This is a long one, so strap in cause it’s WILD. Sorry grammar or spelling mistakes, it's long and I'm too lazy to check anything :D

3 years back, my brother (26 M) and his now ex-wife (don’t remember, she was around his age but I didn’t care to ask) announced they’re getting married.

They met online, have been dating for a few months and decided it was a good match/were ready for marriage. In our culture, it’s normal to marry this quickly.

As tradition goes, my parents needed to speak with her family to get approval for the marriage and take everything from there. It’s also in our culture to do background checks on the person who’s getting married to see if they’re a good person, the bride’s family are expected to do the same for the groom.

Red flag 1

After asking around and everything, my parents were not happy with the girl or her family, they found out she and her family had a terrible reputation and are known to start drama, lie, and cheat. Source, trust me bro.

Now I’m someone who believes that whilst outsider opinions may be valid, they’re not the whole truth and people tend to chat sh*t. So against my parents wishes, I took my brother’s side and said if he loves her then it’s his choice and we don’t know the girl enough to make such a negative judgement. (I was very wrong)

So my parents agreed on the marriage and we had to go visit them as custom states to officially ask for her hand in marriage for my little brother and hold a little engagement ceremony. 

They lived in a city in the same state about 9 hours drive away from us and the whole family needed to go. I'm talking parents, siblings, aunties, uncles, cousins etc. We had to take 4 mini vans to fit everyone, I flew there cause it was easier.

We had to stay for about 2 nights and 3 days which meant booking rooms too, each night was around $180 and we booked 8 rooms to share, it wasn’t cheap.

We get to her city, we do the whole traditional thing, they invite us over, we do dinner at theirs before the engagement ceremony the next day.

Red flag 2

They didn’t eat with us or even sit with us in their own home. Again, silly me tossed it as they were busy trying to accommodate us, so I paid it no mind.

Next day, the engagement happens in their back garden for the women and a booked hall for the men, again, culture.

During the engagement, it’s tradition for the groom's family to present the bride and mother of the bride with gifts. Any jewellery we buy, we need to dress her with it in the ceremony.

My parents spared no expense spending $13k on gold for the bride (minus the engagement ring, that was $12K), a few more thousands on clothes, accessories, perfumes. This is outside of the dowry of $35k that she gets for herself.

I spent nowhere near as much as my parents, I got her a designer watch and bag, and a nice perfume, which came to about $2.5K.

Red flag 3

Throughout the ceremony she was putting on this awkward smile and whispering to her sister who was next to her every now and then, silly me again, making an excuse for her thinking she was shy.

Anyway, day 3 comes along, and we head home, my brother comes with us as tradition says.

When we got home, I could tell mum wasn’t happy, she mentioned that their actions were rude and as per our custom, if you don’t eat with your guests, it means you don’t like them and letting them know you think they’re beneath you.

I told mum well it’s my brother’s problem now if he’s so insistent on it, needless to say, he’s head over heels over the idea of getting married to her.

Months passed and the wedding was held in the bride’s city. Again, we needed to drive up again and get accommodation, plus new gifts for the bride and MIL, again, parents threw a few more grand on that, I didn’t get them anything because tradition doesn’t ask for it this time.

Red flag 4

We didn’t know which venue the wedding was going to be held at. They didn’t tell us, the family of the groom.

When I found out that my parents didn’t know, I also found out that they didn’t include my mother in any of the planning, and she literally had to pester them for the wedding theme so our attire doesn’t clash. My mum was in tears once because the bride didn’t even allow her to choose one song for her mother/son dance (sadly, I found this out after the wedding).

Ok now I'm annoyed and that’s when I decided I’d be the asshole should anything go wrong in the future.

The wedding day is finally here, there’s no assigned parking for the groom's family, but there is for the brides, interesting, but I didn’t care at this point.

Red flag 5

We get to the venue before the guests and we have no seats assigned, the bride's family is already sitting on one side at the front. They had people sitting at the front on another table who were friends of the bride, they expected us to sit in non-priority seats.

I wasn’t having that. I could tell mum was stressed, so I marched up to the second table at the front and said in my sweetest voice “hey sweetie, I think there’s been a mix-up, you’re sitting in the groom’s party seating, would you mind moving?”

The people sitting there looked awkward glancing at the bride’s family on the other side expecting them to say something, and the MIL had the audacity to try to.

Before MIL could say anything, I flashed her my best recruitment smile and said “Don’t worry, you don’t need to say anything, they’re going to move, it’d be awkward for you if people started coming in thinking they’re the groom's family, wouldn’t want people to think you’re disrespecting your future son in law with such audacity.”

