History Main / SecretOtherFamily

* Takeshi Kitano's ''Film/KikujiroNoNatsu'' has this as a {{MacGuffin}}.

* One ''Webcomic/ASofterWorld'' [[http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=802 strip]] is about this.

* The murder victim in the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "Grissom Versus the Volcano".

* [[spoiler: Satoshi Oginome]] in ''Anime/MawaruPenguindrum'' either falls under this or ParentWithNewParamour as we find out in Episode 8. His child from his first marriage, [[spoiler:Ringo]] [[BreakTheCutie does not]] [[SanitySlippage take it well]].

* RealLife example: Vito Fossella, a Congressman from New York City, was arrested for drunk driving in Alexandria, Virginia. When a member of his Virginian other family came to pick him up, he get to run for re-election.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* In ''Manga/{{Mushishi}}'', Ginko helps a woman and her son; the woman's husband is missing, and neither of them know what became of him. In the end, they find him living with his other family and child. [[spoiler: [[BittersweetEnding Bittersweetly]], the woman will never remember it, because of her anterograde amnesia. But she won't have to deal with the pain of knowing her beloved husband left her, either.]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* Near the end of ''After Her'' by Joyce Maynard the narrator Rachel discovers that her (now deceased) father had a daughter he never told them about when the now-adult woman approaches her at a book signing. In a variation everyone was aware of the relationship that produced her and their father had been divorced from Rachel's mother (who's implied to have known about the girl's existence and not cared) for years by the time the other girl was born, but he never told Rachel and her sister Patti about her because Rachel once swore in a fit of anger she'd never forgive him if he had another child. At first Rachel rejects her half-sister, but the two reconcile after she saves Rachel from the SerialKiller who her father had tried and failed to find all those years ago.

* In ''Lives of the Monster Dogs'' Augustus Rank, the creator of the titular Dogs, discovered that his father had one of these after his mother died and his father moved back in with his mistress, whom he formally married shortly after. Later on Augustus murdered his half brother from that relationship after he found out that they were competing for the same woman and that his brother planned to run away with her.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''Series/{{Banacek}}'': In "The Three Million Dollar Piracy", Banacek discovers that one of the suspects is married to two different women. A ship's officer, he maintains the charade by telling one wife that he is shipping out a couple of weeks before he actually does, and telling the other that he is returning two weeks after he actually does.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' :

* Shawn on ''Series/{{Boy Meets World}}'' discovers that his dad had another family, and that he has a half-brother he never knew about.

* In one episode of ''Series/TheCloser'', a man, his wife and their young daughter are brutally murdered. The only surviving family member, a teenage boy, is initially the prime suspect, but the actual killer turns out to be [[spoiler:the man's ''other'' teenage son]], who had discovered that [[spoiler:his dad]] had another family.

* Subverted in ''Series/DesperateHousewives''. Lynette gets suspicious when her husband Tom is shown to be falsifying expense reports, and follows him on a so called "business trip" to Atlantic City. There, she sees him embracing another woman and a young girl, and concludes that this trope is in play. [[spoiler: Tom later confesses to Lynette that the little girl ''is'' his daughter, conceived via a one-night-stand with the woman years before he met and married Lynette. But he only just found out about the lovechild when his old fling got in contact to ask for a decade's worth of child support for a kid he didn't even know he had. Once he got over the shock of finding out he had an eleven year old daughter he never knew about, Tom ''did'' intend to tell Lynette -- she just happened to find out before he had the chance to fess up.]]

* An episode of ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' has a man about to testify on a gang gunned down in an office. His wife says the man had been busted for embezzling from his company and explained he was being forced to steal for a local gang. The team take the gang down only for the leder to claim they've never heard of the guy. Digging further, the team discover the man had a wife and son on a nearby island and was stealing the money to help set them up and cooked up the gang story as an excuse. Grover openly notes how "it takes a certain kind of sociopath to do this." It turns out [[spoiler: the killer was the boyfriend of the man's teenage daughter who was outraged at finding out what her dad was doing to her and her mother.]]

* The victim in an episode of ''Series/{{Life}}'' - "Farthingale" - had two wives under two different names. [[spoiler: Turns out he was living a triple life, in reality an employee of the IRS, and was killed by an anti-government bomber.]]

* Jack's father, Christian, on ''Series/{{Lost}}''. During a flashback in season 2 we see Christian arguing with a woman in Australia about having a right to see his daughter and in the third season we learn the daughter is actually Claire Littleton. Jack doesn't learn about this until the fourth season when Claire's mother attends the memorial service for Jack's father.

