Have you known anyone who led a double life?

In My Humble Opinion
21

My next door neighbour was living a double life - he had two complete families ignorant of each other’s existence: two kids with the neighbour-woman, and another with woman #2. The kids were all very young, under 3.

To outward appearances at least, the neighbours seemed totally nice and normal. Dude had some sort of job involving lots of regular travel, so his absences were I suppose at least somewhat plausible for both women.

Neighbour woman and woman #2 found out about each other somehow, and neighbour woman packed up and left with the kids. Then neighbour man left too, and subletted his place to a bunch of low-life types who threw wild parties and delt drugs. The two of them also abandoned their cat, which we ended up taking in for a while (we found it mewing piteously in the snow outside the door while drug-dealing low-lifes were having yet another loud party).

Having a kid of my own since, I simply cannot understand where anyone would get the energy to have two complete families, even if one wanted them. I find it hard enough to deal with one. :confused:

22

A coworker of mine found out her father had another family of 4 children on the east coast - she found out at 18 and married at 19 herself. The one thing, the only BIG thing she asked of her new husband was to never betray her. Of course, after 30 years of marriage she found her husband had a secondary family - the children were in their late teens when she found out :(. She’s married again, though - hope springs eternal, right?

My father’s cousin, who was an only child, found out after his mother passed away that she’d had a son out-of-wedlock (what a quaint notion) with a married man. The man had asked for a divorce, but the wife refused (these were the 30’s), so they (her married man and wife) raised the bastard son. The mother remarried and had this ‘legitimate’ son. This cousin remembered playing with the older boy every summer when the two families got together - but never imagined it was his older brother - he was 65 when he found out - I’ve always found that remarkable, that they could be civil enough to do that.

And this final one doesn’t exactly fit the OP - but I knew a young woman who confided in me that her mother was her mother and her father was also her uncle. They lived as man and wife (conveniently had the same last name and all) and to the world they were a married couple. I never learned if her father/uncle actually sired her, or whether the uncle simply filled the role of father . . . either way it was just too creepy . . . upon reflection, her eyes were awfully close together . . .

23

Neither side seems too terribly interested each other.

Basically what I think happened is the Dick wanted a son. (He is sexist in addition to racist and pretty much every other form of bigotry you can imagine). My wife has 2 sisters. 1st 1/2 sib was also a girl, but then after Junior Dick was born, amazingly no more accidents.

The 2d wife is (IMO) pretty much of a bitch. She was Dick’s bookkeeper, so she knew he had kids when she started popping them out.

For a while it seemed Dick was somewhat interested in our kids, but that seemed to have waned when his other 2 kids started having grandkids.

The son is an idiot and a loser,whose life is completely subsidized by his dad. Neither my wife nor I have any iterest in him or his family. The girl and her husband are pleasant enough, but, neither side seems interested enough in each other.

During the divorce, Dick pretty effectively screwed over my MIL, hiding assets - and after he refused to carry out various aspects of the settlement. Which caused enough difficulty dealing with my drunken idiot of an MIL.

Dick likes “public displays” of us all as a big happy family, but was unwilling to spend any time with us or our kids. It was often very painful for my wife when we would get together for them for birthdays and such. A couple of examples:

  • I remember on time the girl jokingly referred to her mom as “a homewrecker.” ot all that funny when from my wife’s position that is pretty much what she was.
    -And another time the girl offhandedly remarked that she had a big box full of photos of my wife and her mom and sisters when they were young. No mention of - “Oh, I wanted you to have these…”
    -I remember one x-mas when my wife was not thrilled to hear Dick had given a Volvo to his son’s GF (I don’t believe they have ever gotten married yet, but they have 4 kids). I think we got a little collectible house - for a while they gave us one of those every year.

Neither Dick, nor his other family seems to appreciate his actions as the betrayal my wife’s family considers them. He’s never sincerely apologized to my wife, nor shown any desire to have an intimate familial relationship with her or our children. And he is a pathological liar who likes to control people with money. Rather than acting at al shamed, he feels he deserves praise because most men aren’t able to fiancially provide for a SINGLE family as well as he did for TWO! Fucked up does not begin to describe it!

The guy has quite a bit of property, including a vaction propert my wife had been going to all her life, and we’d put some amount of effort and $ into fixing up. One of the final last straws was when she saw a copy of the deed to that place, and it was in the names of his 2d wife and the other kids. In her mind, was the final clear proof that he favors the others over her side.

We told our kids in as many words that we desired nothing to do with him. Told them also that in doing so we were likely ensuring that he would leave us nothing when he dies, but we did not know if he would make any provision for our kids. Told them they were free to maintain whatever relations with him they wished. None of them wants anything to do with him, and wish he would just leave them alone.

24

That’s a very sad story, indeed. I think some people just go into denial mode when they’ve done something so despicable that they can’t admit to themselves what a truly shitty person they are. Sounds like it fits Dick McDickerson to a “t”.

25

If I were the last man on earth, there would still be 2 of us.

26

The first time Mom divorced John (his real name, but let’s call him Evil Asshole for short), it was because he had cheated on her. The second time she divorced him, he did actually have a family in another state. The mother in this other family had found out that Evil Asshole was married to my mom and was blackmailing him about it. I have to love her a little bit for that.

27

There was a kid in our school whose dad had another entire large family not so far away. IRC, the dad was a judge.

It was a TV movie of the week about 20 years ago, I think.
I am not sure when he found out about the other family, but the boy went from being a Straight A student to disappearing into drugs.

28

Hell, the Mayor of my city was living a double life, had two kids by another woman.

“Thanks, dad!” :smiley:

29

Not so much a double life, but my father had a couple of secret kids. From what I understand, he supported them financially, but was apparently content to never be involved in their lives.

30

In my area, (norhtern Virginia) it’s not at all uncommon for people to have jobs they can’t talk about. It has happened several times that someone named a company which, due to my position, I knew to be a cover. It’s not dishonesty, just necessity. I couldn’t admit to knowing, and they couldn’t admit the truth.

In general I’ve avoided dating guys who were in that situation. I just couldn’t deal with worrying every time they went on a “business trip.”

31

[easily amused] So Lindbergh went around calling himself C(areu) Kent? [/easily amused]

32

Only third hand: years ago I knew a couple who had done civilian work with the US Army in Berlin in the 1980s. They were friendly with this German woman who was, I believe, a secretary in the husband’s office - had her over for dinner, hung out at parties, etc. At some point after the Wall fell - you guessed it - it was revealed that she’d been a spy for East Germany the entire time! They felt terribly betrayed.