“Should I Tell My Sister I Suspect Her Husband Cheated Years Ago?”
I didn’t tell my sister because she would’ve been devastated. My BIL is 49 years of age and he and my sister have been married for twenty-five years and have two children. They currently seem happy. Six years later I still feel anger towards my brother-in-law. We’re civil when we’re together, but I have a lot of repressed anger. Should I have told my sister? Should I tell my sister now? How do I know he hasn’t been with other women? Can I trust him? Or should I forgive him and move on? It’s not the first time he has raised my eyebrows. At his 30th birthday, I was introduced to an attractive woman who was interested in me. Because he also thought she was attractive, he jokingly said, “Can I leave your sister?” Please offer any advice you have. — Repressed in Anger
Your sister has been, from what you can tell, happily married for twenty-five years, and you are considering potentially ruining her marriage, her relationship with you, and your relationship with her kids, because you think you remember seeing her husband walk a drunk woman to a taxi one night six years ago and because of an inappropriate joke your BIL told over nineteen years ago? Look, unless you have other evidence than what you mentioned, I cannot begin to understand why you are plagued with worry about your sister’s well-being, or why you think it’s your job to know whether your BIL has been with other women, whether you can trust him, and whether you should forgive him. Forgive him for what?
Please, for your sister’s sake and for the sake of her family and your relationship with them, mind your own business. Even IF your BIL has slept with other women, your sister may very well be aware. For all you know, they’ve had an open relationship in the past, or have an open relationship now, or maybe he flat-out cheated and she found out and they worked through it and have moved on, in which case your bringing up your suspicions years and years after they first were raised would only serve to open a can of worms that has been shut and put away. Even if your BIL cheated and your sister never found out about it, the fact that they seem happy and you have no other reason to suspect he has ever cheated again means that your speaking up about something you think you saw years ago would do nothing but make you look bad and would beg some uncomfortable questions: WHY are you bringing this up now? Why didn’t you say something before? What is your end-goal here? Are you trying to break up their marriage and their family? Open your sister’s eyes to behavior she may be ignoring or has never been aware of?
It would be one thing if you had reason to believe your sister was unhappy or that their marriage was unstable or that there was any indication that your small shred of evidence of questionable behavior might shine a light on a broader issue and provide one more clue in a case that’s been open and wreaking havoc for a while. But you have no such indication at all. Your sharing this story about what you think you saw six years ago would likely do nothing but make YOU look a little unhinged. At this point, let it go.
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If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
LW – you made the right decision not to tell her then, so stick with it. The only one who’ll be relieved when you tell her is YOU. So let it go, enjoy your life, and your sister’s apparent happiness.
Oh my! I do not agree! It’s his business if he and his sister are close!! All these responses of “why do you care about your sister’s marriage?” , blow my mind. Shouldn’t you care about your family members marriage?
I’m not saying to mettle in it though.
He should’ve told his sister when it happened. I would’ve followed him out of the bar and seen exactly what happened. That way there’s no guessing.
Now it’s been six years. He says he’s angry, he should be angry with himself, not his brother-in-law. Six years ago; memories get hazy. He should’ve did the right thing then. Now, I don’t know if the right answer is.
I totally agree with Nicole!
WWS x 1000. Dude, you should keep your mouth shut and seriously examine why you would be dwelling on this stuff years later. A joke he made twenty years ago?? Really??
Frankly, you sound like a bitter guy who is mad at his sister for some unstated reason and wants to knock her down a peg. Why else would you be considering ruining her happiness and breaking up her family over something which may or may not have happened 20 years ago. Your interpretation of ‘must be romantically holding hands’ could in actuality be leading and semi-supporting a drunk. Even if he considered a one night stand with this woman, your letter suggests that it is very possible nothing happened and you certainly don’t know what happened. So… you have a burning desire to impart an ancient and very malicious ‘truth?’ to your sister. Why? I can’t imagine that you believe anything good could come of this, so I can only surmise that you have some reason for wishing to harm your sister, which you have failed to disclose.