* ''Series/PublicEye'' :Episode "The Man Who Didn't Eat Sweets"; PI Frank Marker (Alfred Burke) is asked by a woman who finds a photo in her husband's wallet of an unidentified teenage girl to find out who she is; Marker follows the husband and finds he has not one but TWO Secret Other Families, none of whom are aware of the others. Marker confronts the man and persuades him that this situation cannot continue and that he must break up with two of them; he then tells his client that the girl in the photo is a daughter by a previous marriage. In the last scene we see the husband making two telephone calls...

* On ''{{Series/Sisters}}'', the titular four sisters learn that they have another sister, the child of their father's mistress, when the woman's doctor approaches them in need of a bone marrow donation (she has leukemia). After much pressuring from the sisters to meet the woman, the doctor finally admits that ''she'' is their half-sister. When the girls break the news to their mother, she isn't surprised (though she didn't know), as his relationship with the mistress was as long their own marriage.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Gul Dukat had a wife and seven children. He was very proud of them. That didn't stop him having a SecretOtherFamily of the most scandalous kind possibly for a Cardassian in his position of power: a Bajoran lover he had a Bajoran betrothal pledge with and their half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran daughter.

[[folder: New Media ]]

[[folder: Professional Wrestling ]]
* This was the concept behind Wrestling/TheDudleyBoyz, a group of half-siblings from different mothers who were all the children of "Big Daddy" Dudley, a travelling salesman who had fathered children across the country on his travels. The original group consisted of Dudley Dudley (the only legitimate son by Big Daddy's wife), Big Dick Dudley and Snot Dudley, but were eventually joined by the half-indian Dances-With-Dudley, Chubby Dudley, Sign Guy Dudley, and finally the far-most successfull members, Buh-Buh Ray, D-Von and Spike Dudley.

[[folder: Radio ]]

[[folder: Theater ]]

[[folder: Web Animation ]]

* ''WebAnimation/WeekendPussyHunt'': Dirty Dog calls his visibly pregnant wife and three kids to tell them that he's going to be late coming home because he's chasing a cat that made fun of him. After having a fierce argument with his wife about him chasing Cigarettes the Cat, on how much trouble he can get in and refusing to come home, Dirty calls his second wife, who is more supporting of him chasing Cigarettes.

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

** A commercial of pills to help people sleep had a list of things that make people too worried to sleep. "Secret Other Family" was in the list.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Chris [=McCandless=], who's had the book ''Into the Wild'' based on him (and a movie based on that book), found out his dad had another family. At least, it was secret to him and his sister. His mother knew, and in fact it was why they moved at one point.

* Eva Peron was one of the daughters in a wealthy rancher's SecretOtherFamily; however, on his death her father left the family a document stating that the children were his so they could use his surname, Duarte. However Eva, her mother and siblings were still refused entrance to his funeral and his death left them absolutely, desperately poor.

* Josef Fritzl started a [[{{Squick}} Squick-y]] one of these with his daughter Elisabeth. He imprisoned her in the cellar when she was eighteen years old and kept her trapped there for twenty-four years. Meanwhile, [[ParentalIncest Josef raped her]] [[{{Squick}} enough times that she gave birth to]] [[MassiveNumberedSiblings seven children]] [[{{Squick}} all fathered by him]].

* ''Anime/TweenyWitches'': [[spoiler:Arusu]] finds out in "Lennon's True Identity" that [[spoiler:Lennon]] is her half-brother from [[spoiler:Jidan's]] first marriage to [[spoiler:Atelia in the Magical Realm]].

* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', both [[spoiler:Historia Reiss]] and [[spoiler:Reiner Braun]] learn that they were [[AMistakeIsBorn the product]] of affairs and their fathers were distant due to having legitimate families of their own. Various degrees of BastardAngst result from these revelations.

** [[spoiler:Reiner Braun was born when his mother Karina had an affair with a Marlayen kitchen worker. Karina convinces Reiner that joining the Warrior unit will result in the two reuniting, but when Reiner tracks him down he rejects Reiner in disgust, given that if his affair with an Eldian[[note]]Who are seen by the Marlayan people as evil demons and forced into ghettos[[/note]] woman was exposed he and his legitimate family could be executed]].