She scrawled at me and walked back to her seat and we all sat down.

The venue was in the glamorous vintage hotel with gorgeous decorations, seating, and amazing aircon. Shame that didn’t apply to the wedding hall… The hall looked tacky, it was a very hot July, and everyone was sweating.

There were no drinks, no finger food, and the music was played through someone’s phone.

I’m not shaming small or budget weddings, but when we had to pay $22k for a wedding, which we had no say in, we at least expected drinks.

The bride didn’t arrive until after 4hrs, we still didn’t have food or drinks, no one was dancing apart from the groom's guests, and everyone was sweating heavily.

Randomly, I get called to the back with my 2 little sisters (18 and 17), the MOH (the bride's sister) says the bride is about to walk in and the bridesmaids and us need to start walking in front before she comes in.

Really you’re going to tell me this now? She tells me that was the plan to which I said “this wasn’t communicated with us, we’re not wearing the same theme as the bridesmaids and we’ve been sweating here for hours. No thank you, I, nor my sisters are going to walk down the aisle, proceed as planned without us.”

The MOH started kicking up a fuss about me trying to ruin the wedding to which I replied to saying “If you had any common decency you’d have communicated this with us earlier, so no, not going to happen, we’ve been sweating our asses off for hours whilst your bridesmaids look fresh as a daisy. I’m not going along with your pathetic ploy” and I took my sisters and walked back into the wedding hall as she was shouting after me.

At this point, my mum had had enough, she was rearing for a fight, I literally had to walk her back as when I came in she was already heading to the MILs table looking like a raging bull.

So, the bridesmaid started walking in, there was a photographer that came in with them, finally something done right, the bride and the groom started walking in.

Now this is where my mum was definitely the AH, in the middle of their walk, mum decided to get up and interrupted to hug her son.

The bride was fuming, I was grinning ear to ear.

They made it to their seats and now it was photo time!

Red flag 6 (no longer flags, but hayho)

The bride's family filled the stage and wouldn’t let us take any photos, the guests took even more notice than before of their behaviour and whispers began.

Love blind and oblivious little brother (groom) was like why aren’t you guys up here? The Bride was obviously annoyed at that, but gestured for her family to make room.

They wouldn’t let my mum stand next to the groom.

Still flashing my bright smile, I walk up to the MOH, link arms with her, and literally drag her away from next to the groom so the mother of the groom can stand next to him for photos.

This is where I was 100% the asshole but really, idc, I looked the MOH dead in the eyes and said “If you or your family try this bullshit again with my family, I will fucking cancel you, you influencer wannabe”

She’s not a small make-up influencer, she’s got about 750K instagram followers and makes $$$$ in PR and affiliates, but she knows I have x4 times her following, in gaming, and they’re absolute f*cking savages, if you know the gamer community, you know.

I could see her go to her mum and say something, and needless to say the rest of the night went on without any more “issues”.

They’re now married. Let the real issues begin.

Originally, the plan was for them to live in the same city as us, she somehow manages to convince my brother not to, so he had to try and find a job in her city, sadly he couldn’t but could in a city about 40mins away.

They move in, my dad furnishes the house for them and pays 6 months rent up front. Very generous of him considering that was an expensive city with rent averaging $3500p/m.

She gets to him again and makes them move to her city and get a place that's 10mins drive from her mums house. This was literally 3months in.

We don’t hear anything for a while, then they come down to visit and stay with my parents for a week or so.

Here’s where I decided to be a civil AH with her moving forward.

Queue petty actions from me and her

1- she kept complaining about her period and how much she was in pain expecting everyone to cater to her, queue me, “Am I your maid? I get periods too and they’re excruciating, you don’t see everyone waiting on me do you?”

2- she complained she can’t cook or clean up after herself because her nails were too long, so the next day I took my mum and sisters to get our nails done, extra long. Every time she complains she can’t do something because of her nails, we flash our nails at her.

3- she complained she has a headache and can’t come down to eat with the family and wants to eat her meal in bed. I take her plate up to her, wish she gets better, and take out the whole family to the restaurant she wouldn’t stop talking about. When she found out, she was FUMING, in my sweetest voice I said “It was supposed to be a surprise for you but you were ill, I couldn’t cancel the reservation as I already paid upfront” I didn’t, it was a spur of the moment.

4- she was craving home made cake but didn’t want to make it herself expecting one of my sisters to make it, I go out to my car and call my sisters to remind them of their “appointment” at the hair salon. They excuse themselves and we go out for the rest of the day and don’t come back till late in the night, hair looking gorgeous and she was upset that we didn’t invite her to come along, I reminded her that she was ill and all that noise would make her headaches worse, “I was just trying to be considerate.” sad face :( 

The day they had to go back home, she was visibly upset, I was very pleased with myself and told her I can’t wait for them to visit again, it was so nice having her here, we had such a blast (she didn’t get to do anything with us.)

