31 People Reveal The One Secret That’s Been Ruining Their Lives

1. He’s the only biological son.

I have 5 brothers and sisters. We were all raised by the same father. I’ve learned I’m his only biological child due to adultery. My mom doesn’t know I know. My siblings have no idea.

2. Cancer.

In mid-December I was headhunted and offered my dream position at a company I’ve dreamt about working for. I moved away to the capital and made a plan with my university to finish my degree whilst working. The kicker? I have early stage cancer. I found out before taking the job. I haven’t told a soul.

3. Wants to get away from disabled parents.

I don’t want to live with my parents anymore. I’m 27, make really good money, and could move out whenever I want. But my parents are both permanently disabled and I pay them rent in addition to most of the bills. They’re also currently in the process of fighting the banks to keep their house. If I move out everything will most likely collapse and they’ll lose the house and have to move.

4. He’s not the father.

My daughter isn’t mine. My fiancée went away for a tough mudder (mud run) the weekend “my” daughter was conceived. I took the baby to get a DNA test one day when my fiancée was at work and I was at home with her and sure enough, just like on Maury, I was NOT the father. I went to a doctor and it turns out I am sterile. I can’t tell anyone because I love the little girl like she’s my own but it hurts when people comment on how much “she looks like her mom” but never how much she looks like me. I could never bring myself to say anything to her though because I don’t want to NOT be in the little girl’s life…as far as she knows, I am her father and she loves me unconditionally and I can’t ruin that.

5. Wife’s secret lover.

My wife, who ruined my life and bailed on both me and my son, ended up running away with her brother and having his baby.

6. Incest.

I was involved in incest as a child. I avoided sex until I got married and while I love and trust my husband and enjoy sex with him, it’s bringing back a lot of terrible memories.

7. Why her friend killed herself.

A friend of mine killed herself when we were younger and no one knew why. It was because her dad molested us when we were kids, and we never told anyone.

8. The real story of her mother.

A very long time ago my mother died of AIDS. She contracted it when I was 8. We were victims of a home invasion and she was raped. My mother and father were still together when she died and it completely devastated him–I’ve never seen a more happier, open, in love couple than my mother and father.

He couldn’t bear to be alone so he remarried an old family friend. I like her a lot actually and I want him to be happy.

This is terrible, but to people I actually know in person, I couldn’t even begin to tell them my mother died and how she did. So I just say my stepmom is my biological mom if it ever comes up in conversation. I’m a piece of shit, I know. I’ve since moved to a new city and I just don’t think it’s anybody’s business–especially since I spend most of my time in a professional environment.

I accept that I haven’t fully dealt with this yet.

9. Hates his fiancée’s sex drive.

I love my fiancée but her complete lack of sex drive is making me disinterested in our relationship. I have tried all manner of buy-in over the last three years to get her interest up and we have fought about it many times but I have finally given up. I am extremely sexual and so was she when we first started dating but she will only have sex a few times a month. She says she orgasms and enjoys it when we do but often rushes me to finish so even when it happens the sex is rarely intimate or satisfying for me. It makes me feel unattractive and undesirable and in turn makes it difficult for me to be affectionate with her. She is beautiful and fun and way out of my league so there is intense pressure from all of my friends to stay with her (constant “if you don’t marry her you are a moron” comments) We live together but I spend more and more time isolated from her and my friends because the anxiety of feeling like I am doing the wrong thing by marrying her is crippling. I usually end up at home with headphones on playing games while she watches TV or is out drinking with her friends.

10. He kills people for a living.

On my deployment I killed people because it was my job. I have a hard time living with myself, knowing this is what I do for a living.

11. He hates food, and he’s a chef.

I’m a renowned chef (to an extent). I don’t have my own TV show or anything but I have been featured on a few FoodTV shows as well as a few shows on The Cooking Channel. Anthony Bourdain has stopped by one of my restaurants in the early days of No Reservations.

My Secret: I absolutely HATE most of the food I cook. I cater to the rich snobby crowd and it’s amazing how sheep-like these people can be. I could take a fucking pile of dirt but as long as I say it’s been ‘braised’ and finished off with some ‘truffle oil’ served with a tbs of ‘caviar’, they’ll “LOVE” it because of those random key words thrown in there.

12. She’s adopted.

I found out at age 22 that I am adopted… I only found out because my biological mother added me on Facebook one day…

13. His life plan.

I live check to check, I pass out drunk every night, I have no kids or significant other and I’m getting older. My retirement plan is to kill myself in a way that won’t cost anyone money when I’m too tired for labor anymore.

14. Childhood sexual abuse.

Made an account for this. I was sexually abused by a family member as a child, one I often see. I haven’t told anyone and it still haunts me till this day. The reason I haven’t said anything, was because my life was threatened by said family member. Edit the only one I have told now is my SO. He urges me to act now, I want to and I’m working on it.

15. She shaves her face every day.

I’m a biological heterosexual woman who has to shave every day like a man. I won’t let anyone touch my face, for fear that they’ll feel my stubble, and if I stay over at a friend’s house I hide a razor and shaving cream in my bag, wake up at some insanely early hour and go shave in the bathroom while everyone is still asleep.

I’ve done laser hair removal, but a lot of my hair is too light to really react, yet too dark to go unnoticed if I let it grow. And I’ve yet to ever find an electrologist that actually makes my hair go away. I also have hair on my stomach all the way up to a few inches under my boobs.

I’ve been tested for hormone imbalances, and all the levels come back normal. They assume I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, but can’t get the numbers to back the diagnosis up. All of that has lead to anxiety over sex where someone would be touching areas I shave.

I get so nervous that I tense up, and sex is extremely painful for me.