* In ''Manga/{{Mushishi}}'', Ginko helps a woman and her son; the woman's husband is missing, and neither of them know what became of him. In the end, they find him living with his other family and child. [[spoiler: [[BittersweetEnding Bittersweetly]], the woman will never remember it, because of her anterograde amnesia. But she won't have to deal with the pain of knowing her beloved husband left her, either.]]
* [[spoiler: Satoshi Oginome]] in ''Anime/MawaruPenguindrum'' either falls under this or ParentWithNewParamour as we find out in Episode 8. His child from his first marriage, [[spoiler:Ringo]] [[BreakTheCutie does not]] [[SanitySlippage take it well]].

* ''ComicBook/Dynamo5'': Captain Dynamo/William Warner was not only was cheating on his wife Maddie Warner with one of his enemies (Chrysalis), but he had a daughter with Chrysalis named Cynthia. He had a second life behind his wife's back as he helped to raise Cynthia with Chrysalis. He was there at Cynthia's birth while missing Maddie Warner's award. He and Chrysalis exposed Cynthia to the same radiation that he used to gain his superpowers and he trained Cynthia to use her powers.

* Takeshi Kitano's ''Kikujiro no Natsu'' has this as a {{MacGuffin}}.
* One of the characters of ''The Vertical Ray of the Sun'' by Tran Anh Hung has a SecretOtherFamily which he regularly visits while ostensibly on photographic field trips. His wife later says that she knew all along, as he couldn't refrain from putting his other wife and kid in too many of his pictures.
* ''The Captain's Paradise'' had Alec Guinness as a naval captain trying to keep his wife in Algiers unknown to his wife in Gibraltar and vice versa.

* What drives the main plot of ''People Like Us'', as the main character finds out he has a long-lost sister from another family his father had.

* As made obvious by the title, the 1953 film ''Film/TheBigamist''.

* According to one of the Armsmen in the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'', one of the other Armsmen has one family in the city and one in the country.

* The book ''Literature/NoTimeForGoodbye'' by Linwood Barclay used this trope. The protagonist and narrator was married to a woman called Cynthia, and her father [[spoiler: was secretly married to another woman. He used his job as an excuse to keep an eye on both families. His first wife was an abusive, domineering psycho who turned their son against him. While working, he met Cynthia's future mother, they hit it off, had Cynthia and an elder brother, and he managed to keep the act going for years. Then the first wife, suspicious, discovered the second family, killed the mother and son while they were shopping, and was about to kill Cynthia until the father promised to never have contact with her again.]]
* In the Literature/MontagueEgg short story ''False Weight'', the late Mr. Wagstaffe had, under various aliases, wooed and married a woman in his every port of call. When the truth came out, [[AssholeVictim there was a blunt object with his name on it]].
* In the Creator/PGWodehouse story ''The Luck Of The Bodkins'', about a transatlantic steamer, the author writes that on landing in New York, those of the crew "who are bigamists have long since got over the pang of parting from their wives and children in Southampton and are looking forward with bright affection to meeting their wives and children in New York."
* The financial difficulties arising from supporting a SecretOtherFamily (Especially since wife #2 had a taste for ''extremely'' expensive dresses) was the criminal's motive in the Literature/SherlockHolmes story ''Silver Blaze''.

* Near the end of ''After Her'' by Joyce Maynard the narrator Rachel discovers that her (now deceased) father had a daughter he never told them about when the now-adult woman approaches her at a book signing. In a variation everyone was aware of the relationship that produced her and their father had been divorced from Rachel's mother (who's implied to have known about the girl's existence and not cared) for years by the time the other girl was born, but he never told Rachel and her sister Patti about her because Rachel once swore in a fit of anger she'd never forgive him if he had another child. At first Rachel rejects her half-sister, but the two reconcile after she saves Rachel from the SerialKiller who her father had tried and failed to find all those years ago.
* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Downplayed when Mapleshade finds out that her mate Appledusk is two-timing her with another she-cat and has also gotten her pregnant.

* Speculated by ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' in "Kansas City, Here We Come" when they discover their father's decades-long affair. "Roseanne, Dad could have kids with this woman. They would be, like... ''Darlene's'' age." "Oh, man, that would serve him right."
* Jack's father, Christian, on ''Series/{{Lost}}''. During a flashback in season 2 we see Christian arguing with a woman in Australia about having a right to see his daughter and in the third season we learn the daughter is actually Claire Littleton. Jack doesn't learn about this until the fourth season when Claire's mother attends the memorial service for Jack's father.
* Chris-In-The-Morning's dad on ''Series/NorthernExposure''.
* The murder victim in the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "Grissom Versus the Volcano".
** In "Divorce Party" of ''Series/CSIMiami'' also had the father who had a Secret Other Family murdered [[spoiler: by his own son after the son discovered that he had been dating his half-sister. They fell in love and were having a baby together]].
* Shawn on ''Series/{{Boy Meets World}}'' discovers that his dad had another family, and that he has a half-brother he never knew about.
* The premise of ''Series/BrothersAndSisters''. Rumor has it [[spoiler:that the spare illegitimate daughter is eventually revealed to have another father altogether]].

