... if you've every learned something totally surprising about a close friend?

[BSideLeeSide]

This is no biggie, just something very surprising for me.

I've a very close friend that I'd known for 10+ years, we met through work several years ago. A few weeks ago I was helping her move/unpack to a lovely new house, and staying there for the weekend.

The house had a piano. I was amazed to discover that she is an incredible pianist. Really really amazing! She says she was somewhat of a prodigy when young, but lost interest and motivation in teen years, and is just re-connecting with it as a hobby.

Sadly, if I was that good at something I'd have let everyone know :(

One of my very close friend’s (and long term colleague) failed her CRB check. Turns out she’s been done for attempted murder 😱

We have been friends for so long, our kids are really close, we share the school run and share an office on our own for 13 years. She said ‘it just never came up in conversation’ 🤣🤣

Not a friend. At the age of 44 I learned that my father had committed suicide. Although it was rarely discussed, I had always been led to believe that he died of a heart attack. I only found out about the trues cause of death when I asked my uncle. I’d recently had a child and in the process had been asked various questions about my family’s medical history and I wanted to clarify what actually happened. It was a pretty difficult call to my mother.

@SnowWhitesRestingBitchFace

I found out about about 10 years ago that mum is actually my dads second wife. He'd previously married when he was quite young and it hadn't lasted long (she had an affair with my grandad/dads dad). My dad still doesn't know that I know. Apparently he hated the thought of my sister and I knowing incase it upset us or our image of him. It's all very strange but I don't feel like I can bring it up if he doesn't want me to know.

Same here-I didn't find out until I started talking about their silver anniversary, and Mum told me it wouldn't be for another 2 years; he was separated from his wife when he and Mum met during the war. They lived together (and had me and my sister) for 2 years before they could get married.

@Tessabelle74

When my sister got pregnant at 23, she was nervous of telling my Nana as she was going to be a single Mum and she thought she might get judged. Instead, my Mum told us that my Nana and Grandad had to get married as our Aunty was on the way! Not that uncommon of course, but a surprise to us. They were married for over 50 years before my Grandad died so it all worked out beautifully

We were visiting MIL and she was sorting out, ready to chuck, a lot of old family documents, photos, certificates etc and we stopped her, to let up look through them and we found her sainted mother's wedding certificate, 4 months before she was born! In later years, after MIL's death, we found through the 1911 Census that she had had another child 5 years before MIL was born who had been brought up by the grandparents. OH recognised the name but we could never know if MIL knew that this person was her sister rather than her aunt.

@VolareVia er you feel ‘angry’ she didn’t trust anyone with her secret. No one is obligated to tell you secrets about themselves that have nothing to do with you. You’re reaction of anger might be a clue as to why she didn’t want to divulge.

She weaned herself off the routine when I managed to convince her it was amazing!!*

She spent hours doing her hair everyday, but one comment from you and she realised the error of her ways? 🤨

DH is interested in his family history and found a few skeletons in the cupboard with illegitimate children etc - I guess it's not uncommon.

My great - grandmother may or may not have had a bigamous marriage - one of her four husbands went missing and we don't know if he was actually alive when she married again.

When I was 9 I found out that my dad had been married before and that I had a much older half-sister (he'd fallen out with her, not because of my mum or anything like that, and not spoken to her for years - or she'd not spoken to him). And then when I was 13 I found out that my mum had been married before too but I didn't have any half siblings on that side.

@Stepinside

These are all so positive, and that's nice I guess.

My very close friend was shagging my BF for months. Good riddance to both!

Same happened to me. They both did me a massive favour, and poor her is still dealing with shit sex 4 years in! 😂

Yes, something vile. I’m devastated.
A friend of my DH, lived quite far away from us so we never actually went to their house. They passed suddenly, I googled the address (obscure) to send a card and there it was, lost their job twenty years ago for downloading child porn.
I feel utterly duped, I grieved for this friend for a day and now I feel nothing but hatred. Seething hatred. I want to tell the world what he’s done

When I was about 10, I found some documents (I was snooping), my baptismal certificate and my parent’s marriage and divorce papers all confirming that I was born 7 months before they got married. Also pictures of my mum in her wedding outfit, holding me.

I found out by mistake that my mother isn’t the eldest of 4 sisters-she’s the second eldest
The first daughter was given up for being born out of wedlock-and that my aunt isn’t my grandfathers child-my grandparents had an ‘open marriage’ and that my grandmother was a lesbian who got married and had children to keep up appearances

My father taught a girlfriend of his (before my mother) to ride a motorbike
6 months after they’d broken up she was killed in a motorbike accident (not sure who was to blame)
I asked him about it and he clammed up and refused to talk about it

My fil was sent to prison 4 months after marrying my mil-for handling stolen goods (which will be why my partner came along 15 months after they got wed rather than within the year which was the norm in their days)

My mil had a full on sexual affair with another man-she doesn’t know I know

Nobody knows I can draw-I hate doing it as a hobby so don’t bother

I’ve just found out my rock music loving partner owns a spice girls album-I found it while hunting something down in the spare room
I’ve taken the piss since

Close friend of 20 years made an off hand comment about a smell not mattering. I asked what she meant, and turns out she was born without a sense of smell! She'd never ever mentioned it before. It only caught my attention because we were at a perfume making class

After my Mum's death, when I was emptying her house I discovered she had swum across the Thames as a student nurse.
I also discovered my Dad had had a year off school for ill health, I'd never heard of either of these things. Why just Why ?

