A husband recently discovered that his wife had slept with his “handsome” and “successful” younger brother one time after a party three months before they met.
He was livid she kept this one night stand a secret for over two years. He is now not speaking to her until she apologizes.
Redditor “realtignanello” sought Reddit’s Relationship Advice column to ask if he was overreacting.
“I am 35, my wife is 38. We first met in July 2016 after a mutual friend set us up on a blind date.”
“We got married in May of 2018, and are celebrating our 2 year anniversary. We have a 1 year old son.”
“I have two brothers, one older and one younger [25]. My younger brother is very handsome, smart, and successful and a lot of women throw themselves at him.”
The OP would soon find out his wife was one of said “women” who was smitten by the younger brother.
“Yesterday, my wife was showing me some old photos on her previous phone from when we first started dating in 2016, because we want to make a scrapbook to mark our 2 year anniversary.”
“She then accidentally scrolled through a photo of her standing next to my brother as well as some screenshotted texts.”
“I asked her what those were, and she laughed and said she had actually met my brother at the cocktail party of some friends back in April 2016. Apparently they hooked up after the party and exchanged numbers.”
“She let me read through the texts because she thought it was funny. I looked and she wrote stuff like ‘hey cutie!’ and ‘would love to hang out or get drinks with you sometime’.”
“My brother was completely not interested, his last text to her was ‘sorry but I’m just not in a place to date anyone, I just got out of a long term relationship and I feel like we have a generational gap between us’.”
“My wife said it made her a bit bummed out when he rejected her, but she got over it quickly. She said when she met me three months later she didn’t even know I was his brother at first.”
Upon reflection, the OP found that things he used to wonder about started to click.
“A lot of things now make sense. Because my brother got back with his ex girlfriend [22F] in 2017 and my wife has never liked his girlfriend. She thinks that she is too ‘showy’.”
“Also, my wife has always been close to my brother and now I’m wondering if there are ulterior motives.”
The OP’s response was the reason his wife gave for not divulging the one night stand.
“I got upset after my wife revealed this to me and said I needed some time alone. I can’t believe she hasn’t told me after nearly 4 years.”
“She said she didn’t want me to get angry and said it also wasn’t her proudest moment.”
“We haven’t spoken since yesterday. I feel like she needs to apologize to me for keeping this a secret. She says I am overreacting, but I don’t think I am.”
When the OP reached out, the younger brother explained why he never disclosed his sexual history either.
“My brother… said he didnt tell me about it because he ‘didnt think it was worth mentioning’ and that it was a one night thing.”
“He says there’s nothing between them and even his girlfriend knows about it. Apparently she thinks its hilarious.”
Redditors’ reactions ranged from “it’s not a big deal” to “get a paternity test on your child ASAP!”
The hook-up was in 2016—the child was born in 2019.
“Yah, it was sh*tty not to disclose it. But it’s not such a big deal.”
“Everybody had a past, and I didn’t ask for a list of hook-ups to my fiancee because… Why?”
“I’m happy with her, and I don’t care if she hooked up with 2 or 20 people before.” ~ GranPino
“Would you at least want to know? He could have sorted through this 4 years ago and then it would not be a big deal had it been disclosed.”
“What happened is that others knew and laughed about it. He was the butt of their joke.”
“That is the worst part of this. The hook up is a minor issue that could easily be sorted out.”
“It is all of the other things that are just sh*tty.” ~ NYTXOKTXKYTXOKKS
“Wife f’ked your brother and didn’t think to mention that fact at any point from when she met you to now.”
“Brother told his girlfriend but not you and she’s been laughing about it behind your back.”
“Divorce the wife and dump the brother.” – mrmrchoice
“Yeah… DNA test the kid.” ~ StopHurtingYourself
“Why? Their hook up was before they met, child was born a year after they were married.”
“Personally I don’t know why the wife kept this secret, everyone has a dating past and so what if she had a one night stand with the brother. It sounds like the brother was never interested, they parted ways and now she’s married to her husband.”
