Driven by the sense that something isn’t quite right, some people turn to private investigators to help them figure out what’s going on. Since it’s something that isn’t too common, a few folks who reached out for these services decided to recount their experiences online, including what led them to it and the answer to their own personal mysteries.

– A friend hired a private investigator because he was suspicious his stepdad was being unfaithful to his mom. So, he asked me, and I put him in contact with a guy I knew.
A bit of a backstory, the stepdad is 5’10″, 160ish pounds. My friend is 6’2″ 235 pounds, ripped.

At 15, when my friend’s mom and stepdad started dating, my friend gave the typical “don’t dare hurt her” speech.

Also, his biological dad walked out on him and his sister when my friend was like 4. It took a while, but my friend warmed up to the guy.

Long story short, the PI said he wasn’t cheating. Apparently, there was a house on the market that my friend’s mom wanted, and he bought it.

He had been remodeling it for some time, and he kept it a secret. As a 5-year anniversary gift to her, he bought it. So they live in a five-bed house now. © Dchung0217 / Reddit

– I hired a private investigator to see if a man was real.

My dad, we will call him Henry, died when I was 15 years old. This was absolutely devastating, especially because my mom and I never really got along.

I moved out as soon as I was 18. I asked for all of my important documents, including my birth certificate, but she never agreed to giving those to me. So I took it upon myself to request a birth certificate from the state.

I get it and under the father’s information there’s a name, “Michael”. When I confronted my mom about it, she said that she made up some man’s information.
So I hired a private investigator to see if Michael was real.

In the end, he was not. © ESOTSM33 / Reddit
My parents hired a private investigator to find out who my online boyfriend was when I was 13. The PI came back and told us he was just a random13 year-old, lol. © hm_ellie / Reddit

– I was the recipient of a PI. I came home from work one day and my boyfriend asked to have my engagement ring as he wanted to take it to be professionally cleaned.

The second I handed it over, he accused me of cheating on him. The conversation went back and forth for ages. I was beside myself, I couldn’t believe what he was saying, and he would not believe I was innocent.

He then told me he’d had me followed for six weeks by a PI who had seen me get into a red Mini. It was a girl I knew giving me a lift to work, but he would not believe me.

I knew then it was over and packed my things and left. I told him to get in touch with the PI and have another look at this so-called evidence that I was cheating.

An hour later, he turns up at where I was staying, begging to have me back. He’d realized his mistake. There was no way I was going to get back with someone who would behave that way, though, so we parted ways. © Blondeinsideandout / Reddit

– About 10 years ago, my cousin was working in a foreign country. During phone calls back home, his daughter made mention of an uncle he knew didn’t exist.

My aunt decided to hire a PI for him and found out his wife was cheating with a doctor. Of course, he was heartbroken.

The divorce that followed was quick. However, there is a bright side to this. After switching to a local job, he was able to finish college and go to law school.
His ex-wife? She was dumped by the doctor not long after the divorce.

She attempted to reconcile, but my cousin refused. He’s remarried. She lives with a group of friends in some run down house. © wheelchair_boxing / Reddit

– My sister (mid 30s) is adopted and hired a private investigator to find her estranged biological father. They came back saying that not only was he still alive and nearby, but he had a daughter. Meaning, she also had a biological sibling!

Further digging from the PI uncovered that they weren’t just similar ages either, they were exactly the same age. The evidence suggested that my sister had a twin and her birth father had taken the twin and vanished.

Huge, life-changing news.
Eventually, through more incredible detective work, the PI realized that the daughter was actually just my sister.

There was no other sibling, and they had just been investigating my sister the whole time accidentally. Needless to say, we asked for the money back. © grzzlybr / Reddit

– My mom’s biological father was basically cut out of her life when she was 3–4 years old. She never really knew him, and my grandmother tried to keep his existence limited after she married the man who I consider my grandfather.

My mother knew basic information about him but no history about his life, medical history, how he looked, etc.

After my grandfather passed away, she began looking into it more and hired a PI.

Ultimately, she was able to get in contact with his first cousins. She discovered that both her biological father and his brother (whose children she found) had died, but her aunt and one of her sons lived one county away.

I ended up going with my mother to meet her cousins. It was really weird. She has certain features which didn’t come from my grandmother that were clearly present with her cousins.

It was a funny experience to meet them and talk about their uncle (mom’s father). Apparently her father wasn’t a very good person. The cousins weren’t close to their father either. I think my mom still gets emails from them every so often to be kept in the loop with some family happenings. © JHG0 / Reddit

– My mother hired one to spy on the school. See, my little brother is dyslexic and has severe social anxiety, and so was struggling a lot in a public school setting.

He had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), which the teachers and principal were insisting was being followed. But every day my brother would come home in tears because he felt abandoned.

So my mom hired the investigator, and sure enough the teachers were basically just ignoring my brother. They’d sit him in the back of the room and demand he do his work, then wouldn’t help him through it.

With all the evidence, my mom was able to transfer him to a private school.

They didn’t help him there either, so my mom ended up just pulling him out and homeschooling him. He’s been doing a lot better. © Cyynric / Reddit

– My boyfriend’s family hired a PI to do some covert genealogy, because they’re white, but all have thick wiry hair that only black hairdressers can handle.

Turns out there’s a fair amount of Lumbee Indian in my boyfriend’s family, which explains the hair. © Tiny_Parfait / Reddit

– When I met my wife, she seemed to have a normal modern family. Two moms, two dads. Over time, it became apparent her stepdad wasn’t around much.

Holidays, birthdays, you name it, he’d pop in to say hi, grab a nap, whatever, then take off again. My wife’s family thought this was normal, just the way it had always been since they were teenagers.

He claimed to have a job following FedEx trucks around the state to prevent theft. But I thought it strange and started making jokes about him having another family.

Well, I guess it got my sister-in-law thinking because she gets a favor from the private investigator at her law firm. Sure enough, he has not two but THREE wives around the state, and five other (step)children between them.

My sister-in-law breaks the news to her mother, who immediately changes the locks and files for divorce.

They never speak again. Cold Turkey. Divorce is even uncontested. As the ultimate move, they also send the report to his other wives. © barcodez1 / Reddit

No one needs to hire a private detective to live through something that seems surreal.

In fact, some people shared online their crazy real-life stories that have more twists and turns than a movie, and reading them is an adventure in and of itself.