Here’s a question that shouldn’t be hard to answer: “Am I the a**hole for forcing my parents to disown my gay brother?”
Survey says… yes, absolutely! It’s a simple rule, but every rule has an exception.
A woman posed the question to the popular “Am I The A**hole” Reddit forum, and after explaining the context, commenters swarmed to reassure her that no, she is definitely not to blame.
The 28-year-old woman explained that she “hates” her older brother, and had a difficult family life.
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“He hated me too and kept telling lies about me to my parents – if he stole something he would blame me and they believed him,” she wrote. “He sabotaged all of my relationships, he bullied me, he forced my friends against me. My parents always took his side.”
The relationships didn’t improve even after she’d earned a college scholarship and left town. Her brother, meanwhile, stayed in their hometown and lived in an apartment on their parents’ dime.
“They stopped contacting me (our family group chat was always about brother and his achievements) and never sent me money,” she explained.
“I live in another state now, married (my family was invited but didn’t bother showing up for my wedding) and with second baby on the way. My husband’s family is great, so that’s helping me a lot.”
“Anyways, my parents are very traditional. Male head of the family, tradition, all this crap. So my brother coming out shocked them. They absolutely demand blood related descendants to carry on the family name (I should mention that I and my kids all have my husband’s surname). Adoption is not an option, neither is surrogating, they accept only ‘proper marriage.'”
“So, out of the blue, my brother contacted me. Apparently, my parents will disown him (he lives off their money, has never worked) unless he fixes the relationship with me (so that they can lay claim to my children) – since he is the cause I drifted away from my family (he isn’t the sole cause, I blame my parents). He actually flew to my state, cried a lot, blamed all the bullying on his stress from being in the closet, yadda yadda. I told him to f off. My family is dead to me and I don’t care about him.
“He is now saying how I’m petty, willing to ruin an adult’s life over childhood slights. Also that I’m homophobic, etc. But I refuse to be back in contact with my parents, as a back-up source of blood related grand babies now that their golden child ‘has failed’ them.”
In an update, she added that her parents want her new baby carry the family surname rather than her husband’s.
Hundreds of commenters left messages of encouragement for her standing up for herself.
“Your brother is an a**hole in so many ways, but his homophobia claim is one I want to highlight,” one wrote. “If you told him to f**k off because he’s gay, yes, that would make you homophobic. That’s not why you said it though, you told him to f**k off because he treated you terribly and didn’t see any reason to be in your life until he needed something.”
Another agreed: “Brother needs to learn that he can’t just use ‘homophobia’ as a reason just because he doesn’t get his way.”
“Keep your parents and brothers out of your life,” another commenter advised. “As you said they want your current baby to carry their surname, not happening and I’m sure they will stop trying to weasel their way back into your life once the baby is born and isn’t given their last name.”
CatholicXXX
If what she says about her brother’s actions are true, then I would side with her as well.
I don’t know why she used that title as nothing says that she’s forcing them to disown him. She doesn’t care.
The brother is an idiot. He’s 100% reliant on his parents and decided it would be fine to come out to his hyper conservative parents without a means to support himself? Hopefully he’s hot so he can start escorting, do porn, and create and onlyfans..
Pistolo
You don’t need to be a genius-level ethicist to recognize her parents are so obviously the problem, not her brother. The question should be centered around THAT, not her brother. The commenters even taking *her* side in such a 1-dimensional manner are useless in this debate because they obviously don’t see some not even vague nuance.
Her parents hold the archaic belief their family name has some significance like they’re part of some ancient dynasty. This puts an enormous level of responsibility on her brother with a toxic dose of supreme coddling- in essence, they think he is the most important thing about their legacy but they don’t think he’s capable of taking care of himself. That is a great way to build an insecure ragemonster. His sister was emotionally neglected by them and therefore caught in the crossfire and whereas they could’ve mediated like parents are supposed to, they waited till things were almost completely irreparable. Then made their son carry the bag for their negligence, for their completely regressive beliefs when really they should’ve stepped in and copped to their terrible parenting.
