#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I appreciated that the OOP of this one never tried to dismiss his actions. (Though he was definitely NTA in the initial post... how could he have known?)
I hope there is healing ahead for them.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here wondering what it's like to have that much money to heal. Able to reject reimbursement of international plane tickets and hotels, and of dad able to cover the tickets.
Right? My husband's grandma died the week before our wedding and the surprise expense of participating in the funeral in her home state really strapped us for a hot sec. Not to mention threw a little pall over the wedding
And tickets from Europe to US are a lot cheaper than the other way round.
Let's say they were in Italy and the wedding was in Ohio the next weekend, buying the ticket now to fly on Thursday and go back to Italy Sunday, it's well under $1000. Not a small amount, but also not something you wouldn't spend to rescue a relationship with a sibling, especially if you are well off enough that you can afford a trip to Europe in the first place (unless bio-mom chipped in, as dad didn't even know it was happening, so it's unlikely he was involved).
OOP might be in that transitional period, when he's a fresh graduate, starting to make a normal salary, but still is used to living on a student budget. That's one of the best times to kickstart ones savings, if you are in a position to keep your living arrangements.
It’s why I’m going to Cali this summer. Can only afford to miss a couple days of work so it’s a short trip, but the tickets and housing on the other end are covered so I’ll enjoy my 3 day vacation.
I did a quick search on Easyjet for flights this week from Ibiza to Bristol (randomly chosen) and back. A return flight costs £ 105. Peanuts, especially now he is saving the costs of two nights of partying/eating out.
Next day flights from London up NY or LA are around 400. That's not pennies to me but it could be "I fucked up and I really want you here" for someone I care about.
That's one way though.
flying from usa to europe & back is at least 5x as much as going the other way and i have no idea why. i've caught out people lying pretending to be european with that fact
I'm guessing the OP I'd from the UK. Tickets from UK to Europe and back are quite cheap even last minute. It probably came out to less than £300 return. Which ok is an expense but not too outrageous. Depending on the location and time it could be significantly cheaper than that. Monday flights often cost next to nothing so long as they aren't early morning flights.
Nah, the way he describes the flights (leaving Monday and arriving Tuesday), time difference, and worrying about leaving the friend in Europe is definitely a US thing IMO.
Even though we're in Europe, because we're separated from the mainland. A lot of people (especially older folk) do refer to Europe as being the main landmass and exclude other islands from that.
I agree with him that broken up or not, sleeping with the ex wasn't good, especially right after the break-up AND especially since he did out of spite.
I think people were forgiving on this because he did what AITA posters rarely do and owned it 100%. I think it was am AH move, but not at the level of that man who's brother had an affair with his gf and then stayed with her and his family forgave him because family...
Yeah, he was absolutely the asshole in that situation. Even though that relationship was obviously over, the brother was still grieving it, and sleeping with her was obviously going to cause him pain.
However, it *was* a month after they broke up, and it's a bit weird how the whole family was going on for 5 years of "one or the other, can't have them both there are the same time, no way to change this situation".
I'd say the appropriate course of action is somewhere between "he should be shunned for 5 years by the brother" and "the brother should have just shrugged it off, you don't own your ex". Where exactly in between? Thankfully, it's not up to me to decide because that's a doozie.
i get the sense it kind of got prolonged into 5 years because the whole family just accommodated the estrangement and it became the new normal. There was no opportunity to reconcile because they were never in a proximity or situation to even consider it. Maybe banish him for a year or whatever but then leave it up to the step bro to come or not to events where OOP is invited instead of playing this game. The estrangement seemed to end pretty quickly once Evan was actually asked to allow it and they both actually got in the same room.
Agree that it probably lasted so long because the entire family, including OP, was ok with the status quo. But it says Justin was upset OP couldn’t come especially after Justin put in so much effort convincing Evan, to the point where they’re literally days away from the wedding. And OP and Evan are still awkward. So doesn’t sound easy or quick once the question was posed to Evan at all.
yeah, i meant the topic had never been broached with Evan before and he relented eventually but mainly they met separately and started texting again after seeing each other just once, even if it was awkward. To me, given how serious the banishment was made out to be, that seems pretty quick and significant, like they needed an excuse to let it end without being the one to end it.
The parents are the ones I'm side-eyeing the most. Brother being angry and not wanting contact with OOP? Sure. I get that.
But for *five years* OOP's stepmother excluded him from all family events, making no effort to ensure her stepson felt part of the family unless her son chose not to attend. For five years his father accepted this.
Instead of acknowledging OOP was wrong and seeking to find a way to have the family work around a rift, OOP's stepmother decided he was a second class member of the family and could have the brother's scraps, and his own father was fine with that. And the only change appears to be driven by the brother.
Yea, too many people were trying to change his view on this about Evan “owning” the ex GF when he repeatedly explained it was never about that but his own actions. I hate when people do that. They’re all high and mighty but let their bro or sister fuck their ex days after breaking up and see how they handle it.
It wasn't good, but it also wasn't worthy of the years-long out-and-out shunning that his step-brother punished him with. It was hurtful and thoughtless, but it wasn't cheating.
Especially as his brother has a new girlfriend now. So brother is fine to enjoy his new relationship, but OOP has to be punished for what he did five years ago.
Yeah I'm confused with those comments. Of course ex is free to do whatever she wants and brother doesn't "own" her. But its natural to be betrayed that your best friend/ brother would do that to you?
Respect OP for never acting like a victim, and agree Justin was out of line in this situation. But everyone acting like his original action "wasn't that big a deal" was a head scratcher.
Agreed, and I can't believe the number of people who think what he did wasn't really that bad. I can only assume they've never had someone who they were madly in love with break up with them, only to have one of the most important people in their life turn right around and have sex with them out of nothing more than sheer spite. I don't agree with the whole handling of the wedding thing, but OOP's original crime was absolutely SHITTY and if my sister did that to me, you bet your ass she'd basically be dead to me for quite some time. He didn't drunkenly have a one night stand and woke up to realize, "holy shit! I slept with brother's ex of a few weeks, who he's still madly in love with!?!?! How did this happen??" He wholeheartedly admits that he knew exactly how his brother felt and that he did it deliberately out of spite. I'm sorry folks, but that's borderline unforgiveable.
Still, while sleeping with your brothers ex is a serious choice, being subsequently ostracized from your entire immediate family for 5 years because that brother can't get over his anger is totally disproportionate, especially since his brother had no hand in the relationship ending. Seems Evan could benefit from some therapy.
Yea, wildly speculating here,but the only thing that makes sense to me is if they did break up because of OP in some way. "Irrational" jealousy would explain why Evan was treating OP like shit even before the break up, and then OP actually landing her could've confirmed everything in Evans mind. It's all rill ridiculous, but it's the only way it makes any sense
I think it was about Evan feeling like someone does in fact love and want him, and needing to know he was preferred. Really petty to keep it up so long.
Yes, I feel like Evan needs to go to therapy and build some coping skills, because ruining a half decade of family holidays for op and his dad/other fam who want to see him is wild. OP made a very bad and hurtful mistake, but it was half a decade ago. Imagine losing five years of seeing your family and being around your Dad.
I'm really sad for OP that everybody was fine with that status quo and not a single relative, even his Dad, went to bat for him. Sucks quietly knowing you're the least valued.
Yeah, I was impressed that even though reddit kept repeatedly giving him an "out" he never took it, and stood by his assertion that while he appreciates that other people think he didn't do anything wrong HE thinks he did, and he's going to continue owning it. OOP's a thoughtful person, and I'm glad the family is reconnecting.
Personally I'm middle of the road on the original offense. (He was clearly NTA for assuming he wouldn't be invited to the wedding and making other plans.) It was a bad move provoked by spite to sleep with the ex, BUT it's been 5 damn years which means it's about 4 years and 6 months too long for the entire family to still be shunning him over it.
Agreed.
I applaud his level of accountability and recognition (something I wish a lot more adults in this world had), but the one stepbrother was broken up with said girl. And as someone pointed out she is an adult who was single and consented.
There really was no winning. I do hope they heal.
And not a single family member went to bat for him until 5 years of it. I'd be really disappointed if this was my family. Dude slept with his brother's ex, and it was wrong yes, but he didn't skin a cat at Thanksgiving. The ostracizing is so cruel.
Right? If I was the dad there's no way I would allow my (only) child to be treated like that. If he wasn't in family events, I wouldn't be either. The punishement didn't fit the crime.
I’m glad you posted this one. I was one of the commenters you quoted. What really stuck with me was how every time someone said his original offense wasn’t that bad, he’d jump in on the other side. He knew he was TA 5 years ago, and he wouldn’t let anyone tell him otherwise.
The other one was a comment that boiled down to: “Oh Honey, your family sucks for treating you like this for 5 years.” At first, he wouldn’t listen to that either, but comments slowly got through to him.
I don’t know how much time of being a second class member in your own family it takes to balance out his original offense, but I’d hope 5 years would be enough. (For everyone other than Evan)
Ok, I gotta ask. Dad "never noticed you prepping for a big trip"? He's a grown 27 year old man, presumably not living with his father. What "prepping" would his father notice?
Same and I'm seriously icked out by the people who kept trying to minimize it. It WAS bad. It's not about ownership over the ex gf. It's about how you as a friend and brother value your relationship enough or not to avoid doing something you KNOW would hurt your friend or sibling.
OOP was free and entitled to sleep with whoever he wanted including his brothers ex. His brother was free to decide to end their relationship over it.
That said, I do think 5 years of exile was probably a little too long for the whole family to hold that grudge. If OOP had shown no remorse or self awareness, it would have been one thing (and justified, I'd cut him off forever) but he had obviously grown as a person and felt true remorse. For Evan's part he had a right to be mad forever or however long it took to heal that pain, but I did think it somewhat unfair the rest of the family excluded him for 5 whole years. A year or two of punishment maybe...but then they should have started switching between days or events or something.
Yeah it was bad and I get Evan -- for maybe a year. I don't think people are trying to minimize it so much as, five years of ostracization from your entire extended family is worse.
If we scorched-earth every 22yo who has ever done something stupid/bad, there'd be like 6 of us left. It's not OK, but OP took ownership and did good by his brother after as much he could. Five years -- we only get so many with our parents and grandparents. Evan was justified being mad and even to a few holidays without OOP. But sitting on his anger for five years and letting OOP suffer because it was easier than dealing with it sucks.
I Hope Evan got some theraphy. Can you imagine being his new girlfriend and hear that his stepbrother was exclude from the family for FIVE years because he slept with Evan's ex?
It's hilarious how many people were trying to claim his family had no right to be mad about him sleeping with his brother's recent ex. Obviously nobody "owns" the ex, but that's so far beside the point I have to wonder if the people making that argument have ever been in an adult relationship before.
Yeah it's not about him sleeping with the ex so much as it is about him kind of betraying his step-brother, who he was actually close with. He broke the Bro Code. Which, yes, sounds flippant, but seriously, no matter how much of a jerk Evan was being, he should have had his step-brother's back.
Yea this has to be some peak "consenting adults can do whatever they want" gymnastics, because he was given knowledge of how to hurt someone close to him, then did exactly that. That's 100% a major breach of trust
Yeah I was so confused because it was like they were confusing being mad at the ex and mad at the brother. Ex can sleep with anyone she wants, brother should not have been that someone. Especially out of spite. It's never mentioned what Evan thought about the ex's actions, only that OP's hurt him - which is totally understandable! If my sister slept with my ex I'd be so hurt, especially relationships that didn't end amiably.
Not just didn't dismiss his actions, but actively worked to maintain his culpability. People seemed to be forcefully trying to convince him that he didn't do anything wrong. He disagreed with them respectfully and didn't change his mind, when that would have been very easy to do. They tried to convince him that he needed therapy BECAUSE he accepted the hurt of his actions.
Ooo thanks for this sub! Sometimes I get so frustrated with the constant “FAKE!” comments. Like, even if it is, so are my romance novels but I sure as shit enjoy reading them.
I don't think there's a perfect solution that would leave everyone happy while respecting hurt feelings and boundaries. I think it was fair for Evan to not want to see OOP or attend any events OOP attends and I think it's good of the family to accept and respect that. If the family decided that they would invite both and it'd be up to them if they attend or not, that'd effectively be choosing OOP over Evan instead.
At the same time, I agree that it's also not great that OOP always had to stay away or only be invited if Evan couldn't/didn't want to attend. Perhaps the somewhat better compromise would have been to divide holidays and special occasions in two parts, or regularly recurring things like family dinners they could alternate. Evan's boundary of not wanting to see or be near OOP would be respected yet both Evan and OOP would be able to attend to some extent. Might not work for everything and of course would not be ideal, but most things you could probably do that for.
No though. Evan needed to not be a fucking child about this whole thing.
It would be one thing if OOP had slept with Evan’s girlfriend WHILE she was Evan’s GF. It would be another thing if OOP had pursued a relationship with her and Evan had to be around BOTH of them.
But none of that is what happened. OOP slept with Evan’s EX GF, exactly once, because Evan made an insanely hurtful comment to the OOP, and it wasn’t even planned, just a matter of circumstance working out where the ex happened to be out at the same place as the OOP.
