There is a wonderful concept in this life that is "family values". In fact, it's absolutely wonderful when it's invoked in a positive context: for example, a warm, brightly lit house for the holidays, happy parents with children together at a large table, joint outings and games... Family values are great, extremely great.
However, on the other hand, how much can you tolerate a person who, despite being your close relative, betrays you in the meanest way? What would be more correct here - to hold a grudge and cut all ties, or to do as the ancients taught us - to turn your left cheek if you were hit on the right? The heroine of our story today simply chose the first...
This tale appeared on the AITA Reddit community a few days ago, and as of today the original post has roughly 20.4K upvotes and over 3.2K different comments. At the same time, people mostly support the author, so her position should probably be considered quite reasonable. However, let's try to figure it out ourselves...
More info: Reddit
The author's ex-husband cheated on her with her own sister seven years ago
Image credits: islandworks (not the actual image)
So, seven years ago, when the author of the post was married and expecting a baby, things went horribly wrong. Around ten weeks into her pregnancy, she suffered a miscarriage, and when she returned home, she found her husband in bed with her own sister. The woman simply could not stand such a double betrayal, so she not only filed for divorce on the spot, but also completely cut all ties with her sister - and limited communication with her parents, who tried to somehow justify her behavior.
Image credits: u/CraftingSunLove
Seven years later, the author married again and was completely happy, though she cut all ties with her relatives
The Original Poster recalls that after that, over the next several years, she gradually came to her senses, and only then, having met her current husband, she managed to completely calm down and find her happiness. The woman says that her husband is a wonderful person, and she considers his relatives her own, and his nieces and nephews her family as well.
Image credits: Bgmfotograofia (not the actual image)
One day the author's sister called her and literally begged for help
Meanwhile, the OP's sister married her ex-husband, they had three children, and they lived their own lives, until one day our heroine received a call from her sister on her work phone, hearing her urgently begging for help. The author of the post calmly hung up and continued to work until her parents called her this time. The news the OP got from them would make literally anyone believe in karma...
Image credits: u/CraftingSunLove
It turned out that the author's sister tasted her own medicine as she had a miscarriage and her husband cheated on her
It turned out that her sister also had a miscarriage, and moreover, in parallel with this, she found out that her husband was cheating on her with someone else. The woman has been living with her parents with her three kids, and asked her sister, whom she had betrayed many years ago, to help her with parenting. Moreover, the parents also implied to the OP that her "aunt's duty" was at least to meet her nephews.
Image credits: u/CraftingSunLove
The author flatly refused to reconcile with her sister and her kids, though her parents also asked her to do it
But the author of the post was actually adamant. She still held a grudge against her sister, and even though she seemed to be feeling almost worse now than the OP had seven years ago, she did not feel any kindred feelings in herself at all. In the end, relatives are given to us to help, not to betray...
Image credits: Julipu (not the actual image)
People in the comments massively supported the author of the post, claiming that her relatives' motives weren't actually pure
We must say that the Original Poster found really massive support among the people in the comments. According to them, for the sake of her mental health, she'd better cut these toxic people off. Moreover, some commenters just suspected that the OP's relatives' motives were not pure in nature and they likely wanted to use her somehow.
According to some commenters, the real jerk here is the Original Poster's sister, who got pregnant by her sister's husband and then simply decided it might be a "good idea" to marry a guy who thought it's OK to cheat when he's married. So she just made her own mess, according to most of the folks in the comments.
However, relatives are actually very often incredibly toxic. We've learned that, for example, from this story about a mom who first wrote a bunch of insulting messages to her daughter-in-law, and then accused her of sneaking when she showed everything to her husband, and he disowned his mother in public. In any case, we are already waiting for your comments about this tale, so please feel free to leave them below.