This is a very pertinent thread for me, as I'm FIREing early next year and do not intend to tell my family. Obviously my husband knows what's going on, but I do not plan on sharing with my parents, siblings, or in-laws. We live 500 miles away from the nearest relative so I don't expect this will be too difficult to do.
I'm not "ashamed" that I won't be working, in fact I am extremely proud of what we've accomplished and I openly advocate for a frugal lifestyle to anyone who will listen. It's more that I don't want to have to explain and justify my decisions, especially to my dad. I don't know exactly what his deal is, but he is extremely fearful and risk-adverse when it comes to finances (all of his money is in CDs). He once read an article on Yahoo! Finance (where he gets all of his information) that said you need $3 million to retire, so that's of course what he thinks you need. (He doesn't have $3 million, and he's retired, but apparently *I* will need $3 million). I have two brothers who my parents have had to assist financially at various times, and despite the fact that I have been on my own since 19 and NEVER asked for a dime from my parents, he acts like any decision I make is going to result in him having to bail me out and his eventual insolvency and homelessness. Anytime I have expressed the merest sentiment that I might be less than ecstatic about my job, he tells me that I am lucky to be employed, and goes on and on about one of my brothers or other relatives who have had less than stellar employment histories and financial difficulties and implies I should be grateful for the opportunity to slave away for 45 years of my life. He would completely lose his shit if I told him I was going to quit my high-paying, secure job with no plans to get another one, no matter how well thought out and researched my plan is. He would just come up with 1000 crazy "what-if" scenarios "for me to think about." Then shake his head disapprovingly while passive-aggressively acting like "well, it's your decision" (to completely ruin HIS life).
I decided many years ago that I just wasn't going to discuss investing or finances with him (or politics, or religion, or the environment, or women's rights, or etc etc etc), and I certainly don't see the need to change that now. Of course if I tell anyone else in the family, it will eventually get back to him, so the immediate plan is to just not disclose it.
With my in-laws, there is a lot of money-related drama, and if they had any idea how much money we had there would be expectations of hand-outs, if not full-on support. I've written about FIL in various other threads, so I won't repeat my rants here, but TLDR he's a debt addict who constantly expects family to bail him out, and we've pretty much cut him off. SIL is still enabling him, and is pissed because she is giving him money and we're not. (So, SIL, stop giving him money - it doesn't fix his problems).
So, with anyone I'm related to, I'm just going to keep on like nothing has changed. I'd like to be open with friends/acquaintances, but I worry someone might make an offhand comment on Facebook and a family member would see it, so I'll probably be somewhat close-lipped there, too.
It makes me kind of sad, because this is a huge and exciting deal for me. I've been working my ass for years to make this happen and I'm stoked about reaching this goal and all the new and fun things I'm going to get to do, but I can't really share it :( But one of my FIRE project/goals is to make new friends (who I won't friend on FB), and maybe I can be open with them. We'll see.