Finding out my dead dad’s secrets

[Marsh921]

My wonderful father died a couple of months ago. He really was the most kind and considerate man, a gentleman and an all-round good egg. He was with my mum for over 50 years and they always seemed very in love still and had very intelligent vibrant conversations. They travelled lots and had a good social life. We had an idyllic childhood in an old wonky house with a big garden where my Mum cooked delicious food for us all the time and we had a good education thanks to the help of the wider family. We have been heartbroken by his death and everyone that knows him has been regaling us with wonderful stories about him and how much he helped and supported them etc. it’s been a really hard summer. My mum has been cleaning out lots of things from the house and gave me his tablet as she has her own iPad. I was looking through it this week and found some strange emails. I started investigating and found myself reading email exchanges with other women. I found that he had another email account with a pseudo name (which I can’t get into currently). What I could glean is that he had an affair about 15 years ago and was meeting other women for sex centred around BDSM. I can’t believe he even knows what it is - it was sickening reading the lingo he used - I think he must have been part of that world more than I realise. He was meeting women the same age as me, his daughter and saying they could call him “Daddy”. I’ve been shellshocked for the last few days. I’m by no means blind to human behaviour and the behaviour of men in particular, it’s just that there was never any inkling that he was like that which is why I’m so shocked. I never even heard him make any “male” jokes about women or say anything derogatory or even slightly flirtatious. He was just so honorable and kind. It’s unbelievable that he was part of this world and seemed to show no signs of guilt or remorse, how could the person I know behave like that? This knowledge has terminated my grief process because I don’t feel I can grieve the person I knew - as it seems I didn’t know him. It would kill my Mum to find out and I don’t know how I’m going to sit on the information. Sometimes I think I should give her the dignity of truth but equally the thought of breaking her world apart kills me when she has done nothing else in her life apart from make all of our lives run more smoothly with a lot of magic thrown in. I hate that he did this and now it’s my burden. In his emails with one woman, he even mentioned a friend that could join him which I worked out was a family friend that has been close to our family for years. I can’t believe my dad would be so unashamed of his behaviour that he shared it with a friend (who was my mums best friends husband). It’s all so disgusting and I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface. How do I go on knowing what I know!?

I'm sorry for your loss and shock.

I would wipe the device now and stop digging, for your own sake.

Your mother sounds lovely op and nothing good will come of you telling her what you've found.

For pp speculating if the op's mother knew, I doubt she would have handed over the tablet if she knew there would be incriminating emails and content.

I'm sorry YOU had to find out this way. Most women even on this platform will never find out who they are really married to or how their fathers and grown sons really live.
I Don't know a single prostitute, night ladies whatever you wanna call them whose main clientele isn't a married man with kids and all. 😂
And their "nerdy" husbands asking for the most deplorable sexual acts imaginable that some have to be turned away and told "NO" multiple times. And they just go to another prostitute and demand the same BS.

MEN for the most part aren't anything like women at all. The things my mother told me (she was a crisis counselor for 35 years before she retired), I wouldn't believe had they come from anyone else.

Don't feel bad. 99% of women on here, their husbands are into some crazy shit as well, they just don't know it yet. And if they are lucky they'll never find out.

Op I am so sorry you’re going through this. My best friend as a teenager came to realise her dad was a weirdo that cheated repeatedly and had this same sort of double life with extreme sexual inclinations. It’s almost pathological double life isn’t it. The fact they can pretend so well and compartmentalise whilst putting their wife at risk of STIs, and totally life faking and pretending to just be the doting dad and husband whilst literally arranging the next hook up. She came to hate him tbh and was eventually glad when he died though had to endure gushing second wife and kids that had no idea who he really was.
She kept it a secret from all but close friends, husband etc. Not for him but for everyone else. A lot of therapy was needed! But she’s come through the other side.
This is much harder for you though as you have totally had rug pulled out from under you and the man you thought you knew was just a lie to maintain the public image. Please look after yourself and get therapy and take time to process. I hope you have a friend you can talk to. X

Don’t read anymore and put the iPad in the attic, using it will only bring back memories.

Make a list on your phone of all the kind things (that you can think of) that he did through his life and keep reading this list

Do not tell your mother or the rest of the family, these were his secrets and they should be kept as such…..if you need to tell someone go to a therapist

Lastly, I’m truly sorry you had to find out, but snooping rarely makes people happy

I was once chatting to an older man on a long train journey. He’d met friends for lunch earlier that day and was a little merry so possibly looser lipped than usual. We got on to talking about families and he told me he’d been in an open marriage for 20+ years. When he played away he did so in a BDSM environment with willing partners.