But I do think that if he apologized, he cried, he gave tangible reasons for why he acted the way he did….you could *try* to empathize, right? Some straight chick, regardless of proximity, doesn’t know how ruinous to a person’s psyche it is to be closeted and whereas it maybe doesn’t let him off the hook completely, she could at least see this as an opportunity to get closure. Telling someone to f-off when they might actually be sincere about something like that is really just dumb because what if he kills himself or just dies incidentally? She’ll never have the option to know if things could’ve gotten better.
Morg
That is a very sage way of looking at things and i completely agree.
EddieB
“Some straight chick?” How enlightened of you. He needs her now because the parents need her children. Oh well…
fredo777
The brother sounds like an entitled brat and his being closeted is not a free pass to act like an as#hole, then come back for forgiveness years later and only because you need something. Throw the whole family away. And using the “what if he harms himself?” reasoning is a classic case of how empaths get taken advantage of by narcissists, because they’re trying so hard to be “the good person” even to their own detriment. For her own and her kids’ wellbeing, dump the whole toxic family.
valkiron
Being gay, being in the closet, being the golden child. Those are explanations, not excuses. They provide the best explanations for why OP’s bro is a pos (he could just be a sociopath, OP never bothered to investigate that). The brother treated OP like crap and she is under no obligation to do anything for him just because he’s gay. He was in the closet all his childhood? So what? That’s no excuse for his treatment of OP.
And besides it wasn’t sincere. He wasn’t looking for forgiveness. He was looking to get his parents claws into her. Her parents who, because they are straight, you can say objectively are pos. You want to talk about being one dimensional, you falling over yourself trying to defend OP’s bro that you don’t even realize that he’s pulling OP back towards the people you think are the real problem here.
Dr Sarah
‘But I do think that if he apologized, he cried, he gave tangible reasons for why he acted the way he did….you could *try* to empathize, right?’
Or, alternatively, *he* could have tried to empathise with how it felt for *her* to be treated the way she was by her parents and her brother, and apologised for his part in that any time in the years *before* he wanted something from her. If he actually was sincere, that’s what he’d have done. He missed all those chances, showed up only when he wanted something, made excuses instead of owning what he did (stress over being in the closet isn’t a ‘reason’ for that level of lying about and bullying someone, it’s an excuse), and called her ‘petty’ when he didn’t get what he wanted. So, no, he’s not sincere here, and she had the sense to know it and not fall for it.
Since she’s moved on and made a life for herself, it sounds like she’s got closure just fine. I wish her the best of luck. And this man made his own bed.
jt1990
Sounds like the whole family was bat$hit crazy before the brother came out. But of course the ‘gay’ part had to be highlighted as the main cause of all the dysfunction. I only know of one gay person who was “disowned” by his family, my neighbor. Not quite disowned, but his family made him leave home at 18 because he kept doing drugs in the house, getting arrested for DUI’s, violently argued with his parents, etc. And everyone thought his family was horrible because he claimed the sole reason for being forced out what his homosexuality.
I wonder how many of these “disowned for being gay” stories are entirely true? I find it hard to believe most neurotypical parents would disown a role model kid, or one who at least behaved well enough just for being gay? Feel like a lot of these cases are just sensationalized tall tales!
charette8596
Totally agree. In most cases there are 2 sides to every story, and in this case l would support hers.
boblrice
@jt1990 I wonder if you’ve actually ever met a gay person, because this comment is so myopic it’s laughable. Then again, I need to remember that you’re here specifically to be contrarian.
I can assure you that there are indeed families that disown their gay children for no other reason than being gay.
