'My BF's brother is threatening to walk out of the family if we don't break up.' UPDATED

"My boyfriends brother is asking us to break up or he walks out of the family."

I (21F) and my boyfriend (21M) have been together since we were 17. We have a healthy relationship, and I have a fantastic relationship with his family as well. I spent every easter, thanksgiving, Christmas, and any events in between with his family.

His mom and I get along really well, and my boyfriend annoyingly complaints about how she calls me more than him. Same with him father, whose been a second father figure to me, and always reminds me I’m more like a daughter to him than his sons girlfriend.

My boyfriend has an older brother (24M) who I also get along with just fine, but he’s more kept to himself so I don’t know him as well as the rest.

His older brother recently got himself a girlfriend, and actually the first time since I’ve met him, has he had a girlfriend.

This Halloween weekend was my boyfriends parents anniversary, and they invited me over (as usual) but also asked the brother to bring his girlfriend over for the first time. His girlfriend is the same age as me, so I was looking forward to meeting her.

That saturday, I arrived at my boyfriends parents place early as me and his mother had plans to cook a large meal for everyone. That afternoon was mostly just me, my boyfriend, and his parents hanging out. The girlfriend came later in the evening with him brother.

Right off the bat, she became overly comfortable with my boyfriend and his father. She said “I didn’t know all the men in your family are handsome” and gave both men a rather tight and long hug. She then made her way over to his mother, ignoring me completely and saying “you’re so pretty. Watch out though, your husbands on my radar”.

Immediately his mother turned to me and whispered “I have a bad feeling about her”. We stayed in the kitchen, but the kitchen looks into the living room so we saw everything go down. The girlfriend sat on both my boyfriends and his dads lap when trying to talk to them and both men seemed uncomfortable. Soon my boyfriend joined us in the kitchen and said “I don’t like her.”

I called her over to taste the pasta (we all like spicy food but I didn’t know if she could handle it), to which she took a bite and said, “it’s good, I see why they keep bringing you around”. That compliment felt backhanded and I felt more uneasy with her.

We set up the dining table and it was time for dinner. My boyfriends family usually says grace before the meal, and invited the girlfriend to lead today as she was a guest. The girlfriend accepted and happily thanked god for the food and all the members- intentionally leaving me out of the grace.

I didn’t mind too much, but my boyfriend and his mom looked at me with the “you saw that” look in their eyes. As the dinner moved along, my boyfriends dad grilled her with questions about her life and this and that (something he did to me as well). She seemed like a decent girl from a decent background.

After he was done, he started asking me about the things I was working on, and my plans for graduate school. Before I could answer, she interrupted and started talking about her work and how much she hated it. I could tell my boyfriends dad didn’t really want to listen, as he gave dry responses back and then turned back to me and just asked how my family was doing.

This trend went on the whole night, where everytime I was acknowledged, she would interrupt me. Near the end of dinner, she jokingly said “be careful David [brothers name], I might just leave you for Blake [my boyfriends name]”.

I’m at a point where I don’t get jealous or annoyed at this type of stuff, so I went along and said “Yeah Blake, remember to invite me to the wedding when it happens.”

That seemed to be the breaking point for the girlfriend, as she started crying out and saying, “She’s been trying to embarrass me the entire night”. She then went on a ramble about how i’m hogging my boyfriends family and making her look bad in front of them.

Right after dinner, she dragged my boyfriends brother out of the house with her and they left for the night (we invited them to stay over for the weekend). My boyfriends family apologized to me for having to witness that, and we all chilled down to some drinks and kept the celebration going without them. The next day, my boyfriends mother gets a call from the brother who seemed extreamly pissed off.

She put her phone on speaker, so we all heard him talk. He said his girlfriend is really upset with me and his family. How she’s now having doubt about him and thier relationship. She says that as long as I’m involved in the family, she doesn’t thing the relationship with him will work out.

The brother then began to ask that I break up with my boyfriend so his girlfriend would stop crying and finally have peace with thier relationship. My boyfriend denied the request, so did his parents, to which the brother then said, “either she’s out of the family or I am, I don’t want to end this relationship over someone whose not related to us in the first place.”

Since then, no one has been able to get a hold of his and it’s stressing his parents and my boyfriend out a lot. I feel guilty but also confused on what to do. I don’t want to break apart this family but I love my boyfriend and his parents too. I don’t know what to do or how to process any of this.

Commenters weighed in on this situation:

[deleted] said:

So he leaves, sees what a train wreck she is, and comes back in a year or three, tail between his legs. He's got some growing up to do.

PoliteCanadian2 said:

Yeah this smacks horribly of a guy’s inexperience with women. He thinks she’s great simply because she likes him and he doesn’t realize she’s a train wreck and he’s getting dragged down. Call his bluff.

[deleted] said:

Don't engage. The gf is clearly disliked by the entire family. The brother is clearly desperate for the first person that showed him some attention. She was grossly inappropriate and made everyone uncomfortable. Leave yourself out of it. The brother will stay away, realize she's insane and not worth having zero friends or family

BlitzkriegBambi said:

If we're being honest here none of this is at all your fault, the brother obviously got himself involved with a mentally abusive control freak, most because a lot of this reminds me of an old relationship with a girl who almost constantly made me cut ties with families and people close to me, if anything the brother needs to be warned about what he got himself into and to stop acting like such a whipped fool

jg700 said:

You hope the brother comes to her senses and dumps her crazy a$$... dont you dare feel guilty! You did nothing wrong

GeekynGlorious said:

Wow. BIL is an entitled infant-man. This isn't on you at all. Everyone there witnessed your behavior and hers. This is on them to handle with their son and brother. You are the scapegoat for the gf, but have done nothing wrong. Listen to your bf if he needs to vent, but I have a feeling brother has had fits like that before. This behavior can't be new to them. Let them handle it.

OP later shared this update:

Thank you for the response, I feel reassured knowing Im not selfish to stay with the family, and I plan on keeping things how it is and not letting my boyfriends brother or girlfriend take control of this situation.

An update on the situation that sort of gives me more clarity on why everything happened. This morning my boyfriends mother got a hold of his brother and we all went over again and sat down together- no girlfriend this time.

The brother seemed to calm down a lot more and apologized for the commotion the other night. However he’s still backing up on my boyfriend and us breaking up for the betterment of his relationship. There was a lot of back and forth between my boyfriend and his brother- a lot of what I simply chose to stay out of.

His brother got angry again, and right before he left he said, “you can shove that ring up your bum and don't think about inviting me to the wedding.” He left after that, and the room got tense, so my boyfriend opened up to me about something.

Basically: he planned to propose to me. Not now, but he bought the ring a few months ago and told his family- including his brother about it. He said the tension between his brother and him started the moment he told him he planned to propose to me. I didn’t know if i should be happy my boyfriend wants to marry or upset that this was sorta over a ring lol.

Now i’m still confused on the girlfriends behavior but I think i can safely say that beyond the girlfriend, a big reason the brother was upset was over the fact me and my boyfriend are gonna get married. That’s the update for me. Also a lot of people asked about my boyfriends older brothers dating history- and I found out this was the first time he dated someone since he was 16 (he’s 24 now).

Anyways, that’s all, my boyfriend was bummed out that he had to spill the beans on his plan but we talked it out and he said he’s gonna officially propose with the ring in his planned time. I’m gonna stay with him, i’m gonna keep my distance from that family though, for the time being just in case any more mishaps come to fruition.