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Thank you all for all the input. It really has helped me make a decision.

My sister is out of town this weekend with her daughter putting on a baby shower for one of her friends today. She is in a city several hours away. I don't want to ruin the baby shower. She will be headed back to town tomorrow. I already asked her to call me when she is on her way back to town. I am going to tell her that she needs to come clean ASAP to both her husband and my father (owner of the company) because our family's livelihood could be at risk in this situation. I am going to tell her that if she does not tell them, I will.

This way I can
a)give her a semblance of control and allow the news to my dad to come from her.
b)give her a chance to decide if she wants to try to offer reconciliation with her husband or if she wants to just get a divorce.
c)she will have to think about things for a couple hours while she is on her way back from the city, so she will (hopefully) be less likely to do or say something stupid.
d)if I tell my dad first, he will lose his sh*t. He is not a level headed individual, and has zero emotional intelligence. If it comes from her, I think he will respect that she was the one that came clean.
e)I think her husband pretty much already knows. I also think most people would prefer to hear it directly from their spouse, and may respect them more for it.

I'm going to offer to be the one to tell her husband if she doesn't want to do it. Even if she does come clean and tell her husband about everything, after I am going to have a conversation with him to make sure he knows what I know, and to offer him support. I know he will be crushed.

Lastly, if my sister doesn't hang up on me the second I tell her this, I am going to offer to pay for her to go to therapy. Whether somewhere in person, or on a virtual platform. I'm worried about her, as she has not been acting like the sister I know.

This will inevitably destroy my sister's and my relationship. It's gonna suck, and will absolutely affect my upcoming visit. Which sucks because this is the first Christmas I'll be at home in 7 years because of deployments and such in the military. I was obviously hoping it would be a good, happy visit. Such is life. But like many of you pointed out, I can't betray my morals and just sit back and watch it happen as she hurts so many people.

Thank you all for being on this rollercoaster ride with me. Praying tomorrow's conversation goes well--or as well as it can.

Bravo for your bravery and integrity. And thank you for your service.

I think telling her to tell your dad is the right thing to do.

I don't think you should warn her that she has to tell her husband, or you will. First, that gives her the opportunity to delete everything. Valuable information that her husband will need to make an informed decision, should he offer her the gift of reconciliation. It will also give her the opportunity to tell the OM, and he will delete everything, and he will never tell his wife. She deserves the truth,every bit as much as your BIL. He will deny it,call your BIL crazy,if he contacts the man's wife,etc. Your sister will deny it,to protect him. They will also have time to get their stories straight, and minimize what they've done. She will tell her husband it was an EA, nothing physical.

These two BS will be lied to.

Call his wife,at least, after you tell your BIL.

Don't give them the chance to further abuse their spouses.

^^^Ditto to Hellfire.

You are giving your sister the opportunity to contact OM and they may make up some elaborate story that YOU are a jealous sister, the BS is a jealous, abusive husband, and so many other scenarios, and the affair never happened.

Kudos to you for sticking to your values, but honestly I don't think you should give her a heads up.

You have to understand that she will do everything to protect herself and the OM, she will lie, deny, manipulate, blameshift and gaslight.

Don't give them the chance to further abuse their spouses.

I'd bet my house that during those couple of hours she will contact OM and tell him exactly what you said. Both will go into CYA mode.

^^^In a nutshell.

InkHulk ( member #80400) posted at 2:01 PM on Saturday, December 2nd, 2023

Bravo for your bravery and integrity. And thank you for your service.

I second what InkHulk says.

I would consider the points made by HellFire. 2nd'ed by annb
and me also

Life sometimes - you get into really bad situation. And the alternative is often even worse. In your case - I think the path you have chosen is the lesser "bad" of the choices you face.

- after time passes - I believe most will agree with your choice. (Fanily and friends)

All of the points you made A-E is assuming you are dealing with a rational trustworthy person, you are not. She is extremely selfish, willing to burn down her family and the business to be happy. She cannot be trusted, this cannot be left up to her to do the right thing, it’s not going to happen.

Your very brave to trying to confront this situation. Also you are already involuntarly involved, now your sis knows that you know.

I will chime in with a projection o what we want to happen here. She recklessly destroys her husband, her family, endangers her family business, because she is entitled to this cheap happiness, doesn't want therapy, doesn't want divorce, thinks this is the optimal situation, but her younger sister that lives far away and has no prove of the cheating "blackmails" her to "destroy her life" and demands to "turn herself in" to the father who is also her boss and is calm and understanding like Vesuvius, that she has a sexual relationship with the married CFO.

Over night she becomes a new person, she humbly submits herself to her younger sisters demands and the harsh judgement and punishment of the family, ends her "only happyness" bringing affair and devotes her life telling truth, taking care of people and keeping up vows.

Is my projection correct?

[This message edited by Potentialforevil at 10:57 PM, Saturday, December 2nd]

I salute you for doing the right thing! And thank you for your service too.

Like everyone touched by infidelity, your sister has put you in a terrible position. She has put EVERYONE in a terrible position without One. Single. Thought. About how she was endangering the family livelihood and reputation, about how she was hurting her BS and her child, about how she was destroying another family too. Does this sound like a person who’s going to magically come around when confronted with an ultimatum?

You are absolutely doing the right thing in exposing them, BUT. . .the other posters are right. Cheaters lie. It is the single most consistent thing about them. They ALL lie. It is a pre-condition of cheating. Whatever she says to you in that phone call, it’s very unlikely it will be true.