Mattster
What an ignorant comment. LGBTQ kids are abused, sent to re-education camps, and thrown out of the house all the time. In any city you can find many homeless LGBTQ kids. They live hard lives, they mostly are too young to legally work, they are preyed on for sex and more abuse, and many shelters (notably Catholic charities) refuse to help them. Things are getting better in many areas of the country but don’t act as though this never happens.
mailliw110
I wonder if you are real. Don’t forget the Ten Commandments!
ZzBomb
I’m with her on this one. She’s not a homophobe, he’s just an entitled self-serving jerk. One unspoken gay rule I think is to be self-reliant and not having to grift or depend on others. Of course everyone needs help once in a while in their life, but I mean over all in general. The guy was living on his parent’s dime means time for some hard, late learned, life lessons.
nitejonboy
Good for her, she needs to stay as far away from them as possible, they are dangerous to her children and her happiness, and she has proven she doesn’t need them..that brother needs to find his own life and his own joy and do exactly what she did and get the hell away from those toxic parents.
Toofie
She’s better off without her family. Her parents are insane and her gay brother is only coming to his sister because he refuses to stand on his own. He should start by getting a job.
Jaquelope
What kind of job could he get? He has no skills, it seems. I seriously doubt if he could even get a job in a fast-food restaurant if his parents instilled and promoted the idea that he is or was their “Golden Child”.
Toofie
Regardless if he has job skills or not, he hasn’t tried. He’s only trying to rope his sister back into the toxic family for himself.
Brian
What a crap article.
a) These stories aren’t real. The writers are seeking attention and “internet points.” The points help Reddit users become more popular for future posts. Anyone who has been on the internet for the last 20 years should know this already.
b) I always feel bad for the generic models you use for these kinds of articles. Once, you used a Shutterstock photo for an article about pedophiles. These models do not consent to this kind of usage. Please stop.
white-queer-african
Oh @Brian. Stop clutching your pearls and YOU just go away. You are not forced to read any articles on Queerty.
SammySeattle
Brian is not wrong.
Jerry
Dump the parents, period.
Jim
Be grateful that you escaped these toxic people and keep them as many states away as possible
SammySeattle
None of this ever happened.
white-queer-african
@SammySeattle, so you were there with the sister to confirm to us it is not true?
PLEASE MARY!
cubcmh
You weaponized your brother’s orientation to seek revenge?
Well, YES – you ARE an asshole.
cat daddy aaron
She didn’t though. She didn’t weaponize her brothers orientation. Did you read the whole thing or just the headline?
valkiron
Tell me you just read the title and went straight to the comments without telling me you just read the title and went straight to the comments
Yooper
For fucs sake it is Reddit. People post the most asinine crap soliciting AITA. 99% of the drivel on Reddit is fictional stories concocted by miserable souls looking for attention or relevancy. Better to dig into the Ben & Jerry’s, watch some porn and have a wank.
mhuffmanintn
You are not blameless in this. First, we are only hearing your side of this. I seriously doubt that in your self proclaimed perfection, your parents didn’t have some reason to act the way they did. Coming on a website to trash someone that is unable to defend themself is the sign of an immature person, and I would gather someone that is carrying around some form of guilt, and posting this is in some way your attempt at justification of your actions.
DavidNC
True. If this saga is real, we have only heard one side of the story.
mhuffmanintn
The comment you made about your parents wanting to carry on the family name through you doesn’t make sense either. A daughters child does not carry on the family name. If you and your husband have a son, it is his family name that Is carried on, not yours. They probably just want to see their grandkids you have so maliciously taken from them because of your jealousy.
okiloki
You need to reread the last part of the article where she says her parents were demanding her to rename her newest child’s surname to their last name. Should be more careful about commenting when you missed important details.
okiloki
Really disappointed in Qweerty for their misleading and click bait title. I know it’s a habit but this one really crosses the line. Either way, the daughter is correct in this situation and her brother and parents all sound like horrible people. Mostly the parents are to blame and it’s for the best they are no longer in her life or they would probably try to instill their toxic views into her children.