Someecards Logo
ADVERTISING
'AITA for adopting my brother's affair baby?' UPDATED

'AITA for adopting my brother's affair baby?' UPDATED

ADVERTISING

"AITA for adopting my brother's affair baby?"

Honey-Deal5461

I (26f) am in a long-term committed relationship with another woman(23f). Both of us have always known that we wanted children, and we've had a lot of discussions about just how that might happen. My brother, Roy (34m), cheated on his wife (32f) with a younger woman, Mary (21f).

He had been carrying on an affair with her for about 2 years. Mary says that nothing started until after she was 18, for what it's worth. However, all of this came to light when she got pregnant and came to our family.

Roy wanted her to abort, but she wasn't comfortable with that, and he convinced her to go with adoption instead. Obviously, this caused major trouble in his marriage.

Our family all came to know about Mary, and my partner and I actually ended up offering her a lot of support. We genuinely became friends with her as well. Mary is not in a position to be raising a child, and she's not really interested in motherhood.

However, my partner has had a little bit of baby fever, and she asked if we could be the ones to adopt Mary's kid. Our state actually makes private adoptions pretty straightforward, so we made the arrangements through an attorney.

Mary was happy about this, and we told her that we'd be glad to have her in the baby's life as it fits her ability to be around. Mary gave birth to our beautiful daughter, Sabrina, and Sabrina has been living with my partner and I ever since. Legally, I'm her mother.

My parents have been thrilled about this, because they love the idea of having their grandkid around. They've been a great help and are constantly helping us look after our daughter.

Roy, however, is severely unhappy about this, to say the least. He didn't want us to adopt Sabrina, and he says that her being around at family functions and in everyone's lives so much is upsetting to his wife.

They've reconciled, more or less, and she's kind of stuck with him(she’s been his SAHP since she was 20, and there are reasons why a divorce might not go well for her), but he says that Sabrina is a constant sore point.

Both Roy and his wife are resolutely child-free, and his wife had literally threatened to divorce him if he attempted to gain custody over Sabrina. Roy says that there were a million other ways that my partner or I could have gotten a baby, and that it was selfish and AH-ish to force “His mistresses baby” back into his life after he was trying to repair things.

He's repeatedly pointed out that my partner still thinks she might want to get pregnant at some point soon and the fact that I haven't denied that I might be pregnant someday as reasons why we should have let Sabrina go to some other family “where she won't automatically cause trouble”.

He is also not only upset about Sabrina being in the family, but about Mary being around too. He really hates her, because he feels like she tried to baby trap him. This couldn't be further from the truth, as she never wanted to keep the baby one way or another.

As to how she got pregnant, they were using condoms, and he thought she was also on birth control. Mary has admitted that she lied about being on BC, because she didn't like the side effects and he was using condoms anyway.

She admits this was dumb. She's pretty sure she got pregnant when Roy got kind of lazy / impatient and used the same condom for a second round. Roy is absolutely furious at her, and thinks that she did it on purpose, but she didn't, and besides that she was like 19 or something and obviously not the one at fault here.

He's upset about the fact that we don't plan on keeping his paternity a secret when Sabrina is old enough to ask questions, and he has repeatedly said that his “problem” was “solved” and we “unsolved it”.

Roy used to be our parents favorite. He has a very prestigious, very high paying job, he's their firstborn son, and until they accepted that he and his wife were truly serious about being child-free, they figured he was their best chance at grandkids. I, on the other hand was always kind of the family weirdo, and my parents have never really understood my personality.

While they haven't been homophobic or anything, I sometimes gotten the vibe that they were a little disappointed I was mostly dating women and settled down with another woman, and that they might have been hoping my sexuality was just a phase and that I'd eventually settle down with a man.

Now, however, Roy has gotten tons of flack from them, and they've been practically showering my partner and me with love and support. He is clearly very, very jealous.

Roy has sad that I brought Sabrina into a messed up family situation and that I should have let her have a chance at going to a normal household, and he has come dangerously close to implying that It's wrong of me to be raising her in a non-married, semi-open relationship between two women rather than in a traditional, married, heterosexual household.

I've told him that he can shove his implications, and that any part of this that's a problem for him is his own damn fault. Everyone loves Sabrina, and as far as I'm concerned, if that causes problems for Roy and his wife, then that's on them. Some of my friends / acquaintances have expressed limited sympathy for Roy and said that they can understand how I'm messing up his life though, but I disagree.

The affair happened, and I don't feel like he should be relying on his wife forgetting about it by just keeping it out of sight and out of mind like she's a goldfish or something. AITA for adopting my brother's affair daughter?

Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:

Enveyin

Did I read correctly? Roy's wife is a stay at home partner but they have no children together? She doesn't work? Well, this situation might be a wake up call for her to get some form of job lol.

QCr8onQ

…b/c it won’t be Roy’s last affair.

