It's Complicated: My Sister's Husband Hit on Me
By Karen Karbo, REDBOOK
Q:
My brother-in-law recently told me he loves me and that he wishes he'd met me first! After talking it over with my husband and parents, I decided to tell my sister. Her husband denied it, and she believed him; now she's cut me out of her life. We both have kids who won't grow up together as cousins should. What can I do? Should I never have told her? -Anonymous
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A: Whoa! This is a tough one. There are two ways to go in this situation: Say nothing, pretend it never happened, and suffer in silence (not easy by any stretch); or do what you did-seek support from your family and come clean to your sister. Some secrets are just too corrosive to keep. But I'm not surprised by her reaction: Her gut instinct is to keep her marriage intact, and the only way she can do that is to believe her husband. Now, all you can do is focus on mending your relationship with her for the sake of your kids. When you feel that things have sufficiently settled down, call her and tell her that however upset she may be, you hope that she won't let it affect the relationship among your children. And make sure you tell her how much you love her-if her marriage does hit the rocks, she's going to need you more than ever.
Advice guru Karen Karbo is a mom, a teacher, and the author of the new book How Georgia Became O'Keeffe.
Do you need life advice? Send questions about perplexing friends, family, mates, colleagues, and anyone else to karenkarbo@redbookmag.com, and include your initials, age, and state. Letters may be edited for clarity and length
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