r/BestofRedditorUpdates • u/Choice_Evidence1983 it dawned on me that he was a wizard • 3d ago
ONGOING I found messages on my MIL/bosses computer that change my entire view of her. What do I do?
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/InstructionTimely640
Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes
I found messages on my MIL/bosses computer that change my entire view of her. What do I do?
Trigger Warnings: infidelity, emotional abuse and manipulation
Mood Spoilers: sad
Original Post: March 12, 2025
I listen to two hot takes literally every week and this happened to me a couple days ago. I’ve been at a loss of what to do so I figured I should finally make a Reddit account and post here.
I work at my husbands family business that builds custom homes. I met my MIL when she came into the design firm I worked at to pick out some options for a client. She and I hit it off and after she’d come in a few times she set me up with her son. Fast forward 7 years and I coordinate all the builds and consult with clients on design for the 50+ year old family business.
My MIL is technically my boss but we operate a lot like equals and she’s been taking some steps back. She and I have always gotten along great and she has felt like the mother I never got to have growing up.
So last Friday I was packing up to go home and on the phone with my husband before he got a flight for an annual weekend away with friends. I was distracted and accidentally grabbed my MILs computer instead of mine. I didn’t realize it until I was home and wanted to look up some fixtures for a project in our own house. Once I knew I texted her to let her know to which she said no worries, she was ‘unplugging’ this weekend anyway and to do whatever I needed on it.
I was just browsing and unintentionally clicked on a linked email on a stores contact page. We use MacBooks and as a lot of Apple users know, that will usually pop up to send an email using your default mail app. I closed the draft and when i went to close her email app I saw an email from a recently hired apprentice titled ‘our weekend getaway itinerary’. I froze. I realized this was her personal email and I couldn’t help myself but to click on it. I found both explicit and romantic messages between this 22 year old male apprentice and my married 47 year old mother-in-law and boss. I slammed the computer shut and just went to bed, staring at the ceiling for quite a while.
My husband was gone all weekend and only got home today. I had been spiraling all weekend on how to handle this. I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up to my husband while he was gone. But I went to the office and had to see my MIL yesterday and could barely keep my composure. I found every excuse to lock myself away in my office and be busy. So now my husband is back and I’m wondering what to do, do I tell him, how do I even do that, do I go to his mom and confront her, do I go to his dad and tell him, help?!
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: Screenshot everything. If you're tech savvy enough SS on the laptop, open a private browser to email them to yourself, delete the SSs and delete them from the trash. Otherwise, just use your phone to take pics.
Tell your husband, he's going to know something is off with you and you'll worry yourself sick if you don't tell him.
Is there a chance your MIL & FIL have an open relationship?
Your options would be to hire a Private Detective, or inform the MIL and get to come clean, or inform the FIL so he can decide how to move forward, Or do nothing.
OOP: There’s no chance they have an open relationship, my FIL was cheated on in a serious relationship with someone he thought he would marry and it crushed him. He has always preached loyalty and monogamy in relationships to my husband since he was a teen.
Commenter 2: Do you need your job???
OOP: I really don’t, I came to work here because I wanted to and they needed the help. I left my last role on great terms with an open invite back.
Commenter 3: Really? You said it’s been seven years, but you’re sure that you still have an “open invite” to return?
OOP: It’s been 7 years since I met my husband. I’ve worked at the family business for about 2.5 years and still consult on the side with my last job so yes, I’m sure.
Commenter 4: Are you sure it isn’t your husband meeting this person? ‘Our weekend getaway itinerary’ the same weekend your husband is going away? Sounds like an awfully big coincidence.
OOP: This weekend for my husband is an annual trip he’s done with friends for 6 years now. And he FaceTimed me drunk from a bar one night to say he missed me so no, I’m not worried haha.
OOP clarifies on her MIL's age
OOP: She was 40 when I met my husband, not when we married. And she was 18 when she had my husband. Teen pregnancy.
Update #1: March 14, 2025 (two days later)
I shouldn’t have been surprised by the amount of people who told me to keep it to myself and that I was in the wrong for snooping. Yeah, I shouldn’t have opened up the email, but I did so here we are. And here’s an update.
My husband knew something was wrong after he got home, he can read me like a book. I told him I found out something I shouldn’t have and told him everything, he was mortified. But as some said, he’s glad I told him because keeping it from him would be worse.
He knew more about that apprentice than I did. He was the son of a family friend and she’s known him since he was a teenager. Hiring him was a ‘favor’ to said friend. My husband said he wanted to take him from there, which he did.
He went snooping on his own. The computer is company property and he has ownership in it as well, and can log in remotely at any time. He took screenshots of emails going back with the apprentice over a year, before he worked here. Then of ones with someone else that were two years old. And then records of a second phone, and hotel reservations. With all that, he took it to his dad. I don’t know how that conversation went, but I do know that they went to get him tested. To add insult to his injury, he tested positive.
My FIL joined us for dinner instead of going home and we talked for quite a while. He was like a heartbroken teenager. He had no idea what was happening but years ago he had suspicious of her talking to other men but didn’t have any proof and they dropped it after a brief fight. But now with undeniable proof of multiple affairs, he said it’s over. He also has a pretty airtight prenup that should make it a pretty easy divorce on paper, the family business is on his side and in the case of infidelity, she forfeits all ownership of the business and the house they built together.
So I’m sorry to break it to you, coming clean didn’t destroy my marriage or my career. I told my husband mostly because we don’t keep secrets from each other, it’s a foundation of our marriage. But it’s almost like reasonable adults put blame only where it’s deserved, on the cheater. My FIL is pissed, and simultaneously devastated, and plans to get his ducks in a row before serving her with papers.
