Sorry for the long post, it’s late and I can’t sleep. I’m hoping getting this out helps. Trigger warning, this shit is disturbing. My (29f) husband (30m), let’s call him J, and I have been together since we were 12. He did not have a good childhood, most of his memories are running from beatings from his dad which I knew about. I actually watched him get beat a few times unfortunately.
When I first met my husband, his older brother (42m) we’ll call him C, was on the run from the cops for many things, robbery, theft, and safe cracking to name a few. He ended up getting caught and spending 15 years in prison. I never knew much about him.
When he got released from prison, J asked if I could get C a job and I did. I learned pretty quickly that he was an absolute dog. He slept with basically my whole female staff. He ended up quitting to do tattoos, something he picked up in prison. I have a sleeve from him.
Last year he met a woman, she stuck by all his cheating and he has apparently changed. He proposed to her just 2 days after I announced our wedding. I feel like that’s relevant because it seems like he’s always trying to one up my husband.
C did not come to our wedding. C and my husband’s other brother (31m), B, do not get along at all. B hasn’t talked to him since he went to prison as far as I know. That should’ve been a red flag to me, looking back. So we didn’t invite C to keep the peace. C calls J a day after the proposal and asks if he’ll be his best man, J says yes.
J was pretty quiet the rest of the day. I feel like I should mention J is a very selfless, forgiving person, he still talks to his dad, forgives him, and loves him. Me, not so much. I don’t come around much and when I do, I keep it brief because I don’t want to lose my shit.
After the kids go to sleep, I ask J what’s wrong. He breaks down and tells me how C was a huge part of his beatings, how he would blow cigarette smoke into J’s mouth and drag him to their dad, and say he’s been smoking, and hold him down so his dad could hit him. J had a dog growing up, very special to him, when we first met all of his passwords were this dogs name. I did ask what happened to her back then, and he just said she died. He tells me she was his comfort, that he would hide from beatings in her dog house, and that she was his only friend. Well one day, C is chasing J with a gun, he finds J hiding in her house and shoots her right in front of him. J was 8. He tells me more disturbing stories that night about C, but you get the point.
J continues to go on about how he loves C and that’s his brother, and he’s changed, but the stuff he did still hurts. I held J that entire night while he sobbed. Honestly I just want to kill C. I told J I won’t be going to the wedding and C better hope I never see him again, because I am not as mature as J and I’m not even sure what I’ll do.
I let this guy touch me. Every time I look at my tattoo I want to puke. J says C was beat too, and he was just trying to survive. Their dad was also beat and it’s just a cycle that he is breaking. I’ll never understand how a human can be so evil, I told J how kind he is, is proof that they should be held accountable, and just because you were beat doesn’t mean you get to pass that pain to others.
TL;DR my husband’s brother is an absolute monster who inflicted a ton of trauma on him, then asked him to be his best man.