Reddit Stories - My SIBLING left his HIDDEN RELATIONSHIP child with me 15 years back and

Episode Date: November 23, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #family #secrets #parenting #confessionsSummary: My SIBLING left his HIDDEN RELATIONSHIP child with me 15 years back and now I'm torn between revealing the truth or keeping the secret to protect the child's feelings. The situation is causing tension in our family dynamic.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, family, secrets, parenting, confessions, hiddenrelationship, sibling, child, truth, tension, familydynamic, reveal, protect, feelings, dilemmaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. My sibling left his hidden relationship child with me 15 years back and later attempted to reclaim her following the death of his spouse, so I am utilizing proof of his rage issues. To force him to pay for her college. Hello, so recently, my older brother Ricky, 44M, lost his wife. She had been diagnosed with stomach cancer about three years ago and finally, about two weeks back, she succumbed. It's quite tragic because just four months back, Ricky and I also lost our grandmother. She is the one who had practically raised us because when we were kids, we lost our parents in a car accident. In the same accident, she also lost her husband.

I guess you guys could say that our lives have been marked by tragedy all along and Ricky hasn't ever done anything to make the situation better. About 15 years ago, he had shown up at my house with a baby and told me that he needed me to take care of her, and raise her. It was something straight out of a film and obviously, I said no. Because, unlike films, this is real life, and people judge you here for even the smallest of things. Fifteen years ago, I was a single woman in my twenties, still struggling to find my footing in my career. I was just starting out, working in finance, and let alone the money to raise a child, I did not have the emotional capacity to do that either. But somehow, Ricky convinced that, me to take care of her for at least a couple of months. He told me the story, and apparently,

he had hooked up with one of his old friends from high school at the reunion and that's how he had ended up with a baby on his hands. With great difficulty, he had managed to keep it a secret from his wife. But now that the baby was here, neither he nor the baby's biological mother wanted to raise her. They couldn't keep the baby with themselves because Ricky obviously lived with his wife and having a baby around randomly would raise a lot of questions. And for the mother, she lived quite close to her family and she didn't want them to get to know about the affair and the baby. So that's how Ricky ended up approaching me, and when he begged me to take care of her for a couple of months, just until they were able to find a willing couple so she could get adopted, I hesitantly agreed. I was obviously not comfortable with the idea of raising a baby and neither was I happy about keeping a huge secret.

Like the fact that my brother had had an extramarital affair and now, he even had a baby. But I did keep it a secret because back then, Ricky and I were pretty close. Looking back, of course, I do regret it now and my sister-in-law deserved better. I should have been honest with her and let her leave instead of covering up for my brother, but well, everyone makes mistakes and that was my biggest mistake. For 15 years, I covered up for him like a fool, and I raised my niece as my own. And to thank me, he decided to come after me as soon as my sister-in-law passed away and started threatening me with a lawsuit on the grounds that I was unfit to take care of

his daughter anymore and now, I needed to hand over her custody to him. A couple of days after his wife's funeral, Ricky showed up at my house and started asking about Mia, my niece. I thought that we were having a casual conversation until he suddenly told me that now since his wife had passed away, he believed that it was about time that he took Mia back in with him so she could spend some time with her father and actually get to know him. I was quite shocked when he said that because even though Mia was my niece, I have been raising her for 15 years as my daughter so naturally, we have developed a close bond, and I was not ready to let her go.

So I told him that I would be willing to let her stay with him for a couple of days, but then, I wanted her to come back home. At that point, he started arguing with me, he told me that since he was her biological father, it should be his decision about where she should stay. For 15 years, he had allowed her to stay with me because of personal reasons but now that things were falling into place, he wanted his daughter back. I'm not exaggerating, these were the words that he used. So I had to remind him that he did not allow her to stay with me, he had to beg me to raise his daughter because he did not want his wife to find out about his extramarital affair and the baby. That led to a huge fight and automatically, he started telling me that he still had the emails that I had sent to him 15.

