What's some --more-- juicy gossip that you can't share irl but can share with nosy strangers on mumsnet?

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

The follow up thread to my one from last year 🤭

This reminded me of the old Bird’s Eye chicken pie adverts with June Whitfield. Absolute classics of the 70s.

https://tvark.org/birds-eye-chicken-pies

My aunt had a child that was adopted my grandmother, so she stayed in the family. She is no contact with her biological mother who has since gone on to have two other children of her own with someone else. Those two children think that their half sister is their aunt (they met her once at a family funeral). We all know and are expected to keep quiet.

It is!

Contrary to popular belief, lots of US companies have generous paid sick leave, paid parental leave, annual leave allowance (my company has an ‘unlimited annual leave’ model, which is very common) etc. All of which can be utilised or ‘gamed’ when your workplace is a dumpster fire and you’re planning to leave anyway.

I definitely have one half brother. My dad was absent when I was born and he would come and visit when I was very young and take me for play dates with my similarly aged half brother. I don’t remember but when my son was born I made an effort to find him and he told me. He thought I have other half siblings as well.

I’m reading my way through the thread, and the more that I read, the more it reminds me of scandals that I know of.

This one probably sounds like it would be too of my list, but it’s honestly not something I think of often and it’s another post that reminded me.

When I was 17, my mum went missing for a night. Was scary at the time and we were all out looking for her. A few weeks later, she stopped the car and told me that she’d just found out my dad was having an affair, and had been for years. The woman had an 8 year old boy, and my mum didn’t know if he was my dad’s or not. Mum said that she was going to leave my dad.

She didn’t leave him, they stayed together and we’ve never spoken about it all since. I’m pretty sure the affair ended, but I never found out more about the boy and never asked. My siblings were younger than me, and so I was the only one who got told. I think my mum had needed someone to talk to and say it all out loud, but then regretted it once they realised they were staying together. I don’t even know if she told my dad that she’d told me.

@ToughStuff This sounds familiar. Years back when young, I visited my grandmother regularly. She had 8 children but I thought she had just had yet another one when my Uncle suddenly arrived. But he wasnt my Uncle, he was my cousin, who then died tragically at 14. My auntie was his mum.

I was adopted from a well known address in a nearby town. Turns out they used this address on birth certificates to save children from knowing they were from the workhouse. So much sadness and secrecy. Even now, only just being talked about.

@ElsieMc Can I ask what country this was in? Mine is Ireland. The sad thing is that my aunt is nearly 70 and time is ticking on, she should have told her daughters and united the three of them together instead of isolating her. My cousin must feel awful at the scale of the rejection. If fear that when my aunt dies, her daughter will introduce herself to the other two children and it will traumatise them.

A female colleague I worked with years ago, now husband, slept with her best friend. As far as I'm aware she still doesn't know about this and they are still best friends 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Both sad and years ago:

My then manager told me his best mate had got divorced partially because they couldn't have children. Around the same time my then DP and I visited his newly married cousin, who had been married before. She'd got divorced due to DV and her ExH had beaten two early pregnancies out of her. I can't remember what made the penny drop but one crucial detail made it clear the cousin had been married to my manager's best mate. I kept that to myself.

And a friend with eastern European heritage once expressed sadness she knew little of her father's history, just a few bits about how he arrived in the UK after the war. He was quite old when she was born and had passed away years before I knew her. I got curious and did some digging on her behalf. He'd told her he'd been on the allies side but the few details she did know didn't add up to that. It seems very likely he was a member of a notorious Nazi SS Division made up of eastern European volunteers and that committed many atrocities. Another one to keep to myself.

Is two for Tuesday still a thing?!

I used an online DNA test out of curiosity (and the fact that it was in a sale) and thought I found out that my Dad had another child a few years after I was born.
After some more digging, I found out it was actually my Mum who had kept the truth from me - my Dad was never my Dad, and I have a whole family I never knew anything about.
Also found out that I'm part French.

My DW knows, but I haven't told my family yet as my Mum died a few years ago and it would just cause a lot of upset.

My great-great grandmother got pregnant with my great grandmother before she married my great-great grandfather. She had my great-grandmother after they got married.

This is in no way particularly juicy gossip but my god, the way it was whispered about in the family generations down the line, you'd think it was scoop of the century 🙄

Ooh can you tell us where you are thinking. I’m pretty certain my old neighbours were swingers but our area begins with ‘H’..

My 2 neighbours who live opposite are having an affair. I happened to spot them one afternoon going into the females house she opened the door in a flimsy dressing gown and I could see them kissing through the window beside the front door. Ive noticed him running into her house a few times since.

😄😄

One of my great great aunts was a dwarf. Father was an Earl. Mother sold aunt to the circus.

😧

June Whitfield was beautiful.

Ooh I just thought of one

FIL and MIL divorced when DH was little, so almost 40 years ago.
FIL then married step-MIL a few years later, they had a long and happy marriage of over 30 years until FIL sadly passed away three years ago.

All six of MIL and FIL's kids know that MIL and FIL were still sleeping together in the early years of FIL and step-MIL's marriage but step-MIL has no idea and noone is ever going to tell her.

She lives with happy memories of her beloved husband and it's going to stay that way.

That reminds me of a former friend of mine. She and her brothers were raised by their mum and stepdad. Their biological dad used to work away a lot on building contracts, but whilst away, he was also raising another family. Her mum found out in the end and divorced him.

I managed a team and one day a worker didn’t come in. The next morning his wife and young daughter came looking for him, he’d simply disappeared, taking the family car so his wife couldn’t get to work.
Several days passed and his car was found at Heathrow.
He’d met a woman online from Malaysia and flown off to be with her without telling anyone.
To my knowledge 20 years later he’s still there with another family.

What a scummy coward of a man

It’s no longer a secret but it is very Jeremy Kyle - My cousin and a baby with a woman, they broke up and she started a relationship with his brother. Brothers stayed on good terms. When that relationship ended she disappeared and it wasn’t until that child was 15 that she reached out to her dad and she came back in to her dads life. A few years later she tells her dad that it’s an open secret in her mums house that her younger sister is her uncles child.

DNA test proves it, when she finished with the second brother she was pregnant but never told him. No one knew she existed.

No one comes out of this looking good. Brother 1 should have done more to get visitation. Brother 2 should have left his brothers ex alone and the mum should never have disappeared with the oldest and should never have kept the youngest a secret.

@ToughStuff I am in England, the NW. My cousin was loved, my adoptive dad kept photos of him, and newspaper cuttings which I now hold. He is talked of. These relationships are complex and sensitive for all concerned.

My line manager is shagging a colleague. She has been promoted beyond her capabilities.
We’re all facing redundancies now but she’s been protected by a heavily weighted skills audit.
They’re both married.