What Wendy said. Of all the questions you asked, only two were actually your business. Whether you should have told and whether you should tell now. The other stuff — about whether you should forgive him or wonder if he’s been with other women — you’re not his wife, so it’s not your place to speculate about any previous affairs or to forgive or not forgive him.
If you were going to tell, the time would have been years ago. At this point, you’d get the worst of both worlds, in that you’d simultaneously be seen as vengeful and as hiding the truth/lying. The statute of limitations, IMO, for telling someone about something suspicious, but not actual proof, has definitely passed. If he’s been cheating for the past six years or more, then there’d be some sort of effect to the marriage. And if he hasn’t been, then I’m not sure what the purpose would be of bringing it up.
This exactly. If my brother told me that he saw my husband holding another woman’s hand six years ago, I’d think my brother was being weird at best. If he seemed angry about it and tried to insist that my husband must be cheating, I’d probably distance myself from him. LW, if you want to continue to have a relationship with your sister and her children, you REALLY need to let this go.
You sound more like an angry ex than her brother. You sound like you are hoping to break them up so you have a chance. Honestly, is it so hard to think that a hammered girl was being helped out of a bar, and she probably grabbed his hand because she is unstable, and doesn’t care whose hand she holds? Happened to me all the time when I was a bouncer, you would help a drunk women out the door, and she holds your like you are her boyfriend and tells you she loves you as she blows her puke breath in your face. And that joke! I mean he probably thought he was friends with you, and you would understand he was just kidding.
Agree this is a weird level of fixation for a brother to have on his sister’s marriage. You’ve been holding onto one dumb, off-color joke for 19 years? Back off, dude.
How did he even remember it for that long? I for sure can’t recall individual jokes that people have told 20 years ago. Must have been harboring major dislike for this guy.
I think the off color joke just compounded his dislike for the BIL. It probably wasn’t the only thing but a series of shit that made his dislike the guy.
This guy definitely is at Bitch-eating-crackers stage with his BIL.
How do you know he didn’t, sometime in the last six years, tell her he was cheating, and they worked through it together?
How do you know *she* didn’t find out he was cheating sometime in the past 6 years (or 25 years), and they worked it out?
How do you know that they don’t have an agreement and are open in some capacity but didn’t want to tell their families, because you know, judgement.
How do you know he didn’t face crippling grief that’s he’s been carrying around for the past 6 years, being absolutely regretful and the best, most faithful husband to your sister? How do you know that up ending her marriage wouldn’t be completely devastating for your sister, when in the here and now she has a happy marriage?
How are you so sure that his story was 100% bullshit? Maybe it’s true.
Anyways, there is a whole lot of speculation on your part, and not really any proof on yours. Plus time, it’s been six years since you had any suspicions, otherwise they seem happy yes? I’d let it go.
If she asks you, directly, I suppose you share, but you caveat it by the fact that you don’t really fully know what happened.
Do you honestly think if your BIL wanted to cheat on or leave your sister that he would a) fix you up with the girl he wanted to cheat on her with or b) tell you that’s what he wanted to do?
It was so obviously a joke. And yeah, in the moment (19 years ago) you would not have been out of line to tell him it wasn’t cool to joke about that. I fully support calling people on their “locker room talk.” But the window for righteous indignation has definitely passed.
As a general rule of thumb, you should only tell someone they’re being cheated on when you KNOW they’re being cheated on. The time to speak up about a suspected affair would’ve been six years ago, but you didn’t then or now know what your BIL was up to. You asked him directly six years ago — which, as others have pointed out, was the correct time to bring this up — he gave you an answer. You have only ever had your suspicions, so mind your own business!
You should spend less time worrying about your sister’s seemingly-happy marriage, and more time figuring out why you’re still so upset with your BIL six years after a non-event and decades after he made a dumb joke.
