Sh!t has hit the fan in the last 2 days, only my family knows what has happened so I need an outside perspective.
Some important context: my brother and I recently found out that my dad is not actually his dad. Our mom had an affair and passed my brother off as my father's. My brother only found out because of some tests run while he and his wife were trying to conceive.
So on to the current situation: My little brother and his wife had a baby boy about a month ago. Understandably, my brother is still pretty shaken by our mother's affair and lies, and he obviously is going to need some sort of therapy to move forward (I've told him this already) despite this he seemed to be doing well until the start of April.
The current issue came to be because my brother has dark hair and very dark eyes, but his baby boy is blonde as can be and has blue eyes. Apparently, some of our family's comments about the baby's colouring really set my brother off. He came to me last week panicking about the possibility of my nephew not biologically being his.
At first, it sounded like he wanted to go nuclear and confront his wife, it also seemed to me like he already made up his mind about her having cheated. I did NOT want him to confront my sister-in-law and potentially blow up his own marriage because of our parent's shitty marriage. I also tried to explain that my nephew's eye and hair colour could very well darken in the coming month/ years, but he wasn't listening.
Given the situation I gave the best advice I could think of at the time: get an over-the-counter paternity test on his own. Then when the results come back that my nephew is his then he can drop this stupid obsession and work on his trust issues on his own in therapy. So ultimately I suggested he just do the cheek swab in secret, pay the couple hundred bucks, and wait to see.
Well. He paid for the test with a Credit Card he shares with his wife. She saw what the charge was for and apparently went ballistic. She kicked him out of the house, so now he's crashing with me. In the past couple of days, I've fielded calls from my sister-in-law, my own mother, and my father. Everyone seems to be in agreement that I've caused this. AITA here?
EDIT: Because this seems to have been missed. I KNOW my nephew's colouring doesn't mean he is not biologically my brother's. I TRIED to tell my brother this and he WOULD NOT listen.
For the record, I have no doubt the test will find that he is my brother's biological son. I just didn't want him to jack up his marriage by bringing his unfounded paranoia to his wife. I was trying to get him to deal with his trust issues privately without insulting my sister-in-law.
Shitsuri said:
Yikes yikes yikes what a sad scenario. I feel like there were options here other than “accuse SIL of cheating” and “buy a paternity test from paternitytestnow.com, guaranteed to be obvious on your credit card statement.”
I do think it was wrong of you to say he should get a secret (yet apparently not) test without even talking to his wife about his very understandable new paternity-related trauma and anxiety. No one’s looking great here
NexxonX said:
NTA. „in secret“ includes NOT doing it on a shared credit card... Your brothers mistake isn’t your fault.
Cultural-Ambition449 said:
ESH. This was not the best advice to give him. There are lots of reasons why your nephew could have the coloring he does, starting with the fact that he has an unknown genetic grandfather. Your brother and his wife don't have to have blue eyes for their kid to have them, they just need to carry one copy of the gene.
I get why your brother is paranoid, but you really should have encouraged him to see his doubts about the baby's paternity as a reason to get himself into counseling sooner rather than later. I think you wanted to help, but this wasn't particularly helpful as you've seen.
Your mother also sucks, she's the last person to be passing judgement. If your father knew your brother wasn't his, he also sucks because this is something your brother should have known a long time ago.
And Unique-Arachnid3630 said:
Update us when the results come back.
Yep, I'm a total a$$hole, and I'm stupid, and I give bad advice, but not for the reason you guys think. I stayed late at school to avoid my brother who is staying with me. I thought he was being paranoid and dumb and I'll admit I didn't want to deal with it. Well, I just got home to my brother bawling his eyes out. He isn't the father.
Apparently, the reason my SIL found out about the test is because he paid a large premium to get the test somewhere that offered expedited results. She noticed the large charge since it was on a shared CC with a small limit. She lost her shit on him because she knew he found her out and she couldn't manipulate him out of getting the test because it was already done.
My brother left out quite a few details when we spoke initially, including a history of her cheating throughout the course of their relationship. I'm guessing he didn't tell me because he didn't want me to hate her if the baby was his.
I feel horrible I didn't believe him. As much as this sucks I'm glad she won't be able to continue to gaslight him into believing her lies. Guys, trust your gut. Holy sh!t. I'm sure there will be more tests, lawyers, therapy, and tears. This isn't really an update.
If you're wondering why I'm even writing this: my brother knew the results over an hour ago. He texted her the results and told her they needed to talk. She immediately blocked him, me, and my brother's friends on everything. I'm writing this in the hopes that she sees this. Screw you Amber, coward.