"Not particularly in the man genre,
but You Can't Always Get What You Want has been anthemic for me throughout my life."
How should I handle this?
Here is the basis of my problem. I just joined twitter and found out that my brother-in-law (married to my wife's sister) was also on it so I went to his page to follow him. I found two big red flags.
#1 - He is completely lying about who he is and where he came from. He says he is a "true southerner" when he grew up in a city in the north. He also says he has a farm, horses, a lake on his property, and wooded acreage. He lives in an apartment. What irks me about this even more is that he posted pictures of his lake, farm, and the view out his bedroom window. I guess maybe the level he took the lying to bothers me more than anything.
#2 - He's talking to a whole lot of women. Most of them are the wannabe strippers looking for attention, so I doubt anything will come of it. But I question his intentions. He also lies and is telling women that he'll be in Texas if they want to meet even though he is going nowhere near Texas. And he's asked local women out to lunch, dinner, etc.
This whole things just seems odd and creepy. My question is what do I do about it. My wife is kind of aware of the situation, but I didn't fill her on everything yet. I don't want to be responsible for destroying their marriage but I just don't trust this guy. Any advice?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sloan on -
1) You 100% certain it's your brother-in-law?
If your wife is aware, you are off the hook.. If you want justice, consider fighting fire with fire.
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Permalink Reply by Nathanael on -
I agree that you need to make sure this is the right guy. OP, you didn't explain how you know it's him so I can't judge whether you're right or now, but it appears that this could just be a mix up.
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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on -
Tell your wife everything and let her see the account. She can handle it from there, if you get involved trouble will follow.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas on -
I agree that you need to make sure that this guy is in fact your brother-in-law and not someone with the same name. For example, there is a black man in Massachusetts by the name of Casey Anthony whose life became notably more stressful after a certain white woman in Florida was given a not-guilty verdict.
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Permalink Reply by William W. How on -
One other idea, kinda along the lines of verifying you've found the right guy: Ask him if it's not an intentional joke. I'm undecided on creating imaginary social networking personas. No, I guess I've decided it's just fine, because I'm doing it right now. I do it with a made-up name and don't string people along to the point I'm promising to meet them in person, but pretending to be a rich Southern gentleman-farmer? That seems to me within the realms of acceptability, like people who write their twitter feeds from their dogs' or fetus' perspectives.
Aquinas would disagree with me, because the pretend gentleman-farmer is giving a false impression to his twitter audience, but I consider twitter a forum in which everyone is free to take on a kind of fake persona, like celebrities do in person in public.
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Permalink Reply by Sam Spade on -
To clarify it is my wife's sister's husband and I am 100% sure it is him. It's his picture(s). He talks about his favorite sports teams and he's talked about events that he's gone to. And he's posted some jokes that he also posted on facebook.
And it's not really an online persona because he doesn't act differently. He just tells everyone that he's a beer-drinking, farm-owning, cowboy (and in no way he is portraying a southern "gentleman".) And he usually does it in reply to a woman's post. The lying (I think) is just a part of the problem. It's what got me interested in reading some of his earlier messages.
The main issued that I found is that he's blatantly asking out women. One time he suggested that him and a woman go out to dinner and said to send him a message if she is interested because he is "definitely interested." His wife travels for work and was probably out of town when this was said.
Again, I'm not one to want to be involved in drama and I don't want to start anything, but I feel like this isn't something I can just pretend to ignore.
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Permalink Reply by Nathanael on
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In that case, I think the best thing to do is to pass this on to your wife, who presumably is better able to bring it up with her sister. Maybe it's a joke, maybe she knows what's going on, but you can't assume that.
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Permalink Reply by Todd Serveto on -
You don't have a right to keep this to yourself. Your sister-in-law is married to this man, and if push comes to shove, you'll want to know that you did what you could for her. At the very least, he is engaging in a fantasy life that is terribly inappropriate for a married man--and if he HAS, indeed, asked these women out, then he's probably a lecherous philanderer who could at some point be bringing diseases home to your sister-in-law.
Tell your wife everything. She'll be in the best position to know how to deal with her sister. Expect emotional fall-out, and be there to help her deal with it. Her first instinct will probably be to go over there with a shot gun (and who could blame her?), but help her think things through and devise an approach that will truly be best for your sister-in-law. And don't worry about being responsible for destroying their marriage--you're not the one having inappropriate and dishonest conversations with strange women over the Internet, and you're not the one taking local women out to dinner.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew L on -
Couldn't have said it better myself. You can't ignore something like this, tell your wife everything.
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Permalink Reply by JonEdanger on -
Her first instinct will probably be to go over there with a shot gun (and who could blame her?),
That's some good advice right there. Get your wife ginned up to the point she wants to murder her brother-in-law.
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Permalink Reply by Todd Serveto on
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So what is it that you think, Jon---since this is an uncomfortable situation, they should just ignore it? Is THAT how we handle uncomfortable realities...even if people who should be able to trust us most to have our backs in life (I.E. close family and good friends) are possibly going to be hurt?
What if this man were molesting the nieces and nephews? Still gonna tell the OP to "myob"? Tell me not to tell his wife--she might "get ginned up"? If he were stealing Grandma's retirement savings behind her back, are they supposed to ignore that as well? "Mind your own business, everybody...afterall, your wife might 'get ginned up'". Where do you draw the line? DO YOU draw one...at all? The man is SEEING OTHER WOMEN, Sir...short of murdering her, what could be worse? And how can you expect family who loves her to just ignore that? Don't you think she has a right to know if she could be married to some lecherous pervert? What if she has kids to raise? This man caught him cheating on his wife...and you're treating it like he was cheating on his diet or something.
Of COURSE the OP's wife is going to be fit to be tied---who wouldn't? I plainly said to expect emotional fall out and to be prepared to help her devise a plan. Look, I don't mean to "go off" on you, but I can't fathom how you're thinking. You simply don't seem to be grasping the gravity of all this...at all.
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