People have varying comfort levels when it comes to physical touch, whether that’s hand-holding or hugs, to express love for another person.
Some people are generally so uncomfortable with it, they assume that physical touch has to be reserved strictly for a romantic partner, pointed out the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit, though it’s normal to show some physical attention to friends and family, too.
Redditor Character-Crow309 had always been close to her brother, and they expressed love partially through hugs and a kiss on the cheek as a greeting.
But after her future husband freaked out and threatened to call off their engagement over a kiss on the cheek, the Original Poster (OP) wondered if she was being inappropriate.
She asked the sub:
“AITAH for kissing my brother on the cheek, causing my fiancé to want to break up with me because he finds it weird?”
The OP was very close her younger brother.
“My brother (17 Male) and I (25 Female) have been close since childhood. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that our main love language is physical touch.”
“I see him as my baby. He’s adorable and such a sweet kid. We hug, cuddle, and he also relies on me emotionally A LOT.”
“Now comes my fiancé (29 Male). We’ve been together for three years now and he knows that I’m close to my brother.”
“I moved in with my fiancé last year, so I don’t even get to meet my brother that often, so every time I meet and hug him, my fiancé always makes some passing remarks like, ‘Whoa there’ or ‘You guys sure are close.'”
“I just roll my eyes since I thought he was joking back then.”
At their mother’s birthday, they talked about a problem the OP’s brother was having.
“Five days back, it was my mom’s birthday and it’s been four months since I saw my family in real life, aside from video calls, as we live in different cities. It was a small party with relatives, and I was happy to be there. We were planning to stay for the night and leave the next morning.”
“At night, my fiancé and I were up watching a movie when my brother knocked and came inside, asking if we could talk. My fiancé gave me a side-eye, but I got up and followed him.”
“I asked him what was wrong. He said he missed me and that he’s been having a hard time at school since he’s struggling with his studies. He’s a smart kid. He’s at the top of his school, unlike me, and I knew he always had stress issues.”
“He also mentioned how his friends are being very rude to him in one way or the other, and this MADE HIM CRY while talking about it, so obviously, I was consoling him.”
“We talked for around one hour before I hugged him, saying everything will be fine, and this is when my fiancé walked in and asked, ‘Are you guys done?’ He sounded upset and he could’ve phrased that better but after a few more minutes, I got up, gave my brother a kiss on the cheek, and told him we could continue to talk tomorrow.”
The OP was surprised when her partner lashed out at her for being close to her brother.
“Once I got inside the room with my fiancé, all h**l broke loose. He started telling me how gross I was for kissing my own brother?!”
“He said he was already upset that I have hugged, cuddled, and had my brother lay on my lap before on other occasions but now the kissing was the final nail in the coffin. He said that I prioritize my brother more than I do for him, which is not true at all. I hardly see my brother ever since I moved out.”
*He said that a kiss is reserved between a couple or married partners and that I shouldn’t be doing this with anyone even if they were family. He says that since I kissed him, it’s gross for me to kiss my brother since it would mean they both were on the same level and I see my brother as a partner too.”
“He said that one day, I would end up sharing intimate gestures we have with each other. This is possibly the worst thing I’ve heard from his mouth that day and I feel disgusted the more I think about it.”
“He doesn’t like any kind of skinship between me and my brother. He’s always made jokes about it in the past saying we could be couples in an alternate reality and I just accepted them since those sounded harmless. I’m honestly still shocked he thought seriously about this.”
“He’s also been upset about my brother laying on my lap once. This was a year ago, and I was on the couch watching TV, when my brother simply rested his head on my lap while he was playing some kind of game. My fiancé walked in a while later and we did have a short conversation at dinner saying he didn’t like it, and that I’m supposed to be having his head on mine instead of my brother.”
“I genuinely don’t get it since it’s not like I ever told him I wouldn’t allow him to do the same, but he dislikes that my brother did it. I did apologize back then since he seemed very upset. We didn’t bring this up again and he’s only made more backhanded jokes since then. I would have never imagined this to go this way and I’m so lost.”
The OP was alarmed by her partner’s understanding of her relationship with her brother.
“I just can’t believe he said that I’m not seeing my brother as my family and that our relationship is not normal. He literally told me, ‘You guys are in love’ and said we are having an affair. And that he hates how we touch each other since it comes off sexual?!”
“I’m aware a lot of siblings don’t do physical touch but it doesn’t say anywhere doing it is wrong. I don’t understand what is sexual about this?”
The OP felt conflicted.
“Please help me understand. These made me feel so awful so I told him that my then father (separated now) was really abusive to my mom, me, and my brother as kids, which often makes me feel like I should protect him and that’s all there is to it. But he didn’t even let me explain before he just left the room.”
“The next day, he called his mom and said he wanted to break off with me. I talked to her myself and she said I should stay away from my brother if the marriage has to happen since it could affect my fiancé mentally, as he is a single child, so he wouldn’t understand how siblings feel. She said it’s better for both of us.”
