Reddit Stories - Daring DISCLOSURE_ The Secret Duty I UNVEILED to My Step-SIBLING's Partner_

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #disclosure #familysecrets #relationships #duty #stepfamilySummary:I bravely revealed a secret duty I had been keeping from my stepsibling's partner, causing a stir in our family dynamic. The repercussions of my disclosure were unexpected and led to a deeper exploration of trust and loyalty.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, disclosure, familysecrets, relationships, duty, stepfamily, secretsrevealed, familydrama, loyalty, trustissues, siblingrivalry, braveaction, personalconflict, honesty, communication, unexpectedconsequencesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Reluctantly supervised the children of my step-sibling every evening, but one day I contacted his spouse and informed her that I couldn't provide child care consistently. As a result, she has initiated divorce proceedings and I got blamed for ruining his marriage. Hi, guys. So, my stepbrother Aaron, 36M, got married eight years ago and he has two kids. His oldest is his daughter, five years old and his son is just the child. three years old. I, 34F, have never been very close with him since it's not like we grew up together.

My parents separated when I was very little and they had shared custody of me. My dad started dating my stepmom when I was 17, so I was pretty grown up by then and so was Aaron. That's why we never felt very close and we never even lived together as a family at any point because by the time that my stepmom moved in with my dad, I had moved out for college. I was lucky enough to a job right afterward, so I just never looked back in since then I had been living on my own. Don't get me wrong, I don't have any issues with my stepmom and the same goes for Aaron, but I wouldn't exactly refer to them as my family since we are not that close. They are my father's family and I respect that, but that's about it.

However, like I had said, we had never been on bad terms and recently, Aaron moved to my city with his family 10 days ago. He has a new project that he's working on here and will be living here for maybe a year or more. It was pretty convenient for his wife as well because his in-laws also live here and since his father-in-law is pretty sick, his wife could stay with her family during the day until he came back home from work as well. My dad told me that he wanted me to show him around and help him settle in and I did that and I assumed that after that, my responsibilities would be over as I was just trying to be nice. But for some reason, Aaron assumed that I was just there at his back and call at all times and started dumping his kids onto me every evening.

evening. This started almost seven days ago. He just showed up at my house with his children, since I had just given him my number and address in case he needed help with anything and asked me to babysit them for an hour or so and he would be back as soon as possible. He told me that he had some urgent work at the office. So he had to go back and since his wife had decided to spend the evenings with her parents because her father's health had been deteriorating, he couldn't exactly expect her to watch the kids either. And they were new here so they didn't have a sitter, so they were relying on me. To be honest, I'm not one for kids but because he had work and he was new to the city, I agreed to help him out until he found a sitter. I was not

happy about this arrangement in the slightest because even though I work from home, it's still work and after I'm done, I really don't feel like doing anything but spending time alone. The kids are nice and I have to give credit where it's due. Aaron did not leave the kids at my place for more than an hour and a half, and he was always very punctual in picking them back up and would thank me for looking out for them. But this started happening every day and for the past seven days, I didn't have a moment to myself during the evenings. Two days ago, I even told Aaron that I needed him to look for a sitter because I couldn't do this every day and he promised me that he would. And then, yesterday, I had plans to go out with my friends in the evening since it was a Sunday

and I had even told Aaron about it in the morning. I had told him that I would not be able to take care of his kids this evening. Even though it was a Saturday and I knew that his job didn't require him to come in on a Saturday but just to be on the safe side, I had still told him. But then, the bell still rang at the same time as usual and I was just starting to do my makeup and when I went to the door, I already had a speech prepared in my head and I knew that as soon as I opened the door, I was going to tell Aaron that I would not be able to take care of his children today since I had already told him about my plans. But I never got the opportunity to do so since he had just dropped his children at my door and as soon as I opened the door to tell him that I wouldn't be able to

watch them, he had driven off in his car and left me with the kids. It was quite clever of him, I'll have to give him that. He stayed outside my house in his car just long enough to see me open the door and then, he left. He had left a note with his daughter that said sorry, but it did not mean anything to me because now, I would have to cancel the plans that I had made. I was very upset and I was even more angry that he had tried to outsmart me. I tried to call him to get his kids, but his phone was switched off. So in my anger, I decided to call up his wife. She and I have never interacted much,

