I Read My Mom’s Diary After She Died. I Found Out a Secret That Will Devastate My Brother.

Pay Dirt

June 15, 2026 6:00 AM

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Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here . (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

I just found out something outrageous, and I don’t know what to do. Our parents divorced when I was a baby and my brother was 4. My dad immediately moved across the country. He came back to our city for work every few months and would see us then (I don’t remember this but I’ve seen pictures). Then that tapered off and he basically disappeared except for phone calls on Christmas and our birthdays. My mom was really good about not talking badly about him to us. She said he wished he could visit more but he was a busy man.

Anyway once I got old enough to get it I basically understood that I didn’t have a dad. The park visits were fine and the phone calls were awkward and I just never became attached to him like my brother. My brother meanwhile remembered him clearly and always felt abandoned by him and missed him.

Well, my mom just died and I found her diary. I know I shouldn’t have read it, but she was dead, so I did. And what I learned is that my dad wanted to see us more but my mom had told him that she wouldn’t make him pay any child support if he limited his visits to twice a year! And he took that offer. I can’t decide if I should tell my brother. On one hand, it makes my mom a liar and a villain. On the other hand, the dad he really cared about gave up his relationship with him for a few hundred dollars a month. Does he really need to know that? Should I tell him or keep it to myself?

—Sister With a Secret

Dear Sister With a Secret,

First, I’m sorry for the loss of your mother. And I’m sorry that her diary handed you this particular grenade right in the middle of processing your grief.

Unfortunately, both of your parents failed you and your brother. Your mother traded access to her children in exchange for child support savings. That’s a genuine betrayal on several levels, and her otherwise good parenting doesn’t erase it. But your father took that deal. A father who truly couldn’t bear to be away from his children doesn’t trade away visits. He finds a way. Whatever your mother offered him, he chose money over his kids. There’s all sorts of hurt and betrayal here.

Before you decide anything about your brother, there’s someone else worth talking to first: your father. He’s still alive. He made that choice and has never been asked to account for it. A conversation with him—uncomfortable as it will be—might give you information that changes how you think about sharing what you know with your brother. Does your father regret it? Does he even remember it that way? Has he carried guilt about it for decades? His answers matter, and you deserve to hear them directly from him before you decide what to do with what you know.

Then, do you tell your brother?

There’s no clean answer, but consider this: Your brother has spent decades feeling abandoned by a father he loved. What you know now doesn’t change that abandonment, it just adds a villain to the story. That said, this is his story as much as yours. Deciding to keep this from him is making a permanent choice on his behalf about something that belongs to him too. Can you tell which way I’m leaning?

If you tell him, tell him gently and be prepared to sit in the grief of it all together. If you don’t, make peace with carrying it alone. This isn’t the kind of secret that gets lighter over time. There is no good option here, I’m sorry to say. Only the one you can live with.

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Dear Pay Dirt,

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