My cousin was given a sentence for child porn which he tried to say was for research as part of his uni course. He never seemed the type.

Good advice here. Her boundaries are off but the husband should have forbidden her dad to be left alone with the children. You have a duty to safe-guard those children via social services if others are not.

The friend who had moved in with me (and her son) had a very clipped English accent.
Until she got rat arsed one night and a full on Scottish accent came out... I was completely shocked! She definitely had secrets that lassie.

At my grandfather's funeral there were lots of doppelgangers of his children. Turns out they too were his children.... goodness knows how many he had!! He had been to prison for bigamy, we already knew that. Seems most of these other children (adults) didn't share a mother either 🤔

@YouJustFoldItIn

Found out my BFF voted Tory. We still speak though.

A lovely person in spite of it then? Who'd have thought it possible?!

Want to know how to spot a Labour voter? Wait ten minutes and they'll tell you what utter scum all Tories are. if you don't know how someone votes because they haven't mentioned it, then it's a safe bet that they are probably a Tory.

Just quietly going about their business of doing what they think is best/right, without haranguing everyone else for thinking differently.

Labour voters should try it. They might win a bit more often if they could just grasp the concept of not alienating people by insulting them.

Yeah, good one. 😂

Some of these are belters and some, so tragic! all the lost families!

Good friend and former work colleague never told me her brother was married to a singer in a band ( that DH and I were big fans of- like a touring, proper ,album releasing band) i KNEW her brother had married , and his wifes name : but Wife, of
XXX band lol

DH had similar to others : older father had been married for years before, and the lady that came round for tea or called his DM for a chat was actually the “first” wife haha. DH said it blew his mind they all got on very well

BFF came across a photo of a baby in parents belongings , that wasn’t her or her siblings. They assumed they had lost a sibling, but the never wee told

I learned after being together for 10 years and finally getting our own home that my husband can’t do DIY or plaster.

These are things that he told me whilst dating the he could do REALLY WELL - I always thought it was strange he told me not the mention it to his family (he said it was so they wouldn’t ask for freebies 🤣🤣)

Me!! My dad was a very well known and hugely respected ‘gangster’ from the 60’s/70’s/80’s era with a plethora of famous & infamous friends who I never paid much attention to!! Nobody & I mean nobody from my schooldays ever knew about my dad. I didn’t know until I was much much older and even now I only know the tip of the iceberg. I was sent to the best schools & kept on an extraordinarily short very strict leash! To me he was just my hugely funny loving entertaining doting daddy! 😂

My stepdad was adopted as a baby in the 1960s by an older couple who were very emotionally distant, and the father was physically abusive. They appeared to be such rubbish parents that I couldn’t imagine why they would ever have chosen to adopt a child. He eventually searched for his birth mum and found that she had eight children from two marriages. He was born between the two marriages and was the only one she gave up. There was no information about his father, but it came to light that his birth mother was the neighbour of his adoptive parents.

Recently I was looking through a book on famous criminals and saw my stepdad’s face looking out - the resemblance was so strong that my mum thought the picture actually was of my stepdad. It wasn’t, it was of a well-known Glasgow gangster and loan shark who operated in the part of Glasgow where my stepdad grew up. Mystery solved.

Then there was my grandmother, who gave birth to my dad aged 15, emigrated to America aged 22 and wrote to say she had cancer and wasn’t expecting to live aged 26, then stopped writing. It was a massive shock to find out that she hadn’t died tragically young or ever had cancer but had married and raised three other children, none of whom knew she had had a son in England. She died at a ripe old age.

So many amazing tales!

That my ex boss is the Mum of the owners of HomeBargain,only two of the richest men in the UK.
I remember back in the 80s she told me her 2 sons were opening a shop and it should do ok,fast forward 2021

Did my grandparents DNA profiles - they were rocking early 90s.
GM was not scottish as she loved to think she was and berate the English - she was pretty good split Scottish and the dreaded English!
Her response - well explains why I am generous with my monies! She was!
GF - thought he was a Euro country and English - turn out one of his grandparents was from a very different country - 30%.
His response at 92 - well don't think I am going to get any answers on that one am I!
It explained some quite distinctive characteristics we have in our family

@user1471453601

My oldest friend (40+years) surprised me. Her partner had a terminal diagnosis and I was banging on to her about power of attorney, making sure his will was up to date ect.

After a few minutes of this, she lent across the lunch table and said " we've been married for ten years". They'd gone off and done it without telling anyone, including their adult children.

It was just so him, to do it that way. He was immensely private and I (in my dubious wisdom) often wondered if he had some social anxiety.

I still ( three years later) occasionally giggle about it.

And their children took it just fine, too.

Sorry but I think it's odd that your friend of 40+ years never thought to mention it. I get that they wanted to get married without any fuss and that he was a private person but for such a good friend to not mention it to you for 10 years is odd.