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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

My parents have never told me about major skeleton in family closet. I have been an adult for 27 years FFS! And now I find out ...

155 replies

eekamoose · 25/06/2008 21:32

... just so shocked that they never told me about this. Recently been put in a hugely embarrassing situation because of their determination to keep things under the carpet. Am a bit stunned tbh.

I think they should have told me, AIBU?

OP posts:
Original poster
eekamoose · 25/06/2008 22:32

Lol and you lot baying for sordidness and scandal! I never suggested it was Jeremy Kyle.

OP posts:
greenelizabeth · 25/06/2008 22:33

a 3/4s sister! Wow, that is a bit

So your Mum had you with the man who'd already had a baby with her sister? Did she know at the time your dad was the father of her sister's adopted baby?

Squirdle · 25/06/2008 22:34

Tbh BB, it really isn't up to me as he was DH's father. He (and I) still have trouble coming to terms with it and it really does need to be down to DH to talk to him about it. Had I had my way I'd have told him at the start as I know what it is like to be told these things later on, but it wasn't my place to say it.

Desiderata · 25/06/2008 22:34

Eek ... I now pronouce you the Master of the Anti-Climax .........

Honestly, it's no bid deal, by comparison.

gigglewitch · 25/06/2008 22:35

who needs jeremykyle when you have mn?

BBF, where's your bit of dirt to dish up, then?

greenelizabeth · 25/06/2008 22:38

Wow eekamoose, it was brave of your cousin to approach you when her father your uncle had rejected her so categorically.
I want to send her a hug Am I being silly now?

Flibbertyjibbet · 25/06/2008 22:41

well hells bells I came back to find...

Heated · 25/06/2008 22:41

Think my uptight, m/c family who never talk about anything not quite naice, could easily outbid yours in the family skeletons dept! Even my dp, who found he had an older brother he didn't know about who died tragically, was shocked by my lot!

Don't most families have secrets? It's only now with celebs sharing & baring their souls and Jerry Springer car-crash tv, that we think they're unusual when actually every family has it unpleasantnesses and surprises.

choccypig · 25/06/2008 22:42

green elizabeth. My mum was married to my dad, and already had one child, (and was expecting another) but he had an affair with her sister, which produced the baby who was adopted. Obviously there was a big hooha at the time, but then mum and dad settled down and went on to have 4 more children together. My aunt's name was never mentioned again.

edam · 25/06/2008 22:45

There's what I think is a pretty big secret in my extended family - to do with a murder. I'm not actually sure if the person most closely concerned (the child of the victim and murderer) has told her adult dd/ds. It's never come up in conversation. And not really my place to bring it up. But I do sometimes wonder...

cheesesarnie · 25/06/2008 22:50

we have lots of skeletons.i thought my family were normal till i talked to friends!

greenelizabeth · 25/06/2008 22:51

Choccypig, sorry if I sounded too shocked. It happens all the time no doubt. I guess the thing that doesn't happen nowadays would be keeping the baby.

gigglewitch · 25/06/2008 22:56
wobblyknicks · 25/06/2008 22:57

I found out, aged almost 26, that my grandmother, who died when I was 3, and spawned my extremely strait-laced mother, was a call girl! We're going to see my mum's half brothers this summer (as my grandmother had a fling with a married man who worked in the SS, doing accounting paperwork, not shooting people, and was shipped off to England with her illegitimate daughter - my mum, to protect the two boys, but all this I already knew) and I was talking to my mum about her mum and she casually dropped it into the conversation!!!

Definitely a big skeleton there, my mum also said she was a 'society girl' who mixed with the poshos because she was extremely poor and needed to do whatever she could to get money/food (especially as my mum was born at the end of WW2). I was perversely pleased - my parents are so 'normal' that it's good to know not all of the family were

ChukkyPig · 25/06/2008 22:57

I met someone at uni whose parents had split up and married each other.

Then they had children.

So their step siblings were also half siblings.

He seemed pretty confused TBH. But he was only 19! Confusion is rife at that age!

Choccy, I saw a thread recently where people were unhappy about other people nicking their names! And I thought of you and how you asked how long I'd been MN. Sorry if I have nicked your persona?

edam · 26/06/2008 09:57

Don't want to give too many details... but a husband murdered his wife (after years of violence in the days when no-one cared). One of their children married into my family. I'm not sure that person has told his/her own child, who are close genetic relatives of mine. So the murder is 'old' and not really anything to do with me, thank God. But it is to do with my relative and I occasionally wonder if s/he knows about it.

morningpaper · 26/06/2008 10:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

crumpet · 26/06/2008 10:08

I was over thirty when I found out about my father's first marriage, his 2 children by theat marriage and that my parents weren't married until after I was born. Whole family know except me and my brother, so I can understand why you are so angry. Interestingly one of my friends found out about her father's first marriage when she looked at an old census for a school project and another found out by finding an old wedding album in the attic.

There seems to be a lot of this about!

wabbit · 26/06/2008 10:14

at morningpaper's freind/relative! 'Oh, I don't divorce, I just kill 'em' attitude...

morningpaper · 26/06/2008 10:17

Last year MIL told me that her father was married before he met her mother and she had a half-brother who died at a young age

DH DIDN'T KNOW!!!! In fact he doesn't QUITE believe I had the conversation with MIL....

Turniphead1 · 26/06/2008 10:18

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

4andnotout · 26/06/2008 10:31

Ahh i have so many family skeletons..
1.My dad is not my "father"
2.dd1's dad is not her "father"
3.Dp has been married twice before and may have fathered a love child (our dc's are too young to know about this)
4.dp's dad left a young family to "marry" dp's mum, whether thay actually married is another confusion as their are some in the family who say no!

Kimi · 26/06/2008 10:32

DH did not know his half sister was only a half sister till I told him

GrapefruitMoon · 26/06/2008 10:38

i think in lots of families it's a combination of people not wanting to talk about a sad/embarrassing event and other family members being afraid to mention it in case it caused an upset.

I have one interesting person in my family who lied about her age when she met her dh and kept it up all her life - he only found out by accident after she died. Not sure how she pulled it off as they travelled a lot so she would have had a passport... also, her eldest child sadly died when he was a few days old - she never spoke about him and I don't know if her other children even know about him...

I also discovered a few years ago that my nan had several siblings I didn't know about who died in childhood or as young adults.

LissyD · 26/06/2008 10:47

When I turned 21 my dad sat me down to tell me as a big annoncement that he had been in prison before I was born. I think he expected me to be shocked, I just wanted to know what it was like and if he got into any fights! He was only in for not paying a fine anyway.