Background: My sister-in-law left my brother, and their separation and impending divorce are getting dirty. She and I have exchanged a few e-mails since, spurred by the fact that I was babysitting their dog, and she wanted to come by and see him. So some of her e-mails were pretty nasty towards my brother. I felt like I had an obligation to let my brother know what she was saying about him. (We are a very close family.) We think she may be jockeying to paint my brother in a bad light so she can get more out of the divorce. I really don’t know.
Anyway, so my brother asked to see the e-mails. I forwarded him one, then forwarded the other…or so I thought. Instead of hitting forward, I hit reply!! And my note at the top clearly shows that I was intending to forward it to my brother!!
OH FUCK! When I realized my mistake, I felt sick. Now, I have always liked my sister-in-law, but now she knows I have been sending my brother her e-mails.
But here is what makes it worse…a few weeks before my SIL left my brother, she confided in me that she was planning it, and was not going to tell him until the day before she could move into her new place. So I kept the secret for a while, but then I started to feel horrible about it. He was totally clueless, and I felt so bad for him. I had no idea what to do! So I confided in my mom…and of course she turned right around and told my brother a few days before my SIL was going to break the news. My mom said she felt like it was a betrayal not to tell my brother.
The point is, when my SIL found out I told my mom, she got really mad at me. And now to make it worse, she knows I was sending my brother her e-mails! She probably hates me worse than my brother now!
How did I ever get wrapped up in this mess?
So what should I do about the e-mail? Not say anything? E-mail her again and say “oops, sorry I sent that to you by accident?”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like you can do anything to get it back (I assume you are not both on AOL).
Look on the bright side, though. She is putting you in an awkward and uncomfortable position by venting to/confiding in you, and this will most likely put a stop to that. I know you feel horrible, but it’s probably for the best.
Did you promise SIL not to tell your bro what she was saying? If not, what’s the big deal? If so, it’ll just confirm the lesson SIL should have learned the first time.
Uh - if she’s slagging her soon to be ex off to his sister then she’s a total moron.
Why do you give a shit if she’s mad at you anyway - from the sounds of it, she was a crap wife and you should be glad you and your bro are away from her.
There’s an old saying that if someone writes something down, they want people to read it. I think although she may never say it, she wanted it to get to your brother.
On another note, I know how you feel in a weird way. I’m in sales, and once a friend who is also a client emailed me asking me what rates her direct competetor was being charged (which is actually none of her business) but then I forwarded it to someone internally saying “what is the competetor paying? I am going to tell them it’s more either way.”
and SOMEHOW in my madness THAT VERY email ended up in my client’s hands.
Good thing we’re friends and she actually laughed about it but for that moment I was sick.
Yes all of you are right. She did put me in an awkward situation by telling me all this stuff. I never asked me to tell her…and she never, ever told me specifically not to tell anyone. I mean, she actually thinks I would keep all this to myself and not tell my brother?
I guess I just won’t say anything, and either she’ll never speak to me again, or she’ll send me an angry e-mail. Either way, the whole situation is just very sad.
I did something similar, that almost got me fired.
The lab manager send the whole company an email to the effect that “We will be having visitors in the lab and we need to remove any trash.”
So I decide to forward the message to a buddy saying “I guess we need to keep Dana out of the lab!” Dana was a coworker of loose morals. Bit of a tramp.
After I send my oh-so-witty message, I realize that I hadn’t entered my buddies email. And it didn’t bounce.
I realized there were 2 possibilities here:
Instead of forward, I hit reply, in which case my message went to the lab manager. Bad.
Instead of forward, I hit “reply to all”, in which case my message went to everyone in the company. Very bad.
When I thought about option two, I could feel the blood drain from my face. I think I almost passed out.
I was pretty new to Outlook, so I didn’t know about the recall options, or even that I could look in the SENT folder to see what I had done. I ran to the lab manager’s office, and he was cool enough to let me see it there. Thank Christ, I had only sent it to him, and he let me delete it without him reading it.
I have two brothers and (one for each) two ex sisters-in-law who both bad mouthed my brothers during/after their breakups. I didn’t say anything to either brother, but I made darn sure I “lost” contact with the two women …
A pal of mine invited herself to mine for New Years, I told her I’d have to book B&B for her, as both my brothers will be here at that time. Then my mother said one of my brothers wasn’t coming, so I texted him to ask him and he said he wasn’t coming over, I sent a reply, then cleared the screen and texted my pal to tell her she can stay in my house cos brother isn’t going to be here, and accidently sent that message to my brother (who’s number was still on the “send” screen) Oops
nyctea scandiaca, you made a simple mistake that anyone could make. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Yes, you’re in a bad position with many people involved. You need to decide which of these people are important to you. It sounds like it’s your family and not your SIL. Back up and punt! Eat crow and make nice with them. I have a very close family too, and would be devastated if I lost that!
I would assume that the Outlook “un-send” thingie would only work in a corporate environment where both you and the recipient are clients of the same Exchange Server.
I can’t conceive of any mechanism by which an Outlook user could un-send an outbound email addressed to joeschmoe@earthlink.net or suzy2z@verizon.com once it has moved from simply being queued to be sent to having actually been sent.
But if there’s a universally (or even generally) agreed-upon standard respected by POP servers all across the land, and Outlook to the exclusion of nearly all other email programs makes use of it to unsend email that’s been sent, by all means enlighten me.
nyctea, sweetie, don’t lose sleep over it! Your brother needs your support, and his soon-to-be-ex-wife was a moron to confide in you, of all people! Couldn’t she find someone who was not blood-related to confide in?? If she’s willing to pretend it didn’t happen, then you can pretend it didn’t happen. But if she tries to nail you on it, you can tell her it was an honest mistake, but you’re not too sorry it happened, because, as a good sister, you’re on your brother’s side on this one.
You did nothing wrong. A better way to handle things may have been to discourage her from bad mouthing your family after the first attempt. You then could have told your brother what she is doing. I think you’ll find that you’re not her only sounding board, I’d bet that all their mutual friends are copping an earful about what a bastard your brother is. Lots of estranged partners play this game and the reason it’s so unsettling is that the poor suckers who listen to all the venom “don’t want to take sides” so they just let it go on. And yes I am speaking from experience, my ex was haranguing everyone I knew behind my back until someone told me what was going on. Your brother may thank you.
Your soon-to-be-former SIL obviously is not familiar with the Internet credo “Never write anything in an e-mail that you would not put on a postcard or a billboard.”