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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/InADustyCorner on 2025-04-19 13:40:44+00:00.
I am NOT the original poster.
Originally posted in r/TrueOffMyChest by u/Dandilionplant. The original post and first update were posted in this sub by u/Direct-Caterpillar77 here. The second update is 10 months old and was never posed to this sub (that I can see). It was posted to OP’s profile page.
Trigger warnings: infidelity, theft, mail fraud, harassment
Original post: I ruined my parents relationship over reading mail : r/TrueOffMyChest posted July 2nd 2023.
I (24F) don’t want to say what I do for work, but let’s just say it’s the type of job that includes a lot of written letters from clients that are suppose to be confidential and only for my eyes.
I’m fresh out of college and living with my parents so I can finish paying off for school. My work letters of course go to my parents address since they live miles away from a post office and driving to a PO box is a huge pain.
The issue started with my father. Ever since high school when I received mail my dad would open it. Whenever I received Christmas/birthday cards in the mail with money in them, my dad would hand me the card and insist he’ll keep the money safe for me until I demanded he hand it over. Any package I would order for myself he would open and hand to me, sometimes the products were used by him as well. The final straw was when he received my acceptance letter to my dream college and instead of waiting for me to come home to open it, he opened it himself and called me while I was at work to congratulate me.
I’ve spoken to my mother about how much this makes me feel uncomfortable and she told me she’d speak to my father about it, to which he would apologize and not do it for a week before doing it again the next week. I had also spoken to my dad about the confidentiality of the mail I would be receiving now that I’m working and he says he understands but it all came crashing down a few weeks ago
While I was working my dad came into my room and handed me opened envelopes from my clients and even tried to have a conversation about it with me but I just ignored him until he got the hint and left. After work I yelled at him for violating client confidentiality to which he got defensive and said that I live in his house and any mail sent to his house would be read by him.
Furious, that next week I thought I would take revenge on my father by going to the mail box and reading his mail. But what I found was what ended my relationship with him.
I had found credit card statements on jewelry and restaurants tat were too fancy for my dad to go to alone and I don’t remember the last time my dad took my mom on a date nor bought her any jewelry. I also found a latter addressed to my dad from a woman who stated how tired she was for hiding this relationship for so long and how she is so desperate for his letters to reach her.
When my dad noticed the mail box was empty, my dad ran back in the house as white as a host. He walked into the kitchen to see me and my mom in the kitchen reading his mail.
Before the fighting could start, my mom asked me to leave the house. So I drove to my aunts who lives 45 minutes away and explained everything.
I came back after 2 days when my dads stuff was gone. My mom told me my dads living in a hotel and she will be incontact with a divorce attorney.
Turns out my dad has been having an affair with a family friend and were hiding it through letters o leave no digital foot print. My dad ended up showing my mom the stash of letters he had and she took photos of each and every single letter before she asked him to leave.
I feel at fault because I at first wanted to be petty with my dad but it unraveled into this huge event and made me think “‘o wonder he’s been looking through my shit. He was giving himself away.” I feel like I shattered my moms world since I can hear her cry every nigh about it since the incident.
First update: posted as an edit on the original post.
Thank you all so much. I wrote this all out last night drunk off my mind and I never expected this much kindness from strangers. I’ll go ahead and answer a few questions here and then give an update.
- Was my dad using my money from the gifts to buy stuff for his mistress: I’m 50/50 on this answer. I received cards when I was young with money and it was the same routine. Aunts and uncles would leave 100$ per card and my dad always gave them to me when I was younger. As I got older obviously the money reduced to $20-$40. I do believe my dad would give me back HALF my money in those cards back which would make sense as to how he was able to make such huge expenses on his mistress. I need to collect proper evidence so I plan on calling my aunts and uncles and other relatives who would send me money.
- The mistress would send letters addressed as a business or a credit card company. If you ask me they were doing the most. When my mom would check the mail she would see the letters that were addressed to my dad as bills or some crazy bs and never opened them because she doesn’t handle the bills. A lot of packages were sent by the mistress as well which is why he went through my packages and I don’t want to imagine what kind of crap she was mailing him.
Now for the update:
Like I said before it’s been a few weeks since it happened. I’ve been doing my best to comfort my mother while she deals with all the legal business and my dad’s constant appeals to my mom to apologize and begged for forgiveness.
I’ve been a hear to listen to her and she keeps spiraling between wanting to forgive him and cursing him to hell. I told her my own personal opinion which was to never take back a cheater. She did basically everything for him and she shouldn’t see it as her not being enough for him, that’s his fault for not appreciating her.
The mistress also was a married woman. My mom reached out to her husband sending him the letters she had taken photos of, even had a long phone call with him about what was going on. He initiated the divorce and the mistress is now angry at my father for not being more careful.
The mistress’s ex husband who I’ll call Henry, has been a best friend of my moms throughout the legal cases. I hear the mistress is still reaching out to forgive him which I honestly think is very funny since my dad is doing the same thing. She was financially dependent on Henry and my dad isn’t making enough at his job to support the lifestyle she wants.
Yesterday Henry asked my mom to come out to lunch with him. They’ve been sad shut ins for the past few days and they agreed to go and get some fresh air. I encouraged my mom to do such and to call me if my dad or the mistress decide to show face when they went just so I could pick her up.
My dad hasn’t apologized to me at all about reading my mail, in-fact he’s called me and left me voicemails telling me that this whole situation was my fault, then going and crying saying he regrets everything and he hopes he can still be my dad. I honestly don’t know what to do with him right now other than ignore him.
I don’t know if there will be another update but I will if something major happens. Again thank you so much for the supportive comments and I hope some of what I said clears things up for you all!
Second update: Update: I ruined my parents relationship over reading some mail. : u/Dandilionplant posted July 6th 2024.
Hi guys, it’s been a full year since it happened and I wanted to update you guys.
A few months after the post, my mom grabbed me and my younger sister (20f) Rachael to talk about her interest in possibly going on a date with Henry. Obviously we were thrilled. They’ve been dating for almost a year now and I’m happy for them.
Henry treats my mother with way more respect than what my father ever did for her, she glows with joy whenever he’s around. Our biological father was putting more mental strain on her than we thought. She went from being a shy, soft spoken person, to a strong, confident woman and I couldn’t be happier.
As for our father (Jerry) and his mistress (Martha), they got married immediately after My mother, I’ll call her Raygan, and Henry. I didn’t speak to Jerry other than the occasional text from him asking about how I was doing or to ask me for some cash. After they got married neither if their families support the marriage, they got black sheeped respectfully. They tried to sue for cash but the case fell through in Raygan and Henry’s favor.
I stopped talking to him fully when he spent a month harassing my sister for cash. Calling her repeatedly, texting her, showing up at her college, to the point where the Dean had to get him escorted off the campus. That’s when Mom got us a harassment protection order. So now Jerry can only contact us when he wanted to meet with us, which was rare, or for medical emergency. My sister and I haven’t heard from him since.
That didn’t stop Martha though. Turns out the reason my dad…
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1·5 hours ago