* In ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'', Lois' father had a secret other family that he treated much better than his own. Ida simply cheated on him and conceived Lois with another man.
* The bartender from ''Series/KrodMandoonAndTheFlamingSwordOfFire''.
* King Silas maintains a second family in the countryside on ''Series/{{Kings}}''. Of course, since he's the king, his mistress is fully aware that he's married.
* There was an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' where a pillar of the community turned out to have maintained two families for a long time. Then two of his children started a relationship, without knowing they were half-siblings.

* The victim in an episode of ''Series/{{Life}}'' - "Farthingale" - had two wives under two different names. [[spoiler: Turns out he was living a triple life, in reality an employee of the IRS, and was killed by an anti-government bomber.]]
* An episode of ''Series/HawaiiFive0'' has a man about to testify on a gang gunned down in an office. His wife says the man had been busted for embezzling from his company and explained he was being forced to steal for a local gang. The team take the gang down only for the leder to claim they've never heard of the guy. Digging further, the team discover the man had a wife and son on a nearby island and was stealing the money to help set them up and cooked up the gang story as an excuse. Grover openly notes how "it takes a certain kind of sociopath to do this." It turns out [[spoiler: the killer was the boyfriend of the man's teenage daughter who was outraged at finding out what her dad was doing to her and her mother.]]

* An early case on ''Series/LALaw'' was about a serial bigamist who concealed his wives from one another. He used false identities in alphabetical order and at one point the firm had tracked the wives through F. That case also introduced the infamous "Venus Butterfly".
* The whole premise of ''Series/LoneStar'': Bob is a ConMan who maintains two separate lives with two different women, and claims to love both of them.
* ''Series/QuantumLeap'': Sam leaps into a man who has two families, and decides that he's there so both wives will break up with him and go on to lead successful lives of their own. He gets them both to break up with him by admitting to both that he's a bigamist; then just before he leaps the '''third''' wife & family show up.
* On ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'' Drew winds up married to his long-time friend/obvious series-long LoveInterest Kate and an old girlfriend at the same time. (This happens shortly after he was in a mental hospital, so he may not have been thinking clearly.) He tries to keep them from knowing about each other until he can figure out what to do, only for them to figure it out and both leave his life permanently.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Gul Dukat had a wife and seven children. He was very proud of them. That didn't stop him having a SecretOtherFamily of the most scandalous kind possibly for a Cardassian in his position of power: a Bajoran lover he had a Bajoran betrothal pledge with and their half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran daughter.