They go back, a few months pass, then my brother starts texting me a lot. Looks like there were issues with the love birds!

To give you the tl;dr she was lazy, when it was her turn, didn’t cook or clean, do her side of the chores, she refused to get a job because she was a “stay at home wife”. She was on contraception as she didn’t want kids until after 3 years and she was spending his money like no tomorrow going out with friends, paying for them, make-up, dresses, jewellery etc.

In my head I was like “serves you right you blind baboon” that was until he told me she had the cops called on him.

Apparently the neighbours heard shouting and screaming and her shouting “get away from me, don’t come closer, stay back, don’t touch me”

Now, my brother may be a blind baboon, but what he is is not someone who would lay hands on ANY woman.

The cops get there, SIL says she got heated, the cops say they have to put this on the record against him in case anything happens, good on them, domestic abuse is no joke.

Luckily my brother has CCTV cameras in the house and offered to show the cops the footage of their argument.

He was sitting on the sofa, she sat next to him, they got into an argument and she got heated and tried to push him away to get him off the sofa with her stuck on him.

The cops could clearly see that nothing happened and that she was in the wrong and that was also put into the record, reassuring my brother that this wouldn’t affect him in any way.

That’s when I lost it.

I told him he needs to divorce her ASAP as she’s a viper who will ruin his whole life, career, and reputation. She will make him out to be a predator because she knows exactly that what she was shouting at the top of her lungs were triggering words and anyone hearing them would call the cops.

I told him there are plenty of fish in the sea, there’s ladies I can introduce him to if he was that desperate to be married. He wasn’t sure but he said he’d ponder over it.

This was all over text and guess who read them.

After she read them, she calls my dad screaming and shouting that I wanted to break up their marriage, that I was a homewrecker, and that they didn’t raise me right.

My dad calls me, tells me to butt out and I basically rip him a new one saying if he doesn’t care that his son will have his life ruined because of her, I do.

Mind you, I have NEVER said no to my parents, let alone raise my voice at them.

No one was listening, everything I said was falling onto deaf ears, but I had to make them listen.

So I did the next best sensible thing.

I called up my friend, also a family friend (very close with dad) who works in domestic violence with the government, told him everything and brought him to my parents.

His words absolutely shattered them and my brother, he told them about cases he’s working on, about how men who get accused of domestic violence end up in jail, lose money, career, reputation, and can never find a job, and that 95% are either in jail or a bum on the street now.

They all finally listened.

At this point, SIL had left for her parents house and my brother took this as an opportunity to cancel the house lease, move everything out, putting it in a storage place, and changing all the locks in the process.

He then went to his in-laws house and basically said he’s going to divorce their daughter and it’s because of xyz listing everything that was happening.

THEY ALREADY KNEW EVERY F*CKING THING

They tried to play the victim card, saying he wasn’t committed, playing around with people’s daughters and that he should be ashamed of himself.

He stood his ground and left.

A couple of days later, he comes back home after work to grab the rest of his stuff and lo and behold who’s trying to break into the house. It was SIL and her sister.

He told them to leave as the house wasn’t theirs before he calls the cops, SIL starts acting all innocent saying he never loved her otherwise why would he be doing all this to hurt her.

He replied with 6 words “you forced me to do this” walked into the house and locked the door behind him.

The next day, my brother gets a call from his BIL, he was being nice at first, but then decided to threaten my brother, BIL is known to be part of a gang, my brother wasn’t phased and said “oh you threatening me now?” and starts a joint call with our 3rd cousin WHO’S APPARENTLY SOMEONE WAY HIGH UP IN BIL’S GANG and with a few words, BIL was now kissing ass.

I was gagging when he told me this, I never knew and thank god I’m not close with them cause that sh*t is scary.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Ex-SIL had the audacity to try and claim all the furniture and house deposit ($5.25k) as her own. Luckily brother had all the receipts and already warned the services and landlord about something like this might be happening.

The divorce happened anticlimactically, she tried to sway him to get back together, he faltered a few times, but he learned to speak with me before making any decisions regarding her.

Bless his soul, this was about 3 years ago, he’s now getting married again but to someone my parents chose from a family we know really well and I can vouch for the new bride to be.

Needless to say SIL hates my guts and so does her family, I'm very happy with that.

So AITAH for breaking up my brother’s marriage after 9 months? I know I am but that b*tch deserved it hahahahaha