Should I tell my mum?

[MousyLousy]

I have NC for this as it's very outing. Please be kind with me as my head is spinning.

I'm in my early 20s. My dad decided to up and leave my mum about 3 months ago now. They've been married 25 years and always seemed happy to us (adult) kids. He moved into a flat near my house, which is about half an hour from my mum's, and said it'd be nice because he could see me (and my DC) more.

He's been acting really shady the past few months and made weird excuses for things. My mum wondered if he left her for another woman.

Dad decided to take us on a coastal weekend away which was quite nice but felt a bit forced. He went out to watch football one night with my DP and my sister and I went snooping as we felt like we were being lied to. Yes, I know IABU to have done this, but it was very fruitful. Turns out he has a whole secret life. We found:

• receipts for a very posh restaurant for a meal and drinks for 2 people amounting to an eye-watering £425
• an annual joint gym membership for himself, his new woman and her four children
• a receipt for work done on a new 7 seater Audi Q7
• John Lewis order forms for furniture amounting to thousands being delivered to an address just down the road from his flat. Some of it under her name and some under his.

Since we found her name we did some googling. She's 30. He's almost 50. She's only a few years older than me. One of her kids only looks slightly older than mine.
We found this address where furniture has been delivered to. The house was purchased in September for half a million pounds - we're in the North so this is a lot of money. It's a huge house.

My dad swears there is no other woman and is blaming the divorce on my mum; says she was hard to live with and fell out of love with her. Thats certainly true, my mum is difficult and we never had a good relationship when I was younger. But she does love my dad to bits.

So here's the thing. He sent the divorce papers through on Wednesday. He is suggesting she keep their family home (worth approx. £400k) her car (£20k) and the money in their joint account (not sure, around £80k), if he can have both of their rental properties (worth probably £400k joint), his car (£50k) and his pension (£???). My mum is thinking of agreeing to this.

My issue is:-

1. I think he has money stashed away. He's a managing director and earns £130k a year. He's obviously put a lot of money into this new house with his new woman, and bought a new car outright and furniture and god knows what else. Mum found he's funnelled over £15k in small increments out of the joint account throughout Jan and Feb without her even noticing.
2. my mum gave up her job when we were little at his request so she could be a SAHM to us kids. She never went back to work and instead does lots of volunteering projects and bakes from home which is pretty much non-profit, maybe £1k a year. Because of this she has little-to-no personal savings, just the money in their joint account. She also has no recent work experience and no pension except a tiny one from when she used to work before having us. She's found herself a job but it's only just over min wage due to her lack of experience and 'modern' skills with computers etc. My dad always said his pension would have them sorted for retirement but now he's planning to keep it himself.

What do I do? Tell my mum about the affair so she can counter his divorce and get a better, fairer settlement? Pretend I don't know and keep out of it due to the risk of falling out with my dad?

Sorry for the rambling.

Been there. Yes you absolutely must tell her.

He knows only too well that the pension is worth far more than the savings.

And believe me your relationship with your father will absolutely change once she's keeping his bed warm, and his 1st family are a massive inconvenience to her new cushy life.

If you don't tell her and then she finds out you knew later down the line, that will be the end of the relationship with your mum, who sacrificed pretty much everything to be a SAHP.

Maybe you don't need to tell her everything but you just tell her that she's not to accept his 'offer' and that she gets a really good solicitor and makes him do a full financial disclosure so she can see exactly what's on the table.

I don't think I'd tell her. She's getting a large settlement anyway and I presume the house is fully paid off giving her the option to downsize and release sizeable funds from that too.

@strawberrypenguin I know what she's getting is a lot. But if his pension is say 50k a year and he lives for 20 years after he retires, that's £1m he's already taken from her, after she gave up many working years to raise us so he could have that job. It just doesn't seem right.

Your dad has caused this.
You shouldn't have snooped, but you did, and it's nothing compared to what he's done.
There's a lot of money, assets involved here OP. I can't stress enough that your mum must, must, must get a shit hot lawyer.
He will then have to disclose three months worth of bank statements etc as part of the full disclosure.
I was offered a 'good' deal by my ex, my SHL laughed at it, and I got far more.
Your evidence won't stand up though, it has to come from him, not a third party.
Tell your mum, persuade her to go to the best lawyer she can.
She's already hurt, and this will rock her, but it might make her angry. And angry is good.
Hell hath no fury, and all that.
Good luck to you both.
He's the shit here. Don't feel guilty because you know. Blow it all in the open, let him deal with the consequences.

Tell your mum she can get a much better deal and you will help her. Tell your dad you haven't told her why you're helping her but he needs to treat her fairly as you know what's going on and it will damage your relationship if he doesn't respect her properly for bringing up his family.

Oh, and ex offered me half a pension.
I ended up with the lot.
Don't underestimate a pension as an asset.