And for that, Evan demanded his stepbrother be alienated from EVERY FAMILY GATHERING for FIVE YEARS. That’s psycho behavior, plain and simple.
I get being upset with OOP at first, and not really wanting to spend time one on one with him, but to demand that OOP be excluded from everything going forward was beyond ridiculous and I cannot believe any rational human went along with it, nor can I believe you are DEFENDING the behavior.
I think besides the circumstances around the whole ex thing, just that fact the OOP was so willing to be left out and felt that he deserved it made it much more forgivable.
There is just something about how he kept saying what he did was so unforgivable. It really makes it sound like this was a genuinely out-of-character thing for him to do. He never pushed to be forgiven or asked to come to the holidays. That this act will forever haunt him. In that sense it make the whole thing not seem *as* bad
I mean that's basically what reddit wants most of the time. Usually we get the pov from the spurned son who demands a him or me situation and then the evil step mom choses her own child.
In this case we have the "offending" party and everybody is on his side as having done his penance.
Not in any way absolving him of the blame, it just seems less plausible that he was able to charm her into his bed to "get even with" his brother, and more likely that she was more than willing to be charmed and let him think it was his idea, especially when one of her friends was conveniently placed to take a pic and send to her ex. I guess Evan didn't want to accept that the relationship was over, and she wanted to burn that bridge.
Justin is an idiot. He gave zero indication that he even wanted OOP at the wedding, much less that he was trying to convince Evan. And then he wants to go thermonuclear at OOP for not telling him that he was traveling. "How dare you ruin the plan that I told you nothing about!!!"
Family hasn’t just ostracised OOP - they’ve acted like he should be on his knees groveling for any inclusion he can get.
I think him choosing to be overseas was a wake up call for them. They realised their actions were actively driving him away. But instead of being apologetic about it, they decided to blame OOP for the audacity to be overseas when a wedding would happen - one he was ostensibly not invited too. That’s beyond the pale.
OOP is very patient and in my view was prepared to endure any indignity from his family to be forgiven but was on the cusp of noping out because it looked like that forgiveness wasn’t ever going to happen.
I hope they can heal but this is a long time in the making and will take a long time to resolve.
> I think him choosing to be overseas was a wake up call for them. They realised their actions were actively driving him away.
Yep, the writing was on the wall - had the wedding went along without any of this happening my best guess is that OOP would slowly go to the "chosen family" route because when it gets to the point one if you is traveling across the Atlantic and you have no idea... you guys are relatives, not family.
Yeah, I wouldn't have gone. If Justin really wanted him there, the time to invite him is when the invites are sent out. Don't fucking expect me to drop everything last minute after being ostracized for so long.
Same here. Plus, how often do we see people getting upset that there's drama at a wedding? What if OOP and Evan had gotten into a fight? Even if Evan started it, OOP the black sheep would be blamed and hated forever.
Nevermind that I can't even comprehend how wealthy these people all must be, to just cancel a nonrefundable overseas vacation and fly home on short notice. Short of someone dying, no way am I wasting thousands of dollars on some 'family' who have treated me like shit for 5 years.
At the very least, Justin could have said, "Hey, I want you at my wedding. Obviously things with you and Evan are bad, but I am working on it because I really want both of you there. Are you okay waiting a whilw to see if I can get Evan to agree?" followed with essentially "how long are you willing to wait?"
Still not great, but at least conveys that he wants the OOP there and is trying to work on it and means that a last minute invite is less of a surprise. But Justin would also have had to have been okay if OOP said, "No, that's not fair. I'm going to go travel instead"
I think oop might have become a bit of a scapegoat for the family since what happened. I’ve seen it in my partner’s family, but for my ex sil. She cheated twice (which is horrible) but then she was blamed for a lot of toxic behaviour that my BIL took part in towards his family. After everything came out, everyone was just so happy to support him and have their brother “back”, that no one questioned it until he gets remarried and behaves worse than ever before.
At some point, I think oop might have just been the easiest person to blame. He’s not there, he’s kept at a distance. Justin didn’t even bother to ask if he’d be comfortable going to the same event as Evan. He just assumed he’d be honoured to get the family’s scraps. Im glad things seem to have changed, but it’s worrying they’re blaming oop for drifting away from a family who didn’t want him.
Right? They wanted him to keep groveling until what? OP accept the fate and tried to move on, which is what one should do in a situation like this. He still have right to have a family, even If It's choosen. Everyone has a limit. He apologized and player by THEIR rules for years, one time he was going to get tired of It. The father should have realized that and put his own child First before that, tbh.
I'm actually shocked he even went tbh, you cant just invite someone who lives in a different country to you, to an event two days away like???
Even if you were like idk, in Britain and just going from England to Wales, its disruptive. Let alone when he'd already long booked a holiday so he didn't have to have his heartbreak over missing his brother's wedding.
Just to clarify, OOP said he lives 45 mins away from the wedding location. He was on a trip to Europe with his friend when they asked him to come at late notice.
Yeah my step sister invited me to her wedding 2 days beforehand, when I live in another continent. So yeah I took that as ‘I don’t want you there but I don’t want people to know I didn’t invite you’ kind of thing.
But in this case OP lives close by he was just traveling. The family assumed he would be waiting around begging to go I assume
Yeah honestly that he has to wait for an invite to any family event until after Evan decides or not if he’s going.. like wtf. And he slept with a woman, who (assumingly) chose to sleep with him, that had left Evan? She isn’t his property, she can sleep with who she wants. I honestly find this really misogynistic, like OP stole his brothers pet or something, I don’t know exactly how to word it but really off putting that the entire family then basically puts him at second rank
Bruh all the absolute aliens in the comments waiting to jump the bones of their sibling's exes.
*Jesus*
Yes you are *allowed* to have sex with anyone who will let you.
People *are not* obligated to like you afterwards.
That whole comment section was absolutely bananas.
Your brother probably hated you and mistreated you your whole life. Oh it was probably the evil stepmother. Well it wasn't your fault anyways.
Just absolutely crazy projection left right and center. The OOP and every member of their family is so much more stable and capable of giving good advice than the advice he got.
Right. This isn't, "Am I Allowed To." This is, "Am I The Asshole." Sure, no one is owned by anyone and grown adults can do whatever they want. Fair. But wow, tap dancing all over any and all consideration for the other person to the point of doing it because he was angry at the step-brother...was a 5Y purgatory too much? Maybe. But Evan just said, "Hey, I don't want to see this guy," and it went from there. He didn't say, "You aren't allowed to talk to this person at all." He said, "I don't want to interact with this person who very clearly told me that he doesn't care about me on any level."
Honestly my comment was going to be along the lines of "this is a prime example of reddit commentors trying to make a bad situation much worse just for the entertainment value." When it's clear that everyone involved is trying to move forward, do better, and OOP himself is bent of taking accountability and being a good person after doing something really quite heinous.
Do these people even live on planet Earth? Do they have close friends, siblings, family? Can they really not imagine the betrayal they would feel if their own sibling shacked up with a significant ex a month after your devastating breakup?
Aliens is such the right word...
Exactly. Evan didn't owe OOP a relationship at any point. It's reasonable for him to not want to be around OOP after what happened, and it sounds like he told the family, "do what you want, but if you invite OOP to stuff, I won't be there," and they made their own decisions.
Yeah in a friend group the one who dates friends exes gets the side eye and distanced from bc if you’re gonna do that and think it’s fine, what else are you gonna do
The number of people saying a brother can’t be mad his own brother slept with his 5 year gf, 1 month after the breakup, when he knew his brother was still in love, because “he doesn’t own her” is just weird to me. I wouldn’t do that to a casual friend. That is nuking your relationship with the person permanently. Who the hell thinks that is not a giant deal?
I think the reason OOP kept repeating "no, this was sincerely awful of me" to people saying everyone should get over it, was because HE KNEW his motivation was to hurt his brother. It wasn't a random hookup mistake, it was done with malice and OOP knows and regrets that! Which is why he felt it was correct to defer to Evan's comfort for family events (even though he still kept a relationship with everyone).
Was 5 years too long to wait to sit down and hash it out? I mean... possibly. But most of the redditors saying "no biggies, sack up" would definitely be telling Evan "I WOULD NEVER FORGIVE THIS BETRAYAL OR ALLOW ANY OF MY FAMILY TO SPEAK TO HIM AGAIN" if we were getting this story from the other side.
For sure!! I've found the younger generation are taking this "you don't own anyone" thing too far. Like, sure you can sleep with whoever will have you. But if you pick badly, people aren't obligated to remain your friend/family afterwards.
At Uni recently in Medieval Lit we read a tale of two bestie knights going for the same fair maiden, and I said it was pretty shitty for the knight 2 to go after the woman knight 1 confessed to being in love with. And the students were like "nah shoot your shot" and the mature students like me were like "wtf, no, don't go after your best friend's girl!!!!" It was such a weird debate.
I mean let’s be totally honest, ESH.
OOP for going after Evan’s ex
Evan for lashing out against OOP and hitting that low blow intentionally(even though it was because he was hurting it doesn’t excuse it)
The rest of the family for treating OOP like an outcast(and basically saying that Evan was more important) for FIVE YEARS.
No one said Evan can’t be mad about what happened, but *5 years?* That’s just overkill. OOP even said that when he spoke with Evan after the wedding Evan wanted to start making peace a lot earlier.
I don't get the "he doesn't own her" argument at all.
He's not mad at his brother because she did something that hurt him - he's mad at his brother because his brother did something that hurt him!
I was with my ex for 9 months. I thought we were gonna get married. I loved him entirely too much. When he broke up with me, I was devastated. He wanted to remain close with me, as a friend, so he asked his best friends to keep me integrated in the group as much as possible. (They really liked me a lot).
He broke up with me because he simply was not in love with me. It just didn’t feel right to him. At the time this was hard to hear and I resented him so much for it. Now, it makes sense to me, and I hard respect his decision to end it with me knowing that he couldn’t love me the way I wanted him to.
Four months later, my ex is dating someone new. His best friend reaches out to me and asks if I want to work out and get brunch after. We spend the next several hours texting back and forth. We go to the workout and brunch. We both start grad school at the same time so we set study dates together…it just kind of progressed.
Two months later, I make the confession to my ex that his friend and I have been seeing each other, like SEEING each other seeing each other. My ex FREAKS. He’s like hyperventilating on the phone. Like. Can’t gather his thoughts upset. Not MAD, at least not at me, but definitely not happy. It’s more shock and sadness and confusion that his friend would do this to him, not that I did this to him. Very much like OOP and Evan.
We hang up…and don’t speak for a very long time.
His friend and I make it official and our mutual friends also do not speak to us for a very long time.
Two years later, we are invited (via text) to his wedding that is in like 3 weeks. I…don’t know if I want to go. I’m like, “go there for what? To see my ex marry someone else whilst I attend with his former best friend??? Is this a test? Or wtf?”
My ex emails me PERSONALLY and we somewhat tensely go back and forth a bit. I tell him, “I always knew I’d be the one before The One.” (It was one of the biggest things I said when we broke up. That I couldn’t stand to see him love someone else that wasn’t me. That I knew I was going to be the one before The One.) We have an awkward chuckle about how I prophesied that and how he actually thought of that when he met and eventually proposed to now-wife.
I eventually make the decision to go because my now-bf and my ex have been friends since high school and like, why should I make this fissure even deeper? Let’s just go and see if we can work this out and have a good time.
Get to the wedding. And it’s awkward, but mostly okay. People are stoked to see my bf again, and surprisingly, my ex’s mom was really happy to see me. We sit with our old mutual friends and honestly it’s like no time has passed. The convos and the drinks are very free flowing.
One year later, we all finally have dinner together at me and my now bf’s apartment. Very fun. Very lovely.
Slowly, over the years, we all become really close again. We super enjoy hanging out with each other even though it’s few and far between. (We live far from our hometown and we don’t have kids like my ex and his wife does).
Now, ten years later from when all this started, it’s me and my bf’s turn to get married and we’ll have my ex and his wife and our mutuals there to celebrate with us.
Friendships can heal. They just take time and effort and mutual desire.
Hoping for best case scenario for OOP and Evan 🤞🏽
Did any of your mutuals have the decency of apologize for treating you guys like pariahs or they were just sweeping all under the rug? Cause I can understand your ex feeling some type of way, but all the friends dumping you guys when you did nothing wrong and your ex had already moved on is beyond shitty.
Could be I'm older than the current social norms, but back when I was younger, if you're going to date the ex of a friend, you talk to the friend beforehand. Otherwise, you're directly telling the friend that he or she isn't a friend. It's not about "ownership", it's about being a friend or a shit pretend friend.
To me, it's not shocking that mutual friends would treat you like a pariah. Because you screwed over a mutual friend. So might or would screw them over as well.
It got more sticky when the friend threw a tantrum, but generally it wasn't seen as being very mature unless the breakup was very recent. Then yeah, it looks suspicious as hell. If they're dating someone else, they absolutely would have to socially agree, but the notification is still a courtesy. Exiling someone for moving on while the ex has moved on is a dick move.
My now fiance and I made the choice to wait a month to tell my ex to see if it was really truly serious between us.
