AITA for revealing a family secret to by husband about his father?

A Redditor shared a difficult moment in their marriage when they revealed a shocking family secret to their husband about his late father. For decades, the family revered the father as a wonderful man, but a visiting relative disclosed that he had been planning to abandon his family when he passed away.

The revelation has led to disagreement between the Redditor and her husband. Read the full story below to decide if sharing the truth was the right choice.

‘ AITA for revealing a family secret to by husband about his father?’

My husband’s father died of a heart attack at age 42 on the plane while flying to his home country to visit family. My husband “Joe” was 13 and his sister was 9 at the time. His mother had few skills and poor English.

From that moment on, Joe worked to support the family after school and at gruelling factory shifts after finishing high school. He eventually pursued a trade and built a good life. We raised two children and are financially secure.

In the 40 years I have known them, Joe, his sister, and their mother (now deceased) idolized their father and spoke wistfully about how much better their lives would have been had he lived.

This summer, Joe’s mother cousin visited from the home country and was visibly surprised to see his parent’s wedding portrait in a prominent place in our home. At a private lunch, she asked it they had “forgiven” the father. At my blank stare, she was incredulous that “they didn’t know?”

Her mother was their mother’s older sister, and she stayed for months to pick up the pieces after the tragedy. She arranged the funeral, dealt with the finances, and discovered that the father was flying to meet another woman, who he had met in Canada, to start a new life.

He had most of their savings on him in cash. He was apparently abandoning his family. She kept this information from her sister to spare her the added heartbreak and to protect the children. Whether she ever told her sister the truth is unknown, but my husband and his sister certainly never knew.

We agreed that I should not tell my husband. When he boasted about what a wonderful man his father was, I bit my tongue. I finally caved when Joe recently was speculating on how rich we “could have been” owning property that his father “would have” eventually bought!

I told him what his cousin had said, and how his father was perceived by the relatives who knew. Joe was calm and flatly denied everything. He admitted that he had met the other woman at his father’s restaurant where his father introduced her as a “friend”.

Whether or not it was an affair was none of his business, Joe maintains. I won’t tell his sister, as she is emotionally fragile and still references losing her father at age 9 as an excuse for her life choices – financial problems, an unstable partner, etc. The sad reality is that things likely would have been worse if he had lived.

As it now stands, Joe and I agree to disagree. Cheating irks me, but family a**ndonment is unforgivable. My mother-in-law was a kind, loving person. I no longer want the fairy-tale wedding portrait dominating our home. It is built on lies. AITA for telling my husband?

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

Ok-Status-9627 −  INFO: What was going through your head when you told H? It seems to me, from the moment you were told by the cousin, you were in a no-win situation.

You were stuck either concealing this from your husband, which he could have picked up on and then wondered what secret you were keeping from him and what else you’d hidden, or you were disappointing him with the truth about someone who he’d idealised.

However, when you found out this information from the cousin, you’d thought about it and concluded that it was better to keep it secret.
So what was your motivation in the heat of the moment?

Were you wanting to put a stop to your husband’s fantasy about what could have been, were you wanting to bring your husband’s father down a few pegs in his eyes, or had you just had enough holding your tongue?

BeMandalorTomad −  My take, NTA. I don’t think it would have been right to hide it from your husband. I could never keep a secret of that magnitude from mine. I don’t think it should have been an “agree to disagree” situation;

I think I would have repeated the story in the strict context of ‘this is what your aunt said’, but I do applaud you for leaving it there rather than ramming it down his throat. It could very well be true, but what is the harm in the family portrait?

What good will come from believing the worst when you will probably never know for sure. For some context, my opinion stems from my own experience. I have an ex whose father was murdered when my ex was a baby.

He grew up dirt poor and utterly convinced that his life would have been immeasurably better if his dad had lived. His dad was married to another woman with several children by her. Add to that, his dad made next to no money and barely had enough to feed his other children.

But pointing that out only drove a wedge between me and my ex, and after reflection, I regret making the point. So, let me stress that this is my opinion only and it’s not necessarily impartial.. On the whole, though, NTA.

EveningCat166 −  YTA – You said you wouldn’t tell him, but went back on your word because he as bragging about the his dead father’s legacy. If you swore to not tell him but arbitrarily decided you were going to go back on your word for your selfish reasons, you are the AH.

Regardless if it’s true or not, you shouldn’t have created doubt within your husband about his father for something that is a rumor, or if it’s true, why should a child hate his dead father when there’s no evidence he would not have returned or been active in his life.

I think what you did was extremely selfish because you wanted to drop his father’s legend down a peg or two because his kids idolized his legend. It was/is not your place to reveal someone else’s family secrets when there are NO crimes being committed.

Famous_Specialist_44 −  I don’t think you should keep secrets from your husband and especially if ithe information is relevant to him. NTA. However, I question the motivation of the cousin who has dropped this toxic information into your lap. It’s got nothing to do with you and just puts you in an impossible position. 

ThrowRArosecolor −  I don’t have an opinion on the assholeness but there is no way your MIL didn’t know all their savings was found on him in cash. She knew but (very reasonably) didn’t tell their kids.

DramaDroid −  YTA. If you’d told him gently and lovingly. because you thought he had a right to know or because you didn’t feel good keeping a secret from him,that would be one thing. But that’s not what you did.

You told your husband an incredibly hurtful thing that shook the very foundation of what he believes about his life and why? To shut him up because you didn’t like him bragging about what could have been.. That’s pretty u**y bevior. And your self-righteousness is a little misplaced.

What happens between spouses should never become a problem for the children. You don’t know what this man would have done had he lived. It’s entirely likely that he would still have seen his children and provided for them as best he could. You devastated your husband over speculation.

JohnCleesesMustache −  YTA. the only person you hurt here was your husband, not his father.

Shadow4summer −  NTA. But is your husband okay with cheating or does he think you’re lying to him? After he has had time to reflect on this information, you need to talk about this with him.

I don’t think I could be with someone so obtuse. He doesn’t want to hear anything about his father that goes against his beliefs. If he is okay with cheating, you have a bigger problem.

ItsOnlyMaxwell −  NAH except the father. Your husband deserves the truth and it’s not your responsibility to keep it from him. In fact, open communication and not keeping secrets from a partner is the key to any relationship, and it might have hurt your relationship a LOT more if you revealed years down the line that you knew.

However, he has a right to his feelings. Maybe he needs time and space to digest it – I know first-hand how much it hurts to have sudden evidence that a person you love and care about is a morally bankrupt human being, and the first reaction is flat denial.

As long as the “none of his business” turns out to be part of the shock reaction and not his perspective on cheating in general, I think he’ll come to agree with you.

Scion41790 −  YTA telling him helped no one. All you did was was cause him pain, in my opinion the best thing a spouse could do was take this to their grave. Or if you really wanted him to know convince the cousin to tell him

Do you think the Redditor was justified in revealing the truth about her husband’s father, or should some family secrets remain buried? How would you handle learning something so significant about a loved one’s past? Share your thoughts in the comments below!