years back, during the first few months that I was taking care of Mia and he was definitely going to be using that against me. So for context, during the first few months, I had found it really difficult to explain to people why I had a baby living with me and so, I just kept emailing him about when he was going to take the baby back because I was scared of being judged by everyone for being a single mother. In those emails, it was very visible that I was not ready to be a mother to anyone, let alone somebody else's baby. And of course, and of course, course, if he produced that in court or something, it would not look good for me. But weighing that against the fact that I have been raising myself up for the past 15 years,

that did not make sense at all. I told him that I wasn't scared and then, he went really personal and he told me that either way, he was going to get his daughter's custody back because he was not going to let an alcoholic ruin her life. That was an incredibly low blow and honestly, it didn't even make sense because I'm not the alcohol he was referring to anyway. I'm actually a teetotaler but my on and off for the past couple of years, Nick, has a bit of a problem. And I thought that it was really nasty to bring that up because he knows that I really love him and that's why Nick is going through rehab right now. A couple of months ago, he got into an accident and that's when I put my foot down and I told him that if he did not get rid of his drinking habits, we would not be able to build a future together. I have already waited for almost six years to get married to him but it's this addiction that's holding me back because I don't want to eat.

introduced that to Mia's life. She knows Nick, but she doesn't know about his problems. And I have made sure that my relationship has, in no way, affected her life. So for Ricky to have brought that up, it was really stupid and insensitive. I immediately asked him to get out of my house and even though he had been threatening me with a lawsuit, I wasn't really scared. Because I know for a fact that I had legally adopted Mia when she was just a year old. At the time, her parents had been talking to a couple who were willing to adopt her and Ricky had even shared the news with me. But then, after months of waiting for her to get adopted, when I actually started thinking about my life without her, I couldn't imagine it. So I told him that

he could call off the adoption for the other couple because I was ready to take care of her now and I wanted to raise her as my daughter. I didn't care about what people would think about me as a single mother and I didn't even care about the money. Ricky had made it very clear to me that he was not going to be able to support us financially, that's why he had been planning on putting Mia up for adoption anyway. But I told him I didn't care about any of that. I was way too attached to Mia by then to let her go and that's how it's been ever since. I had never even told her that she was not my biological daughter, because at heart, she is more than that. And neither did I ever get married or have kids of my own because, for me, she was enough. But in

In spite of everything, Ricky thought that he could scare me with the lawsuit and I would just give up custody of Mia out of fear. Obviously I was not going to back down, but my only concern was about how I was going to break this to me because so far, even though she had met her uncle Ricky a couple of times, she had no idea that he was actually her father. However, I recently learned that I was the one who had no idea that she knew. As a matter of fact, she has known for the past three years now. Because apparently, a couple of months after his wife was diagnosed, Ricky decided to visit our grandmother and started telling her about how he was planning on trying to get custody of Mia after his wife passed away. His wife had a lot of struggles with fertility,

so eventually, they decided not to have any children of their own. But he claimed that he had always felt very empty without a child and now, seeing how he was going to lose his wife as well, he needed somebody and he actually thought that demanding that I return his daughter to him was a valid proposition that I would accept. Anyway, obviously my grandma had been quite against that idea, and she had voiced her opinions against it in him. She had told him that he was crazy if he thought that was going to work out in his favor, and they had a huge fight, but later on, he apologized to her and told her to keep this a secret. So while she did not tell me anything about this interaction, she did speak to Mia about it and that's how she finally got to know that I was not

her mother and Ricky was her biological father. It was really difficult for her to process that, along with the fact that Ricky had been planning on trying to take back her custody for me after he lost his wife. My grandmother told her not to worry about it or let me know about any of this, but just be on the safe side. She wanted Mia to know the truth so she wouldn't be taken by surprise if this actually ended up happening. I don't know why she didn't want me to know about it and I don't think I'll ever be able to find out anymore, but whatever. My grandma actually handed some documents to Mia

and told her that in case Ricky actually went through with what he had said, these documents would help us out. She had forbidden Mia from checking out what those documents contained and she was quite obedient, so she didn't ever try to see what was in it either. In fact, she had forgotten about it until recently. She told me about it when I started. talking to her about what Ricky was planning to do and she told me that she had already been prepared for a scenario like this by my grandma. Then, she brought out those documents from under

her bed, and we went through them together. And let me just tell you guys, we have this in the bag. We don't need to be worried about any sort of lawsuit anymore because all those documents contain proof of his anger problem. Calling them documents would actually be wrong, they are basically just screenshots of messages, emails, and stuff like that from so many people that I've actually lost count now. Most of them are from his wife, but from those papers, I could also tell that she had reached out to a couple of his friends and co-workers, and even they said that he did deal with severe anger issues.