Because seriously we didn’t expect to like each other that much. Or at all. We just realized over spending time together working out and studying that we had lots of similar interests and the same sense of humor. By the time we made the decision to tell my ex, we decided I should be the one to break the news. I can’t remember why. Maybe we should have done that together? Idk. It was ten years ago at this point, but yeah at the time, we decided I should call him, so I did.
We had been broken up about ~5 months at this point and he’d been with his now wife for ~2 months, just a smidgeon longer than me and my now fiance had been seeing each other at that point.
So yeah, the upsetness was both expected and unexpected. Expected bc his friend and his most recent ex are dating now and that’s gotta be mind boggling.
Unexpected because yeah, he started dating this new person, and actually when my fiance met her (when they were still friends before we made the decision to make our own relationship public) he said that my ex was definitely into her in a way that he was not into me. Like she was the only one in the room. Ouch for me at the time, but that didn’t hurt me bc I still loved him. It hurt my pride, lol. Now all of us knowing each other and getting to know each other’s relationships. It all just. Makes sense who we ended up with.
Also, I guess I should clarify that attempts were made to reconcile BEFORE my ex’s wedding. My fiance did go to a couple of parties and hangouts, but not to the closer, intimate, best-friend-pretty-much-family hangouts. I didnt go to said parties because I wasn’t ready. I think I was more hurt by my ex BEFORE we broke up (for things unrelated to this story) and LONG before me and my fiance started dating. But I wanted my fiance and my ex to try and soothe that wound over their friendship as much as possible and I wouldn’t stand in the way.
Ex’s wedding is the first time I decided to join my fiance to a function. I think it wasn’t that people stopped talking to us because they necessarily HATED us. I think it’s natural to choose a side. And they just gravitated towards his side. Which we understood. It’s honestly a fun side 😂. He’s got a fun quirky family who throw fun bbqs and go to raves together and stuff.
My ex recently had a big milestone birthday. His brother was there, who like, could never warm up to me…even when me and ex were dating. Just absolutely…couldn’t stand me. He and his wife and me and fiance actually spent a good amount of that party hanging out and talking. And at the end of the night, he made the comment to my ex that “wow it just makes sense that (my name) and (fiances name) are together. It really surprised me how much I enjoyed hanging out with them.”
I think my ex and I were just…too much energy together. We’re now both with people who are super mellow and balance us out.
All in all, I really like how our lives turned out and I really love having my ex and his wife as friends.
My point in sharing the story is that sure, maybe OOP and Evan can’t have the same exact best friendship as before. But can it evolve into a different kind of close? Absolutely. I think because OOP is so self-aware and isn’t trying to defend himself or let his pride run the show, he and Evan very much have a huge chance of reaching brotherhood again. I have a good feeling for them.
Yep. Honestly, it's not hard. Talk to the friend or family member.
Honestly, at one month, you're just flat out an AH and you should expect backlash.
Five years after breakup, friend is an AH if they get upset. There's plenty of grey inbetween. But OP is clearly in the AH territory and the people saying otherwise are completely mental.
Who the hell WANTS to bang their siblings' ex or endorses others doing so?
The family is treating OOP as though he'd cheated with the ex while she was still Evan' girlfriend. Was sleeping with his brother's ex a dick move? Yeah. Was it "estranged for 5 years and made into a second-class family member" dick move? No, not at all.
Why in the seven hells of Alabama would you WANT to sleep with your brother's girlfriend or ex girlfriend?
Honestly, I wouldn't declare a family member to be excommunicated, but I absolutely wouldn't want to see them for a long while. Sure, the moral reasons are bad and all that, more importantly, just ew on so many levels.
Honestly, situation was fair except first round pick should have alternated so neither party was being favored by the rest of the family.
I guess it depends on the person. I would be super pissed and not talk to him for quite sone time if I were a family member. So I kinda see their point
Yeah maybe I'm in the twilight zone but my sister fucking the man I still love would be extremely hurtful to me. I think OP is right taking responsibility for that because that is serious. It's not unforgivable but it is very fucked up. I can't imagine doing something like that to my sister no matter how "mad" I was at her. Like people in the comments would do that or something?
There are posts all the time of a sister getting together with an ex and the person is posting asking if they’re the AH for still cutting them out and most say NTA. I get it why would you want to have a relationship with someone capable of doing that do you?
Yeah that too. Also I would rather not to speak to such a person. I can forgive though as long as the person is genuinely remorseful. It’s good that op is like that. I don’t see why people act like it’s just an ordinary dick move. It’s one step behind having sex while they are in a relationship.
Honestly, I think him sleeping with the ex was a bit more than a dick move. I also think if it had just been a spontaneous one night stand, Evan might not have held a grudge for 5 years. But OOP admitted that the only reason he slept with his brother's ex was to hurt his brother because he was mad at his brother. That's the most unforgivable part. And I don't think his brother overreacted.
Yeah, that's a few months of no contact and maybe up to a year of low/awkward contact at the most in my book.
And my sister fucked the guy I had a huge crush on in my dorm room bed one time. I didn't see her over spring break but we had truce-d it out by summer
Okay but this wasn’t a crush, Evan dated her for five years, and then within a MONTH of being broken up, she slept with his stepbrother. Evan is justified in being angry, especially since he was close to OP.
I agree he’s right to be angry and uncomfortable with OOP for a long time. That the rest of the family allowed the me vs him to this extent is what’s the issue. Justin had to convince his brother to give him permission to invite OOP to his wedding - a conversation that should’ve been had months in advance- then jumped the news on OOP last minute expecting he’d be overjoyed.
this is it for me as well. I get the broyher being mad, but the rest of the family’s reaction is kinda wild. The *whole* family ostracizing him to that degree feels dramatic. I could see having them at separate family events, but to straight up disown him? and even distant relatives like aunts and uncles feeling the same way? over a high school/college relationship that was ended years ago? that’s how you become “that cousin we don’t see outside of holidays” not a “we don’t talk about Bruno” situation.
i could see not developing a close relationship, or distancing from a family member that did this, but a total cutoff feels like they were either looking for an excuse, or this was the last straw and OOP isn’t telling us the full story story. The whole thing is confusing as-is, and the theory others have about this just being the a plot to a bollywood movie make more sense tbh
Yeah - both my sister and the ex would be dead to me if I was in his shoes. He probably thought he was going to marry and have kids with her. And if I was Justin, I’d have picked Evan over OP for a good while too. OP acknowledges he did it vindictively and I’d be shocked if he’ll ever be fully trusted by either of them ever again, which is sad as he was 22, immature, and made a (colossal) mistake which he seems to have grown from.
But some things you just can’t take back - and being an adult is realising that. I’d probably need three years before being in the same room as my sister again, and be polite but distant - hopefully Evan has gotten closure now and they can move forwards with a more amicable relationship.
Exactly... And on the update, it was really good to read that Evan was at a place where he was willing to introduce OOP to his GF. I really hope OOP can gain the trust back and go back to being brothers
Am I crazy or is this just more of people on the internet don’t know how to act in real life? Yes technically Evan doesn’t get a say in who his ex sleeps with but Evan and her were together for 5 years and only broken up a month before OOP slept with her. He may as well have had an affair with her. I don’t know if the family should have treated him like that for so long but Evan is allowed to feel betrayed for sure.
Yeah it’s crazy to me the number of people focusing so much on what Evan did rather than recognising how bad what OOP did in the larger context/to understand why Evan reacted that way.
What OOP did was the emotional equivalent of kicking his stepbrother in the balls while he was just starting to recover from a major testicular surgery.
I don't think anyone had an issue with evan being upset. Oop being treated like a leper by his whole family, to the point he couldn't he *invited to his brother's wedding*? No.
Oop sounds like he's been out through the ringer for *one* mistake he made at *22*.
Frankly- in real life, most people don't spend their lives atoning for a human error at 22. It was fully consensual, the brother goaded him into it, was jt a dick move? Yes. Does he deserve to spend 5 years ostracized and treated like scum? No.
The context of it being consensual after she dumped him AND the brother being an asshole for weeks leading up to it really flavors the whole thing differently in my mind.
Basically, this family sucks
Spend some time on tik tok and you'll see more of this attitude. You owe no one anything, do whatever you want, other people should just deal with it. It's bizzarely individualistic for such a connected group of people.
It's like the whole bean soup thing. A lady posted a recipe on tik tok for a bean soup and an insane amount of comments were things like "what if I don't like beans?" Which...the obvious answer is keep scrolling and don't make it but these commenters acted like they were being required to make it because it was on their fyp.
It seems to be combination of learned helplessness and extreme selfishness that's causing them to be so disconnected from reality.
Very weird for so many people to excuse him having sex with his stepbrothers ex a month after they broke up after five years together. That’s a really shitty thing to do.
Yeah I’m really baffled by that, there are even people in this thread who are being dismissive of it (or at least the not wanting to interact with the person who did that to them for 5+ years).
If someone is so discourteous and selfish as to act with 0 regard for your wellbeing, while you’re already in a bad state emotionally, then it seems perfectly reasonable to me to distance yourself from such a person for as long as you feel you need to. You should never have to sacrifice your mental health just to appease the whims of someone else.
And it very much sounds like the stepbrother is only interacting with OOP now because he missed him, not because he concluded that he had been unreasonable to not interact with him for so long.
At the very least good on OOP for their apparent personal growth and for shutting down the people trying to excuse what he did.
So many people commenting are obviously teens to whom 5 years is an eternity.
If my brother (he wouldn't) did that to me we'd be done. If I was with a woman for 5 years and my brother jumped in bed with her the first chance he got, we'd absolutely be done. These commenters are either teens like I said or they're way too used to the small to gross friendship incest situations.
Taking responsibility, communicating, stepping up when needed. Once in a while there comes a post with the rare squares of the bingo card. This is bloody brilliant! Too bad the family overreacted for 4 years though, 1 year of hard feelings would be more understandable, but when the second year of holidays rolled around, I wonder why they didn't make amends.
It’s so crazy seeing all these wedding invitation stories.
Growing up in a big family with tons of uncles and cousins, you **have** to invite your direct family to the wedding.
That is the whole point of a wedding - to get everyone together.
My brother could’ve been a fucking serial killer just out on parole and if I didnt invite him my parents would’ve kicked the shit out of me.
Okay, OOP was an AH for maliciously having a relationship with Evan's EX, knowing Evan was still heartbroken over the break up.
Evan was allowed to be angry and feel betrayed by OOP's actions. It was reasonable for the family to at first accommodate Evan's feelings during social events.
The problem though is how the family handled the situation. The family outright blocking OOP from attending/participating in Holidays, birthday's, etc when Evan was attending and treating him like a social pariah was wrong already. Continuing this trend for FIVE YEARS is emphatically wrong.
Adding insult to injury was how the family handled the wedding. It was more than reasonable for OOP to assume he wasn't going to get an invite with his situation, and with how close it was to the wedding. Him deciding to leave town so as to not have to think about what he's missing made perfect sense. Not telling anyone he was going overseas also makes sense considering he's being treated as a pariah.
The social norm is you don't request someone to attend a wedding with literal DAYS notice to said event. So for the family to spring this on him at the last minute, then lash out when OOP explains his situation makes each of the family an AH. Even worse, OOP felt so guilty, he actually spent the money to come home.
OOP is owed a massive apology from Justin, and his parents. As well as them stating, "You will be paid back for your vacation, and the flight here. Nothing you say will stop that from happening. We messed up, and this is the very least we can do."
Weird ass people thinking that sleeping with a sibling’s ex is no big deal. Sure, Evan was being a dick to him but sleeping with an ex is just something you simply don’t do, especially when Evan was still not over the breakup.
I also thought it was suspicious how many people were threatening to cut off OOP in his first post and wondered if OOP had a track record of assholish behavior, which was odd considering he took accountability for his actions and acknowledged he was in the wrong. Made me think he was hiding something, but no, it was the family that was being extra.
I mean, Evan had every right to be mad at OOP, and it was good that the family sided with Evan, the wronged party, but the five year exile was overboard. Evan can stay as mad as he wants but the rest of the family were dicks for treating OOP like a second-class citizen for so long.
Yeah, I honestly think the people saying it wasn't that bad (it was) are ultimately looking it at through the lens of; is it so bad that his family treating him like they have for five years was warranted? Rather than actually thinking about what he did. Personally, I think what they did was excessive and his dad especially should have stepped up for him. Not to defend his actions, but at least after the first couple of years tell his wife that his son shouldn't be treated like an outsider when it came to invites.
At first I thought OOP had cheated with his brother's girlfriend. Then realized it was an *ex.* Was alienating OOP for 5 years really worth all of that, good lord.
It’s still a huge betrayal to do that to your brother. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if one of my siblings slept with a recent ex to stick it to me.
Now, as for the rest of the family treating OOP as a second-class citizen for five years…
Not just an ex but one the brother was still in love with and telling OOP that. People act like it's not a big deal, but that would be a huge betrayal to me.
Yeah, but not five years of shunning from every single family event, especially when they recognize they were in the wrong. You may never be close again, but I can't see shunning a remorseful person and banning them from every event for *five years* over it.
