Reddit Stories - Demanding the wife a shocking twist in becoming legal guardian of my brother's baby

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #legalguardian #brothersbaby #shockingtwist #familydrama #responsibility  Summary: A man demands his wife to become the legal guardian of his brother's baby, revealing a shocking twist in their family dynamics.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, legalguardian, brothersbaby, shockingtwist, familydrama, responsibility, marriage, relationships, parenting, siblings, decisionmaking, unexpectedturn, moralquestion, support, familybond, emotionaljourneyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Sibling asked me to become the legal caretaker of his infant, so I insisted that his spouse undergo a paternity examination before agreeing to take on guardianship of their child. As a result, their marital union came under scrutiny. Is ending. I, 28F, have an older brother, 30M, and around two weeks ago, he asked me to be the legal guardian of his son. His son is just six months old. My brother visited me two weeks ago and told me that he and his wife wanted me to be his legal guardian because his job required him to move to another city in his wife, 29F, spends most of her time in the hospital for her chemo treatments. My brother can't reject this offer either to stay back here because it pays more than his current job and he desperately needs money to pay for his wife's treatments as she was diagnosed with stage two liver cancer last month.

So he worked out an arrangement with his in-laws where they'll be the ones looking after his wife while he works out of state for five days and comes back on the weekends, but they're also kind of aged and won't be able to handle taking care of both his wife and his son, so he wanted me to take over the duties of his son. We have no other family apart from each other, so I'm the only person he could turn to which is why it was really difficult for me to say no at all. Both our parents passed away when we were in our early 20s and we've been on our own ever since. My brother works in marketing and I'm a high school teacher so it's not exactly like we're rich and I'm too busy and tired to take on any additional responsibilities, like looking after my nephew. I also couldn't just say no to my brother because we're all we have and it would break my heart if he got mad at me over this. There was also another reason that I was kind of skeptical to agree to this legal guardianship and that

was because of all the rumors and gossip I'd heard about my sister-in-law. We live in a relatively small town and news travels fast. So a couple of years back, I think before my brother even got married, I heard from one of my co-workers that one of her cousins had gotten into a lot of legal trouble over a paternity fraud that she'd pulled off and was now being sued by her husband whom she'd been fooling. And even though people weren't really sure of it, there was one name that kept popping up when they were gossiping about this and that was my present sister-in-law's name. I'm really not sure how exactly she was involved or to what extent, but I did know that she

was involved somehow and she'd helped them cover it up for a few years after their child was born. Their son was almost two years old when that guy's wife, my sister-in-law's best friend, insisted that they get married so she could quit her job and live at home with their son. His mother suspected that something was off because of how hard she was pushing her decision and that's how the paternity test finally happened. And we also learned that apparently, my now sister-in-law had played a huge role in this fraud by putting her best friend in touch with her cousin who worked at the hospital and would periodically take money from her best friend and her unsuspecting husband to make sure this

was all kept under wraps. So essentially, she and her best friend were fooling the poor guy for money and while her best friend got into legal trouble for it, she walked away Scott-free. Almost two years ago, my brother told me that he'd met a woman and it happened to be the same woman whom I'd heard about in this paternity scam gossip. I told him about it back then and warned him, but he was dead sure that she had nothing to do with it and he trusted her, not the rumors and gossip he heard about her. I didn't know what to say to him, so I didn't interfere and so within a year, they got married

and had a baby. I didn't say anything then because I didn't want to disturb their perfectly happy marriage and then, last month, she was diagnosed with stage two liver cancer, which is why she's been in and out of the hospital for some time now. I haven't said anything about what I heard from my friends back then, but when my brother said that they wanted me to be their son's legal guardian. I decided that I didn't want to get caught up in anything right now and so I told him that I'd only agree to the legal guardianship because he didn't like the implications of what I was saying and said that I was needlessly doubting his wife even though they'd been together for so many years now. But I stuck by what I said and told him that I wasn't going to be his son's legal

guardian if he didn't get the paternity test done first because I really didn't want any unnecessary trouble in case there really was something that she was hiding still. So after a lot of arguing, he finally gave in and told me that he'd get it done. Then, I didn't hear from him for two whole weeks, but all of a sudden, three days back, he called me and told me that I no longer needed to sign anything and that he was staying here. I was confused because he just cancelled the move out of the blue so I asked him what changed and he told me to mind my own business and then hung up on me. That really threw me off because my brother was a generally nice and polite person so I had absolutely no idea what changed in these past few days.

