SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am not sure what forum to post this on but I'm here because the original betrayal that brought me here was long ago.

That was in 2008. We divorced. I dated a man, G, for 7 years until 2017. We split up after a dumb fight. He was so anxious he heard things I didn't say, and I gave up. Both of us had trust issues. Eventually we salvaged a friendship as I never stopped caring. His mother died and he grieved. G got stage 4 cancer, I took care of him, we reconnected emotionally, overcame past blocks, and even knowing he was dying we got married. We had an amazing wonderful loving 4 months of marriage. He died January 2025.

I am still grieving the loss, and also trying to understand why he was so anxious.

This past weekend I met with his aunt who was his mother's sister and asked her why.

She said there are skeletons in the closet in the family. She told the story of G's mother having an affair when my husband was a baby. She got pregnant, and his Dad took her back and raised G's brother as his son. That was R.

I had not heard this story before. She said she had never told anyone.

My husband G and his brother R were very different. G was an artist, didn't focus on money. R was always wheeling and dealing and became a multi millionaire and has a wealthy lifestyle. My husband was very heartfelt and sacrificed to help others. The brother barely helped at all when my husband was sick and was very distant and disconnected. Cold where my husband was very warm despite the anxiety.

Do I keep this info to myself as the aunt did? As G's parents clearly wanted?
But why should I know and not the brother?

There isn't a way to verify this as both parents are dead. Not sure a DNA test could be done at this time.

My experience with being honest about difficult topics are that then people see me in a negative light when I did nothing wrong and I don't want that drama in my life. I'm inclined to say nothing, as his brother is not friendly to me anyway. He is in his 60s now.

All the same, I know if there was a question about my parentage I would want to know.

I am puzzling over what to do with this bombshell.

I'm open to thoughtful responses. Thank you.

Spicy because it’s difficult to know if the brother doesn’t know it already without risking to shatter his life if he is not.

Not sure how much the Aunt knows about the innermost dynamics of the family.

Are you very close to him?

I think this is an unfair secret passed down by the parents to children (you too as in wife of, you are like a daughter now).

Fallout of infidelity infecting lives even decades after if there was rugsweeping.

He is the son of the affair partner. His dad adopted him as his own (hard thing to do, but he chose to love the fruit of betrayal as his own blood). This is commendable.

Keeping secrets though, never a good idea. The truth has a way to alway come out sooner or later.
This is but one instance of it happening.

He is a victim of his mother affair and her affair partner. He didn’t do anything wrong or bad, he just came to life. He is completely innocent.

The evil of his biological parents is what makes it all a bid land mine now. The secret buried it, and since the parents never told him the truth now his all reality is based on a lie.

He was never given the chance to process it, and if the parents are no more or they are but keep the lie, then you telling him can possibly only cause pain and break him.

I don’t think you should be the person bringing out the truth, unless he is directly confronting you with questions, then the truth is always the correct answer.

But I wouldn’t go searching for him to tell him from your own initiative.

It’s unfair for him, unfair for you, but you have to deal with the echo of his mother’s betrayal, it put this load on your shoulders willing or not.

Thanks for your response, it was helpful. I am not close with the brother. I am working with his wife to resolve the storage unit left by his mother in my state when he lives across the country. But he never thanked me for taking care of his brother when he was sick.

I think given I don't have a relationship with him, and because he was not friendly to me despite all the care I gave his brother, and I'm dealing with the grief of all that has happened in the last few years, I don't think I have the strength to tell him and navigate the fallout.

If he ever has doubts, and wants to ask me if the aunt ever said anything to me, I would tell the truth. He would never ask because he doesn't talk to me.

You're right, it's an example of how infidelity has ripple effects through the decades, even after the affair people are dead and gone.

I would not say anything. Despite the difference in their personalities, it sounds like there's no proof that R was the product of his mother's affair. Imagine if you stir that pot based on rumor, and it turns out that G's father was R's father after all.

If he has kids, it's going to come out at some point when one of them does DNA testing for a genealogy site (I, and several people I know, have found unexpected relatives that way). Let the chips fall without your intervention.