“I get why the OP is mad [about the nondisclosure] but I don’t get the feeling they cheated and it feels like it was all done before they even met, even if she still thinks he’s good looking it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her husband whole heartedly.”
“There’s no reason to believe the child isn’t the OP’s and to put that doubt into the OP’s head seems unnecessary.”
“OP your wife and brother owe you an apology for keeping it a secret… but you also owe your wife an apology for making her feel bad for something that happened before you met.”
“Unless you can prove she was dating you to get to him (which doesn’t sound like that case in any way shape or form) then I’d just let it go and move on, it’s in her past no need to make it a huge deal now.” ~Â sofiasofa
Many of the “dump your wife, question the parentage of your child” camp seemed focused on not wanting a woman who had sex with someone they knew regardless of when it happened.
Redditors got in a discussion about it.
“Because not all of us wanna date a woman our sibling had a one night stand with? Is it really that hard to comprehend?”
“To you it may not seem like that big of a deal but to some of us (OP included), it is.” – AbyssWatcher001
“I wouldn’t even be able to date a girl that slept with one of my friends. A sibling? Not a f*king chance.” – scifishortstory
“That’s pretty childish. What, is she now ‘tainted’?” ~ jerebine
“Yep she is.” ~ OreoHustler
But not every Redditor thought not thoroughly divulging her sexual past was reason enough to end the marriage.Â
“I think you’ll probably be fine, but I would call your brother back and ask him why it was funny enough to mention to the girlfriend and not to you.”
“I think a charitable interpretation would be that it was awkward but not significant and he didn’t really wanna say anything because you seemed happy and it didn’t mean anything on his end. I think your wife feels the same way, and you should discuss how it makes you feel so you can get your feelings tended to and move forward.”
“She should acknowledge any discomfort, awkwardness, or sense of betrayal that you feel that two of the closest people in your life didn’t see fit to be honest with you in the first place. That it may be funny to them but you don’t want to feel like you were the butt of some joke.” ~ EclecticVictuals
“Honestly I feel like a lot of the people in this thread are jumping to conclusions way too quickly.”
“If you met someone new and you didn’t know that the person you hooked up with in the past was their sibling until later, I don’t see how she could bring that up without it being awkward. What was she supposed to say?”
“Imagine the person you start dating for a few weeks hits you with ‘By the way, I slept with your brother.’ I don’t know how she would bring it up without a prompt or a conversation that somehow led to that topic.”
“Withholding that information probably doesn’t sit right with most people. And I get it.”
“But I don’t think we can conclude that OPs wife married him only to see his brother; she could’ve just thought of the brother as an old fling in the past and unimportant/awkward to bring up.”
“Also, the important thing is that she hooked up with him BEFORE the relationship, not during. Yes, it’s an unpleasant thing to know that she hooked up with him before, but she hasn’t cheated in the relationship.”
“I feel like it’s a bit drastic to break up with her for a fling before the relationship even started.”
“I also don’t get how OPs brother withheld that information from his own brother, but again that may come from trying not to ruin the relationship (as it’s evident in the post already; that information is brewing up some questions from OP). I would give both the benefit of the doubt for now.”
“So to OP, I don’t really know about firing up the divorce papers. However if there’s evidence for suspicion that your wife is cheating or has other motives, then it is reasonable for this to be a dealbreaker.” ~ iwishiwasswallowed
“I genuinely do not understand why people are reacting so viscerally to this. I feel like I’m missing something because I don’t understand how a [one night stand] that wasn’t mentioned is divorce worthy.”
“Are people really so insecure as to blow up a presumably good relationship over this?” ~ Leopluradong
“Agree. Think I’m missing something.”
“It’d be really awkward to bring up. If they had dated or even been friends with benefits then I could see why OP feels like she hid this, but a 1 night stand and a few texts, come on??”
“She even told him when he saw the pic. Wasnt defensive or suspicious. Seems like there are other cracks in the relationship if OP is jumping to conclusions this easily!” ~ DoryWinn
While the lack of full disclosure was an issue, not everyone was positive it was cause for splitting up this family.
How would you respond if you were in his shoes?