📝 AITA for not forgiving my SO's brothers?

By ThrowRA_confused_cat • Score: 3 • April 15, 2025 2:54 AM


Hello everyone, sorry if this is a really long post, and not so well written, english is not my first language.

This story started 3 years ago, my SO (M40) and I (F31) had been together for 4 years, and living together for 2 years at that time and everything was going well until his mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The news obviosly affected everyone, and I tried to support him as much as I could. Now, my boyfriend has two older brothers, with whom he has never had the best relationship, our lives are very different, and I only interacted with them a few times before, tbh it seemed like they didn't even care about me, and I didn't care about them so it was ok, just polite.

The problems started when they were comming up with plans to manage the situation, and the best solution they could come up to was renting a new appartment for their mother and my boyfriend, so he could take care of her. Their reasoning was that since they make much more money than him, they could take care of all the expenes and pay for the appartment, and my boyfriend could take care of his mom. They didn't even included me in the plan, and neither my boyfriend or his mother weren't even ok with this, she is really functional, and the tumor was benign, and she also had a husband and was living with him in another city, but they wanted her to be close to them. So one day they invited my boyfriend to discuss this plan, and I told him I wanted to go too, since they felt so comfortable making decisions over my home. When I went there and I tried to say what I thought about everything, his older brother shut me down, and reminded me that "If I was there giving my opinion, was because he was "allowing me to", I felt humilliated, I almost cried at the restaurant table, but the most hurtful part, was that my partner didn't even stood up for me, it took me really long to forgive him about this.

At the end, we agreed to have my mother in law moving in with us and evrything went down hill. My SO lost his job, so I was covering most of the expenses of the house, and paying most of the rent. My mother in law was depressed and hated living with us. One day, one of his brothers invited his mom out to eat something, but when he got there, he decided it would be better to have take out at my house. I couldn't take it anymore, I just wanted some alone time with my parter, so I packed my things, and went back to my parent's house, I stayed there for 6 months. I thought about ending the relationship, but I couldn't do it when I remembered he was going through hard times, he let me down, but still ... his mother had a brain tumor, and he lost his job. Eventually his brothers started renting an appartment for her, and her husband moved in with her for some time (he left her recently), and she got surgery. I moved back in to my house, and after a lot of talking we worked things out. We visit her quite often, and I do get along with her, I love her, and it saddens me to know how lonely she is, and how she wants to go back to her town. But I don't want anything to do with his brothers, I have seen them only once since then, and everytime they get together for a birthdays, or christmas, supposedly they ask about me.

Last week they celebrated their mom's birthday, and they got together, and again, they asked about me. When my SO came back home, he told me this, and told me I should forgive them, let everything go, and try to get along with them, that they don't even know they did anything wrong, because I never confronted them, his logic is that they can't even be sorry when they don't even know what they did, and how it made me feel. Part of thinks this is insane, this is not how healthy families work, I know everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes we don't notice, but those are not mistakes, those are just the way they are, and I don't want that in my life. If they are so interested, maybe they, including my SO, should be the ones reaching out and apologizing, I don't want to explain to someone that they hurt me in hopes of building a relationship, when they have never showed any remorse or care about me, besides asking how I'm doing, and why I didn't come whenever they see my boyfriend. But at the same time, there's part of me that tells me this is not about me, I feel guilty, unresonable, and like an AH, because being honest, their mother is getting really really old, and we all know what could happend at any moment, I feel really sorry for them, and a responsability to be there showing her that we can all get along, part of me thinks I'm just being resentful and I should forgive and move on, but I don't know if this includes having a relationship with them, like nothing happened. AITA?

TLDR, 3 years ago, my SO's mom had a brain tumor, and his two older brothers decided we should move in with her. They were manipulative, and living with her caused trouble for both us, and my MIL. She eventually moved out, and is living alone. Now my boyfriend wants me to move on and forgive them, since she's getting really old, and would like to see all her sons and their partners getting along like a family. AITH for not wanting to forgive them and move on?

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