History Main / SecretOtherFamily

* In "The Invisible Intruder" by Creator/EdwaedDHoch, Libby Knowles is hired to bodyguard a man whom she later discovers used to be a bigamist. A consultant who travelled a lot for work, he maintained two wives in houses in different suburbs of the same city.

* Lord Wigg, Paymaster-General under British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's two terms in office; MI5 (the British Secret Service) found out about his two families and blackmailed him into leaking details of Cabinet Meetings to them; they then leaked the details to journalist Chapman Pincher at the Daily Express newspaper, which was unsympathetic to Wilson's Labour Party, putting the worst possible spin on Wilson's proposed policies even before they were announced to the public; it was Wilson's discovery of Wigg's treachery that caused his resignation in 1976.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': Gul Dukat had a wife and seven children. He was very proud of them. That didn't stop him from 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.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'', a man is found dead and his wife and fiancee both show up to claim the body. [[spoiler: Except that he and the fiancee were both playing each other, in a complicated bit of corporate espionage.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Mushishi}}'', Ginko helps a woman and her son; the woman's husband is missing, and neither of them knows 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/{{Penguindrum}}'' 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]].

* One of ''ComicBook/TheIntimates''' signature info scrolls mentions that when Punchy is 40, erectile dysfunction will threaten ''both'' of his marriages.
%%Zero Context Example* Lois Lane discovers this about [[http://www.superdickery.com/superman-digs-mermaids/ Superman]].
%%Zero Context Example** Don't worry, Lois--it's actually [[spoiler: a robotic clone of Superman]]. Obviously.
* In ''ComicBook/SecretIdentities'', the Front Line’s resident speedster Runabout has a wife and daughter in Nova Scotia, and another wife and daughter in California. He uses his superspeed and excuses of frequent business trips to be with them both. At the end of the series he marries and impregnates another woman in Florida.

* One of the characters of ''Film/TheVerticalRayOfTheSun'' 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': In the mythologized history of Westeros, the legendary figure of Florys the Fox is said to have kept three husbands, each ignorant of the other two.
** ''Literature/FireAndBlood'': Sir Lucamore Strong of the Kingsguard ("[[MeaningfulName The Lusty]]") had ''three'' wives, and sixteen children. Kingsguard aren't supposed to have any.

SubTrope of LivingADoubleLife.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

** As shown above, philandering politician Mayor Quimby is the TropeNamer.

** Another episode had an extended Nike commercial parody that eventually descended into Peter having a second family and a gay lover, then ended with him murdering them and getting the electric chair.
--> '''Peter:''' [''in voiceover''] Don't just run a mile, run a marathon! Don't have one family, have a second family across the country!

* [[Webcomic/{{Sonichu}} Christine Weston Chandler]] ''was'' the secret other family. Her father, Bob Chandler, had had several children from his first marriage, and lost contact with them after he married Barbara, Chris’s mother, so not only did his older children know nothing of Chris (or her Internet infamy) but Chris knew nothing of them, believing that her only half-sibling was from her mother’s side. Bob was dead for several years by the time this was revealed.

** The episode "Labor Pains" deals with a NotWhatItLooksLike incident of this in which Homer delivers a baby BornInAnElevator and then secretly helps provide support and babysitting for the baby's single mother, who named the baby after him.

* As shown above, Mayor Quimby from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.