I've only met her at their wedding and then, a couple of times on the holidays. But I did get her phone number a couple of days when they moved here. So I called her up and I told her that for the past week, Aaron had been dropping their children off at my place every single day at the same time and then he would just be gone for an hour or so. while I knew that I had agreed to babysit for them until they had found somebody else, I couldn't do it on weekends as well and told her he had dropped the kids off at my place even though I had told him that I wouldn't be free to watch them today and I was just really upset

about all of this. I told her I could understand that they were new to the place and needed some time to settle in, but this was no way to behave and that I couldn't encourage this so I needed her to come pick her children up and she did not say much. She just said okay, and then she told me that she would be coming over in a while to pick the kids up. After half an hour, she showed up at my door, she was very sullen and we did not even speak. The kids left with her and then, I did not check my phone since I was going out drinking with my friends and I only do this sort of thing once or twice a month maybe, so I like to stay away from my phone and live in the moment. I did not receive any notifications from anyone since my phone was on

Do Not Disturb Mode last night and I only checked my phone this morning. I had like a thousand missed calls and messages and voicemails from everyone, my dad, Aaron, and even my stepmom, which was weird because she and I don't usually speak to each other much unless it's an emergency. I was very confused so before I called anybody back, I decided to go through some of the messages that these people had sent me. Most of them were accusations about me being an idiot and saying that I had no need to talk to Aaron's wife about any of what was going on. I was still very confused, so I decided to call back my father first, and as soon as I called him, he started yelling at me and said that I had ruined Aaron's marriage, apparently. Even then, I had no

idea what he was talking about, and my father finally told me that because of my phone call, his wife had been able to figure out that he was not going out to the park with the kids like he had been telling her and had actually been dropping them off at my place and taking off by himself instead. On top of that, Aaron had also lied to me about going back to the office for work because after my phone call, his wife had contacted a co-worker of his and he had told her that nobody from their department really needed to come into work on Sundays and he definitely hadn't. Just to double check, she had even driven there herself to check if his car was at his workplace or not, and it was not there. She even spoke to two women who happened to be walking out of the

office building and they said that nobody really comes into work after they have left for the day and she even specified what kind of car errand drives and they made it very clear that for the past seven days, he had come to work on time and left exactly at five. But he had never come back after leaving like he was claiming he had to for the past one week. They also told her that Aaron had just started working there, so his workload was not as much as the others, and he was always able to wrap up his work within office hours and would leave on time. So they did not know why exactly he would have any need to come back at all, much less come in on the weekend. So clearly, he had been lying, and now, because of the phone call that I made, his lies had been caught

and she had confronted him, but he was refusing to tell her the truth and so. She was threatening to leave him and take their kids with her. She had already moved out with the kids last night to stay with her parents and now, he was in a mess. I had also found it pretty weird that he would have to go back to work after leaving for the day every single day for one week, that really did not make any sense to me, but I did not question it because it did not seem like my business. and I have a lot on my plate to worry about as well, so why would I care about that? But now, after I heard all of this from my father, I realized that Aaron had lied about a lot of things to a lot of people, and since he was getting caught now, he was blaming me for

everything. So I told my father that while it was very sad that his wife had decided to end his marriage because he had been lying to her, even though it was exactly what he deserved and I probably would have done the same thing if I was in her place, I did not see how I had anything to do with this. So my father told me that if I had never made the phone call to his wife, none of this would have ever happened. It was quite exasperating and unreasonable, so I told him that I had to make that phone call because I have a life and I have plans of my own as well. And I was not going to be

