Your dad is right. Letters are personal. I say things in letters to my girlfriend that I don’t say to her in person because sometimes writing is easier than speaking. I wish your dad’s wishes were respected.
He’s 85. Not sentimental. Likely never interested in family history. This made OP feel connected to parents she wasn’t prevoiusly that close to.
If you’d be mortified, throw yours out now. Do what feels right to you and let others make that choice.
If this had been something else, a photo, a token (but meaningful) gift, would you say to let him toss it?
I just think we can let OP and her sister make the decision that was right, to them, rather than label it stealing or otherwise.
“He won’t find out, so he won’t be hurt”. Would you want your kids to take this attitude toward betraying someone’s trust? Because that is what you have done.
What does it matter if he’s 85 or 55?
It doesn’t matter how it made the OP feel. It is 100% wrong.
A photo obviously does not contain personal thoughts. It really just depends what the gift is, but the person who the gift belongs to has every right to make that decision if they want that item passed on.
I am not mortified of the letters, I would be mortified if anybody else read them. We keep them because they are personal to us and they are for our eyes only.
What do you mean “do what feels right to you and let others make that choice.”? The father made the choice to throw the letters away and his daughter didn’t respect his wishes and dug threw the trash to retrieve them.
Any adult,including a mentally competent 85 year old one, should be able to toss whatever they da… well please. It is THEIR property! Ask them not to, plead with them to give it to you if it is important to you- but at the end of the day, it is their right to do what they want with their possessions.
I’ll make it clearer: I think it’s wrong to judge OP, using harsh terms. Glass House principle. Each of us knows our own family circumstances better than strangers can.
At a certain point, I feel it behooves us to back off. If OP had not asked, but mentioned letters they retrieved and some positive reactions, I feel the tone of this thread would be different. “Oh, how lucky!” Etc.
Nobody is using harsh terms. We are all just saying it is wrong not to respect somebody’s wishes.
This has NOTHING to do with family circumstances. This has EVERYTHING to do with respecting somebody’s privacy.
To be honest, I don’t know what my mom’s wishes were. She did mention the letters to us, but didn’t say specifically that she saved them for us. We have 4 other surviving siblings. My sister and I agree that it is best not to share the fact that she has the letters until Dad passes. I think our sibs will be happy the letters were saved. But if we told them now, and someone told Dad, or accidentally let the secret slip out, that could potentially upset Dad.
I have good reasons for assuming the letters are not “racy/intimate” love letters. I know my parents and their situation at the time. My sister said she would dispose of any that she thought would be embarrassing.
I think you won’t tell your sibs because if they knew the whole story, one of them might tell him because they think you did the wrong thing. You are sneaking.
And racy/intimate has nothing to do with it. They aren’t yours. And the fact that your sister will edit — he edited when he said you couldn’t have them.
Would some of you who think this is okay , be okay with your 25 or 30 year old kids going through your trash to retrieve something as personal as letters ( that you told them were private and wanted to “toss”). I wouldn’t be and would feel very violated. I’m just curious about how others would feel.
^Excellent point @sevmom and that would be an interesting thread to start.
OP asked “What would you do in this situation?” I really don’t see why giving her the opinions solicited is bothering other posters. Unless I missed something, the OP has not expressed any resentment toward those who disagree with what she and her sister have done. In my humble opinion, it is troubling that the OP appears to be dismissing her father’s wishes, despite having a very good understanding of where he stands on the topic. I guess he needed to burn the letters or expect that they’d be fair game for anyone with the inclination to recover them from the trash.
It’s even worse that you are keeping this a secret for your other siblings. Not you just admitted that your dad could potentially be upset. I think you should throw out the letters right now because your dad doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.
What reasons? You don’t know what your parents did behind closed doors.
Your sister should dispose of all the letters and you two should be embarrassed that you are reading them.
And now, a “secret” is being kept from the dad as well as other siblings. May need to be prepared for backlash from the other siblings down the line.
Parents don’t tell you about things like old family letters that they saved for 30 years unless they intend for you to have them. If they’re going to toss them, what would be the point of mentioning them?
I’d be pretty upset with my husband if I knew he had the opportunity to give our children some small part of me and he refused. And I would never refuse them some small memory of their dad if it was in my power to give it. My children wouldn’t have to dig through the trash because I wouldn’t throw away something they wanted.
The father only mentioned it because the daughter was walking in while he was looking through them. If the daughter walked in a different day the items would have been gone.
If the letters are so important to you then you would let your children know. The mother never told her children anything of that sort. The father didn’t refuse to do anything and he didn’t do anything that disrespected his wife’s wishes.
I shred what I want kept private for all eternity.
Frankly, I’d never toss whole letters, intact.
Clearly the father should have burnt or shredded his letters. He should have suspected that someone may sift through his garbage to take his letters.
Why should anyone have to suspect a family member would “sift” through their garbage to take their personal letters? How is it an 85 year old man’s fault for not burning or shredding his private letters? He really “should have suspected that someone may sift through his garbage to take his letters.” ? How sad.
^ I think @dazedandbemused was being sarcastic. 