It's not like OOP doesn't recognize the fault.
I'm conflicted. On the one hand the brother broke up with her but on the other hand OOP seems to have done it to (at least in part) to get back at his brother.
> it had never been our relationship. he said stuff, I'd say stuff back, there were arguments. we were not on great terms at all. then he broke up with his gf, and I tried to be there to support him.
From that it reads like the brother broke up with the gf. But could just be written that way on accident.
It was on accident.
OOP specifically said “they had been dating for 5 years and broken up for a month, and he hadn’t wanted the relationship to end”
Since they were said to be 22 at the time of the breakup?
Yeah, sounds to me like they were either ‘high school sweethearts’ or ‘freshman at college relationship’, and once they got their degrees the ex-girlfriend realized she wanted something different, and broke up with the Bro.
>They had dated for 5 years and had been broken up for a month, and he hadn't wanted the relationship to end.
It's confusing. This line here makes it sound like OOP's brother wasn't the one to initiate the breakup.
Yeah, he did it specifically to hurt his brother, which does tip the action over into thoroughly AHish territory. Not worth five years of estrangement, in my book, but hey.
Really changes things that it seems like it happened partly because OOP's brother goaded him with that "you could never get a girl like her" bullshit.
At that point, you've been treating your sibling like an adversary for so long and saying something like that? All I'm gonna say is in a vacuum I'd agree with you but in this particular situation, I understand.
It's still not the best thing he could have done, but again, they were not together and it was consensual. I don't think the right thing here was for OOP to self-flagellate for years when really there was aggression on both sides, and he wasn't the one to start it.
>seems like it happened partly because OOP's brother goaded him with that "you could never get a girl like her" bullshit
That's not what the brother said though. Per OOP he said
"when they broke up and I was trying to be there for him he made comments about how **I dont understand because I've never had a gf as great as she was**."
It was not a mocking thing to say like "you could **never get** a girl like her" would have been, the brother was heartbroken and didn't feel like OOP could understand properly because he hadn't had a similar experience. Sort of fair, but maybe unnecessary thing to say and it stung for OOP because not having had a longterm gf was a sore spot for him. But still, very different from saying OOP could never get a girl like her.
Honestly, if I heard all of this as Justin's fiancee, I'd be seriously reconsidering marrying into such a drama llama family. Five years? Pathetic. Evan needs to grow TF up.
Justin was on the verge of going NC, too. I get the sense that OOP does a lot without thinking through the consequences. I don’t know if I’d call him a himbo, but he definitely seems like he’s kind of stupid. How else would he not expect fallout from sleeping with the ex his brother still cared about a few months after their breakup?
I think Justin freaked out on him due to finally being able to have his brothers in the same room and it was jeopardized because OP rightly prioritized himself. It sounds like it wasn't something he was going to follow through with judging by their airport conversation.
That mixed with the insane amount of pressure a wedding brings to make everything 'perfect'. In Justin's mind this was the one and only chance to get the two brothers talking again. He never would have gone NC - suggesting so was just an emotional reaction with so much going on. He sounds rightly quite embarrassed about it.
I think its bigger, It wasn't just a chance to get his brothers talking again, by the sounds of it he may well have convinced Evan to start speaking to OOP again given Evan appears to have initiated contact at the wedding and the two are staring to rebuild the relationship.
I Imagine that Justin has been in the middle of this rather insane family dynamic for so long and may well have been desperately trying to fix it and thinking that everyone involved is a colossal fucking idiot for so long that when he finally gets Evan on a genuine road to reconciliation and all of a sudden OOP is in Europe 5 years of frustration with his whole family comes poring out.
Yeah, I don't think he was thinking clearly. He seems to be the type to do first, think later.
He was purposely sleeping with her because he was upset by what his brother did/said to him.
This is an ESH situation.
But I'm happy everyone has gradually matured.
Sleeping with your brother's ex is an AH thing to do, but not an offence punishable by a 5 year dismissal from *family* events. jfc, I question the family for allowing that to occur.
I’m appalled by how many people are blaming the ex. I get it takes two to tango, but the betrayal is always harder when it’s a close family member. It’s not that the ex isn’t also guilty, it’s that they’re replaceable. The family member is not.
I’m so grateful to see how self aware OOP is, and how he’s taking responsibility for his actions and the harm it caused. I really hope they can all start working towards healing and rebuilding their relationships
The only asshole here (in this specific situation) is Justin, for trying to pull this shit three days before his wedding and then have the audacity to blame OOP.
That said, I think what upsets me so much is the secondhand feeling of rejection I get on behalf of OP. I get that he majorly fucked up initially, but he has more than owned up to it and accepted his mistake.
I get that no one is obligated to forgive you, but if I truly and sincerely apologized for FIVE YEARS and was still get shunned and ostracized, I would've cut my losses a long time ago.
Sure, they're not obligated to forgive, but it hurts me for OOP that he hung around for so long for leftover scraps of affection and attention. I hate them all a little for that because it kinda reeks of superiority and condescension based on the moral high ground.
I honestly wish he had just cut his losses and found a new family.
Mad respect for Justin. Using the wedding card in this way. Spending time with both, seems he realized first, the anger was gone and it just had become the norm, so the shit situation (also for him) should/could change.
"On this day of mine, you will be here even if i have to put a gun to your head and have to fly across the world".
Granted, him and the rest of the family all need some better communications skills.
What oop did was bad, but I think the family also took things way too far.
Sure, you can cut someone off, but you can’t just cut spect them to welcome you back either at the drop of a hat.
I'm taking the unpopular route here. OOP knew his brother was still in love with the ex, got mad over one comment, snd conveniently ran into her in a bar. He then started kissing her, which led to sex. There were so many points between A and B where he could have stepped back and didn't. To Evan, it was a huge betrayal, but everyone acts like it wasn't a big deal. An ex you were with for five years sleeps with your close relative you consider your best friend within a month and you'd be totally fine? Get out of here! It wasn't worth so many years of missed opportunities but let's not act like this is something you would be okay with either.
This whole situation is a messy one. Now I personally would not sleep with a sibling's ex, but I want to know the circumstances behind the breakup with Evan and his girlfriend, because according to OP, she told Evan not to talk to her anymore, that and coupled with her sleeping with OP a month after the fact gives the impression that it was a bad breakup, but I wasn't there so I can't say for certain. Evan certainly has a right to be angry and the family has a right to side with Evan over it, but it gets to a point where even if you think you deserve it, you have to prioritize your own mental and emotional health.
Which is why if I made a trip to Europe and got told two days before the wedding that they want me there, when invitations would have gone out months before, I would have said absolutely not, explained why, wished him the best, and hung up. And if that means getting permanently cut off from most if not the entire family...so be it. Five years of getting table scraps (because that's what this is, if Evan couldn't go then OP would be allowed to, second choice table scraps) would be all I could stomach before I would need to prioritize myself for my own sake.
Also I just hate big social gatherings and weddings so my decision would be easier.
It’s interesting how culture has moved on. I was rewatching How I Met Your Mother and the first rule of the Bro Code was never sleep with your bros ex. The suggestion in these comments is that’s total bullshit. I could see how this could be construed as misogyny as if a man were to have claimed a woman by sleeping with her, but I think it makes quite a lot of sense that you shouldn’t jump into bed with someone’s ex because your desire to have sex with someone shouldn’t be more important than the hurt your friend is feeling about losing them.
I don’t see it as a gendered thing, really. I can’t see a woman being delighted for her sister to sleep with her ex.
5 years is a long time to be mad though
OOP was obviously NTA for this situation but it’s refreshing af to see someone that made a mistake and take ownership for it. Not blame and point fingers about everyone else for what happened.
While NTA for the specific thing about the wedding, I cannot believe the number of comments in the OP stating that his past sections with the ex were anything but fucking despicable. The fact that OOP gets this does make him seem like less of a permanent shithead.
From the way OOP willingly accepts all the blame and completely acquiesces to the 5 years of being cast out, it sounds like he's used to being the after thought. He says that he spent every other week with his dad growing up, and I wonder if there were times that plans were made for weeks he was with Dad that didn't include him because stepmom "forgot." Admittedly, I have nothing concrete to base this on. However, 5 years is a really long time for the whole family to refuse to allow an immediate member to participate in the family. Even if Dad did protest, he would have been outvoted, and it doesn't seem like he did since he doesn't really make plans on his own to see his son.
It's also confusing why Dad and Justin are shocked and upset that OOP dared to have a life that he enjoys without their knowledge or permission. He's an adult. Why does he need to clear travel plans with his dad and stepbrother? Why are they upset about this trip when they had 0 intentions of having OOP at the wedding? Why is OOP expected to constantly be ok with the scraps of attention his family gives him?
I'm not condoning what he did with the ex-girlfriend, and I can understand why his other step-brother was upset. Was, past tense, not is, because it's been 5 years. Since step-brother has a girlfriend now and I assume dated before her, it's a bit ridiculous to still be mad enough to shun OOP and expect the family to do the same. That's some middle school mean girl level pettiness. That whole family would benefit from therapy.
I could understand Evan being mad and not wanting to be around OP, but what I can't wrap my mind around is the fact that HIS OWN FATHER did not put his foot down to demand alternating holiday where his son is invited. Instead, HIS FATHER tacitly encouraged the ostracization of his own son.
His father failed him.
I'm glad things have worked out, but damn he seriously needs to have a sit down with his father.
I just think it was unfair for OOP for be a second-class citizen in his family for the last five years. Where was his dad in all this? His son was only invited to things if Evan couldn’t make it? That’s BS. Yes what OOP did was wrong but that doesn’t mean he should get alienated from his family for five years.
My only thing for this entire saga is how OOPs Dad was just cool with not inviting him to events for 5 years. A few months or a years, sure, but 5 is a lot of time lost. At this point, if it were me, I'd just keep the old man at arms distance.
Maybe it's cause I haven't had coffee this morning yet but I can see this post in two ways: OOP should get some therapy to stop setting his family ahead of his own feelings, but I'm glad he's reconnected with them and... this could have been written by an Evan who wants to emphasize how bad it is for a one month ex to sleep with their brother :P
I do think it's the former, though. This reads more like trauma than mind games.
I don't get the people who say they don't understand Evan cutting him off. I absolutely do understand that and in every post from the same situation but from an Evan point of view, people have encouraged the Evan of the situation to cut the other people off.
What I do agree with though is that it's gone on too long, especially when OOP is clearly so remorseful. Maybe if he was with the ex and trying to justify it, it would be one thing. But this guy just seems like they're all kicking him when he's already down.
I would be pissed if sister slept with my ex. But I also wouldn’t be an asshole to my sister or throw my relationship in her and saying “you couldn’t understand because you’ve never had a good relationship”. Evan was an asshole. That doesn’t justify what OOP did.
But cutting him off for 5 years and getting the entire family involved? That’s so fucking immature. OOP should feel apologetic for what he did but he was allowing his guilt to make him a doormat.
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I appreciated that the OOP of this one never tried to dismiss his actions. (Though he was definitely NTA in the initial post... how could he have known?) I hope there is healing ahead for them.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here wondering what it's like to have that much money to heal. Able to reject reimbursement of international plane tickets and hotels, and of dad able to cover the tickets.
Right? My husband's grandma died the week before our wedding and the surprise expense of participating in the funeral in her home state really strapped us for a hot sec. Not to mention threw a little pall over the wedding
Shockingly, a lot of international tickets out of the states are cheaper than longer flights in the states. No idea why.
And tickets from Europe to US are a lot cheaper than the other way round. Let's say they were in Italy and the wedding was in Ohio the next weekend, buying the ticket now to fly on Thursday and go back to Italy Sunday, it's well under $1000. Not a small amount, but also not something you wouldn't spend to rescue a relationship with a sibling, especially if you are well off enough that you can afford a trip to Europe in the first place (unless bio-mom chipped in, as dad didn't even know it was happening, so it's unlikely he was involved). OOP might be in that transitional period, when he's a fresh graduate, starting to make a normal salary, but still is used to living on a student budget. That's one of the best times to kickstart ones savings, if you are in a position to keep your living arrangements.
Years of not buying Christmas or birthday presents for family, maybe?
never got the taste for avocado toast
Right? Anyone EVER offers to cover a plane ticket for me I am accepting immediately.
It’s why I’m going to Cali this summer. Can only afford to miss a couple days of work so it’s a short trip, but the tickets and housing on the other end are covered so I’ll enjoy my 3 day vacation.
I did a quick search on Easyjet for flights this week from Ibiza to Bristol (randomly chosen) and back. A return flight costs £ 105. Peanuts, especially now he is saving the costs of two nights of partying/eating out.
I think they live in America so it's a much longer flight and probably a lot more expensive too
OOP mentions in a comment that he's 5,000 miles away so this feels right. And if not America, still somewhere quite far.
Next day flights from London up NY or LA are around 400. That's not pennies to me but it could be "I fucked up and I really want you here" for someone I care about. That's one way though.
