Some people aren’t able to be monogamous, but still want some sort of commitment.
And that’s fine.
There’s no problem with polyamory or open relationships—as long as all the partners in the relationship are honest about it.
The issues arise when one partner thinks they’re in a monogamous relationship while the other partner lies. Lying to your partner about the foundation of your relationship is never a good idea.
But are family members required to also lie to enable habitual liars to find new romantic partners? Even to their close friends?
A woman who doesn’t think so found herself in conflict with her in-laws, so she turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Bad-in-law1 asked:
“AITA for ‘ruining’ my brother-in-law’s reputation by telling the truth to my friends?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My in-laws are currently furious with me for hurting my brother-in-law’s feelings and reputation with my friend group.”
“Recently my single brother-in-law ‘Chris’ (38, male) has been hinting at me to introduce him to women and I’ve refused. Chris has been single for almost three years and he has been having a hard time meeting women.”
“He tried flirting with my friend, but she had been cold and non-receptive.”
“This was my friend ‘Grace’ (35, female). Grace is not interested in him due to his inability to be faithful and she wasn’t physically attracted to him.”
“He tried to flirtatiously engage with her during a small party my husband and I had last Saturday. My husband got a long-awaited promotion so we had a little party.”
“During the party, Grace had grown frustrated with his incessant flirting and at some point told him in no uncertain terms that she found him physically ugly and that his physical ugliness is only surpassed by the ugliness of his character.”
“She told him this in private. So no other guest heard her scathing review of his personhood.”
“Chris left the party.”
“The following afternoon while my husband and I were nursing a wicked hangover, my in-laws to my suprise called to scold me for having abused and embarrassed Chris.”
“After a few minutes of us shouting back and forth on the phone, I reminded my husband that handling his family was his job. So while my husband argued with his parents, I reviewed our security cameras.”
“We have security cameras around because a few years back we had a break in. As a way to feel some sense of safety, we got a security system installed with audio.”
“We also have dogs who we like to check in on and scold through the security system to quit their barking or bad behavior.”
“And honey, Grace verbally tore him apart!”
“Grace reminded him that he cheated on and divorced his late ex-wife ‘Lily’ while she was battling cancer and that he then got dumped by the mistress for being a cheater as he continued to cheat on her.”
“Grace told him that he wasn’t a man of any significant value other than the few coins he had in the bank and that there’s no way in hell she’d entertain his delusions of sexual grandeur and beauty.”
“She also said the only thing he had going for him was his over bloated job title as an executive director to a third rate company that will probably collapse in the next five years.”
“As a parting gift she told him to consider some cosmetic work to improve his haggard appearance and perhaps to start praying for divine intervention to fix his rotten soul since there is no way a psychotherapist could ever come close to fixing whatever is wrong with him.”
“My in-laws and Chris feel that I shouldn’t have told my friends what Chris did because he’s now perceived by my girlfriends as a terrible person. I told them he was unfortunately a terrible person and people would’ve always found out what happened between him and the late, great Lily.”
“He was cheating before her diagnosis and he continued to cheat even during the initial stages of her treatment. He started to verbally and emotionally abuse her when she was diagnosed and continued to do so during the divorce as well.”
“He did not provide any support to her at any stage. He was cruel every step of the way. Lily died heartbroken four months after the divorce.”
“Definitely wasn’t his fault she fell ill with cancer, but it certainly was his fault for verbally and emotionally abusing her while she went through chemo and for dragging her through a contentious divorce while she was dying.”
“I then discussed what happened with my colleague ‘Natasha’.”
“She said I was cruel for having told my friend group about what happened between Chris and his ex-wife because Chris had grown a lot in the past two years and didn’t need to be known for the worst thing he has ever done.”
“Natasha is dating Ben who is a friend of Chris. So she also knows him through her boyfriend and they are also friends.”
“I’ve only discussed Chris’ treatment of Lily with my direct friend group. That’s only 6 people and half of them already knew as they were also friends with Lily.”
“So it’s not like I’m screaming ‘hear ye, hear ye’ in the town square.”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I told some of my friends of my brother-in-law’s treatment of Lily, his late wife who he cheated on and divorced while she was dying of cancer.”
“By me having shared that with my friends, he feels I damaged his reputation. He is now depressed and my in-laws are upset with me.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors unanimously declared the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“Sounds like your brother-in-law is lying to himself and his parents, OP. He probably told them Grace wouldn’t date him because you told her he cheated on his ex-wife.”
“Sounds like they need a reality check. I’d drop it until the next time you’ll be with all three of them, then point out Grace gave him a list of reasons she wouldn’t date him and his cheating wasn’t even the top one.”
“He refused to take ‘no thank you’, ‘no’, and ‘leave me alone’ as an answer and kept aggressively creeping on her at your party until she told him the truth. She wouldn’t date him because she finds him completely unattractive—physically, intellectually and personality wise.”
“You’re not running a dating service for him and no one you’d be friends with would find a 38-year-old manboy who can’t understand the word ‘no’ and runs and cries to his parents and blames other people when women won’t date him.”
“Make sure to tell them no friend of yours will ever date him because you aren’t friends with people with such low self-esteem. So his past cheating and your refusal to lie to people is immaterial.”
“But Natasha seems to like him, so maybe he can hit her up for girls with low standards or maybe the two of them can cheat on his friend Ben together.” ~ LakotaGrl
“NTA! How can telling the truth be perceived as unfair? Chris did this to himself.”
“It was his behaviour that is the problem. Why should you expose your friends to a potentially horrific relationship?”
“You know your BIL is a cheater, but your in-laws want you to keep that from your friends so he can continue to take advantage without consequences. I think you did the right thing.” ~ Pleasant_Test_6088
“And this is a 38-year-old guy running to mommy and daddy crying when a lady tells him to f*ck off because he refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. NTA.” ~ AussieDave63
“I’m sorry, why does it matter if OP talked to her friends about something? Does BIL have such a limited dating pool that the only people he can possibly date are OP’s friends?”
“Especially when he has Natasha who seems to think he’s fine and has grown so much in 2 whole years. He should be asking Natasha to set him up with women. NTA.” ~ rak1882
“If Natasha thinks so much of him, she should be setting him up with her friends.”
“OP and her friends seem to be in a tight group that was also friends with Lily so they probably knew without OP saying anything. That’s probably what caused the discussions about Chris. OP, NTA.” ~ SuccessfulPiccolo945
“Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. NTA.”
“What kind of friend would you be if you didn’t warn your friends about his cheating?”
“If he’s ‘grown’ then he can prove that. You do not owe him any set-ups, much less ones you’ve lied to by omission.” ~ Tangerine_Bouquet
“Chris isn’t in a position to complain about gossip, since he went crying to his parents.”
“But in the future, you should probably not invite him to functions where he might hit on your female guests and ruin their evening. NTA.” ~ Fit-Confusion-4595
“Imagine how much he harassed Grace—and likely cornered her alone—to get her to the point that she went off? So many women are conditioned to keep things peaceful and polite.”
“It takes a lot of pushing to get to riled up enough to say all the things OP mentioned. NTA.” ~ notthedefaultname
“Right? When a woman feels the need to roast a guy with every piece of fire she knows will work on him, he has harrased her far past the first few times she politely declined his advances. NTA.” ~ the-freaking-realist
It sounds like Chris still has some growing to do.
OP is not responsible for finding her brother-in-law a girlfriend or to lie to women for him.