apologetic for living my life on my own terms. But he started telling me that I had betrayed my family and said that I should have just stayed with the kids and told Aaron off when he came to pick them up instead of contacting his wife and going out of my way to create trouble for him. It was really annoying because he was trying to pin the blame of this entire situation on me, so I flared up and told him that I was not the one who had been lying to my partner. So if anything, he should be the one to blame, and Aaron should be the one getting yelled at right now, not me. But he just kept saying that what I had done was not right for the family and that I needed

to apologize to Aaron because he was pretty upset about what was going on. I told him that I did not owe anybody any apologies and he should probably be telling Aaron all of this right now because he is the one who needs to sort out his life and then. My father said that I was his family and this is not what families do to each other. I said that he was definitely not my family but just my dad's family. That caught him off guard and he asked me if I really did not consider Aaron my family and I reiterated that by saying that I did not. He then asked me if I even considered his wife his family and I still said no because it's the truth, I don't. I did not grow up with them, they never bothered to build a strong relationship with me and I was fine with it, but at the same time, it also means that I don't consider them my family.

It was very simple and I really don't think that I said anything that offensive. It's not like they consider me very close to them either, so what's the big deal? But after I said that, my dad started sounding very curt and told me that if that's what I thought, then we had nothing further to discuss and hung up on me. I was genuinely confused in a couple of minutes after he ended that phone call. He texted me that he had always expected me to respect him and the people that he loved and at least give them a chance, but I had obviously made up my mind, and I had decided that I was not going to respect my stepmom and stepbrother.

And he owed certain things to them as well so he had decided not to speak to me either because what I had done to Aaron was not acceptable. He also brought up the fact that Aaron was not even putting me through much of an inconvenience. I was working from home anyway, and he would always drop the kids off after I was done with work and he would pick them up within just an hour. So what I did was not nice and now, I don't even understand what to do. I'd offer calling my stepbrother's wife to pick their kids up because I did not want to babysit them. Update 1, so I decided not to apologize to Aaron because my dad was just trying to guilt-trip me

and I see that now. It's been a couple of days since we last spoke and I have not received any message from him since then. I know for a fact that he is immensely pissed off at me, but there's not much that I can do. I did talk to my mother about this and she told me that my dad was being unreasonable. And she almost never has anything bad to say about my dad, since they are still on good terms, but this time, she said that my father was acting irrationally and told me that she would speak to him. Yesterday, she called me up in the afternoon and told me that she had spoken to my father on the phone and they had ended up in a fight as well over this. Because she had taken my side and he had

told her that she was encouraging the wrong thing. So they ended up fighting in now, they are not talking to each other anymore either. The fight must have been bad because when my mother called me yesterday, she was really pissed off and given her temperament, she rarely ever takes that tone with anybody. But when I was talking to her, she told me that she was not going to talk to my father again until he had apologized to me because the things that he had said were absolutely illogical and unfair. Apparently, he had called me a spoiled brat and said that I had grown up to be somebody who could not care about anybody apart from myself. And that's why I had ratted out my stepbrother, without even considering the consequences of what I was doing. When my mother had

tried to defend me, my dad had cut her off and yelled at her saying that if she was on my side here, they had nothing more to discuss because he did not want to speak to anybody who was encouraging my behavior. When my mom told me about all of this, I was really pissed off, and even though initially I had thought that I would forgive my father if he came to his senses and apologized to me, now I'm not so sure. I don't think I'm going to talk to him even if he apologizes because the things that he said are firstly not even true and more importantly, they are very hurtful as well.

And I'm not a child so he can't say whatever he wants to and get away with it. I'm a grown woman, I have my own life and if my dad is going to be a jerk to me, I'm just going to cut him out of my life and move on. Update 2. So, a lot of things have happened since my last update. Last evening, I finally received a message from my dad. It has been almost two weeks since we last spoke to each other. After that, I had not interacted with him since my mother had told me a lot of things that he had said about me, and I had no interest in speaking to him after that. But I had forgotten to block him, so he sent me a message saying that Aaron's wife had apparently served him with the divorce papers, just a couple of days back, and he was devastated.

