Crooked father makes $1.2M a year and tries to get out of alimony payments to a 37-year-old's sick mother, son gets back at him for a lifetime of contemptible behavior by revealing Dad's earnings to the courts: 'I sided with mother'

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Mar 28, 2025 5:00 PM EDT

Alimony exists for a reason. While it's a commonly misunderstood clause of marriage, oftentimes, one of the people in the partnership is going to take a backseat in the career department to help support their partner. Usually, the woman, or mother of the children, gets put in charge of the affairs of the household, while their husband builds a successful business reputation and financial basis. However, if things go sideways and they end up breaking up, suddenly Mom is left with nothing—no career to fall back on, no job history, and potentially not even a house to live in. 

This is where alimony comes into play. If a husband (or wife) agrees to care for their partner in sickness and in health only to end up burning them in the post-divorce paperwork, they deserve whatever karma is coming their way. Luckily for the woman in this next story, she had her 37-year-old son to protect her and back her up…

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  • There are spicy family stories, there's crazy family drama, and then there's THIS. Sometimes we hear tales of drama from rich families and it all seems so foreign. From the mire of the working class, we can marvel at the money matters of the rich and be thankful that our families aren't as poisoned and toxic as the ones in this next tale. 

    While not every rich person is inherently bad, this crooked father certainly is. 

  • "For the sake of our mom"
    via Satiro Ramadhan

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "AITA for giving my mom my dad’s tax returns to help her extend her alimony?"

    I (37M) spent most of my adult life working for my parents' company-a small but successful firm that does litigation support, architectural design, project management, and engineering consulting. Our whole
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  • family helped build it. After school, weekends, holidays—you name it, we were there. I started working there full-time right after high school.
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  • My parents had a rocky marriage, mostly due to my father's chronic infidelity. He used the company's resources to carry on multiple affairs and even hired himself and for clients. When my for
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  • parents divorced in 2011, all this came out. My sister and I sided with our mother, while our older half- brother (our mom's son from a previous marriage) took our father's side.
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  • A couple years later, I split with my son's mother. My father then hired a lawyer for her—not just any lawyer, but the wife of a longtime client of his who had also been a close confidant during his divorce. This husband-and-wife legal team took
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  • my custody case all the way to trial. During the trial, it came out that they had been given my privileged medical records-by my father. The judge admonished the attorney but didn't pursue any serious disciplinary action. Ultimately, we ended up with split custody after they racked up over $140K in legal fees.
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  • I ended up suing my father over the breach of my privacy. After two years of litigation, I dropped the case because my sister convinced me to-for the sake of our mom. In exchange, my father agreed he would help her out as she aged and dealt with health issues.
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    via Teona Swift

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Fast forward to now: My father makes over $1.2 million a year and has completely cut my mom off from alimony. She has health problems and no other income. Recently, he left his tax returns open on my laptop. I gave them to my mom so she could try to extend her alimony.
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  • Now my father says I crossed a line and that I'm violating his privacy and being "vindictive." But I feel like my dad's the one who broke trust first-years ago. So, Reddit...
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  • *To be explicitly clear: My father handed the documents to me. By doing so, he waived his privacy rights. The taxes show his income has been 3x the amount his alimony was based on since 2 years prior to
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  • his divorce. I appreciate the need for high handed keyboard warriors to half think about the fact pattern but, the operative legal basis for privacy rights comes down to an owed duty of care. In this fact pattern, there is legally no owed
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  • duty of care given that the documents were left for me to view and retain copies of. This may have been an act of outright hubris or stupidity on his part, but none the less, what duty of care was owed? None.
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  • Traditional_Bug_2046 Even though I agree with the judgments here, I'm surprised to see people say OP is exactly like his father. Unless details are left out, OP's father is a serial cheater who
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  • embezzled from the company his family helped to build to get When OP was getting divorced, his father vindictively hired a lawyer to make his son's life miserable, including sending his medical records to the opposing side.
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  • Then he agreed to support the mother in exchange for OP dropping his lawsuit but he went back on his word and did not help the mom despite him making over $1M/year.
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  • OP sent his father's tax returns to his mom to help her out since his dad went back on his word. I get this is wrong, and this entire family is f ed up, but the dad seems extremely selfish compared to OP.
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  • Euphoric-Effective30 Look at all these a h_les in this comment section. YOUR DAD WAS COMMITTING FRAUD!!! HES ALSO A MONSTER. DISGUSTING Karma comes in all forms. His lack of integrity allowed him to be in this position!
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  • RRjoselleFlare Bro really thought he could burn every bridge and still collect tolls. Actions have consequences, even for millionaires.
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  • _imjustarandomdude_ NTA. Your father has repeatedly violated your privacy and sabotaged your life-giving privileged medical records to your ex's lawyer? That's beyond betrayal. Now he's mad that you used his own financial documents
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  • (which he carelessly left accessible) to help your mother, whom he promised to support? That's just karma coming full circle. His complaints about "privacy" are hypocritical at best. He played dirty for years-he doesn't get to cry foul now.
    via _imjustarandomdude_
  • bluboy_Books NTA - your mother DESERVES alimony. she DESERVES the care he promised period. LL F him. Trash father.
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  • blueswan6. NTA He left the documents open on your laptop, you didn't steal them. He broke a verbal commitment he made that he would look after mom if you dropped your lawsuit. But it sounds like your dad isn't a good person. I would be prepared that he might try to get revenge in some way in the future.
    via blueswan6

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family drama dads inheritance famiies drama lawyer kids brother siblings moms law suit parenting dad story family sibling sister stories parent alimony mom cousins parents
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