One day he had a fairly mundane row with his wife about something stupid (housework or something) and she snapped and told their daughter about her dad’s proclivities, as well as emailing his friends. He was a real figurehead of his industry and said he could just about cope with his colleagues finding out, which they had done, but having to explain himself to his early 20s daughter was an experience he never wanted to go through again. He was utterly devastated.

Your dad would never have wanted you to see those emails - just delete.

The cheating would be for me, the unforgivable part, although now he’s no longer here to offer or not offer forgiveness to, which I think would make this harder.

His sexual kinks, whilst unpalatable to many, were, providing everything was consensual, his private kinks and he was entitled to them - doesn’t change the fact he gave you a good childhood.

It’s not fair that you had to find this out, it really isn’t, but you can save your mum from pain and upset by keeping it to yourself. No good would come from telling her.

Wipe the device and leave it
trying to hack into his other private email for a snoop round is just wrong and let’s be honest I think you will just find more of what you don’t like
I don’t want to sound harsh but it certainly sounds like you’ve gone through all his private stuff thoroughly not just open the odd email never meant for anyone’s eyes but his

You do know that when closing out people's estates, you often have to access their private information in order to make sure everything is properly dealt with? It isn't snooping to go through emails looking for bills that need paying, finding account details for utilities etc. And if you find other things in amongst that, you can hardly unsee it.

My mother and brother have recently been doing this for my father, so everything could get moved into her name, as everything was in his name. As far as I know they haven't found anything untoward, but there is nothing unusual in needing to look into email accounts.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if he’s been hanging round in internet chat rooms is that it might actually all be fantasy, nothing more. I remember reading an interview with a woman in an anthology of sexual experiences (a bit like that Gillian Anderson book that’s out at the moment) who had what she called an “online Dom”. They had never met in person, connected on a chat room, switched to email, and just corresponded by way of filthy emails. I’m sure they then got their rocks off individually afterwards, but they never met or even talked on the phone - he was in the UK and she in the US.

I went through a similar experience when my father died. I discovered a whole other life, complete with house. I did grieve, but that grief was not at all straight forward as was so complicated. I was at University at the time. It was only when my grandmother died years later that I realised what uncomplicated and non traumatic grief felt like. It was so straightforward full of nice memories and tinged with sadness. I don't really have any advice other than, perhaps focus on him as a father to you in terms of memories. That bit won't have been a lie. Don't tell your mother though. Honestly, my mother found out and it left her devastated. Some things are best just left.

Yes, I suspect you are right. My father died a few years ago, but I often wonder if he ever cheated on my mum. He was a good and loving father, but he was a very handsome man and often worked away from home. I will never know now, and don’t really want to know, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find out he strayed once or twice.

I also suspect many men secretly visit prostitutes, or have done so at least once. For every one who’s caught how many take the secret to their grave? Just think how easy it is to look up prostitutes online, and how tempting those photos are to men (as you say, men are wired differently). Affairs tend to be messy and have ways of coming out. But a man can visit a prostitute any time, and who’d ever know?

Im sorry OP, this is a nasty pile of crap you have to carry. Not only is your dad not the person you thought he was (a faithiful and loving support to your mum, family first- because more than likely, if this came out then he'd have blown up his family and he was willing to take that risk), but you've now been burdened with the responsibility of his lies. Unfortunately, it's probably better that you don't tell your mum, but now you have to keep on keeping his secrets on his behalf. Is there anyone you can talk to about this? Other than here?

The loss of a parent is devastating.
It would always have been private from you but possibly not private from her. Maybe his inclinations were not acceptable to her, he sought an affair and BDSM, and she turned a blind eye. Whatever happened they stayed together and were good parents to you.
I imagine she would be hurt her to learn that you know. You all have enough grief without compounding it by exposing your knowledge. Leave it be.

I am absolutely horrified but you have been reading your dad's emails. Why isn't he entitled to his privacy?

OP, I'm so very sorry you're going this.
Give yourself space to grieve, even though you’ve uncovered things that change how you see him, the man you knew and loved was still real.

Remember he was complex, people can hold very contradictory sides. Your good memories aren’t suddenly worthless.

Don’t rush to tell your mum, you don’t owe anyone the whole truth, and protecting her from more pain can be an act of love. Equally, she may have known already but wouldn't want you to know.

