Woman ignores brother's wishes; tells nieces their mom is dead; 'ruins their happiness.'
When this woman tells her nieces the truth, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling my nieces the truth about their mom even though their father wasn’t ready for them to know?'
About 2 years ago my SIL 27 became extremely ill & passed within a few months of her diagnosis. Prior to her passing, I 22 F flew out to go help her & my brother 29 with their daughters now 6 & 8 so they didn’t have to worry about the kiddos. During that time they became attached to me.
Her passing was difficult for all of us, especially knowing how wonderful of a mother she was to the girls. It’s been 2 years and it’s still hard for my brother to process it.
My brother said he didn’t want to tell his daughters & I could tell seeing them broke him because they would often ask how their mom was doing…so I suggested having the girls move in with me & my fiance until he was in a better place. We suggested going to therapy but he wasn’t open to it at all.
When my nieces moved in, the whole family stepped up, my parents, siblings & even fiancés side to make sure the girls were good. For the last two years he has been isolating himself, moved away (an hour drive from us) doesn’t go to therapy & burying himself in work.
He visits the girls once every 2 months or so & spoils them with gifts but other than that he doesn’t support financially (we’re in a good financial position so it’s fine, we haven’t asked for it).
Thing is my niece often ask how their mom is and when she’ll be out of the hospital. They want to go see her & we feel awful, them not knowing, I mean it’s been 2 whole years. I asked my brother few months ago & he wasn’t ready yet.
Considering he isn’t doing anything to get help & that I am now their full time guardian , I figured the healthiest thing to do was to tell them sooner than later. Before telling them, we got their teachers involved, got them therapist & told them (it was probably the hardest thing I had to do in a long time).
They are also doing a program for grieving children ( this has been very helpful because they have friends who they can relate to & a lot of support) It’s been a month & my nieces are handling it way better than we thought but my brother isn’t.
He thought it wasn’t our place to tell them & that I ruined their happiness and now that they knew their mom was dead they’d never be the same. His friends say we are major AH for doing it without his permission. AITA?
Let's find out.
ausernamebyanyother writes:
NTA. TWO YEARS?! These girls deserve to know, grieve and move on.Their dad has abandoned and lied by omission for two whole years. He's relinquished all rights to them by this point.
By this point, they're barely his daughter's anymore. You're their responsible adult. You can and should make these decisions as he's not stepping up and has all but relinquished his parental rights.
You can't only see your children 12 days/weekends in 2 years and still claim you know what's best for them.You might want to seriously consider speaking to a lawyer about your legal rights regarding your nieces.
instinctbears7 writes:
ESH. TWO YEARS?! OP has stepped up now with all the right moves but they went along with this disgraceful charade for two whole years. The kids should have known from Day 1.
They might be doing better than expected now, but when they get older and think about the fact that their whole family and goodness knows who else...
(teachers, health-care professionals??) fed them this huge, horrible lie, even if for the “best” of reasons, it might be a totally different story. Also, if the teachers didn’t know, I wonder how that conversation went…
inkypaws writes:
This is one of those ones that starts falling outside of reddits paygrade. Dad is a massive AH. He's checked out totally and refusing to deal with reality, including his daughters.
OP got dealt a tough hand, stepped up, tried to support her - potentially unstable - brother and his wishes, but as times gone on and he's still not doing anything, has rightly made the choice to tell the girls about what's happened.
I hope the girls understand (or come to) that OP was trying to do what Dad asked, but she didn't think it was right and it went on too long.