I couldn't even ask anyone else because the only person who was likely to know what was going on with him was his wife and I didn't want to speak to her so I waited for a day for my brother to come around on his own and tell me what was going on but he didn't. So I did what I had to and called up my sister-in-law instead for some answers. She answered as soon as I called and when she did, she didn't waste a second before she started screaming at me and accused me of ruining her marriage. I don't know why she said any of that, but one thing's for sure, something awful has happened and I'm afraid that it has to do with a paternity test. I'd only been hellbent on my brother getting the test done because I wanted to buy myself some time to think about what I wanted to do about the guardianship and also I didn't want to invite trouble just in case he wasn't really the parent.

But I'm guessing that there was something that his wife had been hiding and my insistence on the paternity test must have opened some kind of worms because otherwise, I couldn't think of a single reason why my brother would make such a decision. I feel awful because just for my own selfishness, I've potentially ruined my brother's marriage and it doesn't help that his wife suffering from cancer as well. I'd have for insisting that my brother get a paternity test done before I agree to be the legal guardian of his baby? Update 1. Thank you for all the kind messages and comments. I'm glad to know that not everyone's judging me for wanting to put myself before anyone else. I spoke to my brother today and he told me everything that had happened in the past

two weeks after I asked him to get the paternity test done. He told me that after he met with me, he went straight home and told his wife what I'd asked for. He'd assumed it would be a pretty straightforward conversation since he didn't think his wife would disagree, but she was very against it and it didn't make sense to him. She said that it was insulting that I wanted him to get a paternity test done because that just meant that I still believe she was a scammer and even worse, she'd been scamming her own husband. So she was against the whole idea of the paternity test and wanted him to look for alternatives. But her reaction to the suggestion of getting a paternity test done was so overly emotional that even he began to suspect that something was off about her behavior

and after a few days of wondering what to do, he finally gave in and decided to get the paternity test done without telling his wife about it. He didn't know. He didn't know. He didn't know. what to expect, but was secretly hoping that he wouldn't find out anything that he didn't want to. Unfortunately, I think everyone knows by now what he must have found out. My brother and his son weren't a match. He was so shocked by the results the first time that he got the test done a second time, just to make sure that there had been no mistakes, and even the second time around, the result remained the same. He was in shock about what he'd found out since this meant that his marriage was a lie, but he had no idea how to confront his wife. He'd never paid any heed to the

rumors he'd heard about her, not even when I'd warned him, but now, as it turns out, everyone else had been right and he'd been the one who was dead wrong about his wife. A few days after he got the results, he decided to finally confront his wife. At first, she tried to deny it, but there was no running away from the truth anymore when he knew for a fact that he's not the father of the son he'd been raising for so long. After a while, she finally confessed to him that a while ago, when they'd just gotten married, she'd had an affair with one of her friends when he happened to be out of town and that's how she got pregnant. She never came clean about it either because she felt like that was going to ruin their marriage for good and once she got pregnant, she knew that

she didn't want to be with anyone else apart from my brother. My sister-in-law also spilled the beans on the first paternity scam she pulled off by revealing that she'd be. She'd been the one who put her best friend in touch with her cousin who used to work at the hospital back then and her friend's husband never would have found out either if he hadn't gotten another paternity test done independently from a different hospital. So whatever people have been saying about her was true. I can't believe that in spite of knowing the consequences of cheating and lying, she still went through and put my brother through the same thing.

It's unbelievable and disgusting, to say the least, and now, I'm really glad that. that I pressured my brother into getting a paternity test done or else he might not have been able to find out about any of this. She didn't have a job when she married my brother and after she got married, she decided that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom so it had been my brother who'd been supporting her every step of the way. So it wasn't the fact that she was finally sure of him that made her stay with him and pick her marriage over affairs, but the fact that she literally didn't have anyone else to go to once she got pregnant. My brother thinks that that's the real reason he stayed and I agree with him. If she could cheat on him one year into their marriage,

then she didn't really love him and the only thing that made her stay with my brother was the fact that he was willing to look past her history, trust her implicitly, and provide for her without questioning her. She only cared about herself and while my brother is still struggling to come to terms with that, I'm not. I'd always known that my sister-in-law wasn't the most trustworthy person, but had kept it all to myself since I didn't want to stir up any unnecessary trouble in my brother's life and he seemed to be really in love with her. And the fact that they were pregnant within a year of their marriage. I couldn't say anything that could potentially mess up their marriage when they were about to have a child together and once my nephew was born.