What would be the benefit to your sister in telling her what you saw 6 years ago framed as a possible affair with absolutely no evidence of said affair. To get your BIL in trouble? To make your sister upset?
Seriously – what is your ideal outcome here? That your sister leaves her husband, has to deal with the emotional, social and financial impact of a divorce so that she isn’t married to someone you don’t really like but has done nothing to harm you? That your BIL comes clean about his supposed affair and your sister stays with him but you’re now persona non grata? That everyone apologizes to you for every stupid thing they may have said? That your sister says “Hmmm, he’s been acting suspiciously for the past 6 years – now it makes sense, thanks for telling me now because 6 years ago I wouldn’t have believed it!”
What would saying something serve?
WTF? JFC! I am opening up a giant 48 oz can of SHEESH! Don’t you have anything better to do? The fact that you are even considering this question without any definitive evidence whatsoever makes you pretty suspect. If you were going to say something, you should have said it a long time ago. You didn’t, because you knew it was none of your business, so just leave it. And put away your petty grudge.
I can understand you being protective of your sister. But you chose not to tell what you saw right after it happened. That was your choice. It’s too late to say anything now because anything you say sounds suspect. If it mattered so much you should have said at the time and if it didn’t matter enough then… It can’t matter enough now. Which means you have another agenda. But you cannot punish your BIL without hurting your sister. Is it worth it for some 6 year old hand holding? Your BIL might very well be shady. Or maybe he got caught up in that night pretending he was single. Or he’s a louse cheating at every turn. You don’t know. You won’t ever know because it’s not your relationship. You can keep him at arms length but telling now helps no one. Least of all you. The statute of limitations has run out on this one. Let go of the guilt of not telling. Truthfully there wasn’t much to tell in the first place.
Now I have 2 theories…
1) LW is not a brother but in fact a friend with a secret crush. He wants to tell but thought he’d get more sympathy/support if he was a brother than a prospective lover.
2) LW already told and is looking for an advice columnist to support that stupid decision.
Now that you say this, wondering myself
LW I would tell your sister (blood is thicker than water)….then it is her decision on how to handle what happened….her husband didn’t deny holding hands with the woman, just said that nothing else happened which might be true(things happen, especially when alcohol is involved)….if it was my sister i would tell her, hell if it was a friend i would tell them…..then the decision is in their hands….i mean if i was married and my husband was holding hands with a woman out at a bar i would want someone to tell me
Who knew holding hands was so scandalous?! I sigh now — looking back at all the hands I’ve held over the years that NEVER led to sex, somehow. Dammit… Fuck… Apparently, I really, really blew it…
LW,
It’s too late to say anything. However, if you feel it in your gut, find a way to have your sister look at his phone : ask her to take a picture with his phone or say you need info from his email (think of a real past email you sent him ) and if this behavior is still going on, hopefully she will stumble upon something. She needs to see it first hand.
Interesting. I don’t agree. If my sibling saw something like and didn’t tell me about it, I would be so pissed off. You absolutely should have told her when it happened, his behavior was super suspicious especially with his reaction when you confronted him. I completely disagree that it is not your place to tell your SISTER or even if it was a close friend. If they had an open relationship, then it would not matter to them, no harm no foul. If it was anything else, well, she deserves to know.
If your “happy” marriage is happy because you’ve been lied to and it’s a sham, then it’s not so it happy.
I mean come on, holding hands leaving a bar?!?! Flinching when you bring it up? That is highly unlikely to be super innocent.
I think LW is upset with himself over not telling his sister about the hand-holding incident when it happened and that’s why he’s been stewing over it all this time and why he’s been looking back to anything that might support his suspicions about his BIL. He did talk to his BIL though, which was the right thing to do and then he dropped it. Not sure why he’s still spun up about it if all seems well with them. That there has been nothing untoward seeming to have happened since then is the reason he needs to let it go. Six years later there is nothing good that could come of telling this tale of nothing to his sister.