Reddit Stories - BETRAYED_ My Spouse Hid Her Addict Ex Under Our Roof, PRETENDING He Was Her BROTHER_

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayed #spouse #addict #pretending #brotherSummary: A Reddit user discovers their spouse has been hiding her addict ex under their roof, pretending he's her brother. The user feels betrayed by this deception and seeks advice on how to handle the situation.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayed, spouse, addict, pretending, brother, deception, relationship advice, family drama, hidden secrets, marriage problems, trust issues, confrontation, family boundaries, emotional turmoil, support communityBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse permitted her addict former partner to reside with us and deceived me by claiming he was her sibling. Subsequently, I uncovered the truth and divulged everything to her relatives. I, a 32-year-old male, have been married to my wife for over a year. I know it's just a year of marriage, yet I'm here telling my story. So, I met my wife around three years ago. For the privacy's sake, I'll call her Renee, 28. F. When I first met her, she was new in the city, struggling to make a career. She wanted to

become a fashion designer in Hollywood, but her parents didn't approve of her profession because of the not-so-decent reputation of Hollywood. Besides, they wanted her to join their family business instead of hopping into a job. To prove her point, Renee moved to California and joined a company as a fashion intern. I'm into the advertising industry, and my work profile includes onboarding fashion designing companies to design clothes for the ads. That's how I met Renee. Although she was new in her company, her manager used to tag her along during briefing sessions because she was really sharp. After a few months, Renee single-handedly dealt with our company, and that's when we started seeing each other. It started off as professional meetings and eventually turned into romantic

dates. I was impressed by Renee's charisma and resilience. She fought with her parents, almost got abandoned by them, and left her hometown because she chose her passion. We had to keep our relationship hidden because her company had a no-relationship policy with the clients. After six months of her internship, she switched to a better paying full-time role in a different company. After her job switch, we decided to keep our personal and professional relationships separate because it might cost us our jobs. But we moved in together and officially started dating. Renee had no friends in the city except for her colleagues from the past and current company. So, she mostly used to tag along with my friends.

She was friendly, smart, and had a great sense of humor. She became a part of our friends group in no time. It was so fun to be around. Renee that I never had a second thought about her. After two years of dating, I proposed to Renee. She gladly said yes but was also worried about not having her parents on board. The thing is, her family is conservative Christian while I'm not, not at all, hence, she was worried that her parents would be upset about it. They were already not happy with her career choice. I took her to meet my parents first to make her feel comfortable. My parents adored her.

I assured her I would try my best to convince her parents, but she said she would handle it. Although my parents insisted that we have a joint dinner for both families, René said it was best that her parents directly come for the wedding. I left the decision to her because she knew her family the best. My mother found this weird, but I assured her everything would be fine. During the wedding preps, I asked Renee if she wanted to have the wedding in a traditional way as it happens in her family, but she said that we could have it the way we wanted. As Renee said, her parents arrived on the day of the wedding.

I was prepared for the tough conversations with them, but surprisingly, her parents were sweet. According to Renee's account, I imagined them to be a conservative, sulky, and rude parent, but they were nothing like that. On the contrary, they were very polite and gentle with everyone. My mother was relieved to find them so warm. I lauded Renee for doing a great job at convincing her parents about the wedding, but she didn't acknowledge it much and said we could discuss this later. After the wedding, I asked if she wanted to visit her parents because she had never returned to her hometown after leaving it for her career.

She said that she was running hectic at work and would visit them when the workload subsided. Five months ago, I had to visit Tokyo for work purposes. It was a four-day trip, but I got it extended for a week to explore the city. It was all fine, and Renee knew about it ever since it was planned. However, on the day I was supposed to leave, she said she would be bored alone for a week, hence, she would fly down to meet her parents. I felt weird at her sudden plan. Besides, I wanted to accompany her to her hometown, but since I was leaving for a week, I could not tell her anything. During those five days, we remained almost distant. I was busy at work in exploring the new city, and I thought she was busy with her family as she had met them after so many years.

When we both returned, I told her I wanted to visit her family because I had not met any of them, except her parents, whom I met for just a few hours. She said that we can plan it next time. A few weeks after her return, she said she wanted to share something with me, it was about her brother. I was surprised because she had never talked about her brother earlier. During our dating phase, when I asked about her family, she told me that she had a brother, but she also said they were not on good terms. When I didn't find her brother at the wedding, I asked her, but she said they were not that close and he might be busy taking care of the business in her father's absence.

