“It All Made More Sense To Me Once I Grew Up”: 29 Shocking Family Secrets People Discovered As Adults That Will Leave You Reeling

2.

“I was told my father was arrested and sent to prison for 15 years for being a part of a boiler room fraud scheme in the late ’80s and that he was charged under RICO for communications fraud and theft on A LOT of counts. I went to visit him a few times, and he would send cards on holidays and my birthday. … I remember him using a cane the first time I saw him in prison, and he said he ‘got hurt.’ My 4-year-old self thought this made sense. After a year or so, he stopped writing, and I stopped visiting.”

“I figured he didn’t have our new address after a recent move. I finally received a call from him during my senior year of high school to reconnect. I blew him off and never really gave it a second thought. Then, I became a father a decade or so later, and I felt horrible for pushing away his last effort, so I attempted to reconnect. Turns out he’d passed. But in the process of looking him up, I came across his court records, and the truth was revealed. Turns out he was released on probation EVERY time for his multiple felonies. After violating his probation a third time via a DUI that resulted in a major bodily injury (that explains the cane), he was sentenced to five years. He served just under four. He waited 10+ years to call. I was in his local newspaper for some high school athletic achievements, and that is what reminded him I existed.

Some added background: he was a Vietnam war vet who came back with a Vietnamese wife; they had two sons together, and about ten years into the marriage, he started an affair with my mother. He told his primary family he was working out of town three days a week but was living across town with my mother. Eventually, I was conceived. My mother was addicted to painkillers, and after my birth, I was removed from her care. I was lucky to have a couple ready to foster me, but my father fought it because he would owe child support. So, I got to live the incredible experience of being an affair partner’s child at his wife’s house and having no clue why everyone in the house hated me. I changed my last name to my adopted family. I hope his grave is unmarked and covered by a pig farm.”

—u/superduper