* On ''Series/ThirdWatch'', after a much-publicized rescue, police officer Ty is approached by a young woman. Assuming she's romantically interested in him, he takes her to dinner, only for her to reveal that she's his sister--the child of a woman with whom his father had a long-term affair. When he reveals this to his other sister, she admits that she already knew and had met the girl for lunch several times, then informs him that their mother knows as well, citing a weekend when they were abruptly sent to stay with an aunt as a time when their parents were trying to work things out. When Ty confides in his partner Sully (who had been his father's partner), it turns out HE knew also. Ty is left utterly disillusioned with the memories of his father and infuriated at everyone for concealing the truth from him.
* ''Series/{{Vera}}'': The VictimOfTheWeek in "Death of a Family Man" is revealed to be living this kind of double-life.
* On ''{{Series/Sisters}}'', the titular four sisters learn that they have another sister, the child of their father's mistress, when the woman's doctor approaches them in need of a bone marrow donation (she has leukemia). After much pressuring from the sisters to meet the woman, the doctor finally admits that ''she'' is their half-sister. When the girls break the news to their mother, she isn't surprised (though she didn't know), as his relationship with the mistress was as long their own marriage.
* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'': In "Family Matters", the VictimOfTheWeek has wives in two different states. [[spoiler:The wives team up in order to murder him.]]
* ''Series/{{Banacek}}'': In "The Three Million Dollar Piracy", Banacek discovers that one of the suspects is married to two different women. A ship's officer, he maintains the charade by telling one wife that he is shipping out a couple of weeks before he actually does, and telling the other that he is returning two weeks after he actually does.
* ''Series/AllMyChildren'': Del Henry came to town and rapidly befriended local MarySue Dixie Cooney, much to the alarm of Dixie's husband Tad, who feared that Del was a psycho. When the couple confronted Del about his intentions, he denied being in love with Dixie and revealed that he was in fact her brother, the result of an affair their father had had with his mother.
* ''Series/NoTomorrow'': Xavier's father took up with another woman while his mother was still alive, and they had a daughter less than half a year after she died.
* The premise of the sitcom pilot ''The Other One'': When Catherine Walcott's father dies, she finds he had a mistress, and a daughter by her also called Catherine.
* ''Series/PublicEye'' :Episode "The Man Who Didn't Eat Sweets"; PI Frank Marker (Alfred Burke) is asked by a woman who finds a photo in her husband's wallet of an unidentified teenage girl to find out who she is; Marker follows the husband and finds he has not one but TWO Secret Other Families, none of whom are aware of the others. Marker confronts the man and persuades him that this situation cannot continue and that he must break up with two of them; he then tells his client that the girl in the photo is a daughter by a previous marriage. In the last scene we see the husband making two telephone calls...
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Several years after John's death, Sam and Dean discovered that John had a third son that he would periodically visit while he left them in a motel while he supposedly was on a hunting trip. Seeing the effect that hunting had on Sam and Dean, John wanted Adam to have a chance at a normal life, but it didn't work. [[spoiler:Adam and his mother were killed by ghouls who wanted revenge, but couldn't get it because John had already died.]]

* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'': Jake's father at one point confesses to Jake that he has several half-siblings scattered around the country. Downplayed in that he seems to have been just as, if not more, absent from their lives as he was with Jake.
* The episode "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail" of ''Series/TheWestWing'' had Sam Seaborne deal with his father's infidelity. It was very upsetting to him, such that he'd been working absurd hours and even sleeping at the office. When Leo [=McGarry=] tried to comfort him that "my father had affairs", Sam retorts that his wasn't an affair, this was a woman he kept in an apartment for thirty years.

* Jack's dad on ''Series/{{Lost}}''. During a flashback in season 2 we see him arguing with a woman in Australia about having a right to see his daughter and in the third season we learn the daughter is actually Claire Littleton. Jack doesn't learn about this until the fourth season when Claire's mother attends the memorial service for Jack's father.

* Jack's dad on ''Series/{{Lost}}'': implied late in season 3, spelled out in the fourth season finale.

* Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon suffered some embarrassment in 2016 when it was revealed that, along with his wife and four children, he had a mistress and two more children. But since Colon was immensely popular with the Met fanbase the scandal passed.

* Josef Fritzl started a [[{{Squick}} Squick-y]] one of these with his daughter Elisabeth. He imprisoned her in the cellar when she was eighteen years old and she was successfully kept there for twenty-four years. Meanwhile, [[ParentalIncest Josef raped her]] [[{{Squick}} enough times that she gave birth to]] [[MassiveNumberedSiblings seven children]] [[{{Squick}} all fathered by him]].

* Josef Fritzl started a [[{{Squick}} Squick-y]] one of these with his daughter Elisabeth. He imprisoned her in the cellar when she was eighteen years old and she was successfully kept there for twenty-four years. Meanwhile, [[ParentalIncest Josef raped her]] [[{{Squick}} enough times that she gave birth to]] [[MassiveNumberedSiblings seven children]] [[{{Squick}} all fathered by him]]. And the way Elisabeth and the three children who he kept down there with her lived, they were certainly one of these for Josef Fritzl, with himself as the loving and benevolent patriarch who would come down to give his other wife (Elisabeth) flowers and have consensual (as he described it) sex with her and spend time with their children.

* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', both [[spoiler: Historia Reiss]] and [[spoiler: Reiner Braun]] learn that they were [[AMistakeIsBorn the product]] of affairs and their fathers were distant due to having legitimate families of their own. Various degrees of BastardAngst result from these revelations.

* ''{{Eulogy}}'': [[spoiler:This is part of the VideoWill [[TheReveal Reveal]]]].

* ''FrequentFlyer'' has a pilot having a wife in Dallas and another in Chicago. And then he ended up getting married to a third one in Hawaii.

* The victim in an episode of ''Series/{{Bones}}'' had two wives and a kid by each, both with the same degenerative bone condition that he had. Interestingly his two wives and the third woman he'd been romancing were ''not'' the ones who killed him.