Renee revealed that her brother was gay, and when her conservative family got to know about this, they took him to therapy to make him straight. I raised my eyebrow at this revelation. She said that she lived in a small town where people still consider homosexuality to be a mental illness, and besides, her parents were conservative. However, after several years of therapy, when her brother continued with his orientation, her parents disowned him. That was why they wanted Renee to take over the family business.

Her brother didn't take his family's abandonment easy and found solace in drugs. He went so far into the addiction that he had to be in rehab. That was the reason her brother was missing from our wedding. I was disappointed that she didn't tell me about all this before. She sobbed and said that she feared I would judge her for her family background. Renee said that when she visited her hometown this time, she got to know that her brother was out of rehab. Since his family didn't want him, he was living alone. Renee feared he might relapse out of the frustration and loneliness of living alone, so she asked him to move to CA.

She asked me if he could stay with us for some time until he got a job and a place for himself. I agreed to it because our apartment had a spare room used only to pile up courier boxes and discarded items. A couple of weeks after this discussion, René's brother, Marco, arrived. He is a year younger than René, hence, she is protective of her baby brother. He was a timid guy. I thought his self-confidence had shrunk due to his disturbing past. He didn't talk to me much and was put in his room or went outside whenever I was home. It's been more than two months since he is here.

Renee has been pulling all her contacts to get him a job. I do see him going for interviews on some days, but he had no luck yet. I don't want to sound evil, but his presence is kind of bothering me now. And Renee's behavior has also changed after he had moved in. She acts more like his elder sister than my wife. Her world seems to rotate just around Marco. Initially, I thought that he was just taking care of him, but eventually, I'm not feeling that good about it. Also, Marco's behavior looks pretty shady to me.

It is either that he is still into drugs, or maybe he is hiding something even more grave. Last week, I asked Renee if we could plan a trip to her hometown. She said she was busy this month. She also said that I should not tell her parents that Marco was living with us. I asked why not. She said that her parents had disowned him and they wouldn't like that I was siding with him. I was confused by her logic. She said her parents have finally accepted her career and are happy with her.

Hence, she didn't want to destroy the relationship by talking about Marco. The reason why I'm here is primarily because of this. Doesn't this entire situation sound shady? If this was not all, I find them very secretive. Of late, I realized they changed the topic whenever I entered the living room or the kitchen. I even heard them talking in whispers, and when I entered, they started talking normally. I confronted Renee about this, but she told me they were discussing Marco's relapse and therapy, which she is embarrassed to talk about in front of me.

I spoke to my colleague last day, and he said I was just jealous because Renee's attention got devised. Hence, I'm apprehensive about sharing this with others or confronting it with Renee. I want to know a neutral perspective from this community. Let me know if I missed any crucial information. I'll be online for the rest of the evening. I'm looking forward to catching up on the comment section. Update 1, hi all, thanks for the advice on the last post. Some of you sent me the stories of other men whose wives cheated on them by posing their lovers as their brothers,

and that hit me hard. It was something beyond imaginable. So, instead of jumping to the conclusion, I started digging into it. I started off by checking his ID. I wished I had done that earlier. A few days after my first post, I suddenly walked into the living room where Renee and Marco were sitting. I asked Marco if he had any luck with the interviews yet. They both were taken by surprise because I never used to ask these personal questions to them. He stammered for a while and said he was in talks with several recruiters, but nothing is panned up yet. I told them my friend needs a supervisor for his office and is looking for someone reliable, so I wanted to refer Marco for that role. Someone who was looking for a job would have jumped in excitement with this news, but their expression was

more of a shock than excitement. Without giving them any opportunity to think further, I asked for his resume. Renee jumped in and said she would share it in some time, but I insisted that I needed it right away. Renée's pushback confirmed my doubts about them. After a few exchanges between René and me, Marco shared the soft copy of his resume with me, I immediately opened in front of them and checked for his name. My doubts turned out to be true. Although his name was still Marco, his surname was different from Renee's maiden name. I subtly asked them about this. I subtly asked them about this. Before Marco could say anything, Renee said since their parents had disowned him, he had changed his surname. I was ready for this BS anyway. Until then, I thought this sister

brother duo was up to something, but after this revelation, it was doubtful whether they were really siblings or not. So after a week, I told Renee that I was traveling to a place near her hometown for work and if she was free, she could join me, and we could visit her parents' house. I deliberately gave her short notice so it was easier for her to say no. As expected, she said she was busy. But she kept asking me if I would be visiting her parents. I said no, I won't visit them alone, we can plan for next time. In reality, I had no work trip.

