Lifestyle

Woman Worries She's Falling in Love With Her Brother-in-Law After They Get 'Unexpectedly' Close

LifestylePublished Jul 6, 2020
By Genny Glassman
coupleiStock

There's nothing like falling in love -- but that old adage probably does not apply to falling in love with your brother-in-law. That is the fear that one woman has after her BIL moved in with her and her husband during the health crisis, and she now is coming to grips with the fact her new-found closeness with him is possibly too close.

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The Redditor and her husband have been together for four years, and married for one.-placeholder
The Redditor and her husband have been together for four years, and married for one.
Reddit

The Redditor and her husband have been together for four years, and married for one.

Before he moved in, she'd only met her brother-in-law "probably under 10 times," she explained in the r/relationship_advice forum. So when her BIL asked to stay with them during the stay-at-home orders, she thought it was a no-brainer. His roommate was an essential worker, he has Crohn's disease and is therefore high-risk, so of course he could stay.

To her surprise, having her BIL around has been more fun than she expected.

The two spend "a TON" of time together in the three months he's been living with them. Her husband works from home most of the time.

"My husband is a lawyer so he's holed up in his office most of the day," she explained. "[BIL] and I are both technically still working, but work has kind of dried up for both of us so most of our days is free time."

When he first moved in, she was surprised by how similar they were.

"Much more so than my husband and I are," she wrote.

They have similar senses of humor, similar tastes, "And I'd say our overall energy is very similar." 

"He also looks a lot like [my husband]. Except... since we got married, [my husband] has gained about 30 pounds," she noted. "[Her BIL], on the other hand, is very very VERY fit. You get where I'm going here."

She doesn't know for sure, but she's almost positive her BIL is flirting with her.

He laughs at all her jokes, teases her, and "drops everything (e.g. hanging up on phone calls with friends) if I suggest we do something together (go to the store, or play a game, whatever)."

"The way he looks at me also feels very affectionate and occasionally intense," she added.

They've also been spending a lot of time tanning outside together.

Which means seeing each other partially naked -- often. 

"The sexual tension, at least on my end, is through the roof," she added. It doesn't help that her sex life with her husband has been "flagging" lately either.

Emotionally, they've gotten closer, too.

Lots of late night chats after her husband goes to bed, inside jokes, and texts "even though we're in the same house."

"When I see him/his name on my phone, I get that giddy feeling in my stomach like I do in the early 'courtship' stages of a relationship," she wrote.

She didn't realize how far things had gotten until recently.

When she had a sexy dream starring her BIL.

"I woke up incredibly horny and initiated sex with [my husband], but was thinking about [BIL] the whole time," she explained. "I felt so guilty and disgusting after."

And a few days later, she realized that maybe her BIL wanted to take things more seriously, too.

"We were all drunk and had put on music and were just dancing stupidly," she recalled. "[BIL] and I kept dancing when [my husband] went to bed, and it got a little heated."

The two were "jokingly" grinding on each other "and rubbing up on each other, except it didn’t really feel like a joke." 

"Since then, I keep having these thoughts of like, what life would be like if I'd met [BIL] instead of [husband] first, or what [BIL] would be like as a husband."

Enough was enough. She needed to put a stop to things ASAP.

She told her husband that his brother needs to move out "under the guise of needing more privacy and more space for our relationship."

But he thought his brother should stay. The two of them were getting along so well with each other and besides, his brother has nowhere else to go.

"I feel like I'm dangerously close to having an affair, if what's happening now doesn't already count as cheating, and I don't know what I can do," she wrote.

No surprises here -- people in the comments did not have sympathy for the OP.

"You need to cut the bulls--t out," one commenter advised. "You're flirting, cozying up, even grinding. Stop. You're not a child."

"Yep. She can't control feelings but she can 100 percent control the situations she's putting herself in," someone else agreed.

While a third person put it this way: "The boredom of quarantine can make this kind of excitement feel very appealing, but it's temporary." The person advised, "If you really love your husband and value your relationship with him you'll wake the f--k up and end things with BIL."

People also commented on how wrong it was that the two of them were having this grand old time while her husband was busy supporting them.

In the end, the OP was concerned that people misunderstood her story.

First things first, both the OP and her BIL work, she wrote. They aren't just flirting with each other while her husband foots the bill.

"There's just less work right now so we have a lot of free time," she explained. "I may be a s-----y person in other ways but the leech narrative is false, sorry."

Second, she claimed that her relationship with her husband has been rocky for a while and she's not sure she's going to stay with him anyway. And finally, she has no plans on physically cheating with her BIL.

"I'm just afraid that if we're in the house together all the time, the situation will only worsen (e.g. my feelings get stronger and it becomes harder to cut off)," she wrote.

At the very least, the OP now realizes that she needs to figure out what she wants in general before she does anything else.

"I've booked a therapy session for myself and might just spend the day alone to reflect and really think about what I want," she added. "Thank you for taking the time to comment, especially those of you who have been kind."

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