It was a heartbreaking confession, the sort that needed sharing but not with close friends. It was too sensitive for that.
This was something so mortifying it would have to be done anonymously, and so, she started typing:
‘This morning, I walked into my bedroom to see my nanny sleeping in my bed with my panty and bra set on, hugging my husband’s pillow. My nanny said tearfully that she only did it because she [wanted] to see what it feels like with expensive underwear on. I am so confused.’
No doubt, the anonymous writer expected feedback – she even invited it. But when she uploaded her post to the private Facebook group, Moms of Upper East Side (MUES), she could have had no idea of the maelstrom she would start.
In fact, her share sparked a flurry of confessions and questions from hundreds of the nearly 40,000 members, each more outrageous than the last.
Seen by the Daily Mail, the gossip gripping the group casts a light on a life few will ever see. An elite world with a dark underbelly, in which wives find themselves betrayed by the very women they have invited into their homes. Women welcomed not so much as members of staff but as something bordering on family.
One UES mother told the Daily Mail, ‘And this is the very reason why I don’t get a nanny.’ Another said: ‘I read so much crazy s**t in this group that I recall seeing this and just sighing… just another day on Facebook!’
While it officially serves as a recommendations forum for parents in Manhattan’s fanciest neighborhood, the reality is that MUES has also become the venue to blurt out secrets too shameful for society functions.
The anonymous post read: ‘This morning, I walked into my bedroom to see my nanny sleeping in my bed with my panty and bra set on, hugging my husband’s pillow. My nanny said tearfully that she only did it because she to see what it feels like with expensive underwear on’
Her share sparked a flurry of confessions and questions from hundreds of the 40,000 members, each more outrageous than the last
The anonymous poster continued: ‘I screamed out of being in shock and then my daughter said, “Oh she tells all the people in the park that daddy is her husband.” I am still in a state of shock and don’t know how to approach my husband with the is there something going on that I should know about question. Advice?’
As over 150 comments started flooding in, the betrayed wife said she asked her four-year-old daughter, ‘if she has seen them acting like how mommy and daddy act.’ To her alarm her daughter asserted very bluntly that daddy was the nanny’s husband and wondered aloud who ‘mommy’s husband’ might be.
Our source is just one of the group members to have tuned into the saga as it spiraled into ever more disturbing territory.
Of course, many questioned whether the tale was real or not, including one skeptical mother who told the Daily Mail: ‘I feel like it is not real and the poster is just looking for a reaction. How could she not see the signs? Maybe subconsciously she wanted this. Bad marriage.’
But the wronged woman insisted she was telling the truth and was merely seeking help.
She wrote: ‘It is real. I don’t want to post [under my name] in the event any of my neighbors are here and I can’t face the [sic] everyone knowing (if anything is going on).’
She went on to ask whether finding the nanny wearing her underwear was grounds to cancel her contract.
The post sparked such intrigue in the group that, two days later, another member following the scandal like a Bravo reality TV show, begged for a follow-up.
The response was swift: ‘The post wasn’t fake. I have an appointment with a lawyer on Wednesday to dissolve the contract.
‘My husband confirmed that nothing happened with them. I am not going to ruin my marriage on an assumption. The nanny left on her own I guess out of embarrassment. But I need confirm legally what to do.’
She was ‘torn,’ she said, because her daughter had grown so close to her nanny.
While officially serving as a forum for recommendations for elite parents in Manhattan’s fanciest neighborhood, the reality is that MUES has also become the venue to blurt out secrets too shameful for society functions
As over 150 comments started flooding in, the betrayed wife said she asked her four-year-old daughter, ‘if she has seen them acting like how mommy and daddy act’
The post sparked such intrigue in the group that two days later, another member, following the juicy scandal like an episode of a Bravo television show, begged for a follow-up
To the many skeptics asking why she posted anonymously, she explained that she kept her identity hidden to avoid embarrassment, since she knows her neighbors ‘are definitely in this group.’
She didn’t want to be the gossip of her building, the local hospital where she works as a nurse or the corridors of her daughter’s school. To those who doubted her, she challenged: ‘Why must something be fake because a person wants to protect their privacy?’
One member told the Daily Mail that she believes many of these anonymous posts are indeed fake, but said that ‘online groups invite people to vent, to feel safe, to feel anonymous. People go to these groups with their most private fears and insecurities because it feels easier and less embarrassing.’
