'AITA for taking everything in the divorce after my sister offered me her 'miracle baby' that turned out to be my husband's?'
"AITA for taking everything in the divorce after my sister offered me her 'miracle baby' that turned out to be my husband's?"
My sister showed up at my house holding a positive pregnancy test and said the baby was for me.
I cried. I actually cried right there in the kitchen.
Two years of failed IVF treatments. Two years of watching my bank account drain. Two years of hormones that made me feel like I was losing my mind. And here she was, my younger sister, offering to carry a baby for us.
She sat down at the table and started explaining. "I know how much you've been struggling. And I can't watch you go through another round. Let me do this for you." My husband came home from work about an hour later. I was still crying, but happy crying this time. I grabbed his arm the second he walked in.
"She's pregnant," I said. "She wants to give us the baby."
He just stood there. His face went white.
"What?" he said.
"My sister. She's offering to be our surrogate, kind of. She got pregnant and she wants us to adopt the baby."
He didn't smile. He didn't hug me. He just turned around and walked upstairs. I followed him. "What's wrong? This is what we've been waiting for."
"We need to talk about this," he said. "It's complicated."
"Complicated how? She's family. She wants to help us."
He wouldn't look at me. He just kept saying we needed time to think. That we shouldn't rush into anything. That there were legal issues to consider. But I couldn't think about anything else. I went back downstairs and my sister was still sitting there, looking nervous.
"He's just in shock," I told her. "Give him some time."
She nodded. Then she said something that stuck with me. "I know this is sudden. But I promise, this baby was meant for you."
Over the next few days, my husband refused to discuss it. Every time I brought it up, he changed the subject or left the room. He started working late. Coming home after I was already in bed. I called my sister and told her we needed more time. She got quiet on the phone.
"How much time?" she asked.
"I don't know. He's being weird about the whole thing."
Another week went by. Then my sister called me crying. She said she needed to tell me something but she was scared. I drove to her apartment. She opened the door and she looked terrible. Eyes swollen, hair a mess.
"I can't do this anymore," she said. "I thought I could but I can't."
"Can't do what?"
She sat down on her couch and put her face in her hands. "The baby. It's not just mine." My stomach dropped. "What do you mean?"
"The father," she said. "It's your husband."
I didn't believe her at first. I actually laughed. It sounded insane. But she pulled out her phone and showed me text messages. Photos. Evidence of them meeting up at hotels. Conversations about how they needed to be careful. About how I couldn't find out.
Then she showed me one message that made me want to throw up. It was from three months ago. My husband wrote, "If she finds out, we'll just say you're being a surrogate. She'll be so desperate she'll believe anything."
They planned it. The whole thing. My sister getting pregnant wasn't an accident. It was his baby the entire time. And they thought I was so pathetic, so desperate for a child, that I'd just accept it without asking questions.
I left her apartment. I didn't yell or scream. I just walked out. When I got home, my husband was in the living room watching TV.
"We need to talk," I said.
He looked up. "About what?"
"About your baby."
His face changed. He knew.
"She told you," he said.
"Yeah. She told me everything."
He started trying to explain. Said it was a mistake. That it only happened a few times. That he panicked when she got pregnant and didn't know what to do. That offering me the baby seemed like the only solution.
I asked him when it started. He said last year. Right around the time we were doing our second IVF cycle. While I was pumping my body full of hormones and crying every night, he was sleeping with my sister.
I filed for divorce the next day. My lawyer said I have grounds for fault based on adultery in our state. I'm taking everything. The house. The savings. His retirement account. All of it.
My sister keeps calling. She says she's sorry. That she never meant to hurt me. That they both made a terrible mistake. She wants to know if I'll ever forgive her. I told her to lose my number.
My parents think I'm being too harsh. They say family is family and I should find a way to work through this. That my sister needs support right now because she's pregnant and alone. So am I wrong for refusing to forgive either of them and making sure my ex loses everything in the divorce?