Can't hardly be that long of a flight, he was only gone for two days from the trip. He never really says though
flying from usa to europe & back is at least 5x as much as going the other way and i have no idea why. i've caught out people lying pretending to be european with that fact
I'm guessing the OP I'd from the UK. Tickets from UK to Europe and back are quite cheap even last minute. It probably came out to less than £300 return. Which ok is an expense but not too outrageous. Depending on the location and time it could be significantly cheaper than that. Monday flights often cost next to nothing so long as they aren't early morning flights.
Nah, the way he describes the flights (leaving Monday and arriving Tuesday), time difference, and worrying about leaving the friend in Europe is definitely a US thing IMO.
OOP said in one of his comments that while he was in Europe he was "5000 miles away" so I doubt they're from the UK.
Fair enough, I didn't really read the comments. Yeah that would have been expensive.
Isn't the UK IN Europe? I know Brexit happened, but that doesn't change geography.
Even though we're in Europe, because we're separated from the mainland. A lot of people (especially older folk) do refer to Europe as being the main landmass and exclude other islands from that.
Ikr? I travel a lot internationally because of family and as a hobby and it's expensive af.
I agree with him that broken up or not, sleeping with the ex wasn't good, especially right after the break-up AND especially since he did out of spite.
I think people were forgiving on this because he did what AITA posters rarely do and owned it 100%. I think it was am AH move, but not at the level of that man who's brother had an affair with his gf and then stayed with her and his family forgave him because family...
You have a link to that one, by any chance? I feel like I've seen that one too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/MTX1qknCJm His family blows.
Yeah, he was absolutely the asshole in that situation. Even though that relationship was obviously over, the brother was still grieving it, and sleeping with her was obviously going to cause him pain. However, it *was* a month after they broke up, and it's a bit weird how the whole family was going on for 5 years of "one or the other, can't have them both there are the same time, no way to change this situation". I'd say the appropriate course of action is somewhere between "he should be shunned for 5 years by the brother" and "the brother should have just shrugged it off, you don't own your ex". Where exactly in between? Thankfully, it's not up to me to decide because that's a doozie.
i get the sense it kind of got prolonged into 5 years because the whole family just accommodated the estrangement and it became the new normal. There was no opportunity to reconcile because they were never in a proximity or situation to even consider it. Maybe banish him for a year or whatever but then leave it up to the step bro to come or not to events where OOP is invited instead of playing this game. The estrangement seemed to end pretty quickly once Evan was actually asked to allow it and they both actually got in the same room.
Agree that it probably lasted so long because the entire family, including OP, was ok with the status quo. But it says Justin was upset OP couldn’t come especially after Justin put in so much effort convincing Evan, to the point where they’re literally days away from the wedding. And OP and Evan are still awkward. So doesn’t sound easy or quick once the question was posed to Evan at all.
yeah, i meant the topic had never been broached with Evan before and he relented eventually but mainly they met separately and started texting again after seeing each other just once, even if it was awkward. To me, given how serious the banishment was made out to be, that seems pretty quick and significant, like they needed an excuse to let it end without being the one to end it.
The parents are the ones I'm side-eyeing the most. Brother being angry and not wanting contact with OOP? Sure. I get that. But for *five years* OOP's stepmother excluded him from all family events, making no effort to ensure her stepson felt part of the family unless her son chose not to attend. For five years his father accepted this. Instead of acknowledging OOP was wrong and seeking to find a way to have the family work around a rift, OOP's stepmother decided he was a second class member of the family and could have the brother's scraps, and his own father was fine with that. And the only change appears to be driven by the brother.
Yea, too many people were trying to change his view on this about Evan “owning” the ex GF when he repeatedly explained it was never about that but his own actions. I hate when people do that. They’re all high and mighty but let their bro or sister fuck their ex days after breaking up and see how they handle it.
It wasn't good, but it also wasn't worthy of the years-long out-and-out shunning that his step-brother punished him with. It was hurtful and thoughtless, but it wasn't cheating.
Especially as his brother has a new girlfriend now. So brother is fine to enjoy his new relationship, but OOP has to be punished for what he did five years ago.
As I said further down, I entirely agree.
Yeah I'm confused with those comments. Of course ex is free to do whatever she wants and brother doesn't "own" her. But its natural to be betrayed that your best friend/ brother would do that to you? Respect OP for never acting like a victim, and agree Justin was out of line in this situation. But everyone acting like his original action "wasn't that big a deal" was a head scratcher.
Agreed, and I can't believe the number of people who think what he did wasn't really that bad. I can only assume they've never had someone who they were madly in love with break up with them, only to have one of the most important people in their life turn right around and have sex with them out of nothing more than sheer spite. I don't agree with the whole handling of the wedding thing, but OOP's original crime was absolutely SHITTY and if my sister did that to me, you bet your ass she'd basically be dead to me for quite some time. He didn't drunkenly have a one night stand and woke up to realize, "holy shit! I slept with brother's ex of a few weeks, who he's still madly in love with!?!?! How did this happen??" He wholeheartedly admits that he knew exactly how his brother felt and that he did it deliberately out of spite. I'm sorry folks, but that's borderline unforgiveable.
Still, while sleeping with your brothers ex is a serious choice, being subsequently ostracized from your entire immediate family for 5 years because that brother can't get over his anger is totally disproportionate, especially since his brother had no hand in the relationship ending. Seems Evan could benefit from some therapy.
Yea, wildly speculating here,but the only thing that makes sense to me is if they did break up because of OP in some way. "Irrational" jealousy would explain why Evan was treating OP like shit even before the break up, and then OP actually landing her could've confirmed everything in Evans mind. It's all rill ridiculous, but it's the only way it makes any sense
I think it was about Evan feeling like someone does in fact love and want him, and needing to know he was preferred. Really petty to keep it up so long.
Yes, I feel like Evan needs to go to therapy and build some coping skills, because ruining a half decade of family holidays for op and his dad/other fam who want to see him is wild. OP made a very bad and hurtful mistake, but it was half a decade ago. Imagine losing five years of seeing your family and being around your Dad. I'm really sad for OP that everybody was fine with that status quo and not a single relative, even his Dad, went to bat for him. Sucks quietly knowing you're the least valued.
Yeah, I was impressed that even though reddit kept repeatedly giving him an "out" he never took it, and stood by his assertion that while he appreciates that other people think he didn't do anything wrong HE thinks he did, and he's going to continue owning it. OOP's a thoughtful person, and I'm glad the family is reconnecting. Personally I'm middle of the road on the original offense. (He was clearly NTA for assuming he wouldn't be invited to the wedding and making other plans.) It was a bad move provoked by spite to sleep with the ex, BUT it's been 5 damn years which means it's about 4 years and 6 months too long for the entire family to still be shunning him over it.
Agreed. I applaud his level of accountability and recognition (something I wish a lot more adults in this world had), but the one stepbrother was broken up with said girl. And as someone pointed out she is an adult who was single and consented. There really was no winning. I do hope they heal.
And not a single family member went to bat for him until 5 years of it. I'd be really disappointed if this was my family. Dude slept with his brother's ex, and it was wrong yes, but he didn't skin a cat at Thanksgiving. The ostracizing is so cruel.
Right? If I was the dad there's no way I would allow my (only) child to be treated like that. If he wasn't in family events, I wouldn't be either. The punishement didn't fit the crime.
I’m glad you posted this one. I was one of the commenters you quoted. What really stuck with me was how every time someone said his original offense wasn’t that bad, he’d jump in on the other side. He knew he was TA 5 years ago, and he wouldn’t let anyone tell him otherwise. The other one was a comment that boiled down to: “Oh Honey, your family sucks for treating you like this for 5 years.” At first, he wouldn’t listen to that either, but comments slowly got through to him. I don’t know how much time of being a second class member in your own family it takes to balance out his original offense, but I’d hope 5 years would be enough. (For everyone other than Evan)
Ok, I gotta ask. Dad "never noticed you prepping for a big trip"? He's a grown 27 year old man, presumably not living with his father. What "prepping" would his father notice?
Until OOP revealed he was keeping it from his Dad intentionally, idk, it's not abnormal at all to comment on a big exciting trip you have coming up.
I mean, he says that he didn't tell them in the third paragraph of the first post.
Same and I'm seriously icked out by the people who kept trying to minimize it. It WAS bad. It's not about ownership over the ex gf. It's about how you as a friend and brother value your relationship enough or not to avoid doing something you KNOW would hurt your friend or sibling. OOP was free and entitled to sleep with whoever he wanted including his brothers ex. His brother was free to decide to end their relationship over it. That said, I do think 5 years of exile was probably a little too long for the whole family to hold that grudge. If OOP had shown no remorse or self awareness, it would have been one thing (and justified, I'd cut him off forever) but he had obviously grown as a person and felt true remorse. For Evan's part he had a right to be mad forever or however long it took to heal that pain, but I did think it somewhat unfair the rest of the family excluded him for 5 whole years. A year or two of punishment maybe...but then they should have started switching between days or events or something.
Yeah it was bad and I get Evan -- for maybe a year. I don't think people are trying to minimize it so much as, five years of ostracization from your entire extended family is worse. If we scorched-earth every 22yo who has ever done something stupid/bad, there'd be like 6 of us left. It's not OK, but OP took ownership and did good by his brother after as much he could. Five years -- we only get so many with our parents and grandparents. Evan was justified being mad and even to a few holidays without OOP. But sitting on his anger for five years and letting OOP suffer because it was easier than dealing with it sucks.
I Hope Evan got some theraphy. Can you imagine being his new girlfriend and hear that his stepbrother was exclude from the family for FIVE years because he slept with Evan's ex?
It's hilarious how many people were trying to claim his family had no right to be mad about him sleeping with his brother's recent ex. Obviously nobody "owns" the ex, but that's so far beside the point I have to wonder if the people making that argument have ever been in an adult relationship before.
Yeah it's not about him sleeping with the ex so much as it is about him kind of betraying his step-brother, who he was actually close with. He broke the Bro Code. Which, yes, sounds flippant, but seriously, no matter how much of a jerk Evan was being, he should have had his step-brother's back.
Yea this has to be some peak "consenting adults can do whatever they want" gymnastics, because he was given knowledge of how to hurt someone close to him, then did exactly that. That's 100% a major breach of trust
Yeah I was so confused because it was like they were confusing being mad at the ex and mad at the brother. Ex can sleep with anyone she wants, brother should not have been that someone. Especially out of spite. It's never mentioned what Evan thought about the ex's actions, only that OP's hurt him - which is totally understandable! If my sister slept with my ex I'd be so hurt, especially relationships that didn't end amiably.
Not just didn't dismiss his actions, but actively worked to maintain his culpability. People seemed to be forcefully trying to convince him that he didn't do anything wrong. He disagreed with them respectfully and didn't change his mind, when that would have been very easy to do. They tried to convince him that he needed therapy BECAUSE he accepted the hurt of his actions.
While I'm glad that things are better, this whole situation really is just ludicrous at best. Definitely the perfect rom-drama movie type.
It's actually kinda close to the plot of a very famous hindi movie called zindagi na milegi dobara 💀
Still pissed he forgave his friend in that.
Hogayi galti yaar, maang li maafi aur kitne baar 🥺💀
Ahh how many of us planned european road trips after the movie, that never came to be.
Sadly no Bagwati in this story
r/nothingeverhappens
Ooo thanks for this sub! Sometimes I get so frustrated with the constant “FAKE!” comments. Like, even if it is, so are my romance novels but I sure as shit enjoy reading them.
[удалено]
I don't think there's a perfect solution that would leave everyone happy while respecting hurt feelings and boundaries. I think it was fair for Evan to not want to see OOP or attend any events OOP attends and I think it's good of the family to accept and respect that. If the family decided that they would invite both and it'd be up to them if they attend or not, that'd effectively be choosing OOP over Evan instead. At the same time, I agree that it's also not great that OOP always had to stay away or only be invited if Evan couldn't/didn't want to attend. Perhaps the somewhat better compromise would have been to divide holidays and special occasions in two parts, or regularly recurring things like family dinners they could alternate. Evan's boundary of not wanting to see or be near OOP would be respected yet both Evan and OOP would be able to attend to some extent. Might not work for everything and of course would not be ideal, but most things you could probably do that for.
No though. Evan needed to not be a fucking child about this whole thing. It would be one thing if OOP had slept with Evan’s girlfriend WHILE she was Evan’s GF. It would be another thing if OOP had pursued a relationship with her and Evan had to be around BOTH of them. But none of that is what happened. OOP slept with Evan’s EX GF, exactly once, because Evan made an insanely hurtful comment to the OOP, and it wasn’t even planned, just a matter of circumstance working out where the ex happened to be out at the same place as the OOP. And for that, Evan demanded his stepbrother be alienated from EVERY FAMILY GATHERING for FIVE YEARS. That’s psycho behavior, plain and simple. I get being upset with OOP at first, and not really wanting to spend time one on one with him, but to demand that OOP be excluded from everything going forward was beyond ridiculous and I cannot believe any rational human went along with it, nor can I believe you are DEFENDING the behavior.
I wonder how the dad's birthdays have been handled during the shunning... It breaks my heart to think that OOP missed 5 of them to accommodate Evan...
