Knowing someone’s secret is a heavy burden, especially if it concerns your closest people. Revealing it means potentially breaking apart a family, while concealing it means hiding the important truth from loved ones. Our reader has found herself in such a dilemma and now doesn’t know what to do.
An anonymous 36-year-old woman reached out to our editorial seeking advice for an uncomfortable situation she’s currently facing. She began her letter with, “Hello, I’ve found myself in quite a mess and really need advice from those who will read this.”
She continued by explaining, “Three weeks ago, my mother-in-law passed away, and the entire family has been deeply grieving. My husband of 10 years, my sister-in-law, and father-in-law have all been profoundly affected by her death. While my relationship with my mother-in-law was amicable, we weren’t extremely close either.”
The woman then shared an intriguing part of her story, stating, “After the funeral, my father-in-law asked me to sort through my late mother-in-law’s belongings, and I agreed. During this process a week ago, I stumbled upon an old diary of hers, dating back to the 1980s.”
The woman continued her story, admitting, “I realize it’s entirely my fault for being so intrusive into someone else’s private belongings. However, I was intrigued because this old diary seemed out of place among my mother-in-law’s possessions.”
As she delved into the diary’s contents, the woman was taken aback by what she discovered.
“I was surprised from the very beginning,” she shared. “The diary detailed my mother-in-law’s struggles with her eldest daughter and described the daughter’s behavior at that time. This revelation shocked me deeply because my sister-in-law is actually the youngest in the family, and the timeline mentioned in the diary didn’t align with reality.”
The woman continued, revealing, “It turns out my mother-in-law had another child and was married to someone entirely different from my father-in-law. This would have been a mundane discovery, but my mother-in-law always boasted about being married only once. She frequently talked about my father-in-law being her lifelong love, from their early childhood to adulthood.”
She disclosed, “In the diary, my mother-in-law discussed her struggles with her eldest child, revealing that she and her ex-husband reached a breaking point. He convinced her to send their daughter to a ’tough love’ boot camp, a decision my mother-in-law deeply regretted. She wrote about the pain of their failed attempts to reconcile, and how her daughter eventually ran away, cutting off all contact.”
The woman’s mother-in-law had kept this entire chapter of her life a secret, blaming her ex-husband for the situation and ultimately divorcing him. At the back of the diary, the woman found a copy of her daughter’s birth certificate and a photo of her as a teenager.
The woman expressed her devastation at discovering her mother-in-law’s secret and feeling burdened by it. She wrote, “My mother-in-law has just passed away, and the entire family is grieving deeply. Now I find myself holding onto her darkest secret, unsure of what to do or whether I should share it with anyone. I’m hesitant to surprise my father-in-law with this information, especially since he’s in his late 80s and mourning his wife’s death.”
She shared that she has received conflicting advice from those around her. “Some advise me not to tell my husband, fearing he may leave me for disrupting his family. Others insist I should tell him to avoid hiding secrets,” she explained.
Feeling desperate, she admitted, “This situation has heightened my anxiety. I don’t want to intrude on their family matters, but as the keeper of this secret, I must decide whether to reveal it or keep it to myself. I also feel guilty because I know my mother-in-law would have disapproved of my curiosity.”
Reading other people’s diaries never leads to anything good. Here’s the story of a man who read his wife’s notes while she was in a coma.
I think don't lie, but share this new information later, not when your MIL's death is so fresh. Tell your husband later on and asked him to decide if he will tell the rest of the family, or not. More importantly, apologize for being so intrusive. Honestly it's good luck that you found it first and not your FIL. He would have been heart broken in his worst moment in life. That's just my opinion, good luck!