I went to her hometown only to meet her parents and uncover her truth. I don't want to get into the details of how I sourced their address. It was on her ID. So, I went to their house and immediately told them not to reveal this to Renee because I was planning a surprise for her. Renee's birthday was around the corner, a day after tomorrow, so I told them that I was arranging a surprise party for Renee and went there to invite them in person. They were pleased to receive me.

While speaking to them, I eventually opened up and told them that they don't seem conservative at all, like Renee had described. They laughed at it, taking it to be a joke. Then, I started probing them about their faith, and to my surprise, it came out that they were not at all conservative. I then started asking about their business. I kept it subtle so as not to raise any suspicions. Her father said that he intended to retire from his company next year and take it easy on

life. I grabbed the opportunity and asked him how his business would run after retirement. He said his son is already hamilton. handling his business quite well, so he is best suited to be his heir. I saw Renee's mother getting uncomfortable with this, so I tried to divert to another topic. But her father went on to say, I wanted to be fair between both my children. That's why I urged Renee to join the business. In that way, both the brother and sister would have an equal share of the business.

As Ryan is my son from the first marriage, Renee and my wife both are insecure that he would not give the business share to her. Since you're a family now, I'm telling you that I'll be fair with both my children. He said something further that he was unhappy about Renee's career choice. But by then, I had zoned out after hearing his son's name be Ryan. I was choking from inside and wanted to breathe. So, I cut him off in the middle and said that once they came for Renee's birthday, we could sit and sort out the difference. I didn't get to meet Ryan, but I saw him in the family pictures in their hallway. While leaving, I again reminded them not to tell Renee that I had visited them.

It was supposed to be a surprise. They happily nodded. I felt so disgusted knowing that Renee was indeed having a lover in my house, posing him to be her brother. I went to meet them on Saturday, so it was almost a week before Renee's birthday, which was on Thursday. I felt so uneasy to share the house with her that I never returned home after meeting her parents. She called me on Sunday asking me when I would return. I told her my work got

extended and I would be back only on Thursday morning. I'm currently put up in a hotel until then. I know she and her lover are having a honeymoon period in my absence, but I don't care. I just want to expose and humiliate her in front of her parents. I'm already in talks with a lawyer to process the divorce. In fact, I had an appointment with him a few hours before. I made this update. I'll make another update once I exposed that SLT update 2. So, I'm finally divorced. I know I took a while to make an update, but I wanted to wrap up everything and update at once. For people who commented that I ignored all the red flags when it was clearly displayed all over my face, the thing is, I didn't notice or take any of it as absurd when it was

happening. It sounded weird only when I retrospect the incidents after Marco's arrival. If you look at any solo event, it doesn't look shady, only when everything gets added up does it sound obvious, and now everyone is taunting me that I was a simp to ignore it. Cool, moving on. As I mentioned, I invited Renee's parents for her birthday on Thursday. I went home on the same day. She was home. I felt so awful seeing her face that I didn't even wish her on the birthday. She thought I had forgotten. In order to sound cute, she hugged me and asked me to wish her. I played along and wished her. She said that I should take her out to celebrate her birthday. I said that I was tired and wanted to take a shower first. By the time I came out of the shower,

Renee was already dressed up and ready to go out. I pretended to ignore her and went to bed. She played out her cute self, yelling at me to dress up and take her out. I said that I was having a terrible headache and needed a nap. I asked her to wait for a couple of hours. She got upset, but I assured her the weight would be worth it. I wasn't sleepy at all. I was, in fact, heavy-hearted, anticipating the confrontation which was just about to happen. An hour later, I got a call from Renee's father that they were just about to arrive. I hurriedly got out of the bed and went outside. On my way out, I saw Renee and Marco talking and cooking inside the kitchen.