There was no way I was going to talk crap about my sister-in-law because that would inevitably end up with me and my brother never speaking again. So I stayed silent, but the truth of was bound to come out someday. I just regret that I wasn't the one to stop this from happening. My brother has filed for divorce and full custody of his son. His wife is devastated and insists that she really does love him now but there's no taking back what she did. I, for one, am happy that he's made the decision to leave even if it is after so many years. The only thing I feel a little bad about is that she's a cancer patient and this is coming at a really bad time for her, but my brother deserves better and I'll stand by that.

Update 2. I just found out from my brother that the friend that she'd cheated on him with and his son's real father had still been actively involved in their lives up until recently. He'd come over for a few drinks in the evening today and was venting to me when he told me about this spectacular bit of information. This man had been an old friend of his wife's and he'd had feelings for her since. forever, but then my sister-in-law had chosen to marry my brother because she felt that this friend of hers wasn't stable financially, which just meant that he was well off enough for her.

She'd told him about this friend of hers long back when they started dating initially, but he'd never suspected a thing because that's how much he trusted her. When she told him the truth, she claimed that they'd been together only once after their marriage just because they were drunk and emotional, but he didn't know if anything she said was true anymore. My brother said that He'd been an idiot to trust her in the first place and regret spending so many years of his life fighting against anyone who said a word against her because eventually. It all turned out to be true and she was nothing more than someone who was after whatever little money he had and he was the only guy foolish enough to trust her despite her reputation.

I felt like crap about myself after he left because if I'd just pushed him a little harder and forced him not to marry this woman then maybe he wouldn't be in this awful situation at all but here we are. It's disgusting that she even remained in touch with the man she cheated on her husband with. Listening to him talk about how his wife would often invite this guy and his wife over for dinner and they'd all sit and chat like old friends while he raised this other man's son was sickening. And I just had to listen to him, but this was his reality. I really can't imagine what my brother must be going through right now and I just keep thinking about how different things would have been if I tried to force him to see her reality before he got married to her.

It sucks that he's having to go through all of this just because he chose to love someone who didn't deserve any of it. I don't even know Wadl become of his relationship with his son now because this is all bound to take a toll on him mentally. He's been living at home with his son and his wife has moved in with her parents, but she keeps visiting every day to ask for forgiveness and convince him not to leave her. It must be crazy difficult for him to say no to a literal cancer patient after so many years of togetherness. I know he still loves her despite what she did

to him and all the lies she told them throughout their marriage and her pregnancy and I could hear it in the way he was reminiscing today about the good times he'd had with his wife. I wish I could do something to help my brother, but I can't, my hands are tied. The most I can do for him is to offer to babysit my nephew because he's taking up more work and responsibilities in his workplace so that he earns more than whatever he's making now and can give his son the life he deserves. I don't think he'll get full custody of his son, given the circumstances. I bet the court will want to let their kids spend as much time as he can with his mother if something unfortunate happens to her. It's unlikely that she'll be able to fight the cancer longer than she already has and as far as I know,

her condition has been steadily worsening for the past few months. To be honest, at this point, I don't even know what to feel about it. anyone involved in this situation including myself I tried my best to warn my brother back when he was dating my still but he didn't listen so it's not like I'm in the wrong here either but I also can't just shake off the guilt all I can say for sure is that every single adult involved here has failed my nephew and made a complete mess of things including me I just hope we're all able to come out of this as better people now update three it's been a week and a half since my brother last visited and he's been really caught up with work. He dropped by today and

requested me to watch my nephew for a couple of hours as he had to go visit his lawyer urgently, and I agreed because this was the least that I could do for him when he was in such a state. Once he came back, he told me that his wife had told her friend about who was the real father of her son and he's willing to fight for custody as well if my brother doesn't agree to his wife's terms. He told me that she's still willing to patch things up with him and even tried to play the cancer card by saying that she wouldn't even be around for much longer probably so he should just let her spend the last few months of her life peacefully instead of being so selfish and disrupting it all with legal complications. She doesn't even understand that the