That really annoyed me because I don't know why he was giving me an update on the situation when I hadn't even asked about it. I knew that he was trying to rub it in and make it seem like it was my fault. So I just ignored it and I blocked his number after that message. But then, he called me up from his work number and asked me if I had no shame or if I did not. have any feelings at all because here, my brother was getting divorced because of me, and even then, I could not even bring myself to apologize, much less try to fix the situation. I was really annoyed with him at that point. So I told him that I did not find anything in this situation to feel ashamed of myself or even think that I deserved to feel guilty. I also told him that I was still

not going to apologize. He was getting divorced because of his own lies and I did not ask him to do that. I had only inadvertently exposed his lies, not even on purpose, and I will not even count that as a mistake because if he was acting that way, he probably did not deserve his wife. My father started talking about family loyalty once again, and I cut him off, saying that I had heard of the things that he had said to my mother about me, and beyond this point, I really had no interest in speaking to him anymore. I told him that if he wanted to support a liar, that was his personal choice, but he should not expect me to do the same because, like I had said earlier, I did not count them as my family. So family loyalty is pretty much out of the question. It's his

family, he can be loyal to it if he wants to. But again, he should also take into consideration the fact that Aaron is a liar, and if he was yelling at my mother for encouraging my behavior, I could question him for encouraging Aaron's behavior as well. He started fumbling his words after that, so I took that opportunity and hung up on him. Then, I blocked that number that he had called me from as well, but something tells me that he's not going to stop at this and he's going to keep calling me, again and again until I apologize or at least just do something about this. Anyway, while I did not hear from my father after that phone call last evening,

I did receive a visit from Aaron this morning at around 7. I'm usually up by then to start my day with a jog in a workout session and was about to leave from my jog when the bell rang and when I saw that it was Aaron, I was really annoyed. I told him that it was really early in the morning for any drama and I didn't want to interact with him right now. I could see through the window that he looked like he was in bad shape. His shoulders were all slouched and it looked like he hadn't slept in days, so he was definitely not coming with good news.

It was going to be another painful discussion about his life. I did not want that so early in the morning, so I asked him to please leave. I did not want to be rude to him because honestly, I felt that the sight of him was just pitiful. But he told me that he had something really important to discuss with me, so he just wanted me to open up the door to him once and after that, he would not bother me again. When he was speaking to me, he was talking to me very calmly, unlike my dad who has only been yelling at me ever since we got into this fight. And also, I really just felt bad for him, so I let him in.

It was very awkward and I told him that I was sorry to hear what was going on in this life. But I said it very carefully, so as to not make him think that I was actually apologizing for calling his wife, because I was not. And I didn't even want him to think that on accident and pass that message on to my father. Anyway, he told me that there had been a lot of arguments about the divorce and stuff for the last couple of days, but finally, his wife had blocked him and he had been served. I already knew that, but then, he said that he had been thinking about not contesting the divorce. That was a bit surprising for me because if he had been fighting for his marriage so far, I didn't understand why he was giving up now.

But that's none of my business, and I just waited for him to come to the point of his visit. Finally, he told me that in the divorce petition, his wife was asking for a lot because she thought that he was having an affair, which he clarified was not the case. and that just made things even more bizarre because if he was not having an affair, then why was he lying to everyone about where he was going after he dumped his kids off at my place? Anyway, I did not ask about it because again, not my business. He finally told me that the reason he was visiting me was because he wanted me to take his side during the divorce. He went on to say that all that I had to do was just record a testimonial for him,

saying that he was a good father and that apart from the one day that I had called his wife. there had been absolutely no trouble handling his children for him, and that he had been very regular about the timings as well, that he would drop them off and pick them up at the same time, so it had never been any inconvenience to me. Honestly, I wouldn't have had a problem with saying that, but it was just bugging me that he was claiming that he was not cheating on his wife. If he was not doing that, then what was he even doing?

