Family Secrets

He's already remarried to a woman 30 years younger than him and did so without a prenup. My aunt had college trust funds set up for her four grandkids and now they're worried that they won't get it.

That was my aunt's dying wish. The first thing she did when she was diagnosed was to make sure that her grandkids would have college taken care of. Now, if my uncle dies before their kids go to college, the stepmom (younger than one of my cousins, two years older than the other) might get to decide if they get that money.

 

Some distant relative of my wife's died under mysterious circumstances shortly after moving in with a black guy, which wasn't terribly fashionable in 1960s Alabama.

 

I don't think anyone faults him for dating, but the timing and the bragging alienated everyone. Bragging about conquests on the day ashes were being spread might qualify as poor timing...

 

I agree. Just joking. Sounds like a dick move.

 

Their family had a crazy dynamic...

My aunt was a University President who was crazy successful. Just an awesome woman.

My uncle was a child psychologist who is just an insufferable dickhead.

One cousin is just like her mom and is a marine biologist. One of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

The other cousin has high-functioning Aspergers and while most of us are scared to death to be left in the same room as him, has a greatr job and has managed to stay married for 20 years and has two awesome kids. His wife is a bit nutty too, but both of their kids are just like my aunt and other cousin, so that's a positive.

This was the same guy who said to my aunt at my grandmother's funeral, "I'm not sorry she's dead, she was old." and we had to keep him away from family members at a funeral for a cousin who died in a car accident because he kept pointing out that she wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

 

No, it's evil. (And no, I'm not related to the party. Just some things are objectively evil, and that is.)

 

My mother has come to believe that my grandfather is not her father. She believes that her brother (my uncle) (John) was conceived out of wedlock and that his father didn't want to marry my grandmother. My grandfather, who had also had some feelings for her, decided to step up and say that if that man didn't love her enough, he did and it didn't matter to him.

So they got married and (John) was born. I think my mom had done the math and (John) was born two or three months too early to be a honeymoon baby. Then my grandparents had two kids before grandpa decided join the army. My mom thinks grandma got preggers with her while grandpa was stationed in Alaska ... by the same man she suspects is (John's) father. And her birthdate and the approximate time grandpa returned from Alaska don't jive. She thinks that in order for that particular math to add up, she'd have been born in late April or early May instead of mid-February.

Mom feels grandma was extremely distant toward her and (John), probably out of guilt. Grandma was also crappy toward my aunt (Barbara) because of how she always backed (John) and my mom. (From what I know, grandpa treated all his kids the same.)

I don't think either my father or sister have been told this. I can't really verify anything because my mom is from Idaho and I only met my grandparents three times. And the last time I was there was for his funeral in 1985.

 

My grandfathers were both black sheep who in turn abandoned their families. In the case of my mother's father, he did it twice.

He left his first wife and two children (with a third on the way) in 1929, and the story went that he really did go out for a pack of cigarettes. That was in Massachusetts, and somehow he ended up in a small town in Ontario, where he met, knocked up, and married my grandmother. Naturally, he'd neglected to mention that he was already married. The first wife eventually divorced him in absentia. By then, he'd had four children in Ontario.

After burning down the family home in a drunken rage in 1949, he left as abruptly as he'd arrived, going back to Massachusetts. My mother and her siblings up here never saw him again. His first wife had died and he was a total stranger to his children from that marriage, and a stranger he would remain despite having more or less returned to their lives. He never spoke with them upon his return. He moved in with his sister and, whenever one of my aunts would come over to visit my great aunt, he would get up and leave the room or leave the house entirely. Weird guy.

As for my father's father, he was a sailor and a rambler who, it was said, chummed around with gangsters in Detroit during Prohibition. He vanished in the mid '30s, just walked away from his wife and five sons. He eventually remarried and lived another 40 years in Detroit before he died, but he was seldom, if ever, seen in our hometown; Dad certainly never saw him again.

The part that really sucked is that my paternal grandfather came from a well-to-do family, but his status as the black sheep extended to my father and his brothers. Grandpa left town, my grandmother died only a few years later, and my wealthy great-grandparents never lifted a finger to help, nor did Grandpa's snooty social-climbing sisters. Most of the kids, including Dad, ended up in an orphanage, while their spoiled cousins wound up inheriting the family fortune.

Dad says it's just as well, because he probably would have drank away his share anyway.

 

Some things are objectively evil. Consenting adults choosing an open relationship is not one of them. That is just your opinion. At the very least, you really need to look up what objectively means.

 

If he thinks it's evil, what does it matter to you guys? Good grief.

 

You would run an awfully boring discussion board. Do you not like debate?

What can possibly be evil about it? It is consenting adults, who are they harming?

 

Well, two or more consenting adults.