Separate his choices from you, what he did is not your responsibility.

Give yourself permission, to grieve, to keep things private if you want, and to move forward without all the answers.

OP, my late father had secrets along these lines. I knew them even when he was alive but it escalated just before he died. Neither my siblings nor I could get him to stop the behaviour. This of course led to very mixed feelings about him in his later years and more so after his death.

How I dealt with the feelings was to protect my mother at all costs from knowing (she had dementia). It gives an outlet to channel the feelings and push up against.

So in other words, don't trouble your mum. It is an act of filial piety.

It's not just kinks though is it? He has been unfaithful - and to the OPs mum sob9f course it changes things.

I'm sorry OP. It's a lot to process. I would suggest therapy too. I think it's more common than we'd hope, finding things of this nature following a death.

I also don't think you should tell your mum- although I guess it's possible that she may know some of it?

You seem to have missed the fact that he's dead. It changes things. You have to deal with things like email accounts as part of the estate. Seems a bit rich to be shocked at OP who was not the one cheating on their spouse here.

Thank you everyone for all your replies, it’s really helpful to get a gist of what other people think as I couldn’t find a similar story online to relate to. Just to clarify a couple of things - I can guarantee my Mum didn’t know a thing! My dad also was ill in hospital for months before he died and he gave us all the passwords for everything so we could help him with any admin before he died, including email passwords etc so I wasn’t exactly snooping. As I’d been in the email account with him, I just thought it would be nice to read some of the emails he’d sent us over the years and ones to friends. If he’d been at all cagey about any anything, I would have just left it completely alone and respected his privacy, I do pride myself on that for people. I think the emails I saw were an oversight on his behalf - conversations that he had forwarded from WhatsApp to his secret email but had not deleted from his “sent” box. Unfortunately, the shock of seeing some naked photos pushed me to read some more of the attachments and then I had to know the truth. I just wishes I could unsee it all and continue missing the person I loved. I’m certainly no kink-shamer it’s purely reconciling that side of him with how he presented. It’s like trying to mix oil and water - I thought I was going to die of shock, that’s how unbelievable it is considering who he was. I’m glad the majority (in fact everyone!) has said not to tell my mum. I will do that and just have my own coping mechanisms in place to deal with it. My biggest focus will be her and helping her to move on and enjoy her life as much as she can. I just hate that his secrets are now a splinter in my otherwise pure and beautiful relationship with her. It’ll be so hard helping her mourn him knowing what I know.

OP, as long as you haven't found anything illegal, I'd probably just get rid of it and not tell your Mum. Definitely talk to someone about it if you need to get therapy, but if there's any chance your Mum doesn't know, maybe it's kinder to leave her with better memories.

Im sorry you found out this way. It must have been hard. But when all the information has been processed you may find yourself the stronger for it.

There were secrets in my family which I wont go in to. I found out at 18 why my sister was the "golden child" and I the "black sheep!". It was nothing that I had done or could have altered. It was set in motion by events before my birth. My grandmother told me the story and asked me to keep the secret while she was alive. She died in 1979 and I remained silent until my father died in 1999. Then it all came out after his funeral.

When I look back now on those events or try to relate them to a third party it all seems quite trivial. Questions of social class and status, expectations of women and all bound up with the advent of WWII. The world then was not ilke Downton Abbey where the Earl forgives the chauffeur for eloping with his daughter. If the same events happened now no one would bat an eyelid. How the world has changed since the 1940s.

I think you need to draw a line under what you've discovered. Destroy the tablet and throw it away and never tell your mum or anyone else. And make yourself let it fade from your thoughts. That whole dark side of his life was never intended to be uncovered by you. Let it go.

I think its best to let things go. Your dad passed away. Hold onto to the good eggs around you, stay in good ties with your family where possible.

Big hugs to you - this must be awful to process.

I adored my dad, who passed away a few years ago, six months after my mum. We recently came across a nude photo that a work colleague sent him - I realise this isn’t nearly as difficult as your situation, but I hope it can try and put it in a wider context.

It is not impossible that your mum knew all this. Mothers protect their children. There are things about my late OH that my DDs do not know and will never know, even though it sometimes sticks in my throat when they are extolling his virtues.
He had these virtues of corse, but there was another side they never knew about.
I try and concentrate on those things about him that were good and remember those. Your father's unacceptable behaviours need to be acknowledged by you, but they do not negate the good things. He gave you a secure childhood. That is still true whatever you have now discovered.