Man Who Exposed Stepdad's 'Inappropriate' Online Behavior Calls 'BS' on His Explanation

The story and subsequent request for advice, shared to an anonymous forum, certainly had Redditors talking, with many of them agreeing OP (a.k.a. the "original poster") was definitely not the a-hole in the situation.

Read on to see how it all played out.

"My(32M) Stepdad 'John' (65M) was commenting on a bunch of half naked women on Threads. Most of the comments weren't extremely vulgar but enough to be very inappropriate for a married man to be saying," OP wrote in their post. "I sent the link to his Threads to my mom and she agreed, that it was extremely inappropriate and she confronted him."

The man said he didn't follow up with his mom after that point, as it's "not my relationship," but his stepdad reached out to him the following morning.

"John sent me a text saying 'His account was compromised and he's doing what he can to get the account back,'" claimed OP. "I didn't respond because the excuse is totally BS. Nobody is hacking his account and telling women how beautiful they are. He just didn't know replies show up on your follower's walls."

He then came to his big question for others on Reddit, explaining that he had a FaceTime call with his mother coming up and it would be the first one since he exposed his stepdad's alleged behavior.

"If he shows his face and mentions that he got hacked, I want to call him out on his BS since I'm not sure if that's what my Mom actually believes. However this will lead to even more tension, so I'm not sure if I’d be the AH by escalating this when it seems to be resolved between my Mom and John," he wrote.

OP wondered WIBTA (Would I Be The A-hole) if he called out his stepfather "about lying about his account being 'hacked.'"

OP's post was eventually marked with an official "Not the A-hole" label, as the commenters overwhelmingly said he was well in his right to call out his stepdad for possibly lying to him and his mother -- and offered up advice on how to handle the situation.

"Call him out. He's the one choosing to die on this hill instead of being honest," read one comment. "He's already dug his grave deep, and he's trying to use a lie to get out of it (at least from my perspective)."

One person wondered how OP's stepfather was behaving after making the hacking claim, asking whether he reported it to anyone or at least scanned his computer for viruses. "I think his guilt would be obvious if he's not concerned at all," the wrote, saying OP should just be "overly helpful" and, if he's lying, his reaction would "show himself to be the a-hole that he is."

"He's lying 100% and didn't get hacked," OP replied to that post. "He's just trying to save face, which is fine and I let it slide as I mentioned above. However if he mentions this lie again, my tolerance for being lied to my face is pretty close to zero. How do I know he didn't get hacked? In some of the posts he mentions personal things someone that knows him would know. And it occurred more than 50 times."

Someone else said that while OP wasn't in the wrong, it's ultimately his mother's decision whether she chooses to forgive her husband, "not yours." The comment added, "Certainly don't put yourself in a position where you can wreck your relationship with your mother about it."

Others replied agreeing, saying it was good on him to raise the concern, but advised against pushing the situation further or escalating anything.

Others did think he was in the wrong for that same reason, saying it's his mother's relationship, not his own. "I agree, however if he plans to straight up lie to my face I have trouble going along with that," he replied to one such post.

"Your mom knows. And she won’t forget. Just because she might appear to be accepting his explanation is irrelevant. She knows," added someone else.

What do you think?