Theunpolitical

It seems like he thought this whole pregnancy and affair could be just swept under the rug. Instead of showing accountability and responsibility for the affair and baby, he's trying to distract everyone by blaming onto others such as you and your partner and the baby, which Sabrina is a beautiful name assuming it's a real name.

Your brother sounds like he's emotionally immature and lacks any depth for being remorseful for his mistakes of grooming a very young and impressionable teen and then impregnating her because of his carelessness; instead, he wants to move on like it never happened when there is proof that it did. NTA and your brother needs to grow up.

p.s. I would ask a professional therapist how to handle the discussion with Sabrina how her Uncle is really her Father. That might be some confusion there and she might need some help understanding that as she gets older. Plus, I don't think your brother will ever be warm and fuzzy towards her so she'll have some issues with that type of rejection.

Cyrious123

Roy is the last person who gets a "say" in this unless he wants to exert his parental rights. I think it's a great idea as the child will actually have blood ties to you! I feel for his wife but he FAAFO I guess so screw his opinions on this! He better get on board or his child will resent and hate him! That would be the worst result out of this. Good luck!

Misommar1246

Disagree and ESH from me. Of all the children in the world this is the one you picked and you intend to keep her mother around and you intend to reveal her father to her when her father wants none of that and it’s causing marital problems.

Roy is an AH for sure but you’re doing your damnest to make things worse for him. Sabrina could have ended up with another family just as loving as yours so you’re not necessarily doing something heroic for her either. The only person not the AH here is the wife who will have a constant reminder of her husband’s affair and none of you deserve her.

OP came back with some edits and updates to the original post:

Just a small edit so I don't have to repeat myself in the comments for things that people have asked: People have asked if Roy could stop the adoption. Technically sort of, but actually no. If Roy had tried to block the adoption from going through, then Mary could also back out, and that would just mean that she keeps the baby.

That would mean that Roy pays her child support, and it would also mean that our parents would have completely disowned him, probably had Mary move in with them, and that our aunts and uncles and entire extended family would have gone completely nuclear, tearing his life apart.

He never had the ability to try to block exactly one person from being able to adopt without also giving Mary the ability to call the whole thing off and accept that she's forced to keep the baby. He never had the option to get what he wanted, which would be for Sabrina to just disappear.

Roy really didn't have any choice about whether or not the adoption went through. Not unless he wanted to pay Mary child support and still have Sabrina around anyway. Probably even more.

I've never been close with Roy's wife. I've always just been Roy's annoying little sister to her, and she's always just been Roy's wife to me. When I was a kid, she seemed to think I was a pest, and even since I've been an adult, she's always been pretty clear that she doesn't like my fashion, or my politics, or my “lifestyle”.

We've never had any kind of feud or drama, but we've also never done more than exchange pleasantries and small talk at family gatherings. It's not like we talked much before, so it would have been weird to start talking to her now.

For as much as she says that she cares about traditional values, and as much as she's criticized the concept of open relationships, she's also been unfaithful to Roy before. I asked my mom, and she confirmed that Roy spotted her nudes on his former friend's phone years ago, and My mom also told me that Roy confirmed his wife and the friend did meet up physically together.

She didn't want to go into Roy's business anymore than that, and I didn't want to pry anymore. She and Roy do have a prenup, and while I don't know the terms or everything that goes on in their marriage, people have implied that a divorce might not go well for her.

Also to clarify, Mary is not constantly around or there at every family function or anything like that. My partner and I are friends with her, and she's at our place *sometimes*, and she's at our parents even rarer than that.

She doesn't come to every gathering or hang around constantly at all, even though me and my parents have told her that she's obviously welcome. She's Sabrina's bio mom, and we want to have a good relationship with her and for Sabrina to have the chance to know her.

Regarding telling Sabrina that Roy is her bio dad, that's not really much of a choice. We want her to know that we are her bio family, and we want her to know that her grandparents are her blood grandparents.

Unless we told her a giant lie and pretended that none of us were related to her, there would be absolutely no way to hide the fact that Roy is her bio father. Our parents only have one son. We don't plan to super highlight the fact or anything, but Sabrina won't have to be too old before it would be completely obvious. We don't want to lie to her.

Finally, My partner and I are over the moon to be parents and madly in love with Sabrina. I can't imagine that sending her away from two loving parents and a whole biofamily that deeply loves and wants her would be justified by the idea that she might sometimes have to talk to her @#$ole dad or that she might sometimes see Roy's wife make her little angry scrunchy face.

Her grandparents love her, My aunts and uncles love her, and both of her moms absolutely love her. She has a safe and secure home, and none of us would want to see her thrown out into the unknown.

This edit wasn't as small as I thought it was going to be, but oh well. Thanks to everyone who had insight and words of encouragement! We all really appreciate it.

Sources: Reddit
© Copyright 2025 Someecards, Inc

Featured Content