Are secrets part of your family dynamic?

No. Surprises, yes. But not secrets.

Edit: I'm talking about our nuclear family. Extended family? Well if they have secrets, they keep them well because we aren't aware of any.

We just don’t tell family anything. They don’t know abouthusband’s back surgery.
We tell them fluff stuff.

I have stopped keeping the secrets and I have told them.

Nope. In my dh's family everyone is up front even when it's something embarrassing. I don't talk to my family other than my sister, so it's a non-issue.

This is how my family is and it drives me nuts. There is always an elephant in the room that no one is talking about out loud. My dad is the worse though. He plays favorites. If something happens to my middle sister, then not a word is ever said. If something happens to me, the whole world (including facebook) knows. 

When I was doing my genogram as part of my master's degree, I learned both sides of my family had their fair share of secrets. People believe that shoving these under the rug is the solution, but the shame keeps getting passed down to future generations. It's really dysfunctional.

This is a great thread.

My nephew is my sweetheart, but he thinks I don't know about his marijuana use and his gambling. I would still love him and not judge him.

And dh's family is secretive and feels guilt and shame about so many things, some large (water under the bridge to me) and some silly like how much they paid for an item or that they paid full price GOD FORBID AND SMITE ME DOWN!!

Lots of the shame is about money. I get so tired of long discussions about how cheap they all think they are and who is the cheapest. I've thought about making awards out of dd's old softball trophies and handing them out, but I'd be banished and I would not get to see my many awesome nieces hahaha.

And I've got a few secrets myself...

My sister is incredibly private. For instance we spend Christmas Eve as a family, but we have zero idea how she celebrates Christmas Day.

She rarely shares details of her life unless we will ultimately find it - like a new car, retirement, etc.

She had a taste of her own medicine years ago when her daughter in law hid an entire pregnancy from everyone and my sister found out the day her grandson was born. And they weren’t estranged , they actually saw a lot of each other

In my family, there is only one person who keeps secrets. She is an outlier in many ways from the family -- really seems to have nothing in common with anyone else in our family. 

My dh's family thrives on secrets and drama. 

Not secrets so much but we rarely tell DH’s Dad & wife anything. This stems from their showing that they just don’t care, for example our ds told them on 3 separate occasions that he was going on expedition to Africa. A fairly big deal. Each time they claimed they didn’t know. The 3rd time I made it quite plain that this was the THIRD time he’d told them. There are no memory issues they just don’t care/aren’t interested. We shut down the info train mostly so we don’t get hurt that they don’t care.
Also, whatever we do/say FIL has to make a negative comment on. For example dh might say that a colleague at work left & FIL immediately comes back with “is the company going bust?” It’s exhausting.
Consequently we see very little of them & tell them virtually nothing.
I guess it’s possible that they keep secrets from us but I wouldn’t know & at this stage none of us care much, sad to say.

My hubby's family had way too many secrets - now that his mother has Alzheimer's and we emptied the house, we've found out all of them!

She always referred to his younger brother as the "condom baby" (seriously has not helped his self-esteem any being known as the mistake); HOWEVER, we found their marriage certificate and lo and behold, my hubby was already well on the way when they tied the knot. We waited until we were together with her sisters before we dropped that news flash - and we quickly realized they're in on more than we knew.

There's also a missing half-sister out there that was given up for adoption. We found a picture taken from the hospital room of the view in Hawaii from the room, her name, birthdate and vitals. Then we found the marriage announcement for that baby's bio father so at some point she had contact with him. I actually found him on FB, but there's no point in opening a can of worms and messing up someone's life. My hubby and his brother aren't sure they want to uncover everything now, especially considering that their Mom is too far gone to remember anything.

I watched her pretend and pose her whole life and I just think secrets are a soul sucker. None of these things were big deals now - no one in the family cared. But MIL cared what image was put forth all the time even if it was all faked.

makes me both honored and sad that people in (and not in) my family have been comfortable to come out to me before they are comfortable enough with immediate family to share that part of them.

It should not even be a thing.

Yes both my in laws and own family have these secrets. It’s very horrible to hear about things from others in that way. I hate it.

Oh holy smokes. Put my family in the stupid shit club. It makes my head explode. And then what you do say gets misunderstood or just ignored.