Another mother, similarly skeptical about the authenticity, couldn’t help but question some of the more sordid details: ‘How would the nanny know which pillow is the husbands? Has she been in their bedroom while they were in it? Too weird. But, if it is real, she needs to be fired STAT.’
According to another group member, who posted under her name which the Daily Mail is choosing not to publish:
‘I once saw my maid post a WhatsApp status and she was wearing my bra. I took a screenshot and confronted her and she basically said that I have enough beautiful lingerie and she thought I wouldn’t notice.
‘It’s unhinged to first post a picture of you in a bra to your WhatsApp contacts and to pose in something you have stolen. Of course she was let go.’
In fact, mommies complaining about the indiscretions of the hired help – with their intimate belongings or even their husbands – are a recurring theme among the MUES group.
And it’s not always the nanny.
One scorned mother posted: ‘Hi. I think my husband is having an affair with one of the chefs. We have an ironclad prenup, what should I do?’
The aggrieved spouse explained that she has been married to her husband, whom she met in their ‘third year of university,’ for 14 years and they share a 13-year-old daughter. She characterized their relationship as ‘strong, yet he does travel for work a lot.’
She confessed: ‘Lately, I have been spotting light lipstick stains on his shirt collars. I’m noticing a suspicious tension between him and our female chef. I’ve already worked with a PI, but my husband seems to always be one step ahead of me, keeping his record clean (excluding the regular tax fraud).’
She explained that her spouse ‘comes from generational wealth, and the prenup ensures I would walk away with very, very little.’ She confronted her husband, she said, but he simply dismissed her concerns.
Yet, faced with divorce, it seems that the prospect of losing a modestly paid member of staff weighed just as heavily as the possible end of the marriage.
She admitted: ‘I do not wish to break my family, but the suspicion of him being unfaithful are compelling me to take action. I don’t want to fire any of the help as we’ve reasoned out very low salaries.’
Of course, many of her MUES comrades told her to hire an attorney and divorce him, but one of the 72 commenters suggested she seek revenge.
They wrote: ‘Hire a male chef and have an affair with him. Think Emily in Paris kinda chef.’
But it isn’t all one-way traffic. One nanny braved the group to post her own take on the staff/employer dynamic posing the provocative question: ‘Would you want to know if your husband had a second family?’
She explained: ‘I’ve been a nanny for “the other woman” for five years. I’ve always kept quiet and just minded my business – which I still think is the best option for myself – but it’s just a lot of information to carry, and my heart breaks for his actual wife and for all of his kids.
‘I’ve never met his wife, but I know she has caught him cheating before and been gaslit and dismissed. She has no idea that he has a full-on second family in another state… Should I just let it be?’
Yet another member confessed to finding her maid in her ‘beautiful lingerie’
One scorned mother posted: ‘Hi. I think my husband is having an affair with one of the chefs. We have an ironclad prenup, what should I do?’
One nanny braved the group to post her own take on the staff/employer dynamic posing the provocative question: ‘Would you want to know if your husband had a second family?’
The pile-on in nearly 120 comments was mixed, with suggestions split between minding her own business or telling the wife.
One wrote: ‘As someone who has been cheated on, I would want to know. Personally, I believe if someone is cheating and other people know and don’t tell, it’s as bad. You should look out for her and spill.’
One commenter warned her not to get involved to which the nanny replied: ‘I know it’s not my place – I just can’t imagine being in her place. I also can’t imagine being one of his kids – especially the kids of the second family – and finding out later.’
She wrote in another comment: ‘He travels so much for work, honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there was a third family somewhere.’
As for the anonymous mother whose post sparked it all – she has gone quiet. One of her last posts was to ask others to withhold judgment. After all, she wrote, she just needed to get it off her chest.
‘Cut me some slick [sic] please. I was extremely emotional at the time,’ she wrote. ‘I was in a really bad state that I just started typing as a way to convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming. It is not like I can call a friend or family member and say, “Hey I think my husband might have cheated with the nanny.”‘
But perhaps she should take heart in the fact that it could, according to one mother, be so very much worse.
‘The last man I dated left me for a nanny on [the childcare app] Urban Sitter,’ she wrote. ‘He’s now dead and his death is being investigated.’
The moral of the story? ‘Ladies, watch who you hire to bring into your homes.’
