“For the first 16 years of my life, I thought that my father had died in an accident. Turns out, he just didn’t care about me and left ... It really messed with me when I found out at 16 that my biological father was still out there somewhere.”

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Warning: This post contains mentions of drug addiction and pregnancy loss.

"I reconnected with my dad and spent every possible moment with him, my stepmom, and my baby brother, who was born earlier that year. Then, I told my stepmom all the things my mother had done (she confessed a lot of things when she was drunk). She had hired a PI to get any information (dirt) on stepmom that she could. Had him pose as a vacuum salesperson, a patient’s son in the hospital where she worked, and he even rented an apartment next door to them while they were building their home. I had seen him and knew what he looked like, so I told her everything. We had some fun feeding him some pretty juicy tidbits for him to report back to my mother. Everything was pure B.S., of course. I never told my mother. I never told my dad either. To this day, I don’t think anyone but myself and my stepmom knows."

"My brother and I aren't supposed to know this because we were too young, but I know."

"She even faked an affair the year before she died (she was bedbound, extremely sick, and disabled so it was an online 'affair'). When I was visiting that year, I went through her entire computer history and every social platform she used, and there was absolutely no one she was talking to; my mom was very bad at anything technological. She literally lied and faked an affair as a desperate plea to make my dad divorce her."

"Having found his papers, I learned my father was tortured in prison for helping his students escape the country. My parents never ever ever talked about the stuff they went through. We grew up thinking we were a perfectly normal family."

"As a kid, I always thought he was just an angry guy who would work all day, be pissed, and yell at at us for no reason. I didn't understand the long hours he was putting in or the stress it was putting him through. But especially now as I enter more serious full-time employment and adult life, I'm starting to appreciated him and his hard work, despite him never explicitly telling me. He's now got a very high position in a very large trucking company without a degree. I'm proud of him."

"I met the girlfriend a few months later, and she was the same age as my older sister. Needless to say, we didn’t get along."

"He cosigned mortgages and helped open bank accounts for divorced women they knew. Turns out our stay-at-home mom and workaholic dad were pretty badass, and we had no idea. Now it's not something we ~shouldn’t know~, but there was a time we were sitting on a huge secret but had no idea. We could have blown up a lot of lives just talking about someone stopping by 'for coffee' every day."

"Basically, 1) in her opinion, she’s good at head, and 2) my stepdad’s uncircumcised. Didn’t ask her either of those things."

"I don't blame her, as I also suffer from depression and have those really hard days too. Thankfully, both me and her are in therapy and are taking medication,  and she's here with us now. I love her to bits and try my best to show her that even though she had experienced many hard things in life, she still raised a good child."

"It’s bad because all my siblings are trashy and will lose their minds when they find out."

"He put the remainder of the money in a trust under my name for her so that she couldn’t do the same after he passed."

"I also never knew he was married before my mom. I was going through pictures and happened to find his wedding pictures from his first marriage. He’s never spoken about it, but I can understand why they didn’t work out."

"She also wrote how lucky she was that my father made a lot of money throughout their marriage and how bummed she was that it was taking her so long to get her share of the divorce money. That information has been living rent-free in my mind for the past nine years, and it changed the way I see mom. I love her to death, but I definitely regret having snooped through her journals and coming across that specific piece of info. I don't know how to explain why it's painful to even think about it, but it just is. It's not my place to judge. I love my parents. My father has no idea as well."

"Today, my brother and I both have PhDs. I really hope that we could somehow reward the sacrifices they did for us."

"A TV series was made about the guy my dad worked for. Years later, Dad made an off-the-cuff remark that they'll never find these so-called missing people."

"My mom also used to put Sun-In on my brother's hair so he looked blonde like my dad. Anyway, my dad didn’t care and adopted my brother, and he loves him like any father should. My mom left when I was 8, and my dad raised me and my brother ever since. Wild family, I know."

"She said the meetings were work-related (she was a stats professor), but about 30 years later, after she died, I found a box of love letters from all of them, which clearly indicated she had sexual relationships with all of them."

"I cried and put them back. All I could think about was being about 5–6 and being so hungry. I have never asked either of them about it."

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.