They had talked about a couple of incidents as well, that had taken place at work, at parties, and most of them had been triggered by really petty and minor stuff. but they had been escalated into full-blown fights or even physical brawls by him for no apparent reason. It was crazy to find out about all of this because whenever we would meet him, Ricky seemed pretty normal and even his wife did not seem to be somebody who was suffering because of his anger issues or whatever. But in the messages and emails that she had sent to my grandma, it was very evident that she was suffering and even though those messages were from three years back,

I could tell that it had been going on for a really long time. And that's why, finally, she had decided to reach out to my grandma and talk to somebody about it because she probably just couldn't do it alone anymore. Even then, I couldn't figure out exactly why she had all these papers and proof against her because she couldn't possibly have known that he would someday start planning on trying to take me aback. I couldn't ask the only people who would know about it, since both of them were gone now. So I decided to take a shot in the dark and called up my grandma's lawyer and the executor of her

will. Luckily, he knew what this was about, and apparently, he even had a copy of all the documents. Apparently, around five years back, my sister-in-law had been planning on leaving Ricky because for years, he had been treating her terribly and we are not sure just how far that went but what we do know is that she had enough at one point and that's why she had approached my grandma and told her everything. As a woman, she wanted her help in getting a divorce from her grandson. My sister-in-law's own parents had refused to help her and told her that she would have to deal with this one on her own. And since she had been a housewife, she didn't really have any money for a lawyer, which is why she had approached my grandma. My grandma being the person

she is, she decided to help my sister-in-law out because it was clear that she was going through a lot. So she spoke to a bunch of people and found out about how Ricky behaved with others and it was established that he had an anger problem at the time. She had tried very hard to make sure that nobody blabbed about it to Ricky, but someone must have ratted them out. After he found out, he started begging his wife and my grandma not to go through with this and promised them that he would do whatever it took to fix his problems, but he just didn't want his wife to leave her.

After a couple of weeks of discussion, they decided that my sister-in-law wouldn't leave him, but only if he sought professional help. I'm guessing that he did because she didn't end up leaving him and my grandma's lawyer told me that they never ended up actually filing for divorce. It was shocking that I didn't know so much about my own family, and I felt kind of betrayed, but her lawyer reassured me that it was for my own good because my grandma apparently believed that I was way too sensitive when it came to things like this and she didn't want me to get worried for everyone. I don't know if it was the right thing to do or not, but it's done, so I'm not going to think about that. Anyway, knowing all of this, I decided to send Ricky an email about everything that I knew, and I told him that if he wanted to take me to court, he was free to do so, but then, even I would make sure that everyone knew that he was the one who would anger problems.

At least I'm not the one who was an alcoholic, it was my partner, and he was in rehab right now. I also told him that I would not just take this to court, I would also publicize it to everybody and make sure that literally every person that he knew found out how he had given him. up his own daughter after having an affair and now, he wants her back because he feels his life is empty. A couple of hours after I sent that email, he started flooding me with apologies and told me that he had no idea that I had all of this. He had assumed that after the whole fiasco with his wife had led nowhere in the past, they probably would have gotten rid of the proof as well, but he didn't count on our grandma to have kept it all safe

with her so she could use it against him if the need arose again. He started telling me that his reputation would be ruined and he took everything back, that I could keep Mia, but he just wanted to be involved in her life more. I gave him the perfect opportunity to do that and told him that so far, I have been supporting Mia financially without any complaints because I had signed up for it. But in a couple of years, she would be headed out for college and then, I wanted him to bear the expenses. Now, we have been arguing about it back and forth for the past couple of days because he says that I'm asking for too much. Obviously sending a kid to college is an expensive thing