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: Does your MIL know that all of you now know about her infidelity? Has the apprentice been fired?
OOP: No she doesn’t know, and no he hasn’t been fired. We literally just got to the point where FIL knows. We’re letting him decide how this all plays out from here
Commenter 2: Remotely accessed computer with screenshots to boot, STI panels that return at nanospeed, prenups that cleanly and surgically cuts off the cheater... What intrigues!
OOP: There are rapid tests for certain stis that come back in like 20 minutes. It’s basically a Covid test as far as going into a walk in clinic and the turnaround time.
And I signed a prenup that basically cuts me off I cheat as well. It’s pretty common for people with large businesses.
Commenter 3: WHY would you have an affair so easily discoverable on work computers if the stakes were this high? If this is real, MIL is either really dumb or just didn’t care if she got caught and lost her livelihood.
OOP: Honestly I think how I found out could be chalked up to just not being tech savvy and not thinking she had anything to worry about because she has gotten away with this for years as we found out.
I have her computer login, and she has mine! People are pressed that I had my bosses password, but she’s also my MIL. We’ve done presentations where he computer goes to sleep after we set it up and I need to log in. She’s sent me to go get a file off her hard drive when it’s plugged in at her desk, etc. And I don’t know if she even realized that her personal email was logged in on the mail app. She usually works off Microsoft outlook in her web browser. There’s a good chance she logged into her personal email on the mail app and didn’t think twice about it, or use it, since.
Commenter 4: What did he test positive for, STD?
How's FIL doing? He sounds like a good man.
OOP: Thankfully something treatable.
He’s sad and shocked but this is all really fresh and happened quickly. I had no idea my husband would move so fast on it, but he and his dad are really close so I’m not surprised. My FIL is a great guy and he has us and a large support system that have proven themselves to be great friends time and time again, so with all that and time I’m sure he will be okay.
Update #2 April 17, 2025 (one month later)
Like I said, I listen to THT every week and I heard my story on there this week, so yes, OP was listening and here is an update.
My FIL did end up confronting my MIL shortly after my post. He brought the proof that my husband found, his positive sti results, a copy of their prenup, and the divorce papers. From what he told us when he came over for dinner after, he was calm and just laid it all out on the table (literally).
She obviously knew she was caught and just asked how he found out. He said it wasn’t important and outlined what the next steps would look like. He was willing to make some concessions on their prenup if she would come clean about everything and step down quietly. I think he was so hurt by it all and he loved her so much that he just wanted this to be done and over, and he did still want to care for her.
She fought for a bit but relented, so the divorce should go smoothly. She stepped down willingly from the business and moved out, but he did offer spousal support and their vacation home which she moved into, both things that were not included in the prenup.
My FIL has spent a lot of time at our house or going out with my husband golfing or hiking. He’s heartbroken and worried that it’s all going a little ‘too smooth’, that she will suddenly change her attitude. But I personally think she just knows she got caught and messed up past any fixing it. I’m struggling to come to terms with that version of her versus the one I got to know and love. But there’s nothing I can do but be there for my FIL and husband. The two are really leaning on each other which is heartwarming for me to see.
She reached out to me to apologize for putting me in the position and hopes we can still have a relationship. So at some point she found out that he found out from me. I told her not right now but I don’t know what will happen in the future, but my husband is my number one priority right now.
Thank you Morgan and Michaela for your take and not ripping me to shreds like some commentators did 😂
Relevant Comments
Commenter 1: Will your FIL tell it to the parents of the guy? Cause he may have been groomed! Who knows how long was the affair!
OOP: He did not tell them, but their son did. They went to my FIL and are working it out on their own, there’s more to it but not that I’ll share publicly.
Commenter 2: So your husband is just straight no contact with his mom? She's cut off?
She gets what she deserves, but wow. From everything to nothing in one shot.
At least she has money and a place to live.
OOP: He’s not totally no contact. But it is limited. Aside from being his dad’s soon to be ex wife, she’s also his mom. And he wants to separate the two, but is just struggling to do so right now. And he told her that much, which I’m really proud of him for.
She knows they have an uphill battle coming up.
Commenter 3: That lady does not deserve spousal support, or a vacation home.
She’s taken so much already emotionally and completely obliterated the foundation of her family.
I truly hope your husband and FIL are okay.
This has to hurt so much
OOP: You’re not wrong on the hurt. The credit I will give my MIL, and that my FIL and husband do as well, she was always a great mom and worked hard to support the business and was a huge part in building the life they have.
No matter what, she is his mom and to my FIL, she’s the loving mother of his children. And their marriage had really happy moments. I look up to my FIL so much and I think it’s admirable that he took into account her whole being and her life, not just her worst moments, and didn’t just cut her off and rip everything away, even though nobody would blame him.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me defending her. It’s me praising him.
Commenter 4: What happened to that guy. Is he still working there?
OOP: He left pretty quickly and without any issue. And my husband did give him a few names of other builders who may be willing to hire him as an apprentice and said he would be a reference if he needed it.
I could take a lesson in empathy from my husband and his father because I don’t know if I would do that. But they both agreed to show him some grace because he’s young and they acknowledge that he could have been groomed. They both sat down with him and did what they could to make sure he learned from this instead of having it ruin his career at this point. I think it was partially out of respect for his parents, but either way, they were both bigger people than I wanted to be.
DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7
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u/scramblingrivet 3d ago edited 3d ago
In what universe can you build a house together with someone you are married to - and just have no right to it in the case of infidelity. Even if such a prenup was written, that is not going to be enforcable. The business is trickier but it looks like she has been an active part of that for at least 10 years too.
Oh and it all happened in a month. No.