custody battle isn't a way to get back at her but is just to ensure that even if she does pass away, her so-called friend isn't able to just swoop in and take his child away from him just because he's his biological father. Only a truly selfish human being would imagine that the this is all about them. The only thing that my brother is doing to get back at her as she says is the divorce and that's just because he respects himself too much to spend any more time with someone who has done nothing but use him for these past couple of years. They had a really bad argument about the same a couple of days ago when she dropped by to see her son and talk to him yet again so that she could persuade him to stop the legal proceedings. When he told her

that he wasn't going to change his mind, she got mad and said those things and the situation just got worse. He believes that she got her friend involved just to retaliate and I agree with her. I don't even know what her friend's wife is going to say about all of this. They've only been married for four months according to what my brother told me and this is some insane crap that they're getting into. I'm grateful that my nephew himself is blissfully unaware of any of this and even today, he seemed as happy as ever. I hope that he stays this way forever because the poor kid really shouldn't have to deal with so much from such a young age. Update 4. Hi, everyone. My sister-in-law visited me today to see my brother. He'd been here to drop the baby off

for a while and he'd been avoiding her for a few days so she turned up at my house because she knew he was likely to come here. I tried to tell her to go away but she looked so sickly and weak that I was having a really hard time turning someone like that away. So my brother took over for me and instead of turning her away, he invited her into the house and told her to make it quick because he also had to leave for work soon. I was in the room with them and the entire conversation happened right in front of me which made me feel like I was intruding on something really personal. My sister-in-law was pleading with my brother to let her have joint custody and she'd somehow managed to get rid of her friends since she didn't even want to involve him in the first

place but her emotions got the better of her and she ended up telling him the truth, which is why he got involved. She said that she made her peace with the divorce and wasn't even going to contest it, but she desperately needed to see her baby because her cancer was just getting worse and it had already progressed to stage three, according to what her doctors told her this week so she needed to spend as much time as she could with her son. I thought my brother was going to say no by how distraught he looked, but instead, he told her that the most he could do for her at this point was that he could let her have supervised visits. He told her very calmly that. He told her very calmly that, that she'd lied to him for months and that he couldn't just accept it and move on just because

she was sick. He was also suffering and just because his pain and scars didn't show, didn't make it any easier for him. He told her that he'd fought against everyone who called her a gold digger and a scammer, but eventually, that's what the truth was since she cheated on him in spite of how hard he'd been defending her. So now, for his own sake and the sake of his son, he wanted to let her go and start afresh. My sister-in-law didn't seem too happy about what was being said, but my brother was quite firm that she could either agree to supervised visits once a week or she could go to court against him. After some silence, she said that she'd pick supervised visits, which is what the court would have ordered anyway, so now they only need to legally agree to that arrangement. The divorce is still going

to happen, though. I don't know what the future has in store for my brother and my nephew, but I pray that it's only good things. Now on to the next story. Story two. Notice my wife coming home half-dressed, so I checked the security footage. What I discovered ended our marriage. I, 27M, was married to my ex-wife, 24F, for almost two years before I found out she wasn't as faithful as she claimed. My wife and I met at the beach on a summer afternoon, and we had a fantastic time together. She had come with a group of male and female college friends. They were all law students, but they decided to take a little break from school. I was also with a few friends, so some of us interacted with my wife and her friends, and we got along well. While other people's conversations ended the

day after we left the beach to our different destinations, my wife and I exchanged numbers and kept talking occasionally. Shortly after we met, we started dating and married two years later. Before my wife and I married, our relationship was not smooth. My wife came from a well-to-do background, and her parents gave us a very tough time. They were against my wife dating someone like me, and they told her she would be making a grave mistake if she ended up with me. They said so because I worked 12 hours a day, had two different jobs, and couldn't get a good paying job, no matter how hard I tried. Her parents were a pain in the ass, but because we loved each other, we vowed to get married, with or without her parents' approval.