and even though it's happening in three years, he is still not sure about it. I don't understand what he's confused about or what's holding him back because he is the one who suggested being more involved in me as life and that's what I'm giving him a chance to do. I don't intend on backing down and I made it very clear to him

that if he doesn't pay for her college expenses, I'm going to tell everybody what has been going on. I don't even care about his reputation or anything anymore. I don't even care about the family's reputation because I've been betrayed by pretty much everyone I know at this point. Mia deserves a great future and until now, we have been planning on taking out a student loan for her. She's a good student, but I'm not sure if she's going to get a scholarship or not and she plans on going to college out of state for the experience. It's all going to be really expensive and I do have some money saved up but now that I have Ricky and a corner, I want him to bear the expenses.

However, he thinks that I'm being way too harsh on him, which seems ironic because for the past couple of weeks, he was the one who had been completely heartless with me and no amount of reasoning or fighting with him had led to a conclusion. So now, I'm behaving exactly the way he was behaving with me when he had me in a corner. Even though I was well aware of the fact that even if this situation did go to court, Mia would obviously say that she wanted to stay with me and that would count for something. Besides, I've already had custody of her ever since she was one year old. And the emails from the past and the whole thing with my boyfriend didn't really count for much,

I was still really scared because lawyers cost a lot and I really didn't want to go to court. So I had still been trying to find an amicable solution for all of us, but now I don't care. He's not happy about it at all and lately, he's been referring to this as blackmail, even though I really don't think that's what it is. I look at it as more of a tit for tat situation because he'd been doing the exact same thing to me a couple of weeks back, either I give up my custody of Mia and let her stay with her father, or he takes this to court and wastes my time and money. Which is another weird thing, he has the money to take me to court, but not to pay for Mia's college expenses. Anyway, Ida for telling my brother that he needs to bear the expenses for his daughter to go to college or I will tell everyone all about his well-protected secrets. Update 1, hey, so I guess I forgot to talk about a lot of things in my first post.

I'll mention it here since a lot of you are curious about how Mia is doing right now. Honestly, when I had told her that I am not her biological mother and that Ricky, her uncle, is actually her biological father, and he had given her up to me when he had had an affair and did not want his wife to find out and I had been covering up for him for all these years, but now he wants to take her back in, I expected her to be surprised. But she wasn't and then I realized that she had known all along because of my grandmother. I didn't know what to make of it, if I should be thankful to my grandmother or not, but honestly, I don't want to think about it either.

I have had good memories of her and now that she's gone, I don't want to ruin it. She has always done her best to protect me and my brother and raise us to the best of her abilities. So even if I don't fully approve of whatever she chose to do in the past, I can't exactly fix it. Mia told me that she had been extremely shocked and had found it very difficult not to talk to me about it in the beginning, but then she didn't want to hurt me and create drama, so she chose to stay until recently. And then she told me that she took a couple of weeks to think about it, and then she

ultimately realized that it made no difference because in reality, I was always going to be her mother. Whether I was biologically related to her or not was secondary, in fact, it didn't even matter to her. Because all her life, I was the one who had taken care of her, I was the one who had always been there for her and Ricky had mostly just been her uncle. She did not have a father-daughter kind of relationship with him in the slightest and to be honest, they were not even close. And even recently, she told me that it was shocking that he thought his life was empty and that he could make it right by trying to take away her custody. She herself wouldn't have

ever allowed it to happen and she would have made sure that even if this did go to court, She made it clear that she wanted to stay with me, her mom. So that was a huge reassurance for me and honestly, I'm pretty sure that even if this situation had gone to court, Ricky would have lost. The cards were stacked against him from the beginning, and I don't understand why he was ready to throw money on a court case, or maybe he was just bluffing.