If you’ve had the misfortune of needing this amazing site full of people who know much more about this than they ever wanted to, you realize very quickly how repetitive certain themes and actions on the part of the WS are. One is that you NEVER get the full story up front. Another is that, once discovered, WSs move immediately and seamlessly into CYA mode. This includes a VAST amount of minimizing and denying. That is where your sis will be tomorrow. Where she will NOT be is accepting that she has to just come clean with everyone and start trying to figure out her shit. She has been willing to harm her own child and other children to do this. She won’t just immediately see that it has to be over and that she never should have let herself get attached to him and that she’s put everyone in harm’s way.

She will not reach immediate remorse and acceptance. She WILL absolutely contact the OM to try to get stories straight, minimize damage, and try to figure out the minimum she can say. She WILL absolutely try to make it sound like you are WAY overdramatizing what is going on. She will not tell her BS everything, and she will absolutely deny anything that can’t be directly proven (and may even try to deny that until completely backed against the wall).

She may one day begin to understand how wrong she is here and how much damage she has done, but please understand that time won’t be tomorrow. Tomorrow she will be absolutely panicked with fear and anger. She will be in absolute defense mode. It’s just how it goes—how it ALWAYS goes.

You already know that she thinks she can control you into saying nothing, and you already know that she doesn’t want to stop the A. She doesn’t want it exposed. Be prepared for hostility and viciousness. You will not recognize her, as you’ve said. You may not for a long time. I never saw the person who even a little reminded me of my former H once his A was revealed. He was a stranger who remained exactly that. He lied to himself about what he was doing and the damage he might be causing. He couldn’t face any of it, and he fought back hard and dirty against anyone who tried to make him face it or reminded him of what a shit he’d been.

The people who should be told before her are your dad and her BS and the other man’s BS. They are the victims whose lives have been forever altered by this horribly selfish course. She is not someone who can be counted on to care about them right now. She won’t care about anyone but herself.

There is a long road ahead for her to figure her shit out. It’s generous of you to offer PT and a chance to do the right thing, but she just won’t be ready for any of that this quickly. Maybe keep those things at the ready for a little more down the road.

Either way, you’ve made such a caring and honest decision here. That is huge. I wish you peace and a clear head tomorrow to figure out what you should do and keep your wits and resolve about you.

Sending you a huge hug of support and strength. We’ll be here however it turns out.

I’ll agree with everything above, once DDay hits, your sisters mindset will absolutely NOT be about doing the right thing. Even if she agrees to reconciliation with her BS and wants to do the right thing, she will be a recovering addict to the affair and will most definitely not be in a position to make decisions that are best for anyone but herself and her AP. Don’t give her the chance to cause more damage to those already hurt. And I applaud you for doing the right thing by exposing this atrocious behavior.

I'm so sorry that you are in this awful position, but so glad you've decided on this course of action. Your family and especially your BIL deserve the truth, and you deserve not to have to hold that secret.

My guess is that either A. the shit shall hitteth the fan, and your sister will blame you for all of it, or B. The consequences will be little because people won't want to rock the boat.

If scenario A happens just remember a few things: your sister created her consequences with her choices, you had nothing to do with that. So even if she wants to try to blame you, none of this is your fault. Whatever happens with her job or marriage are not your fault, and yours and her relationship suffering is because of her choice to put you in this spot.
I doubt she will come clean, so be prepared to stick to your deadline (also I would give her a hard time limit, like 3pm).
Above all, please know that you're absolutely doing the right thing in a very bad situation. I hope that she hits bottom tomorrow so she can start rebuilding.

If scenario B happens... Still know that you're doing the right thing.

Sending you strength. You got this!

The real value of this site is the aggregate wisdom, borne of experience. At first, I thought your course of action was well considered, but upon hearing what others have posted, I am leaning towards their position. One option would be to gather some corroborating evidence to counter the inevitable psy-op campaign your sister will wage. If you do call, write down some key questions you have, getting her to admit the A, it's duration, the name of the OP, her unwillingness to end it because it makes her happy, her discontented with her M and H, etc. Try go cover and countr the gaslighting, denial, minimizing and blameshifting that will inevitably occur. There us something we call the cheaters handbook, which is based on a predictable set of behaviors we see from waywards. Like all things in the universe, their behavior seems to be governed by a set of principles which they default to. O e of these is to only admit to those thing that are provable. That's why when someone miraculously walks in on a stolen kiss between APs, that was the first and only time it happened... It takes work for them to break these, and this generally occurs when they find remorse.

Good on you for making the right and very difficult decision to confront. Well done.

Do not expect to be thanked or rewarded for your honourable actions. There will be a price to pay, at least in the interim. But, you will have a "free soul" after this and people will eventually come around.

On a final note, my BFF confronted my WW (now ex) and was going to tell me about her A. He was willing to sacrifice a 30 year friendship because he felt I deserved the truth. That act cemented a bond between up like no other. We are now closer than ever.

I’m going to keep it short because everyone else has covered things so well.

I want to say you’re such a good person for exposing the A.

It’s an absolute awful position you’ve been put in. A’s are a contagion that affect (infect) all those around it.

Giving your sister time will do exactly what everyone here has already said, give her time to cover her ass. That will just make things worse.

One of our mutual friends (F) my wife confided in BEFORE I knew anything continued to be all "nicey-nice" to me while all my WW’s shit was going on.

She didn’t have to courage to tell me.

She’s effectively dead to me now.

There no way to sugar coat the bite of the shit sandwich you’ve been handed, but I have to believe you will sleep better in the long run for what you’re willing to do.

I don’t know how this mutual friend (former) for me can live with herself.

Wishing you the best.