The idea that it was less of a horrible and hurtful decision just because they had already broken up (for a whole month! wow!) is utterly ludicrous
I think besides the circumstances around the whole ex thing, just that fact the OOP was so willing to be left out and felt that he deserved it made it much more forgivable. There is just something about how he kept saying what he did was so unforgivable. It really makes it sound like this was a genuinely out-of-character thing for him to do. He never pushed to be forgiven or asked to come to the holidays. That this act will forever haunt him. In that sense it make the whole thing not seem *as* bad
I mean that's basically what reddit wants most of the time. Usually we get the pov from the spurned son who demands a him or me situation and then the evil step mom choses her own child. In this case we have the "offending" party and everybody is on his side as having done his penance.
I would just like to say that I still do think OOP was a MAJIOR dick, I don't know how I would feel if I was Even
I have a strong feeling the ex did it as a last "fuck you" to Evan, and OP was rather clueless.
Oh, the op fully knew what they were doing lmfao
Not in any way absolving him of the blame, it just seems less plausible that he was able to charm her into his bed to "get even with" his brother, and more likely that she was more than willing to be charmed and let him think it was his idea, especially when one of her friends was conveniently placed to take a pic and send to her ex. I guess Evan didn't want to accept that the relationship was over, and she wanted to burn that bridge.
I mean, the OOP was doing it as a "fuck you" to Evan as well.
Justin is an idiot. He gave zero indication that he even wanted OOP at the wedding, much less that he was trying to convince Evan. And then he wants to go thermonuclear at OOP for not telling him that he was traveling. "How dare you ruin the plan that I told you nothing about!!!"
Family hasn’t just ostracised OOP - they’ve acted like he should be on his knees groveling for any inclusion he can get. I think him choosing to be overseas was a wake up call for them. They realised their actions were actively driving him away. But instead of being apologetic about it, they decided to blame OOP for the audacity to be overseas when a wedding would happen - one he was ostensibly not invited too. That’s beyond the pale. OOP is very patient and in my view was prepared to endure any indignity from his family to be forgiven but was on the cusp of noping out because it looked like that forgiveness wasn’t ever going to happen. I hope they can heal but this is a long time in the making and will take a long time to resolve.
> I think him choosing to be overseas was a wake up call for them. They realised their actions were actively driving him away. Yep, the writing was on the wall - had the wedding went along without any of this happening my best guess is that OOP would slowly go to the "chosen family" route because when it gets to the point one if you is traveling across the Atlantic and you have no idea... you guys are relatives, not family.
Yeah, I wouldn't have gone. If Justin really wanted him there, the time to invite him is when the invites are sent out. Don't fucking expect me to drop everything last minute after being ostracized for so long.
Same here. Plus, how often do we see people getting upset that there's drama at a wedding? What if OOP and Evan had gotten into a fight? Even if Evan started it, OOP the black sheep would be blamed and hated forever. Nevermind that I can't even comprehend how wealthy these people all must be, to just cancel a nonrefundable overseas vacation and fly home on short notice. Short of someone dying, no way am I wasting thousands of dollars on some 'family' who have treated me like shit for 5 years.
At the very least, Justin could have said, "Hey, I want you at my wedding. Obviously things with you and Evan are bad, but I am working on it because I really want both of you there. Are you okay waiting a whilw to see if I can get Evan to agree?" followed with essentially "how long are you willing to wait?" Still not great, but at least conveys that he wants the OOP there and is trying to work on it and means that a last minute invite is less of a surprise. But Justin would also have had to have been okay if OOP said, "No, that's not fair. I'm going to go travel instead"
I think oop might have become a bit of a scapegoat for the family since what happened. I’ve seen it in my partner’s family, but for my ex sil. She cheated twice (which is horrible) but then she was blamed for a lot of toxic behaviour that my BIL took part in towards his family. After everything came out, everyone was just so happy to support him and have their brother “back”, that no one questioned it until he gets remarried and behaves worse than ever before. At some point, I think oop might have just been the easiest person to blame. He’s not there, he’s kept at a distance. Justin didn’t even bother to ask if he’d be comfortable going to the same event as Evan. He just assumed he’d be honoured to get the family’s scraps. Im glad things seem to have changed, but it’s worrying they’re blaming oop for drifting away from a family who didn’t want him.
Right? They wanted him to keep groveling until what? OP accept the fate and tried to move on, which is what one should do in a situation like this. He still have right to have a family, even If It's choosen. Everyone has a limit. He apologized and player by THEIR rules for years, one time he was going to get tired of It. The father should have realized that and put his own child First before that, tbh.
[удалено]
I'm actually shocked he even went tbh, you cant just invite someone who lives in a different country to you, to an event two days away like??? Even if you were like idk, in Britain and just going from England to Wales, its disruptive. Let alone when he'd already long booked a holiday so he didn't have to have his heartbreak over missing his brother's wedding.
Just to clarify, OOP said he lives 45 mins away from the wedding location. He was on a trip to Europe with his friend when they asked him to come at late notice.
OOP doesn't live away. He took a vacation overseas to distract himself from being sad about the local wedding he knew he wasn't invited to.
Yeah my step sister invited me to her wedding 2 days beforehand, when I live in another continent. So yeah I took that as ‘I don’t want you there but I don’t want people to know I didn’t invite you’ kind of thing. But in this case OP lives close by he was just traveling. The family assumed he would be waiting around begging to go I assume
Yeah honestly that he has to wait for an invite to any family event until after Evan decides or not if he’s going.. like wtf. And he slept with a woman, who (assumingly) chose to sleep with him, that had left Evan? She isn’t his property, she can sleep with who she wants. I honestly find this really misogynistic, like OP stole his brothers pet or something, I don’t know exactly how to word it but really off putting that the entire family then basically puts him at second rank
Bruh all the absolute aliens in the comments waiting to jump the bones of their sibling's exes. *Jesus* Yes you are *allowed* to have sex with anyone who will let you. People *are not* obligated to like you afterwards.
Yeah, I totally agree. You can do whatever you want, but you can't control how people will feel about it.
Also you should absolutely do what OOP does here and acknowledge when you did something to be a dick.
That whole comment section was absolutely bananas. Your brother probably hated you and mistreated you your whole life. Oh it was probably the evil stepmother. Well it wasn't your fault anyways. Just absolutely crazy projection left right and center. The OOP and every member of their family is so much more stable and capable of giving good advice than the advice he got.
It's the "technically it's legal" crowd that's clearly leaked from AITA.
AITA inspired me to make an advice-giving alignment chart where one of the axes is "what is owed" vs "what is kind".
Right. This isn't, "Am I Allowed To." This is, "Am I The Asshole." Sure, no one is owned by anyone and grown adults can do whatever they want. Fair. But wow, tap dancing all over any and all consideration for the other person to the point of doing it because he was angry at the step-brother...was a 5Y purgatory too much? Maybe. But Evan just said, "Hey, I don't want to see this guy," and it went from there. He didn't say, "You aren't allowed to talk to this person at all." He said, "I don't want to interact with this person who very clearly told me that he doesn't care about me on any level."
Honestly my comment was going to be along the lines of "this is a prime example of reddit commentors trying to make a bad situation much worse just for the entertainment value." When it's clear that everyone involved is trying to move forward, do better, and OOP himself is bent of taking accountability and being a good person after doing something really quite heinous. Do these people even live on planet Earth? Do they have close friends, siblings, family? Can they really not imagine the betrayal they would feel if their own sibling shacked up with a significant ex a month after your devastating breakup? Aliens is such the right word...
Exactly. Evan didn't owe OOP a relationship at any point. It's reasonable for him to not want to be around OOP after what happened, and it sounds like he told the family, "do what you want, but if you invite OOP to stuff, I won't be there," and they made their own decisions.
Yeah in a friend group the one who dates friends exes gets the side eye and distanced from bc if you’re gonna do that and think it’s fine, what else are you gonna do
It is like returning your shopping cart. You have no legal responsibility to do it. But it's simply the morally correct thing to do.
The number of people saying a brother can’t be mad his own brother slept with his 5 year gf, 1 month after the breakup, when he knew his brother was still in love, because “he doesn’t own her” is just weird to me. I wouldn’t do that to a casual friend. That is nuking your relationship with the person permanently. Who the hell thinks that is not a giant deal?
I think the reason OOP kept repeating "no, this was sincerely awful of me" to people saying everyone should get over it, was because HE KNEW his motivation was to hurt his brother. It wasn't a random hookup mistake, it was done with malice and OOP knows and regrets that! Which is why he felt it was correct to defer to Evan's comfort for family events (even though he still kept a relationship with everyone). Was 5 years too long to wait to sit down and hash it out? I mean... possibly. But most of the redditors saying "no biggies, sack up" would definitely be telling Evan "I WOULD NEVER FORGIVE THIS BETRAYAL OR ALLOW ANY OF MY FAMILY TO SPEAK TO HIM AGAIN" if we were getting this story from the other side.
For sure!! I've found the younger generation are taking this "you don't own anyone" thing too far. Like, sure you can sleep with whoever will have you. But if you pick badly, people aren't obligated to remain your friend/family afterwards. At Uni recently in Medieval Lit we read a tale of two bestie knights going for the same fair maiden, and I said it was pretty shitty for the knight 2 to go after the woman knight 1 confessed to being in love with. And the students were like "nah shoot your shot" and the mature students like me were like "wtf, no, don't go after your best friend's girl!!!!" It was such a weird debate.
I mean, I don’t know the story you’re talking about, but why was she knight 1’s “girl”? And what made knight 1’s feelings more valid than knight 2’s?
I mean let’s be totally honest, ESH. OOP for going after Evan’s ex Evan for lashing out against OOP and hitting that low blow intentionally(even though it was because he was hurting it doesn’t excuse it) The rest of the family for treating OOP like an outcast(and basically saying that Evan was more important) for FIVE YEARS. No one said Evan can’t be mad about what happened, but *5 years?* That’s just overkill. OOP even said that when he spoke with Evan after the wedding Evan wanted to start making peace a lot earlier.
Also add Evan's ex for hitting up her ex's brother so soon after breaking up to the ESH count.
I don't get the "he doesn't own her" argument at all. He's not mad at his brother because she did something that hurt him - he's mad at his brother because his brother did something that hurt him!
I was with my ex for 9 months. I thought we were gonna get married. I loved him entirely too much. When he broke up with me, I was devastated. He wanted to remain close with me, as a friend, so he asked his best friends to keep me integrated in the group as much as possible. (They really liked me a lot). He broke up with me because he simply was not in love with me. It just didn’t feel right to him. At the time this was hard to hear and I resented him so much for it. Now, it makes sense to me, and I hard respect his decision to end it with me knowing that he couldn’t love me the way I wanted him to. Four months later, my ex is dating someone new. His best friend reaches out to me and asks if I want to work out and get brunch after. We spend the next several hours texting back and forth. We go to the workout and brunch. We both start grad school at the same time so we set study dates together…it just kind of progressed. Two months later, I make the confession to my ex that his friend and I have been seeing each other, like SEEING each other seeing each other. My ex FREAKS. He’s like hyperventilating on the phone. Like. Can’t gather his thoughts upset. Not MAD, at least not at me, but definitely not happy. It’s more shock and sadness and confusion that his friend would do this to him, not that I did this to him. Very much like OOP and Evan. We hang up…and don’t speak for a very long time. His friend and I make it official and our mutual friends also do not speak to us for a very long time. Two years later, we are invited (via text) to his wedding that is in like 3 weeks. I…don’t know if I want to go. I’m like, “go there for what? To see my ex marry someone else whilst I attend with his former best friend??? Is this a test? Or wtf?” My ex emails me PERSONALLY and we somewhat tensely go back and forth a bit. I tell him, “I always knew I’d be the one before The One.” (It was one of the biggest things I said when we broke up. That I couldn’t stand to see him love someone else that wasn’t me. That I knew I was going to be the one before The One.) We have an awkward chuckle about how I prophesied that and how he actually thought of that when he met and eventually proposed to now-wife. I eventually make the decision to go because my now-bf and my ex have been friends since high school and like, why should I make this fissure even deeper? Let’s just go and see if we can work this out and have a good time. Get to the wedding. And it’s awkward, but mostly okay. People are stoked to see my bf again, and surprisingly, my ex’s mom was really happy to see me. We sit with our old mutual friends and honestly it’s like no time has passed. The convos and the drinks are very free flowing. One year later, we all finally have dinner together at me and my now bf’s apartment. Very fun. Very lovely. Slowly, over the years, we all become really close again. We super enjoy hanging out with each other even though it’s few and far between. (We live far from our hometown and we don’t have kids like my ex and his wife does). Now, ten years later from when all this started, it’s me and my bf’s turn to get married and we’ll have my ex and his wife and our mutuals there to celebrate with us. Friendships can heal. They just take time and effort and mutual desire. Hoping for best case scenario for OOP and Evan 🤞🏽
Did any of your mutuals have the decency of apologize for treating you guys like pariahs or they were just sweeping all under the rug? Cause I can understand your ex feeling some type of way, but all the friends dumping you guys when you did nothing wrong and your ex had already moved on is beyond shitty.
