'My fiancée wants me to cut off my former foreign exchange ‘sister’ after she confessed she’s in love with me. AITA?'
"My fiancée wants me to cut off my former foreign exchange ‘sister’ after she confessed she’s in love with me. AITA?"
I’m 25M, been with my fiancée (25F) for 5 years, getting married next year. When I was 16, my family hosted a foreign exchange student from South Korea, also 16 at the time.
She lived with us for 10 months. I was an only child, and one of my family’s main motivations for hosting was to give me the experience of having a sibling like bond because I had always wanted a sibling.
During that year, we became really close, closer than my even my parents expected. She was shy and kind of struggled at first, but we bonded over small things, and I genuinely thought of her as my twin sister. When her exchange year ended, she had a full emotional breakdown before leaving. She cried a lot at the airport, and it was honestly sad to see her go.
We kept in touch. As we got older, graduated college, and started making decent money, we began visiting each other’s countries. She came here a couple times, I went there a couple times. I never saw anything romantic about it, to me, she was like family.
Last week, during a video call, she kind of made a confession which shocked me. She told me she was in love with me. She admitted she knew it was irrational, but she couldn’t stop feeling hurt that I was getting married and “would soon forget about her.”
She was crying a lot on the call, just like when she left all those years ago. I was shocked, not just at the confession, but because I had never seen her as anything other than a sister.
I told my fiancée about it right away. My fiancée’s reaction was… not great. She said she now wants me to go completely no contact with her. I told her I can’t do that. I suggested putting some space between us for a while, but cutting her off entirely would devastate her.
Plus, she lives in another country, nothing is going to happen, and I don’t want to punish her for being honest about her feelings. My fiancée says I’m choosing this “other woman” over her. I think that’s an extreme way to put it. She’s not just “another woman”, she’s literally my family. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
….. family to you but she doesn’t see you as such. I would listen to your fiance… you are literally about to spend the rest of your life with her, you continuing the relationship is sending the wrong signals.
If I were in your shoes, I would feel extremely uncomfortable being around someone I considered family but confessed they were in love with me. I also would avoid any possibility of sabotaging my relationship with my soon to be spouse just to keep this other person in my life.
Why do you want to keep this woman in your life if it jeopardizes the trust and security you have with your soon to be wife? Who is more important?
YTJ - if she was ‘literally your family’ like you claim, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with you. Granted, it’s not your fault she did, but you can’t honestly say she’s like your family, unless you’ve got a freakass family.
It might seem wrong that your fiancée wants you to cut off contact with your ‘friend’ but would you be comfortable with a male friend admitting to your fiancée that he was in love with her and still be okay with them being friends?
She chose now to confess this?. She thinks she living in a romcom and that you two are going to run away together. 🙄
I get that you see her as a family but she does not and it’s extremely disrespectful to your fiancé to keep her in your life. She’s clearly been in love with you for a very long time and those feelings won’t go away unless you cut off her completely. YTJ if you do choose this woman over your soon to be wife.
Your 10 month “sister” isn’t worth putting your marriage on the line. If you don’t go no contact with her, you’re pushing more of the AH instead of jerk bc the relationship is romantic in her eyes no matter how you try to justify it. Imagine that the tables were turned.
Your fiancé lived with her “brother” for 10 months and she stayed in touch with him. Then he admits to having feelings for her. Would you be comfortable with that? I don’t think you would.
But she’s not family. She was a guest in your home that you have a close friendship with and she thinks otherwise. Your fiance will be your family if she still ends up marrying you. How will you make that choice then? This will always be an issue.
She's a foreign exchange student. You should have been pen pals after that and nothing else. You're dragging this out to feed her fantasy and that's disrespectful to your fiancee. Go no contact. Live your life with the woman who's going to have your children.
YTJ. Big time. Huge.
Ok, so it is very clear that you are fantasizing about the possibilities now presented by this confession, and have yet to reach a conclusion on if you want to act on it, or stick with what you currently have. At the very least, you are flattered by the idea of this, and want to keep that little intrigue alive and around, while also having your fiancee.
This is natural. But, resist, because it could cost you everything. If you want to have a good marriage with your current fiancee, there is no room for crap like this or little indulgent fantasies about what might it be like if you now see this other woman in a new way and run off into the sunset together, like it's destiny or something.
Figure out where you want to be in ten years, then figure out what you need to build that, and I'm betting that's going to involve putting this friends on no-contact to respect everyone involved (including her: she does not deserve to be jerked around with hope)
Maybe after you and your wife get super solid and supremely happy together, such that she absolutely knows nothing can shake you, and this other woman moves on and grows up a lot, you can meet again as true friends, but until then, be proactive.
Because I guarantee every time your fiancee has to bug you to do the right thing instead of you just doing it on your own, some of the shine she sees you with falls off.