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Post by librarylady on Nov 21, 2024 22:09:10 GMT
Have you ever known someone who had a secret other family?
I am reading a book that triggered the question.
I have.
In my hometown a young woman in her 20s dated a guy, became engaged, set a date--every thing..They were having a house built and when the 2nd woman would pick out colors etc, he got her to change (to what 1st wife wanted.) About a week before the wedding he confessed he was already married etc. It ruined her trust and she never even dated again.
A neighbor we once had discovered her husband had a family in the next town, even had kids with 2nd family, I think. When I learned it, it explained why a mutual friend said they knew the man but their facts about him never completely matched what I knew. The wife that I knew didn't drive and it enabled the man to even bring 2nd wife to a little restaurant in our town and 1st woman never knew.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Nov 21, 2024 22:21:04 GMT
I knew of the John List family, but didn't realize until after he killed his whole family and went missing...
And he started a new family... Unknown until after he was caught..
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Post by Zee on Nov 21, 2024 22:27:10 GMT
I had a boss whose husband had an entire secret family. I don't blame him, she was a bitch.
He was a baseball player and therefore gone a lot.
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Post by compeateropeator on Nov 21, 2024 22:28:55 GMT
Yes. And it was shocking and quite unbelievable if I had just randomly heard it and not known people involved.
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lesley
Drama Llama
My best friend Turriff, desperately missed.
Posts: 7,339 
Location: Scotland, Scotland, Scotland
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Post by lesley on Nov 21, 2024 22:36:00 GMT
I used to live next door to a wonderful elderly German lady who had come over to Scotland in 1947. She and her husband had three daughters and they also ran a successful well known business together. I had heard rumours that he had a second family in the same town, but it was never alluded to. After they had been married for 53 years, he just seemed to disappear. Nobody knew where he had gone, but a couple of years later I came across his gravestone in the cemetery just across the road from where we lived. It stated that he was the beloved husband and father of X, Y and Z. There was no mention of my dear neighbour nor their daughters. 😕
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Post by gar on Nov 21, 2024 22:40:25 GMT
I used to live next door to a wonderful elderly German lady who had come over to Scotland in 1947. She and her husband had three daughters and they also ran a successful well known business together. I had heard rumours that he had a second family in the same town, but it was never alluded to. After they had been married for 53 years, he just seemed to disappear. Nobody knew where he had gone, but a couple of years later I came across his gravestone in the cemetery just across the road from where we lived. It stated that he was the beloved husband and father of X, Y and Z. There was no mention of my dear neighbour nor their daughters. 😕 Oh wow…that’s awful! For all of the poor people conned by him. |
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Post by AussieMeg on Nov 21, 2024 22:44:33 GMT
My experience is a bit different, because the man involved did not run two families concurrently. Long story short:
Arsehole uncle (Let's call him AH for short) left his wife and two young boys, aged 2 and 3, and moved to another country.
Arsehole married another woman and had two more boys.
When the second set of boys were about 3 and 4, he left them as well.
AH then married another woman and had three kids. They eventually moved back to Australia.
The secrecy comes into play because the three kids from AH's third family knew nothing about their AH father's first two families.
We only found out about the second set of boys - my first cousins - about five years ago. AH didn't pay any child support, and all four boys from his first two families had really tough upbringings, and it has negatively affected their lives in many ways.
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Post by gar on Nov 21, 2024 23:40:17 GMT
That s so so sad AussieMeg. To have that burden foisted upon you by someone else’s selfishness 😣 |
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Post by epeanymous on Nov 21, 2024 23:46:53 GMT
When my dad died two years ago, my mother told me not to post an obituary in our hometown newspaper. I posted it online on the funeral home's site. That's how I found out that my father had been married prior to my mother and had three kids from that marriage and I'd never been told any of it (in fact, they were told that if they ever contacted me my father would cut off all contact with them). I lived a five-minute drive from them for the eighteen years I grew up in my hometown. I found out they existed when I was 50.
A friend of mine had a similar situation where she found out that her father had several kids by another women when her father was on his deathbed.
I guess those aren't quite "married had kids and maintained two separate households" stories, but I figure they are close enough.
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Post by Delta Dawn on Nov 22, 2024 0:11:19 GMT
Yes my dad in Japan had a mistress and 2 kids with the other woman. Everyone found out when they came to Canada for a visit. Holy cow that was weird!
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Post by lesserknownpea on Nov 22, 2024 1:03:01 GMT
My former BIL was a lifelong con artist. During one of his stints in prison for fraud he “found religion” and began a friendship with a pastor, conning him beautifully. To the point the man introduced him to his daughter and the two began a courtship. While BIL was still in prison.
His newfound “faith”, and connections to such upright citizens helped him at his next parole hearing, and he was soon out, (unsurprisingly, he always knew the right things to say), and the couple were soon married. His 5th, her first.