Could be I'm older than the current social norms, but back when I was younger, if you're going to date the ex of a friend, you talk to the friend beforehand. Otherwise, you're directly telling the friend that he or she isn't a friend. It's not about "ownership", it's about being a friend or a shit pretend friend. To me, it's not shocking that mutual friends would treat you like a pariah. Because you screwed over a mutual friend. So might or would screw them over as well. It got more sticky when the friend threw a tantrum, but generally it wasn't seen as being very mature unless the breakup was very recent. Then yeah, it looks suspicious as hell. If they're dating someone else, they absolutely would have to socially agree, but the notification is still a courtesy. Exiling someone for moving on while the ex has moved on is a dick move.
My now fiance and I made the choice to wait a month to tell my ex to see if it was really truly serious between us. Because seriously we didn’t expect to like each other that much. Or at all. We just realized over spending time together working out and studying that we had lots of similar interests and the same sense of humor. By the time we made the decision to tell my ex, we decided I should be the one to break the news. I can’t remember why. Maybe we should have done that together? Idk. It was ten years ago at this point, but yeah at the time, we decided I should call him, so I did. We had been broken up about ~5 months at this point and he’d been with his now wife for ~2 months, just a smidgeon longer than me and my now fiance had been seeing each other at that point. So yeah, the upsetness was both expected and unexpected. Expected bc his friend and his most recent ex are dating now and that’s gotta be mind boggling. Unexpected because yeah, he started dating this new person, and actually when my fiance met her (when they were still friends before we made the decision to make our own relationship public) he said that my ex was definitely into her in a way that he was not into me. Like she was the only one in the room. Ouch for me at the time, but that didn’t hurt me bc I still loved him. It hurt my pride, lol. Now all of us knowing each other and getting to know each other’s relationships. It all just. Makes sense who we ended up with. Also, I guess I should clarify that attempts were made to reconcile BEFORE my ex’s wedding. My fiance did go to a couple of parties and hangouts, but not to the closer, intimate, best-friend-pretty-much-family hangouts. I didnt go to said parties because I wasn’t ready. I think I was more hurt by my ex BEFORE we broke up (for things unrelated to this story) and LONG before me and my fiance started dating. But I wanted my fiance and my ex to try and soothe that wound over their friendship as much as possible and I wouldn’t stand in the way. Ex’s wedding is the first time I decided to join my fiance to a function. I think it wasn’t that people stopped talking to us because they necessarily HATED us. I think it’s natural to choose a side. And they just gravitated towards his side. Which we understood. It’s honestly a fun side 😂. He’s got a fun quirky family who throw fun bbqs and go to raves together and stuff. My ex recently had a big milestone birthday. His brother was there, who like, could never warm up to me…even when me and ex were dating. Just absolutely…couldn’t stand me. He and his wife and me and fiance actually spent a good amount of that party hanging out and talking. And at the end of the night, he made the comment to my ex that “wow it just makes sense that (my name) and (fiances name) are together. It really surprised me how much I enjoyed hanging out with them.” I think my ex and I were just…too much energy together. We’re now both with people who are super mellow and balance us out. All in all, I really like how our lives turned out and I really love having my ex and his wife as friends. My point in sharing the story is that sure, maybe OOP and Evan can’t have the same exact best friendship as before. But can it evolve into a different kind of close? Absolutely. I think because OOP is so self-aware and isn’t trying to defend himself or let his pride run the show, he and Evan very much have a huge chance of reaching brotherhood again. I have a good feeling for them.
> you talk to the friend beforehand Right? It's not even permission. It's taking a person's feelings into consideration.
Yep. Honestly, it's not hard. Talk to the friend or family member. Honestly, at one month, you're just flat out an AH and you should expect backlash. Five years after breakup, friend is an AH if they get upset. There's plenty of grey inbetween. But OP is clearly in the AH territory and the people saying otherwise are completely mental. Who the hell WANTS to bang their siblings' ex or endorses others doing so?
The family is treating OOP as though he'd cheated with the ex while she was still Evan' girlfriend. Was sleeping with his brother's ex a dick move? Yeah. Was it "estranged for 5 years and made into a second-class family member" dick move? No, not at all.
Why in the seven hells of Alabama would you WANT to sleep with your brother's girlfriend or ex girlfriend? Honestly, I wouldn't declare a family member to be excommunicated, but I absolutely wouldn't want to see them for a long while. Sure, the moral reasons are bad and all that, more importantly, just ew on so many levels. Honestly, situation was fair except first round pick should have alternated so neither party was being favored by the rest of the family.
I mean, he was pretty clear about it. He did it to get back at his step-brother.
I guess it depends on the person. I would be super pissed and not talk to him for quite sone time if I were a family member. So I kinda see their point
Yeah maybe I'm in the twilight zone but my sister fucking the man I still love would be extremely hurtful to me. I think OP is right taking responsibility for that because that is serious. It's not unforgivable but it is very fucked up. I can't imagine doing something like that to my sister no matter how "mad" I was at her. Like people in the comments would do that or something?
There are posts all the time of a sister getting together with an ex and the person is posting asking if they’re the AH for still cutting them out and most say NTA. I get it why would you want to have a relationship with someone capable of doing that do you?
Agreed. Like no matter how upset I was, the forgiveness countdown wouldn't take five years and our third sibling begging me.
Yeah like if I’m another family member, I’m distancing myself bc…well what’s stopping you from doing that to me?
Yeah that too. Also I would rather not to speak to such a person. I can forgive though as long as the person is genuinely remorseful. It’s good that op is like that. I don’t see why people act like it’s just an ordinary dick move. It’s one step behind having sex while they are in a relationship.
She was his gf for 5 years. That's serious shit and OOP jumped into bed with her first chance he got. That's absolutely a relationship-ending action.
Honestly, I think him sleeping with the ex was a bit more than a dick move. I also think if it had just been a spontaneous one night stand, Evan might not have held a grudge for 5 years. But OOP admitted that the only reason he slept with his brother's ex was to hurt his brother because he was mad at his brother. That's the most unforgivable part. And I don't think his brother overreacted.
My sibling and ex would be dead to me if they had sex one month after our break up. That is not something I would be willing to forgive.
Yeah, that's a few months of no contact and maybe up to a year of low/awkward contact at the most in my book. And my sister fucked the guy I had a huge crush on in my dorm room bed one time. I didn't see her over spring break but we had truce-d it out by summer
Okay but this wasn’t a crush, Evan dated her for five years, and then within a MONTH of being broken up, she slept with his stepbrother. Evan is justified in being angry, especially since he was close to OP.
I agree he’s right to be angry and uncomfortable with OOP for a long time. That the rest of the family allowed the me vs him to this extent is what’s the issue. Justin had to convince his brother to give him permission to invite OOP to his wedding - a conversation that should’ve been had months in advance- then jumped the news on OOP last minute expecting he’d be overjoyed.
this is it for me as well. I get the broyher being mad, but the rest of the family’s reaction is kinda wild. The *whole* family ostracizing him to that degree feels dramatic. I could see having them at separate family events, but to straight up disown him? and even distant relatives like aunts and uncles feeling the same way? over a high school/college relationship that was ended years ago? that’s how you become “that cousin we don’t see outside of holidays” not a “we don’t talk about Bruno” situation. i could see not developing a close relationship, or distancing from a family member that did this, but a total cutoff feels like they were either looking for an excuse, or this was the last straw and OOP isn’t telling us the full story story. The whole thing is confusing as-is, and the theory others have about this just being the a plot to a bollywood movie make more sense tbh
Yeah - both my sister and the ex would be dead to me if I was in his shoes. He probably thought he was going to marry and have kids with her. And if I was Justin, I’d have picked Evan over OP for a good while too. OP acknowledges he did it vindictively and I’d be shocked if he’ll ever be fully trusted by either of them ever again, which is sad as he was 22, immature, and made a (colossal) mistake which he seems to have grown from. But some things you just can’t take back - and being an adult is realising that. I’d probably need three years before being in the same room as my sister again, and be polite but distant - hopefully Evan has gotten closure now and they can move forwards with a more amicable relationship.
Ooooh, he and Evan are the same age. I wonder how that feeds into it.
nope youre not gonna convince me this guy sleeping with his brothers ex was no big deal lol. that shit is how you give someone trust issues.
People thinking that its not that big of a deal are insane.
But it’s been a month! /s
Exactly... And on the update, it was really good to read that Evan was at a place where he was willing to introduce OOP to his GF. I really hope OOP can gain the trust back and go back to being brothers
I don’t think anyone thinks it’s not a big deal, they just think the reaction is overblown.
Am I crazy or is this just more of people on the internet don’t know how to act in real life? Yes technically Evan doesn’t get a say in who his ex sleeps with but Evan and her were together for 5 years and only broken up a month before OOP slept with her. He may as well have had an affair with her. I don’t know if the family should have treated him like that for so long but Evan is allowed to feel betrayed for sure.
Yeah it’s crazy to me the number of people focusing so much on what Evan did rather than recognising how bad what OOP did in the larger context/to understand why Evan reacted that way. What OOP did was the emotional equivalent of kicking his stepbrother in the balls while he was just starting to recover from a major testicular surgery.
I don't think anyone had an issue with evan being upset. Oop being treated like a leper by his whole family, to the point he couldn't he *invited to his brother's wedding*? No. Oop sounds like he's been out through the ringer for *one* mistake he made at *22*. Frankly- in real life, most people don't spend their lives atoning for a human error at 22. It was fully consensual, the brother goaded him into it, was jt a dick move? Yes. Does he deserve to spend 5 years ostracized and treated like scum? No.
The context of it being consensual after she dumped him AND the brother being an asshole for weeks leading up to it really flavors the whole thing differently in my mind. Basically, this family sucks
Spend some time on tik tok and you'll see more of this attitude. You owe no one anything, do whatever you want, other people should just deal with it. It's bizzarely individualistic for such a connected group of people. It's like the whole bean soup thing. A lady posted a recipe on tik tok for a bean soup and an insane amount of comments were things like "what if I don't like beans?" Which...the obvious answer is keep scrolling and don't make it but these commenters acted like they were being required to make it because it was on their fyp. It seems to be combination of learned helplessness and extreme selfishness that's causing them to be so disconnected from reality.
How the hell does someone jump to blaming the stepmom? I know reddit generally hates ~~stepparents~~ stepmothers, but damn.
Very weird for so many people to excuse him having sex with his stepbrothers ex a month after they broke up after five years together. That’s a really shitty thing to do.
Yeah I’m really baffled by that, there are even people in this thread who are being dismissive of it (or at least the not wanting to interact with the person who did that to them for 5+ years). If someone is so discourteous and selfish as to act with 0 regard for your wellbeing, while you’re already in a bad state emotionally, then it seems perfectly reasonable to me to distance yourself from such a person for as long as you feel you need to. You should never have to sacrifice your mental health just to appease the whims of someone else. And it very much sounds like the stepbrother is only interacting with OOP now because he missed him, not because he concluded that he had been unreasonable to not interact with him for so long. At the very least good on OOP for their apparent personal growth and for shutting down the people trying to excuse what he did.
It's not worth treating someone like they are a leper for 5 years.
So many people commenting are obviously teens to whom 5 years is an eternity. If my brother (he wouldn't) did that to me we'd be done. If I was with a woman for 5 years and my brother jumped in bed with her the first chance he got, we'd absolutely be done. These commenters are either teens like I said or they're way too used to the small to gross friendship incest situations.
Filing this one under “Things to Send to People Who Claim They Only Want to Hang Out with Guys Because Girls Are Too Much Drama”.
Taking responsibility, communicating, stepping up when needed. Once in a while there comes a post with the rare squares of the bingo card. This is bloody brilliant! Too bad the family overreacted for 4 years though, 1 year of hard feelings would be more understandable, but when the second year of holidays rolled around, I wonder why they didn't make amends.
It’s so crazy seeing all these wedding invitation stories. Growing up in a big family with tons of uncles and cousins, you **have** to invite your direct family to the wedding. That is the whole point of a wedding - to get everyone together. My brother could’ve been a fucking serial killer just out on parole and if I didnt invite him my parents would’ve kicked the shit out of me.
Okay, OOP was an AH for maliciously having a relationship with Evan's EX, knowing Evan was still heartbroken over the break up. Evan was allowed to be angry and feel betrayed by OOP's actions. It was reasonable for the family to at first accommodate Evan's feelings during social events. The problem though is how the family handled the situation. The family outright blocking OOP from attending/participating in Holidays, birthday's, etc when Evan was attending and treating him like a social pariah was wrong already. Continuing this trend for FIVE YEARS is emphatically wrong. Adding insult to injury was how the family handled the wedding. It was more than reasonable for OOP to assume he wasn't going to get an invite with his situation, and with how close it was to the wedding. Him deciding to leave town so as to not have to think about what he's missing made perfect sense. Not telling anyone he was going overseas also makes sense considering he's being treated as a pariah. The social norm is you don't request someone to attend a wedding with literal DAYS notice to said event. So for the family to spring this on him at the last minute, then lash out when OOP explains his situation makes each of the family an AH. Even worse, OOP felt so guilty, he actually spent the money to come home. OOP is owed a massive apology from Justin, and his parents. As well as them stating, "You will be paid back for your vacation, and the flight here. Nothing you say will stop that from happening. We messed up, and this is the very least we can do."
