Discovered something awful that my dead father did, should I share with my family?

[Black51]

My elderly father died earlier this year. I have since discovered some official letters in his desk saying that when he was a young teacher he was banned from teaching due to sexually abusing some of his male pupils (in the 1950's). I have taken the paperwork away. Please let me know whether I should share this information with my mum and brothers, destroy the paperwork, or keep it private. I don't know what the best thing is to do here.

I agree to tell brothers, show them the evidence just in case he ever abused them. Discuss with your brother's whether to tell your Mum or not. She may already know if he lost his teaching job. The fact your Dad kept this paperwork and did not destroy it himself might indicate he wanted his family to know after his death. What a dreadful shock for you. Take your time to process this before telling your brothers.

I would share this with your siblings. There is a chance he could have abused them or others, and they haven't said anything. Not sure about your mum. Be prepared for "shoot the messenger" though.
Look after yourself as a priority, you may not feel strong enough to do it yet. It isn't a time critical task, unless you want answers from your mum and she is very old/ dying.
I don't think it's realistic to pretend you've not seen it, unfortunately, it's too serious.

Absolutely you tell them.

That is hard for you OP . I think if there are people in the family that your father may have potentially abused when they were younger , you do need to do something about it .This may include your siblings and any grandchildren , cousins etc .
Whilst he is dead there is obviously no current risk but potentially others may still be suffering from abuse that could have taken place in the past .
The NSPCC are usually a good source of advice , so you could check with them .

I think what can be really hard for those that have suffered abuse is the “ conspiracy of silence “. That is ; that others knew and either minimised it / brushed it under the carpet or went into denial mode .

It may be that nothing abusive happened after this and your father got a shock / felt guilty / worried about others finding out and chose other outlets eg porn , sexual relations with those older . You don’t know .
You can’t unknow - what you already know and I would try and share this burden with your siblings at the very least and discuss what if anything you say to your Mum .

You said he died earlier this year , so not sure how long ago . Grief isn’t linear so it may be that others are still in an active grieving mode .
I think you will also need to consider the timing if you do choose to tell your siblings . I would if you can try and do this in person , somewhere that you can have a bit of privacy and forewarn them that you have found out something troubling about your father .

You may not get the reaction from them that you expect , they may go into denial mode .

Firsts for a recent death can be very hard ie the first Christmas , wedding anniversary of your parents / birthdays - so also try and avoid / close to those dates .

Absolutely not

I would personally share this. So what if there are elderly people involved. If brothers have been abused this could give them the validation they need if they’ve been doubting themselves. Yes, it’s horrific information to share but why should OP keep to herself!

Op you are totally lighting a blue touch paper if you out your late father. You lose control as soon as you do. I appreciate this is massive and weighing g you down. My advice would be to see your GP and tell them and they can refer you to appropriate counselling where you can explore how you feel and they can guide you in to a decision about what to do. We are all strangers on here who won’t suffer the fall out. Don’t be guilt tripped into doing something you may regret

I understand that damage caused by abuse is lifelong. @bobiverse is suggesting the OP's father could still do damage: 'I would want to know if I had kids so I could make sure he never did anything to them'.

No she isn't. It is clear @Bobiverse would want to be sure he hadn’t abused her children whilst he was alive. She's not talking about protecting anyone from future abuse.

It isn't clear. That's why I misunderstood. To be clear, it would need to read: 'I would want to know if I had kids so I could make sure he had never done anything to them.'

I would want to know too so I think the OP does need to tell her family.

No, I am not.

Why can so few people read on this thread??? @Bobiverse i am feeling your pain.

I can read perfectly well. The issue here is with lack of clear writing.

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful and helpful responses. From what the paperwork said it happened once at a very lonely time in his life, although that absolutely does not excuse his behaviour. I do not believe he ever did anything similar after this and was truly ashamed and even suicidal afterwards. I will look into getting some counselling to help me process this. Thank you.

From working with victims of abuse, it’s never just once. That simply means he got caught once. Sorry OP, but you need to face the most likely truth.

There is no ambiguity in what @Bobiverse said, it’s very obvious that she means find out if he harmed anyone else while alive.

It is not obvious.

'I would want to know if I had kids so I could make sure he never did anything to them.' ie in the future

'I would want to know so I could make sure he had never done anything to them.' ie in the past

Two different sentences, two different meanings. My original comment was made because it looked as though the poster hadn't read the original post properly, something that happens quite often here.

Never did is past tense. It is talking about actions compete (or not completed) in the past. It is not talking about something ongoing or something potentially happening in the future. It is simple past tense. That’s your first clue that I was discussing his possible past behaviour.

My next paragraph went on about saying how hard it must be for OP because “he was your dad.” Again, past tense.

You are entirely wrong, and for some reason you want to dig further. Just stop. You’re wrong. You’ve been corrected. Move on.

If I thought he was still alive and child were still at risk, then I’d have said, “I’d want to know to make sure he doesn’t do anything and never did.”

I’m not sure how an adult can think the past tense of do can mean something in the future. The word “did” is most certainly not discussing future acts.

Share the information with your family.

The man is dead. It’s pretty obvious that he can’t hurt anyone else in the future. You’re being pointlessly obtuse and it’s pretty vile on a thread where people are sharing some personal and painful experiences.

He doesn’t deserve any protection. There might well be victims that require support, that is far more important than preserving his bloody creditability. Honestly how is this even a question.

I have set off on the wrong foot with this and genuinely misunderstood. So I might be thick but not pointlessly obtuse or vile.

I don’t think you’re thick. I thought you were being deliberately awkward, I apologise if that’s not the case.

Maybe but the way I see it is that this question would have been relevant if he was still around and his being around may have still impacted other people's lives. He is gone, however. Disclosing his so called secret could cause a lot of hurt and trauma that may never be resolved. I just don't see the point of it but that's just me.

I was not being deliberately awkward. It is good of you to apologise. Thank-you.