She got pregnant right away, and things seemed ok, until she got a mysterious phone call from someone saying every morning he left her and met with his longtime partner, a girlfriend of several years standing. They told her where.
So she waited a few minutes the next day, then went to this place, and sure enough, there he was with a woman, obviously a romantic partner. She didn’t let him see her, went back home, and started snooping in his stuff.
And found his papers with FIVE different aliases. Many shady deals involving those different names.
Poor thing had had no idea SHE was the secret family.
She called her brothers, they came over and by the time BIL came home, his stuff was on the lawn. He was not even allowed in her house. She moved fast on divorcing him. He, of course, just went to the girlfriend, but quickly ended up marrying again and having three little girls with the next wife. I have no idea what his total kid count ended up at.
He’s currently a guest of the state of Oregon for sexual crimes against children. His and others. My former SIL dodged a bullet big time.
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Post by mom on Nov 22, 2024 1:03:23 GMT
Yes, last year DH & I found out when a very good friend of ours passed away that he had a whole life we knew nothing about -- a wife, etc. We had known him for 20+ years (he did not live in our town but came to our town every week) and we knew several of his girlfriends, went on trips with him, etc. Had zero clue he had a wife in another town.
We actually were with him + his girlfriend when he had to be admitted to the hospital after a stroke, and thats when we found out he had a wife that needed to be called. It was a major shitshow TBH.
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moodyblue
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,276
Location: Western Illinois
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Jun 26, 2014 21:07:23 GMT
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Post by moodyblue on Nov 22, 2024 1:04:52 GMT
There was a guy up the road from us when I was growing up who had a second family just a few miles away from the first. It wasn’t totally secret of course, but I have no idea how much each wife/family knew.
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Post by rymeswithpurple on Nov 22, 2024 1:24:23 GMT
revirdsuba99 That's one of my favorite episodes of Forensic Files! My dad's dad was a serial cheater. Whether he fathered any children outside of the three he did with my father's mother (and his eventual other wife), I don't know. I sincerely doubt my father wants to know. He doesn't talk to one brother that his stepmother had with his dad AT ALL, and he somewhat talks to the other one. I never met either of my dad's biological parents. His mom died when he was 19, and his dad died a few years after my parents were married but before I was born.
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Post by librarylady on Nov 22, 2024 1:40:36 GMT
It wasn't exactly a second family--but my former BIL had a GF. He was getting ready to retire from military. My mother gave them (sister and BIL) 5 acres to have for their home--it was about 1/2 block in distance from her home. (She had given all of her children 5 acres and on that 1 mile road, 2 sisters already had homes. The home would have been surrounded by my family.) The home was being built and the @#$%^ brought his GF to the house to show her the new home he was having built for the two of them in his retirement. (How did he think that was going to work?) GF wanted different home so he showed her the possibilities with this builder and wanted my sister to change her choice. I can't remember the details now, but somehow the plan unraveled when my mother saw the woman or he thought my mom had seen her...BIL began to try to explain why he had a woman with him... Unfortunately my sister stayed with him. We later learned that he had a side piece for most of their marriage.
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Post by kluski on Nov 22, 2024 2:18:11 GMT
Have you ever known someone who had a secret other family? I am reading a book that triggered the question. I have. In my hometown a young woman in her 20s dated a guy, became engaged, set a date--every thing..They were having a house built and when the 2nd woman would pick out colors etc, he got her to change (to what 1st wife wanted.) About a week before the wedding he confessed he was already married etc. It ruined her trust and she never even dated again. A neighbor we once had discovered her husband had a family in the next town, even had kids with 2nd family, I think. When I learned it, it explained why a mutual friend said they knew the man but their facts about him never completely matched what I knew. The wife that I knew didn't drive and it enabled the man to even bring 2nd wife to a little restaurant in our town and 1st woman never knew. What are you reading? |
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Post by Linda on Nov 22, 2024 2:23:44 GMT
not a secret family but a GMIL who married #1 and had a child (FIL), abandoned the family, remarried (#2) THEN several years later divorced #1, left #2 and married #3 who then went to court to annul the marriage for bigamy when he found out about #2 and then she went back to #2 and apparently lived happily ever after. Ironically marriage #3 was probably actually legal and #2 was probably the bigamous one due to the timing of her divorce from #1
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Nov 22, 2024 5:40:49 GMT
I knew someone whose husband had a secret girlfriend and baby. They lived in a neighboring town and she didn’t find out until after the baby was born. I don’t remember what his excuse was for not being home more. He has three or four kids with his wife as well.
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Gennifer
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,238
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Post by Gennifer on Nov 22, 2024 7:18:38 GMT
Yes, a family I used to babysit for as a teenager. It turned out he had another wife and kids in another state, but it didn’t come out until years later, when I was an adult and his kids were all late teens.
The second wife knew about his first wife, but the first one had no idea. The first wife divorced him, and he then moved the second family to our small town.
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