The immediate aftermath saw the OP facing severe consequences: her parents evicted her, and both parents and sister actively sabotaged her employment by calling her coworkers and gossiping about her actions, forcing her to move cities for mental relief. After establishing a new, supportive life over ten years, the OP received a recent message from her parents asking for forgiveness and financial assistance for the sister and her children, leaving the OP conflicted about how to respond.
I had an affair with my sister’s husband, yes I regret it and I truly am disgusted with my past self. When they found out my sister publicly shamed me (fair enough) and told my parents (also fair).
She also told our parents, which was fair, but she chose to stay with her husband and blamed me for “seducing” him into being unfaithful. She forgave him and decided to reconcile, while I was left to face the consequences.
My parents kicked me out, and I had to scramble to find somewhere to live. Every time I found a new job, my parents and sister would contact my coworkers to call me a “homewrecker.” They would harass me wherever I went, gossiping about my “status.” While no one treated me differently to my face, the stares and whispers were unbearable.
I had to leave the city and move to another just to escape them and for my mental health. Some people might say I’m overreacting but they really followed me like the plague.
I moved and met a nice elderly couple who never had kids who took me in, “mark and helen” and by that I mean they offered me to stay with them if I wanted and were so nice to me, I had my own place but I often visited them.
To this day they mean the world to me. They knew what happened and i once even joked and had said something along the lines of “aren’t you afraid i’ll steal your husband as a homewrecker” she told me that me being a homewrecker wasn’t my entire personality and to move on and learn from what i did.
I eventually met my now-husband, and we have four children, all adults except for one who is 17. My kids know about my parents and the past situation, and they grew up considering Mark and Helen their grandparents, alongside my in-laws.
Then, last Saturday, I received a message:
I hope you can find it in your heart to read this message. I know we’ve been through so much pain and hardship, and I want to be honest with you about everything. I deeply regret how things have unfolded between us, especially the hurtful things we said and did in the past and I am truly sorry for all the pain we caused you.
Our actions have had lasting consequences. We never got to know our grandchildren, and I realize now how much we missed out on. XXXX husband cheated again and left her for someone else.
I see how much she’s been suffering—she’s now a woman left alone with two kids caring for a disabled child and an autistic child who has it hard too, and trying to carry on despite everything.
She has been so strong but it’s not enough. We are in a difficult situation ourselves, struggling financially. We don’t have enough space or resources to help her directly, but we deeply want to support her and her children.
I am asking for your forgiveness. I know I and your father don’t deserve it, but I hope you can see that we are trying to make amends, even if it’s late. If there’s any way you can help us with financial support or guidance to assist Serna and her children, it would mean the world to us.
We want to do right by them, and by you, if you’re willing to give us that chance.
We love you.
When I got that message I was pretty angry. I have not seen my parents in over 10 years and I’m not willing to see them or even consider helping my sister with her kids. I have not responded yet but my husband is willing to send her a very harsh letter on behalf of me.
We are considering just ignoring them but would I be an Asshole if I let my husband write a harsh reply?
Conclusion
The OP is experiencing significant anger and reluctance to engage with her parents after a decade of severe harassment and abandonment following the affair revelation. The core conflict is between the parents’ current desperate plea for financial help for the sister and the OP’s justifiable desire to maintain the hard-won peace and distance she established to protect her own mental health and new family.
The central question now is whether the OP should respond to this outreach, specifically whether allowing her husband to draft a harsh reply on her behalf constitutes an overreaction or a necessary boundary enforcement, versus ignoring the request entirely. Readers must weigh the possibility of long-delayed reconciliation against the right to self-preservation.
Here’s how people reacted:
You can ask your adoptive parents to adopt you formally – adult adoption is a lot quicker to process than child adoption because everybody involved can legally represent themselves and understand the ramifications of the adoption. Your bio parents and sister will cease to be your legal next of kin – should anything happen to your husband and older children, your minor child will have to go to your bio parents or sister and lose the life you built for them with Mark and Helen as grandparents.
By going through adoption, you’ll have a brand new birth certificate with your new parents’ names on it, and it will be as if you were Mark and Helen’s bio child from the beginning. It will also help you prove no relationship if your parents’ state has filial responsibility laws and they try to come after you to support them in their old age and/or disability.
Writing a sharply worded letter back just gives them attention and once they know they have it, they will keep up the pressure. The best way is to keep ignoring them. Receiving no attention whatsoever will make them stop because they’re not getting any reward for their harassment.
NTA. I can’t believe the audacity of asking you to contribute financially when they literally kicked you out of the house decades ago. They literally ruined your livelihood when they followed you around from job to job, humiliating you until you finally left the town in shame and started a new life. I wonder if they know that you’re doing so well and they are jealous.
You can contribute as much as they did when you needed it. Zero.
I’m happy that you were able to have a chance by that lovely couple who took you in. It seems you are thriving now, so do not feel you have to associate with your birth family. You have a better family now, one that that loves you unconditionally.
No reason to look back.
BUT today.. truthfully they have forgiven nothing. If her husband hadn’t left her and your parents were financially stable they would have never reached out. You did the crime, served your sentence and now must protect your peace and that part I wrote about they haven’t forgiven you? You need to protect your children’s peace, because if brought around they’d find opportunities to talk sh’t about you to them, they wouldn’t be able to help themselves.
So are you a AH who slept with her sisters husband? YES.
But you are not the AH for staying NC with your parents/sister. It’s clearly for the best for you, your marriage and your children. They truthfully are poisoned by your old actions, and that poison doesn’t need to infect another family (your husband and kids). It’s the best you can do with the past toxic choices.
You know, i can only shake my head in disgust at the way you have been treated and how they now want money from you. Let them sort themselves out just like they did with you.
Now to your parents, the are even bigger AH than you…..the gallery of them reaching out for money in the disguise of making amends. I guarantee you that if that shit didn’t happen to your sister and there were no financial impacts, they wouldn’t have reached out. Tell them to go fuck themselves as your biological parents died years ago
In the end you ALL are AHs
I hope you can look at your own children and realize that you were a child when that happened, without a fully formed brain to make decisions, and you were very likely groomed by an adult predator. Your family blamed the wrong person and it sounds like you still do as well. I’ll bet you would never do something like that to your own children. They are not missing anything by not having these people in their life.
Block these idiots and move on with your head held high.
Doesn’t matter if you were the most Lolita-like teenager: your ex BIL was an adult and you were a child.
The responsibility for the affair was his.
Your parents and sister chose to forgive him and not you, and over time he proved that he was not a good person, while you learned from your mistakes and grew, even though they deliberately made your life more difficult to try and punish you.
You should consider a relationship with your parents and sister if you wish, but not one that involves you giving them money.
That’s what banks are for.
As for your parents they abandoned you at a vulnerable time when they should have called the police to have your BIL arrested for statutory rape. They don’t deserve any help or kindness from you. NTA
The kids have a dad. He should be provide for them no matter where his dick is.
and they are clear they want you to help your sister by money or otherwise, did your sister ask herself for your help?
No? So you are good, i’st been years now and you have your own family you own them nothing
But also; you haven’t talked to your parents in 10 years….you were 16 when you left so you’re now 26. You said all your kids are grown except your 17 year old??? How is that?
Thank you for not hating on me, Thank you so much. You have shown me more love than my own parents did❤️❤️
You were a kid, and an adult took advantage of you. You were not to blame for what happened. You know now who was the golden child and who was the scapegoat.
They are only reaching out to use you just like your sister’s husband did.
You did not have an affair.
Ignore them and live your best life.
You made terrible choices when you were young, but the fact that she accepted him back when it happened was vile.
NTA.