My Ex Cheated on Me & Got My Sister Pregnant — Should I Finally Meet My 5-Year-Old Niece?

When you get married, you assume that you’ll get along with your brother- or sister-in-law. And you hope to God that you’ll get along with your husband’s parents. But what happens if you and your spouse’s sibling get along a little too well? It’s been more than five years since one woman’s husband cheated on her with her sister. The two now have a daughter, her niece. Should she finally let bygones be bygones and forgive them — or is it a grudge she should hold onto forever?

The letter was sent to Slate's 'Care and Feeding' column a few years ago but recently bubbled up again.

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Slate

To make this whole thing so much worse, when the Letter Writer was married to her ex, they had trouble conceiving.

“I thought our marriage was strong enough to survive this,” she wrote in a letter to columnist Emily Yoffe, “then I discovered he was having an affair with my sister."

The two had a huge “dramatic” confrontation over the affair and decided to move to start fresh.

“A few weeks after we moved, my sister gave the news that — surprise! — she was pregnant,” the LW wrote.

Her ex ultimately chose to leave the LW and start a family with her sister.

“Because I’d just started a new job and had a mortgage, it was financially impossible for me to leave,” the LW explained. “I stayed in the new city by myself and eventually made friends and settled there.”

Her parents were also “hurt and angry” over the affair, but after the baby was born they softened.

The LW’s niece is now 5 and she’s “never met her.” So far she’s managed to do so by taking turns attending family functions “because I can’t bear to be in the same room as them.”

Her parents asked if she would finally consider having Christmas with the whole family, and she told them she’d consider it.

“And I really did,” she wrote.

“I took a deep breath and went on my sister’s Facebook page for the first time,” she explained.

It was all too much to take. There were hundreds of happy photos of her sister’s new family.

“My ex-husband kissing her after she’d just given birth, photos of the happy first birthday party, family trips, etc.,” the LW wrote. “She was tagged in a status update from my ex: ‘Celebrating another amazing anniversary with my beautiful wife, thank you for giving me so much happiness and our perfect daughter.’

“I literally vomited after reading that,” she added.

But admittedly, five years have passed and now the LW is wondering if she should try to push past her anger and “force myself to at least tolerate their company?”

Some commenters thought the LW should go scorched earth – forever.

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"Sister and Ex are both POS, don't forgive them and continue living your life without them," one commenter advised. "So what if their kid is innocent? You don't owe some kid your time and attention. You've spent five years not being a part of their lives, continue that."

"Exactly," another person wrote. "If hubbie absolutely needed to stray there are literally billions of people he could have hooked up with besides his SIL. LW is justified in remaining estranged forever, IMO. [….] I can think of no greater betrayal by a spouse and a sibling, really.

"If the parents are angry or dismayed by this enduring schism, they can direct those sentiments to the ex and SIL, as they are responsible for it," the person added. "At minimum, the ex and SIL could practice discretion and block the LW from seeing those pics on social media. That would have taken literally 3 seconds of effort, but saved the LW from an avalanche of hurt."

And a third commenter put it this way: "I do wonder what forked up narrative the parents are spinning in their head to even suggest this to LW."

Other commenters thought she needed to get over herself.

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"LW1 doesn't appreciate how hero ex-husband made grandkids for the family. Being a poor sport isn't a good look. Remember, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game," wrote one person.

"At some point, you have to let go of the anger. I'm not sure LW is at that point yet but radical acceptance is in her future," another person added.

"Or: they are perfectly happy and suited to each other, life is unfair and it sucks to be you," someone else chimed in.

In her response, Yoffe wrote that perhaps checking on her sister’s Facebook account had been too much, too soon.

After all, she has been purposefully avoiding any and all mention of her sister and her ex for years. Seeing them happy and in love, with a now 5-year-old, might’ve been rushing things.

“If over the past few years you’d had some minimal contact with them and knew your niece slightly, you would be in a different place emotionally now,” she wrote. “Yes, you might have still concluded you want nothing to do with them, but you would have made that decision from a more rational place. So give yourself time.”

The columnist suggested that the OP speak with a therapist, who might work on some desensitization therapy techniques to make the idea go down easier.

“Instead of consuming pictures of the past five years at one gulp, over the next few months you could look occasionally at pictures of your niece,” Yoffe advised. “She is the innocent party here, and focusing on her might enable you to see that painful as it is, something positive has come out of all this.”

The LW has been rightfully furious about this whole mess, and no one could blame her for cutting off contact.

If she’s really interested in reconnecting, she shouldn’t do it at Christmas, Yoffe added.

“If you are going to find yourself being able to be in the room with this reconstituted family, it would be better to do it at a less loaded time — say a weekend in February with no connotations of holiday joy,” she wrote.

“Whatever you decide vis-a-vis your sister, be proud that you have moved on and built a happy life for yourself,” she added.