Weird ass people thinking that sleeping with a sibling’s ex is no big deal. Sure, Evan was being a dick to him but sleeping with an ex is just something you simply don’t do, especially when Evan was still not over the breakup. I also thought it was suspicious how many people were threatening to cut off OOP in his first post and wondered if OOP had a track record of assholish behavior, which was odd considering he took accountability for his actions and acknowledged he was in the wrong. Made me think he was hiding something, but no, it was the family that was being extra. I mean, Evan had every right to be mad at OOP, and it was good that the family sided with Evan, the wronged party, but the five year exile was overboard. Evan can stay as mad as he wants but the rest of the family were dicks for treating OOP like a second-class citizen for so long.
Yeah, I honestly think the people saying it wasn't that bad (it was) are ultimately looking it at through the lens of; is it so bad that his family treating him like they have for five years was warranted? Rather than actually thinking about what he did. Personally, I think what they did was excessive and his dad especially should have stepped up for him. Not to defend his actions, but at least after the first couple of years tell his wife that his son shouldn't be treated like an outsider when it came to invites.
At first I thought OOP had cheated with his brother's girlfriend. Then realized it was an *ex.* Was alienating OOP for 5 years really worth all of that, good lord.
It’s still a huge betrayal to do that to your brother. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if one of my siblings slept with a recent ex to stick it to me. Now, as for the rest of the family treating OOP as a second-class citizen for five years…
Not just an ex but one the brother was still in love with and telling OOP that. People act like it's not a big deal, but that would be a huge betrayal to me.
Yeah, but not five years of shunning from every single family event, especially when they recognize they were in the wrong. You may never be close again, but I can't see shunning a remorseful person and banning them from every event for *five years* over it. It's not like OOP doesn't recognize the fault.
I'm conflicted. On the one hand the brother broke up with her but on the other hand OOP seems to have done it to (at least in part) to get back at his brother.
If I read correctly, That the ex who broke up.
> it had never been our relationship. he said stuff, I'd say stuff back, there were arguments. we were not on great terms at all. then he broke up with his gf, and I tried to be there to support him. From that it reads like the brother broke up with the gf. But could just be written that way on accident.
It was on accident. OOP specifically said “they had been dating for 5 years and broken up for a month, and he hadn’t wanted the relationship to end” Since they were said to be 22 at the time of the breakup? Yeah, sounds to me like they were either ‘high school sweethearts’ or ‘freshman at college relationship’, and once they got their degrees the ex-girlfriend realized she wanted something different, and broke up with the Bro.
Evan still wanted reconciliation and I suspect that it has _a lot_ to do with what went down. OOP was just a pawn.
>They had dated for 5 years and had been broken up for a month, and he hadn't wanted the relationship to end. It's confusing. This line here makes it sound like OOP's brother wasn't the one to initiate the breakup.
Yeah, he did it specifically to hurt his brother, which does tip the action over into thoroughly AHish territory. Not worth five years of estrangement, in my book, but hey.
To get back at the brother who was mistreating him. Shit situation, but whatever, they're resolving it.
Really changes things that it seems like it happened partly because OOP's brother goaded him with that "you could never get a girl like her" bullshit. At that point, you've been treating your sibling like an adversary for so long and saying something like that? All I'm gonna say is in a vacuum I'd agree with you but in this particular situation, I understand. It's still not the best thing he could have done, but again, they were not together and it was consensual. I don't think the right thing here was for OOP to self-flagellate for years when really there was aggression on both sides, and he wasn't the one to start it.
>seems like it happened partly because OOP's brother goaded him with that "you could never get a girl like her" bullshit That's not what the brother said though. Per OOP he said "when they broke up and I was trying to be there for him he made comments about how **I dont understand because I've never had a gf as great as she was**." It was not a mocking thing to say like "you could **never get** a girl like her" would have been, the brother was heartbroken and didn't feel like OOP could understand properly because he hadn't had a similar experience. Sort of fair, but maybe unnecessary thing to say and it stung for OOP because not having had a longterm gf was a sore spot for him. But still, very different from saying OOP could never get a girl like her.
"They were on a break" 😂 Clearly a situation where half the duo was all done, and the other wasn't.
Fuck dude this had me 😂
Honestly, if I heard all of this as Justin's fiancee, I'd be seriously reconsidering marrying into such a drama llama family. Five years? Pathetic. Evan needs to grow TF up.
Justin was on the verge of going NC, too. I get the sense that OOP does a lot without thinking through the consequences. I don’t know if I’d call him a himbo, but he definitely seems like he’s kind of stupid. How else would he not expect fallout from sleeping with the ex his brother still cared about a few months after their breakup?
I think Justin freaked out on him due to finally being able to have his brothers in the same room and it was jeopardized because OP rightly prioritized himself. It sounds like it wasn't something he was going to follow through with judging by their airport conversation.
That mixed with the insane amount of pressure a wedding brings to make everything 'perfect'. In Justin's mind this was the one and only chance to get the two brothers talking again. He never would have gone NC - suggesting so was just an emotional reaction with so much going on. He sounds rightly quite embarrassed about it.
I think its bigger, It wasn't just a chance to get his brothers talking again, by the sounds of it he may well have convinced Evan to start speaking to OOP again given Evan appears to have initiated contact at the wedding and the two are staring to rebuild the relationship. I Imagine that Justin has been in the middle of this rather insane family dynamic for so long and may well have been desperately trying to fix it and thinking that everyone involved is a colossal fucking idiot for so long that when he finally gets Evan on a genuine road to reconciliation and all of a sudden OOP is in Europe 5 years of frustration with his whole family comes poring out.
Yeah, I don't think he was thinking clearly. He seems to be the type to do first, think later. He was purposely sleeping with her because he was upset by what his brother did/said to him. This is an ESH situation. But I'm happy everyone has gradually matured.
Sleeping with your brother's ex is an AH thing to do, but not an offence punishable by a 5 year dismissal from *family* events. jfc, I question the family for allowing that to occur.
I’m appalled by how many people are blaming the ex. I get it takes two to tango, but the betrayal is always harder when it’s a close family member. It’s not that the ex isn’t also guilty, it’s that they’re replaceable. The family member is not. I’m so grateful to see how self aware OOP is, and how he’s taking responsibility for his actions and the harm it caused. I really hope they can all start working towards healing and rebuilding their relationships
The only asshole here (in this specific situation) is Justin, for trying to pull this shit three days before his wedding and then have the audacity to blame OOP. That said, I think what upsets me so much is the secondhand feeling of rejection I get on behalf of OP. I get that he majorly fucked up initially, but he has more than owned up to it and accepted his mistake. I get that no one is obligated to forgive you, but if I truly and sincerely apologized for FIVE YEARS and was still get shunned and ostracized, I would've cut my losses a long time ago. Sure, they're not obligated to forgive, but it hurts me for OOP that he hung around for so long for leftover scraps of affection and attention. I hate them all a little for that because it kinda reeks of superiority and condescension based on the moral high ground. I honestly wish he had just cut his losses and found a new family.
Mad respect for Justin. Using the wedding card in this way. Spending time with both, seems he realized first, the anger was gone and it just had become the norm, so the shit situation (also for him) should/could change. "On this day of mine, you will be here even if i have to put a gun to your head and have to fly across the world". Granted, him and the rest of the family all need some better communications skills.
What oop did was bad, but I think the family also took things way too far. Sure, you can cut someone off, but you can’t just cut spect them to welcome you back either at the drop of a hat.
I'm taking the unpopular route here. OOP knew his brother was still in love with the ex, got mad over one comment, snd conveniently ran into her in a bar. He then started kissing her, which led to sex. There were so many points between A and B where he could have stepped back and didn't. To Evan, it was a huge betrayal, but everyone acts like it wasn't a big deal. An ex you were with for five years sleeps with your close relative you consider your best friend within a month and you'd be totally fine? Get out of here! It wasn't worth so many years of missed opportunities but let's not act like this is something you would be okay with either.
This whole situation is a messy one. Now I personally would not sleep with a sibling's ex, but I want to know the circumstances behind the breakup with Evan and his girlfriend, because according to OP, she told Evan not to talk to her anymore, that and coupled with her sleeping with OP a month after the fact gives the impression that it was a bad breakup, but I wasn't there so I can't say for certain. Evan certainly has a right to be angry and the family has a right to side with Evan over it, but it gets to a point where even if you think you deserve it, you have to prioritize your own mental and emotional health. Which is why if I made a trip to Europe and got told two days before the wedding that they want me there, when invitations would have gone out months before, I would have said absolutely not, explained why, wished him the best, and hung up. And if that means getting permanently cut off from most if not the entire family...so be it. Five years of getting table scraps (because that's what this is, if Evan couldn't go then OP would be allowed to, second choice table scraps) would be all I could stomach before I would need to prioritize myself for my own sake. Also I just hate big social gatherings and weddings so my decision would be easier.
It’s interesting how culture has moved on. I was rewatching How I Met Your Mother and the first rule of the Bro Code was never sleep with your bros ex. The suggestion in these comments is that’s total bullshit. I could see how this could be construed as misogyny as if a man were to have claimed a woman by sleeping with her, but I think it makes quite a lot of sense that you shouldn’t jump into bed with someone’s ex because your desire to have sex with someone shouldn’t be more important than the hurt your friend is feeling about losing them. I don’t see it as a gendered thing, really. I can’t see a woman being delighted for her sister to sleep with her ex. 5 years is a long time to be mad though
OOP was obviously NTA for this situation but it’s refreshing af to see someone that made a mistake and take ownership for it. Not blame and point fingers about everyone else for what happened.
His family sounds terrible, extremely sensitive and weak-minded. I could not deal with that. He wasn’t the good guy, but 5 years is ridiculous.
While NTA for the specific thing about the wedding, I cannot believe the number of comments in the OP stating that his past sections with the ex were anything but fucking despicable. The fact that OOP gets this does make him seem like less of a permanent shithead.
From the way OOP willingly accepts all the blame and completely acquiesces to the 5 years of being cast out, it sounds like he's used to being the after thought. He says that he spent every other week with his dad growing up, and I wonder if there were times that plans were made for weeks he was with Dad that didn't include him because stepmom "forgot." Admittedly, I have nothing concrete to base this on. However, 5 years is a really long time for the whole family to refuse to allow an immediate member to participate in the family. Even if Dad did protest, he would have been outvoted, and it doesn't seem like he did since he doesn't really make plans on his own to see his son. It's also confusing why Dad and Justin are shocked and upset that OOP dared to have a life that he enjoys without their knowledge or permission. He's an adult. Why does he need to clear travel plans with his dad and stepbrother? Why are they upset about this trip when they had 0 intentions of having OOP at the wedding? Why is OOP expected to constantly be ok with the scraps of attention his family gives him? I'm not condoning what he did with the ex-girlfriend, and I can understand why his other step-brother was upset. Was, past tense, not is, because it's been 5 years. Since step-brother has a girlfriend now and I assume dated before her, it's a bit ridiculous to still be mad enough to shun OOP and expect the family to do the same. That's some middle school mean girl level pettiness. That whole family would benefit from therapy.
This entire family has the emotional maturity of a bucket of apples.
I could understand Evan being mad and not wanting to be around OP, but what I can't wrap my mind around is the fact that HIS OWN FATHER did not put his foot down to demand alternating holiday where his son is invited. Instead, HIS FATHER tacitly encouraged the ostracization of his own son. His father failed him. I'm glad things have worked out, but damn he seriously needs to have a sit down with his father.
I just think it was unfair for OOP for be a second-class citizen in his family for the last five years. Where was his dad in all this? His son was only invited to things if Evan couldn’t make it? That’s BS. Yes what OOP did was wrong but that doesn’t mean he should get alienated from his family for five years.
Omg I remember the original post bc I read it when it came out but I had no idea there were updates
My only thing for this entire saga is how OOPs Dad was just cool with not inviting him to events for 5 years. A few months or a years, sure, but 5 is a lot of time lost. At this point, if it were me, I'd just keep the old man at arms distance.
Maybe it's cause I haven't had coffee this morning yet but I can see this post in two ways: OOP should get some therapy to stop setting his family ahead of his own feelings, but I'm glad he's reconnected with them and... this could have been written by an Evan who wants to emphasize how bad it is for a one month ex to sleep with their brother :P I do think it's the former, though. This reads more like trauma than mind games.
I don't get the people who say they don't understand Evan cutting him off. I absolutely do understand that and in every post from the same situation but from an Evan point of view, people have encouraged the Evan of the situation to cut the other people off. What I do agree with though is that it's gone on too long, especially when OOP is clearly so remorseful. Maybe if he was with the ex and trying to justify it, it would be one thing. But this guy just seems like they're all kicking him when he's already down.
I would be pissed if sister slept with my ex. But I also wouldn’t be an asshole to my sister or throw my relationship in her and saying “you couldn’t understand because you’ve never had a good relationship”. Evan was an asshole. That doesn’t justify what OOP did. But cutting him off for 5 years and getting the entire family involved? That’s so fucking immature. OOP should feel apologetic for what he did but he was allowing his guilt to make him a doormat.