I am a few years younger than your mum and in a similar financial situation, if DH and I were to divorce I would insist on a share of his pension. The reason mine will be pitiful is because I worked part time or not at all to ensure our dc were cared for, our house kept together and DH had the space and time to focus on his more lucrative career. DH knows this.

Absolutely 100% tell your mum.

So sorry this is happening to you all x

I wish I could make the sacrifice of being a SAHM for 20 years and doing a bit of baking and volunteering while driving round in a 20k car and living in a 400k house with 80k in the bank. All of which I get to keep and I'm not even 50 and have plenty of time to work, travel, meet someone else..

Leave the affair out if it unless she's being far too soft on him. It's mostly irrelevant to the finances and will only hurt your mum.

What's relevant is that your dad is financially screwing over your Mum. She's entitled to around half his pension, plus probably everything he offered her and quite possibly some spousal maintenance too. She needs a good solicitor.

Please tell your mum. Leave your sis out of it if she's worried about uni fees etc, pretend it was you on your own. I couldn't go another night holding that from my mum.

I'm sure sister would be assessed on Mum's income.

Don't tell Dad what you found, he will start hiding things. A PI could have found all that out. Mum absolutely needs to know, and encourage her to get a really good solicitor NOW, who deals with situations where there are a lot of assets. Like me she seems to have enabled her husband to do well in is career, being able to stay late, go away whenever needed, without having to worry about household things and you children. I've been there, abandoned for another woman in my 50s, and I know how paralyzing it is in the early months afterwards, and that was without anything else. She needs to let the solicitor do a lot of the communication with his, she needs a forensic accountant, probably a pensions actuary. All assets need to be declared including the hidden ones. She is entitled to part of his pension, she must not do anything without the help of her solicitor. It makes no difference whether the divorce is on grounds of adultery or him citing unreasonable behaviour, from the point of view of the settlement. But she needs to now about the infidelity. He may have had a string of other women. I got an STD check, fortunately clear, but I wasn't going to take the risk. It will help her work out what's been happening, it certainly helped me put 2 and 2 together and work out what had been happening when things seemed not quite right. You realise your whole marriage has been a 38-year long lie, and that takes some processing. Don't let your Dad use you as a go-between, it's between him and your mother. Some useful books for her www.amazon.co.uk/Wealthy-Divorcee-Step-Step-Navigating/dp/1909623091/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8 www.amazon.co.uk/Divorce-Splitting-Up-Advice-Lawyer-ebook/dp/B00RM0ZU6A/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&keywords=marilyn+stowe&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1524769938&sr=1-1 and about infidelity www.amazon.co.uk/Leave-Cheater-Gain-Life-Survival/dp/0762458968/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=loose+a+cheater+gain+a+life&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1524770104&sr=8-1-fkmr0

@KerryMuckloweisaStar you seem like a bit of a twat to be honest. For all my mum's faults she loved my dad, still does. He was/is the love of her life and the money doesn't make that any easier for her. They both grew up poor and worked hard to get where they are and my mum actually bought their first house as my dad had no money when he was 20, and only later sacrificed her career to bring us kids up.

OP - you do need to share the info as the pension situation is vital

Just a vote of confidence here OP. Tell you mum. It's the fairest thing to do when he is being SO eminently unfair.

Op i agree about Kerry

Im i a similar situation as your mum. Traded my career for being a sahm. I have never worked so hard in my whole life.

Kerry you are completely daft if you’d be happy with that instead of so much more that legally, you would be entitled to. Her mum watching the kids and staying home likely allowed her dad to dedicate hours into work to progress to the career ladder to earn that much and accrue the pension he has.

Its a shitty split for your mum even if you didn’t know the extra stuff so you have to make her go through solicitors properly. 80k isn’t a pension. Can you live with yourself seeing your mum still working a min wage job she hates in 10 years because she married a lying cheating tosser and looked after you? I could not prioritise my relationship with my cheating lying dad against getting my mum a fair deal.

Interesting that your sister's 18. He could have been planning it for ages and waiting until she was 18 so the financial settlement wouldn't need to take account of a dependent child. Help your mum, she doesn't deserve to be hoodwinked out of what she's entitled to.

Definitely make sure your mum knows. As pp said. Imagine something awful happens to your dad and his new steps kids trot off with the fortune?

If you can't bear to tell your mum and upset her, I think I'd be inclined to let your dad know you know, and suggest he needs to put more money in the joint account.

Tell your Mother. It sounds to me as though everything in his life is going just the way he's planned it. Don't make it any easier for him to get away with fleecing your Mother.

Piss off Kerry.

OP please tell your mum ASAP!

I have sent mum a message which in summary says I'm setting up a meeting with a solicitor and will come with her as support and want to be there for her throughout this as I think dad is being extremely dodgy and I'm going to investigate more.