She even asked me where I was going out in a hurry. I said that there was a courier outside and I was going to collect it. I went outside and waited for a few minutes before I saw them. I greeted them and took them inside. That was a moment. It was not only a moment of shock and despair for Renee and her lover, but her parents were equally shocked. It meant that they already knew about Marco. Renee looked at me, asking for an explanation.

I said, oh, Ryan didn't come. It would have made things easier, isn't it? Her father gave a disgusted look at Renee and asked her what Marco was doing at our house. She started sobbing by then. I sarcastically said, why are you saying this? Isn't he supposed to be your son? René begged me to stop. Marco wanted to leave, but I stopped him by his shoulder and told him to sit.

Her mother insisted on knowing the truth, so I told her everything. Marco and Renee were frozen to death. Her parents gave a despised look at them. Her father turned towards me and asked if I knew everything. I said no, I got to know the truth when I visited them. He went on to reveal everything which was left uncovered. He said that Marco was Renee's boyfriend from college and he had always been a drug addict and a bum sucking on Renee's pocket money. Hence, they had to cut off giving any money to Renee.

They wanted her to join the business so that they could track her expenses, but Renee chose to fund her boyfriend, so she left the house and took up a job. When Marco's addiction reached its peak, his parents admitted him to rehab. Renee could not bear the loneliness and moved to California and that's when we met and got married. Her parents said they were really happy when they got to know that she was marrying me. They thought she had moved on from Marco, but there she was, sitting with him in my house. I looked at Renee and asked if all these restarted when she visited her parents during my Tokyo trip. She looked at me with a straight face and said yes. She admitted that she kept me away from her family because she feared her past getting uncovered.

She admitted that she had moved on from Marco while she was with me, but when she got to know that Marco was back from rehab, she could not control herself and went to meet him. During the meeting, Marco convinced her that he was a changed man and urged her to divorce me. Renee could not take that risk right away unless Marco got a job so they both planned the entire. thing. It was true that Renee was not on good terms with his stepbrother Ryan and hence she used that opportunity to pose Marco as her brother in front of me. Marko interrupted that he never liked the plan of staying in my house but Renee forced him to. Her father was so disheartened that she lied so much about them and portrayed them as villains just to have her boyfriend. The situation got

so worse that her father choked Marco by his collar and dragged him out of the house while Renee pleaded with him to stop. I just kept staring at her at how smartly she was playing her game. Her parents apologized to me for everything. I told them they need not be sorry for what Renee had done. I also informed them that I was going to file for divorce and Renee needed to leave the house right away. Renée didn't resist, she silently went inside the room to pack her belongings, but her father was not in the mood to take her with them. He stood up, saying that she had created this mess, and now she has to bear it. While leaving, he told Renee that her drugged BF had cost her everything good she had in life. They left the house without Renee. Soon after they left,

Renee also left. She didn't look at me or say anything. She just lowered her gaze and walked away. I don't know if I should feel good for taking my revenge by humiliating her or if I should feel bad for her misery. A month ago, my lawyer called her to check the address at which the divorce needed to be shipped. She said that she would visit his office and collect it. My lawyer informed me that she arrived at his office an hour later. As soon as he handed over the papers to her, she just glanced at the terms and immediately signed in front of him, handed back the papers to him, and left. A week ago, we were presented before the magistrate for the divorce finalization. She was alone. She was alone. She looked miserable and was quiet during the entire trial. In the end, when she was

questioned, she affirmed agreeing to my terms. Actually, I didn't have a lot of property and wealth that she would have fought over. The house in which we were living was also rented. Since she was working, I was not asked for an alimony. In fact, I was being considerate in not charging her with alimony for cheating and fraud. Our divorce was finalized uncontestantiation. I know I'll get a lot of heat for letting her slip so easily. The thing is, she had already lost everything. Her marriage, her family, her dignity. There was nothing left with her to be destroyed.

Yesterday, her mother called me asking about the divorce status. I told her that it was over. She cried, saying she heard that Marco had again started taking drugs and she feared he would destroy her daughter and take her down the path of drugs and crime along with him. She also said her father had disowned her from the will, fearing that she would shower all his hard-earned money on that drug addict Marco. I empathized with her and hung up, asking her to take care. I wonder how someone can be so stupid as to love someone to the extent of losing everything.

If a woman like Renee, who was so intelligent and sharp, could be so stupid to fall for Marco, there is nothing more. much left to talk about others.