some more exposed pics in my drawer) in my parent's house. My then boyfriend took it when I was 18 or so, 20 years back. I'm thinking to distroy it every time when I come around it, but didn't do till today. Really don't want my parents to see it, or my son one day 🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

I felt sorry, I saw her differently, I that point I was thinking how much she wanted that baby and that I was not the first one she loved. I thought she must be very hurt. She was /is gentle, but we were never really close and even to this day there is a gap between us, I'm not sure why, but there was always some distance. I don't know, maybe it's not connected, but would be easier for me if she would've told me, like you're planning. But she never tried to. And I'm not the one starting it. And it's 40 years back now since it happened, though she is a sensitive person and I don't want to make her upset either.

What was it BTW?