Photo: fizkes/Shutterstock
Her brother thinks she had no right to do this.
By Amanda Hartmann — Written on Feb 05, 2022
A 22-year-old woman turned to Reddit after worrying that she had done something wrong and potentially ruined her brother's engagement.
The subreddit “AITA,” or “Am I the A**hole,” is designed for people to share stories like hers and get an outside perspective on it.
After sharing, other users are able to comment and vote on who in this situation was “the a**hole.”
So, when this woman faced a moral dilemma after arguing with her brother, she turned to Reddit for advice.
She had told her brother's fiancé about his four estranged children who he was keeping as a secret from her.
The sister starts by explaining how her brother has spent the past several years treating women.
Her brother, who she refers to in her post as Jamie, often had various girls coming to their shared residence, even when he was in a relationship with someone else.
His sister figured that his actions would catch up to him eventually, and that, “it's his life and he's free to mess it up as much as he wants,” so she did not involve herself in these situations.
With these various women, he has four children.
According to his sister’s post, Jamie only pays child support on one of his children — his oldest, 10-year-old daughter — and still rarely sees her.
He has twins with another girl, whom he also rarely sees and does not offer any assistance to her.
Finally, he has one other son, who he does see at all. His sister believes he is around eight years old, but it is clear she is not entirely sure because her brother is never in contact with him.
Jamie’s sister comments on his behavior towards his children, saying, “He calls the ones he has 'accidents' and has said before that he wishes he hadn't had them because he gets irritated when their mothers call him.”
Now, her brother is more interested in something serious.
The sister explains that Jamie met his now-fiancé, Natalie, three years ago, “and they immediately hit it off.”
Due to Jamie’s previous problems with relationships, she expected this to be a short-lived relationship, but she was proven wrong when they continued to last this time.
The sister goes onto explain that only a few weeks ago, her brother now proposed to Natalie, which was exciting to everyone.
She writes, “I congratulated them and didn't have any problems with this until a few nights ago when we were all drinking and talking.”
She explains that Natalie was gushing about the wedding and their plans for the future, saying that “she mentioned how she wanted kids as soon as she could and how she could see my brother being the best dad.”
When the sister first let it slip, it wasn’t intentional.
Not realizing that her brother had kept the kids secret from Natalie, Jamie’s sister laughed and said, “He hasn't been the best dad to the four he has now.”
This is when Jamie began to freak out, but his sister continued to explain upon realizing that it had been held from Natalie, saying that she “explained how he wasn't raising his kids and how he didn't even want to see them and didn't want kids at all.”
Jamie, who was drunk at the time, started yelling, and so his sister left.
Since then, he has been blowing up her phone and blaming her for everything that happened, saying that it “should've been his choice to tell her about the kids.”
Their parents agree as well and have been shutting out their daughter.
It seems that Jamie’s engagement with Natalie might now be in jeopardy, as they are having a terrible fight, but his sister can only bring herself to feel bad enough to ask for a second opinion, writing, “Honestly I feel like I warned her before things got too serious, even if it wasn't deliberate. He should've told her before about them. So AITA here?”
The comments were on her side, although they have not yet come to a verdict.
While the thread is still open for further comments and input, it seems that the most popular opinions favor the sister’s actions over Jamie’s.
The most-liked comment focused on Jamie’s wrongdoings, stressing that “his choice” has clearly already been made — and that he made the wrong one.
Other popular comments stressed that Jamie’s sister had likely saved Natalie from a deceitful relationship.
Yet another stressed that she was likely rescued from other situations that she could be dragged into as a result of these children — while having no way of knowing what she would be getting into.
And, as this last comment points out, since the slip up was a reasonable accident, (After all, who would assume a person would hide four children from their fiancé?) she should not worry about feeling guilty over the situation.
Unfortunately for Jamie, not many — if any — of the comments seemed to favor him in the situation, and we can hardly blame them.
Amanda Hartmann is a writer and editorial intern at YourTango who writes on news and entertainment.