After months of her parents trying to separate us, they stopped and accepted our relationship. With her parents out of our way, I expected we would not have any other issues, but I had no idea more was coming. Two months before we married, my wife cheated on me with one of her classmates and confessed to me. She said it happened by mistake, and the guilt had been eating her up. Meanwhile, I had noticed during the time she claimed it happened that she was always looking sad and somehow depressed, and each time I questioned her to find out what was bothering her, she would say she was okay. When she confessed that she had cheated on me with her classmate and couldn't explain how it happened, I forgave her. Now that I share my story, I regret making such a mistake and wish I was smarter.

I believed she wouldn't do it again because I felt if she came clean by herself and didn't wait for me to find out, then she was genuinely sorry. This was very hard on me, but because I was young, stupid, and in love, I forgave her, and she promised it would never happen again. We continued with our wedding and were married for almost two years. Though we never discussed or escapade with her classmate again, it never left my head. I remembered her confession every day, but I never mentioned it or talked about it. I tried my best to let it remain in the past because she had moved on, and she was trying her best to be my perfect wife.

She was extremely nice to me, hampered me, and treated me like the only man in the world. I don't know if it was her way of saying sorry for what she had done, but irrespective of everything she did, each time I looked at her, I wondered if she was still sleeping with him behind me. It got to the point where I began to feel bad because I thought I was still holding on to the past, and I wasn't enjoying our marriage like I should have. It took me a whole year after we married to forcefully put everything behind me and go with the flow. I knew I had not cared for her like I had initially planned from the beginning of our relationship. So, I started making little effort, like making breakfast in bed for her and fixing dinner for us before she returned from work. My ultimate plan was to do something very special for us on our second anniversary, and I looked

forward to it. Eventually, the day of our second anniversary reached, and I made all the preparations to sweep her off her feet and at least make up for the times I didn't treat her right. I even got a costly gift, the dress she would wear, and accessories to go with it. I went home early that day from work and waited hours for her to return. When she didn't return home like I expected, I called her to ask why, and she said one of her professors fixed an imprompt to class, and she couldn't miss it because attending the class came with a score. I felt disappointed when I heard that, but didn't try to argue. I expected that since it was our wedding anniversary, she wouldn't want to miss a special occasion like that. I can't explain why, but that feeling of her doing something behind me crept up again, and I couldn't shake it off this time. To be at peace with myself, I decided to check her Snapchat location, and it was different from the location she schooled at. I didn't believe it at first, but after checking thrice, I realized my wife had been lying

to me again. I went to the location without wasting time, and it rang a bell. It was the same apartment her classmate, whom she slept with before we married, lived in. I'd lie if I said I could explain how we felt that evening. Being heartbroken or disappointed would not describe it enough. I wanted to storm into the apartment and attack her, but I had a better idea. I called her proud parents to come over to the apartment so we could surprise her for our anniversary. I knew they would come because they would do anything for their only child.

Not long after I called, her parents arrived, and we went to the apartment to say, surprise. As soon as we knocked on the door, and her lover came to a woman, came to open, her parents saw her walking totally naked inside the house. Her father yelled her name, and her mother pushed her app aside and charged in. I'd love to say that everything was disastrous that evening. She didn't know if she was begging me or her parents. I watched her as mother screamed and questioned her, and her father stood there in shock after she covered herself with the sheets. I didn't say much. I only told her it was over between us, and that her cheating on me again was my fault.

She didn't understand, and I didn't bother explaining. I don't know what happened between her and her parents after I left. She came home later that week and asked if we could talk. When I said no, she picked the things she needed and left the house. She didn't even press for me to let her explain. I didn't know what to think or assume when she acted that way. Before she came home to take her stuff, I already contacted a divorce lawyer, and when the papers were ready, she signed them without

hesitation. Until today, I still wonder if she ever loved me like she claimed or was only enjoying the tussle of power with her parents. The last time I tried stalking her on Facebook, she posted a picture of her and her app with a mushy caption. I was so angry, and I blocked her instantly. Because of that picture, I quit sulking and wondered if she loved me. I saw how happy she was, and I felt stupid for still living in the past and putting my life on hold.

I am fine now and have moved on faster than expected. I also realized that we have power over our emotions, and feeling miserable because of a cheating spouse should never be an option. I no longer care about her, all I care about now is me and my future.