Either way, even if this did go to court, he would have wasted a ton of money so I don't understand why he isn't willing to pay for Mia to go to college right now. Something's definitely wrong with him, but I don't care about that. I just want him to start setting up a college fund for Mia if he wants to make it up to us. I've already told him not to contact me unless it is to come to a conclusion about this. And I've given him until the end of the month to think about it and reach out to me, then I blocked him. I will only unblock him at the end of the month and if he doesn't agree to set up a college fund for Mia,

I'm going to make sure that I post about what he was trying to do. I'm not going to keep covering for him anymore. He definitely does not deserve it. Update 2, so the month ends in nine days. Until now, Ricky had not tried to personally contact us, but today, he showed up at my house. Thankfully, Mia was not at home, she was out with her friends, so she did not have to suffer through it. Anyway, when he showed up, I did not want to let him in, but he started begging at my doorstep, and it was really embarrassing to have that happen in public, so then I asked him to come in, so at least the neighbors wouldn't get to see what was going on. Once he was inside,

he started telling me that the only reason he had even wanted to build a relationship with Mia was because for so many years, just because of his wife, he hadn't been able to tell his own daughter that he was her father, and it had been eating away at him. That's why he had been bluffing about taking me to court, he wouldn't have done it anyway because it cost a lot of money, he knew he was going to lose. He had only threatened me with the whole email situation and the thing about my boyfriend because he knew that it would scare me

into at least agreeing to his terms, and then we could work our way forward. I told him that it was a really stupid idea for him to start off on the wrong foot with me, and I told him that whatever he had done, it had already caused enough damage and now I don't want to hear his excuses. So then he started telling me

that he was planning on starting his own business and he couldn't just commit that he would take care of me as college expenses in the future because he still had to wait and watch how the business was going to do. If it didn't go well, he was going to go broke trying to live up to his promises and he needed me to understand that. He said that he had already spoken to his seniors at work and they were ready to bet on him and his business, which is why they were coming on board as investors. And suddenly, it all made sense, why he did not want any negative stuff about him coming out in public. Of course, he wouldn't have wanted that anyway,

but now that he had money riding on him and his business, it was more necessary than ever for him to have a very pristine image and reputation because the firm that he worked in, and his seniors, they were pretty serious about this kind of stuff and the kind of money that they were investing in him was also not an amount to be laughed at. He was pretty much begging me to understand the situation and take back what I had said. It was getting pretty annoying for me to deal with him, so I just told him that I didn't care what he did, I just wanted him to leave. I told him that if he couldn't promise me that he would take care of me as college education, he did not need to have a relationship with her anyway. It was he who had said

that he would just like to be more involved in her life, I had given him the opportunity to do that, and he had rejected it. After everything that had happened, I did not want to give him any more chances to hurt us. So I began to ask him to leave, but he wasn't even okay with that. He started telling me that this stuff was complicated and he had just made a mistake, but he was not a bad guy. I told him that I honestly didn't care about the kind of person he was, whatever he had done was stupid and insane and I did not want him around anymore. I was actually pretty glad that he had decided not to agree to my terms because then, we would have to keep in touch with him and that would have been a total nightmare. He was refusing to leave initially, so then I had to force

him and actually push him out. But, thankfully, he did leave after basically getting kicked out of my house. Now, I just hope that he doesn't try to contact us anymore after today. Update 3, so it has been three months since my last update and so far, Ricky hasn't tried to get in touch with us. And I'm really grateful for that because Mia and I have been working on our relationship. I mean, everything was fine between us, but then, we realized that we have both been through a lot and we need to make sure that we communicate more often and more openly. So that after this, there are no more secrets between us and it's been going well so far. I even told her all about the episode with Ricky and she seemed to understand my anger,

but he told me that she was glad that we are not in touch with him anymore. She agreed that after what had happened, she would never be able to take any money from him or even perceive him the same way. To be fair, she had stopped perceiving him in the same way that he used to as she was younger as soon as she had found out that she was actually his affair daughter, and then, once again the perception had gotten worse after she found out about his anger issues in the documents that my grandma had left. Either way, it doesn't matter because we are not on speaking terms anymore and we are happy on our own now.