On top of that, I just did not feel like involving myself in something like this, so I told him that I really wanted to wish him luck with a divorce. but I was not going to involve myself in this directly. Aaron looked really annoyed with me and told me that because he was in this situation because of me, the least I could do for him was this. When he said that, I very politely reminded him that he was not stuck in this situation because of me, but because he had lied to his wife and left his kids at my house without even bothering to make sure that I was fine with it.

Then, he had the decency to look ashamed, but he also said that he knew that he had screwed up and he was paying for it heavily already, I just had to do this favor for him one last time. I told him that I would think about it, but that was only to get him out of my hair at that point because I just wanted to have some time to myself. And then, I stood up, indicating that it was time for him to leave, but he continued to sit on my couch and then, after almost 10 seconds, he finally revealed the reason why he had been missing on those days. Apparently, he was not going out of his way to see some affair partner but his half-sister, who also happened to to be my half-sister as well. I was genuinely shocked when he said that and I immediately

accused him of lying to me, but when he looked up, he told me that this was the reason why I was not told anything so far. He said that my stepmom and my dad had had a child and their affair had actually been going on much longer before the divorce. For context, my parents have been divorced for 28 years and this half-sister that Aaron was referring to was 32 years old. but since my stepmom and my dad were not ready to end their respective marriages at the time, they decided to pretend that the baby was her husband's. However, his biological father eventually figured out that the child was not his and that she had been having an affair. So he left and they ended up getting divorced, but nobody told my mother anything about this.

As for the baby, they put her up for adoption, and that was it. So far, it was just my mother and I who had been in the dark about these things and my my dad got really lucky when my mother herself suggested getting a divorce two years after my dad got my stepmom pregnant, saying that she was not happy in this marriage anymore and wanted to move on with her life. The situation pretty much fixed itself, and so as to make sure that things did not seem suspicious. My dad kept his relationship with my stepmom under wraps for the next couple of years, until I turned 17 and then, they eventually got married. It was a brilliant plan, I have to give him that.

No harm, no foul. But recently, Aaron found out about our half-sister and decided that he wanted to build a relationship with her, which is why he had been visiting her. His wife knew the truth and that's why they had been contemplating the divorce, but eventually, she decided to go through with the divorce because she was still not fully convinced that he wasn't lying to her. And now, he was enlisting my help for this because he didn't know anybody here who would be able to help him out. but I told him that after everything that I had found out just then, I could not offer him

anything but luck. It was a lot of information to get so I told him that I needed to process this and think about it and I would speak to him later. Then, when he saw that I was really reeling from getting to know about my dad's dishonesty, he finally left and told me that he was sorry that I had to find out this way because this was so big, but he really had no other choice. Anyway, since then, I haven't done anything because everything is just so hazy. to me right now. I can't figure out a way to tell my mom about this, but I know that I'll have to.

I don't even think that I have come to terms with all of this myself, but the photos and proof that Aaron showed me were pretty substantial and I can't exactly deny it. So this is it. Update 3, hi, so it's been a couple of weeks since my last update. A lot of you must be wondering if I did end up telling my mother and yeah, I did. I told her everything that I had found out and initially, just like me, she refused to believe it, but I told her that I had seen the proof that had and after a conversation with my father, she realized that it was the truth. Since then, we have cut off everybody. I'm not speaking to my father, and I also told Aaron that I was not going to be helping him out

with his divorce. I just did not want anything to do with this side of the family and I don't know if I'm going to reach out to my sister but for now, everything is too fresh for me to move past it. My mother and I are just keeping to ourselves for now and she's the only family I have. As of now, all of this genuinely sucks, but I'm trying to move on, little by little, and build my trust back in people again.