“Now I’m so conflicted because I don’t understand what I did wrong. I never felt like I did anything to warrant a breakup. I love my brother and I love my fiancé too. I knew my fiancé always made backhanded remarks about my brother before, but it never crossed my mind he took it so seriously until that day.”
“Am I really acting weird with my brother? If I am, please tell me what I can do to not be like this that wouldn’t hurt my brother in the process, too?”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some were certain that the OP’s ex-fiancé was the problem, not the OP and her brother.
“As much as it hurts, be thankful that your fiance is showing his true colors before you got married. What if you have a child and he wants to dictate your interactions there too?”
“F**k him and f**k his mom. They are gaslighting you because he’s an insecure mommy’s boy.”
“Dump that pr**k and live happily. NTA.” – DankyMcJangles
“Your brother is forever, OP! You were being sweet and totally appropriate. Your EX fiance has problems. Run! NTA.” – sophomorichumorist
“Fiance is making an issue where there is none bc he is so threatened by you interacting with another male. Never mind that the male is a minor and your blood relative. He accused you of incest and pedophilia for kissing your brother on the cheek. What the f**k?!”
“Please don’t marry him, he’s possessive, jealous, controlling, and unhinged. You’re going to have a miserable, isolated life if you do.”
“NTA.” – BasicRabbit4
“I’m willing to bet that if she calls his bluff, he will come back begging her and love-bombing her. But his toxic possessive nature will continue to reveal itself long-term.” – Dapper_Computer_3238
“What’s horrific is her fiancé’s mother is encouraging OP to stay away from her brother? She’s enabling him, and it will only get worse from here on.”
“And she basically admitted that she thinks her son is in the wrong, by making excuses for him by saying that he doesn’t understand sibling relationships because he’s an only child. Basically, he doesn’t see OP’s brother as her brother, he sees him as another man and feels threatened by the familial affection OP displays with her brother.”
“The cherry on top is the fact that OP’s brother is only 17, if he’s this threatened by a minor who’s so closely related to OP, that’s a huge red flag. A random guy could ask OP for directions on the street and he’d probably blow up at her and accuse her of cheating.” – depravedQ
Others agreed and could only imagine how much worse the fiancé would be with children.
“How will he act when you show love and affection to your children?”
“I think he will try and make you feel bad about hugs/cuddles/kisses, which can all be very normal interactions with children and parents. If those types of interactions with your own family are seen in a sexual way and/or give you sexual urges, then that is a YOU problem, and you shouldn’t be around children.”
“Close contact and physical touch give many people comfort in a completely non-sexual way. There is a fundamentally different type of love people show for their family/friends compared to their partners. Emotionally stunted individuals can’t tell the difference.”
“I empathize with those who deal with it themselves in the sense that they can’t be physically close with others because it makes them uncomfortable, and they are allowed to have personal boundaries, but don’t expect others around you to be the same.” – autumn_treestar
“My husband (at the time) told me I spend too much time with my newborn son. What?!? OP should think if she wants to live like that. It was hard for me to leave but I did as soon as I could. How do you spend too much time with a newborn?” – estrm
“My ex got really weird about me breastfeeding our son. Not because he thought breastfeeding was bad (I also breastfed our older daughter) but because he was upset that our son ‘spends more time touching your breasts than I do.'”
“He was jealous of our infant son eating regularly because apparently boobs can only be a sexual thing if it involves a boy.”
“I really wish I’d known he held that belief before we married and had kids.” – BobMortimersButt
“My baby brother isn’t related to me by blood. Legally speaking, if for some weird reason we wanted to f**k or have a relationship, we technically could, but that would never happen, because we would never want to.”
“We’re truly brothers in every sense of the word, and we’ve held each other while we’ve drunkenly cried, slept in the same bed, gone out to eat, gone to the movies together… and zero percent of it was ever sexual, or even romantic.”
“We’re simply comfortable with ourselves, with each other, and with having human emotions vs. having to put on a mask of hyper-machismo. Not even shared DNA could make him ‘more’ my brother. I’d fight a bear for him.”
“Mannn. We’d probably make this dude poop himself in rage and paranoia.” – LittleBunnySunny
“It’s absurd of him to think about the relationship between op and her brother like that. It’s a massive red flag.”
“I’ve got a brother from another mother and it doesn’t matter we aren’t blood-related, we grew up together, I’ve known him since he was a little toddler. His mum and mine are best friends. We hug, we give each other kisses on the cheek, and we will wrestle when the opportunity comes up. We are 35 and 29.”
“My husband is fine with this and also has unofficially adopted him as his little brother. We have holidays together and he is an uncle to our kids.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to be!” – holiance
While the subReddit could understand physical relationships going too far between family members, they did not suspect that that was what was going on between the OP and her brother.
Rather, it sounded like the OP’s partner struggled with any form of physical intimacy that didn’t involve sex and that he was projecting about those insecurities.
It was important to them that the OP agree to ending the relationship and walking away before the marriage was finalized. Otherwise, the OP’s partner would likely continue to make inappropriate comments like this, and it would likely impact his relationship with his children in the future.