16. Scarring memories of her mother.

That I remember my biological mother admitting that she hated me, because I didn’t save her marriage like she had hoped. That’s the only reason she had me.

I think she changed her mind now that I’m an adult; she wants to be in my life. I can’t forgive that.

17. What he did to his rapist.

I got raped when I was about 8 years old. Few years later I found him and smashed his knees, so he can’t walk to the actual day. He is now a beggar in my home city and I don’t regret anything. I still have some mental problems with it, but after the years it gets better, except for my sex life, I still have bad days and can’t really enjoy.

18. Husband is having affair.

My husband is having an affair. I know but I am too scared of what will happen if I confront him. He is so narcissistic that he can’t see anything wrong with anything he does. We have a 9 year old and I think it would destroy him. Edit: my mom was married 7 different times while I was growing up. I have a huge fear of becoming her. I know it’s irrational but that is what stops me. I have a good job and can afford it. Thanks for encouragement. I do have solid proof. I haven’t confronted him yet. I know he will lie because he lies every time I confront him in an argument.

19. A secret love.

For the last five years I have been hopelessly, painfully in love with my best friend. I have dated other people and so has he, we’ve moved to different cities and led completely different lives but I am so in love with every single fiber of his being that it consumes me.

20. The money he’s saving for his girlfriend.

That I am skipping breakfast and lunch most days in order to save as much money and food in the house for my SO and her diabetic grandmother that we live with since my SO got laid off in October. Been lucky that so far none of my weight loss is really noticeable, so no one has asked.

21. He was a Jehovah’s Witness.

I left a cult, my entire family is still in. If I tell them I truly don’t believe I will lose them forever. No I’m not kidding, they will cease to communicate and associate with me and my wife. My parents, brothers, sisters and 20 years worth of friendships, gone. Some of them, including family have already expressed that i am no longer welcome in their lives.

I am/was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

22. Never actually graduated college.

I thought I was going to graduate college, had a massive what seemed to be a week long panic attack, stopped working on my last paper. Did the walk but never turned in the paper. Have been lying to folks about having a degree for 7 yrs. (I have contact the school and if I could get the paper completed and turned in the prof would grade and I could graduate, but I have no idea were to start).

23. Still misses his parents, despite everything.

Even though my parents don’t want me I still want to be close to them. It eats me up that I can’t even really talk to them. If anyone asks I always say I’m better off but sometimes I just want to break down and call my mommy.

24. Wishes her brother was dead.

I wish my brother was dead, I know this makes me sound terrible but there are reasons behind it. My brother was born three years before me. He was born with a malformed brain, which causes him to act like a 6 month old for the rest of his life, meaning he screams at night, always wants to eat, and is very temperamental. Currently he is twenty and he still lives with me and my parents, he also since his birth has developed man things, diabetes, a gimp leg, legally blind but can see very, very poorly. He also, due to his malformed brain, has an immune system deficiency. Which means when our family gets a slight flu, he gets so sick we have to bring him to a special hospital, for example when i was 9 and he was 12 we went to visit family for Christmas, where my whole family got sick, we had to leave early because he started having serious seizures and went into cardiac arrest. but i digress, the reason I want him to die, is because he has no sense of deep emotion, only vague tones of happy, sad and confused, he has no style of life in his current situation, and he is a terribly large burden on both of my parents.

25. Knows she’ll never be able to move up at work.

That despite my dedication and relatively hard work, I’m still at rung 1 of the corporate ladder while people with less talent and skills have surpassed me easily because of my lack of social skills. As a result, I’m miserable in my job but I have to keep up the charade in order not to fuck my family’s lives up. They couldn’t handle having to commit me to a psych ward or such, so I keep a straight face, tell everyone everything’s perfectly fine, and carry on.

Truth is, it’s only a matter of time before I truly, really snap. Not in a violent way or such, just… break. Mentally, but also physically.

If worst comes to worst, I could never afford the medical bills for a prolonged hospital stay.

So I keep faking it…

26. The real story of the night his brother died.

I bought my underage brother alcohol, which him and his friends got drunk with. They all died in a drunk driving accident that night, all because I bought them drinks…

27. The real reason for her eating disorder.

I have an eating disorder not because I want to be thin or lose weight. I have an eating disorder because I want to disappear.

My body is already showing signs that it is shutting down as a result of my anorexia. I don’t have any family close by, my spouse is out of the country for several months. I’ve stopped going to the doctor. I have a sizable life insurance policy and I am worth more dead than alive.

I have an eating disorder because it is slow and subtle suicide.

28. Her mother is a junkie.

I hate my mother with every fiber of my being but I still can’t tell her no. I’m tired of taking care of her financially and it’s putting a burden on me and my husband. He thinks I am careless with money (wife spending money on frivolous things) but in reality I give it to my mom so that she can get her fix because I am afraid that the one time she says it’s for food or rent and I don’t give it to her she’ll end up dead and I don’t want to live with that guilt. It’s been going on since I was a teenager and I’m 30 now.

29. Abuse as a child has left irreparable damage.

As a child I was sexually abused by a family “friend”. I’ve never been able to hold a relationship and any form of touching just freaks me out. Every once in a while I have dreams about it. I remember telling my mother and she didn’t believe me, saying he was a “nice” person. I don’t think I’ll ever hold down a relationship because of it, and it just depresses me. It has ruined me, I’ve tried and contemplated suicide, to me it’s as if I were alone because of it.

30. Knows about her mother’s affair.

My mom is having an affair. I know; my dad doesn’t. My mom now has “job training” in towns coincidentally close to where her lover resides. She’s a secretary. My dad loves her to death. For Christmas, he got her a new wedding ring. It kills me to see him care so much for someone betraying him.