A couple's relationship is on the brink of collapse after one husband found out a pretty terrible secret about his wife. According to a panicked post on the r/relationship_advice forum, the 35-year-old man recently found out this his 38-year-old wife fooled around with his brother before they began dating, but she doesn't seem to get why he's so upset. "She says I am overreacting, but I don’t think I am," he wrote.
The couple has been married for two years and have a 1-year-old son together.
And then there's his handsome brother, who is much younger.
The brother is "smart, and successful and a lot of women throw themselves at him," he explained.
Recently, his wife was flipping through her old phone to show him pictures from when they first started dating in 2016, "because we want to make a scrapbook to mark our two year anniversary."
A familiar face in a photo caught his eye.
His brother. For some reason she had a photo of the two of them together and some screenshots of text messages they'd exchanged.
"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," he wrote. "Apparently they hooked up after the party and exchanged numbers."
His wife even showed him their text messages because she found the whole thing to be "funny."
But he wasn't laughing at things she wrote his brother like, "Hey cutie!" and "Would love to hang out or get drinks with you sometime."
Thankfully, his brother wasn't even remotely interested. He told her that he wasn't "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."
She confessed that she was bummed when his brother rejected her, but swore she got over the sting quickly.
When the two of them met three months later, she promised she had no idea that the two of them were even related.
Now the husband is starting to piece things together about his wife's relationship with his brother.
One of those things is the fact that his wife doesn't like his brother's girlfriend, and is that because she's secretly jealous? "She thinks that she is too 'showy,'" he wrote.
"Also, my wife has always been close to my brother and now I'm wondering if there are ulterior motives," he added.
All the husband wants is some space.
The man is understandably upset about this whole thing — how could she have kept this from him for four years?
"She said she didn't want me to get angry and said it also wasn't her proudest moment," he wrote. But this all might be too little, too late. The couple hasn't spoken to each other since her revelation.
"I feel like she needs to apologize to me for keeping this a secret," he wrote. "She says I am overreacting, but I don't think I am."
This wasn't something that should have been swept under the rug.
Many people agreed that his wife had crossed a line by keeping this a secret.
"I think she knew exactly what she had done and that's why she lied her best to hide it from you for so many years," one commenter wrote. "If she sincerely thought that OP is 'overreacting,' then she should have told OP about this one night hookup as soon as she found out about your relation to your brother (that she slept with)."
Someone else had questions. "When you introduced your wife to your brother for the first time how did they react to each other?" the commenter asked. "Did they act like they were meeting for the first time?"
The husband admitted that they both acted like they'd never met.
"Honestly can't remember anything weird from that moment," he wrote.
"I think she owes you more than an apology, as does your brother," someone else wrote in. "I can't believe that at least he didn't tell you they hooked up before. There's a serious ick factor here and I'm not sure who's more to blame."
A few people thought he was being too much with his reaction.
"I understand feeling a bit weird about it but honestly it sounds like you're overreacting," one commenter wrote.
"Who cares? What she did in her sex life before you is her business. Grow up," someone else added.
"Honestly doesn't seem like a big deal," a third person chimed in.
Later in the thread, the man wrote that he's not considering divorce because he believes that there's nothing happening now between his wife and his brother.
"Actually, I believe that because my brother is actually extremely in love with his girlfriend (who is a fashion model) and I don't think he would ever cheat on her," he wrote. But he still is mad at him.
"I called him to ask for an explanation but he never called back," he wrote.
The couple should consider heading to therapy — maybe a professional can help them sort things out.
