To think, 17 years on, my Mum could let this go?

[HowSharperThan]

'This' being that when I was 17, a few weeks before my Dad announced he was having an affair and wanted a divorce, I randomly saved all of his/ their financial information/ files/ spreadsheets etc from the family computer onto an external hard drive. When he then started being tricky/ outrageously dishonest about financial disclosure etc and had, it turned out, deleted all those files so she couldn't get a handle on anything, I gave her the hard drive and she and her lawyers were I think able to use the info about accounts he had etc to ensure he didn't totally screw her over.

She periodically uses this as evidence that I 'must' have known about his affair long before she did, and therefore should have told her. Or occasionally just as evidence of my cold, calculating and generally untrustworthy nature.

But - while I realise it wasn't exactly a great thing to do - I absolutely did not know he was having an affair, and have never really been sure why I did it at all!

The closest I can come to working out why is that I went in to the study to talk to him that evening and he was fiddling around with his spreadsheets, and he jumped and quickly closed the screen when I came in, as though he'd been doing something fishy. And that triggered a thought/ sudden insight that my Mum knew absolutely nothing about what he was doing with their finances, and that if he ever did leave or even die suddenly she wouldn't know what was what. So that evening after he'd gone to bed I just went down and copied all the financial files onto the hard-drive, and stuck it back in my room. I never looked at them or even thought about them again, until she was upset about all the financial stuff during their divorce. At the time I definitely didn't actually consciously think he WAS doing anything he shouldn't, and had no reason to distrust him. It was honestly just an impulse to do it, that for some reason I acted on rather than dismissing as bizarre/ thinking through that it was a bad thing to do.

Anyway this all got dragged out again today, as evidence of how I 'always' keep secrets and what an awful thing it was to have done. I know I shouldn't have done it, but also always feel slightly bitter that she happily used the ill-gotten information yet still has a go at me about it!

AIBU?

That's a pretty horrible thing for her to say.

Not only should she be grateful for your 'premonition' which meant that you were able to give her invaluable information about your father's finances, enabling her to come out of the divorce with her fair share, she should also be massively grateful that you still have a relationship with her in the face of her ingratitude and her unfair and untrue allegations that you knew about your dad's infidelity at the time and deliberately kept it from her.

Talk about 'biting the hand that feeds you'. She is a textbook example of that.

Wow, she needs to rethink how that is coming across. You did that outbid loyalty to her and to protect her.

Op you were 17 years old and you had more sense and intuition than she did as a grown woman.

Obviously there can be very good reason for that and I'm not judging her. But it's very possible that she judges herself that you had to step in and take action to protect her rather than the other way around and that's a very uncomfortable truth to hold. So instead of dealing with it properly and accountably she's hiding from her misplaced guilt and is putting it on you instead and deflecting her anger on to you.

It's deeply unfair and its in no way your fault.

It's because she is still unhappy & looking to unload blame. maybe if you had told her you didn't know sooner she could have saved her marriage.

I think it's not that wierd, at 17, to have realised your Dad was hiding something, you saw him jump & his shifty closing screen manoeuvre.
You had an intuition.

As for getting her to stop this now. She won't. it's part of who she is. there are not enough words in the dictionary, & air in the universe.

You need to grey rock now, "here we go", "righto", "I'm leaving" every time.
You could tell her one last time. "I am not speaking about this again, your insecurity & blaming is a "You" problem, after all these years, you should get therapy." & Walk out.

Look at it another way, maybe the way she is treating you over this gives you an insight into her personality that you didn't see as a child and this is why your father couldn't continue with their marriage.

I’m confused as to why she doesn’t use it as an example of you being an absolute gem of a daughter and a genius. She should be praising you. Shes obviously a cunt.

YNBU and you also sound amazing. Love the sensible preparation for all eventualities.

@HowSharperThan It's two things really. Firstly she feels inadequate because you had more foresight than her. You say she's intelligent, but this made her look stupid. Secondly you remind her of him, so that's where the "untrustworthy" comments come in. Either that or she's just plain weird. Personally I'd tell her to shove the hard drive up her arse. You saved her bacon at a time of crisis and also proved yourself to be very smart. Most mothers would be pretty proud of that, not the complete opposite.

@HowSharperThan out of interest, what did you dad make of your foresight and how is your relationship with him?

I'm to be brutally honest here: your parents both sound like a pair of cunts.

I think what OP did was odd and I can understand her mother being alarmed by it, especially since OP has been quite evasive/disingenuous about her motives for doing it. So I see where the mother is coming from there.

However, the mother accepted the information OP gave her, took it to her lawyer and they used it to benefit her. If OP's mother really had such exorbitant sensibilities around what her daughter had done, she would have destroyed the intel and never tried to use it. She is completely complicit in this and as an adult at the time, is more culpable than the OP. She CHOOSE to use the information to her benefit. No-one forced her to.

I’m confused as to why she doesn’t use it as an example of you being an absolute gem of a daughter and a genius. She should be praising you. Shes obviously a cunt.

Yes, and...

Look at it another way, maybe the way she is treating you over this gives you an insight into her personality that you didn't see as a child and this is why your father couldn't continue with their marriage.

...quite possibly also yes, now I come to think of it.

It wasn't an odd thing to do; it was a SMART thing to do. Everyone should always back up their important data. She trusted her intuition, and that's great in my opinion! Really great!