'AITA for telling my BIL I will never forgive his daughter and won't have her near my family?' MAJOR UPDATE

"AITA for telling my brother in law I will never forgive his daughter and I have no intention of ever having her near my family?"

So the people involved here: me (30F), my husband (35M), my older sister (35F), my sister's son Kevin (14M), her husband Joe (40M), Joe's daughter Kelly (15F). My sister had a blended family with her bio son, her husband and her step daughter. I would say it was still a work in progress for them but we all accepted and included Joe and Kelly into our lives.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I organized a little get together at our place to celebrate my birthday and for people in our family to spend time with our 6 months old son. The people present were my sister and her family + our parents so very intimate and chill.

Everything went well and nothing out of the ordinary happened. But some days after the gathering my nephew Kevin came to our house and asked to speak to me about something concerning. For info, Kevin and Kelly attend the same school and have some mutual friends. My nephew told me that Kelly has been telling her friends that during the gathering she has seen her step-uncle's (my husband's) organ.

She claims she was in the bathroom, my husband entered without knocking and he had his organ outside his pants and this is how she ended up seeing it. This is absurd because my husband does not do this even when we are alone in our home and honestly who does that when they know they have guests over?

So I asked everybody who were present that day to meet at my parent's house and confronted Kelly. She started crying and confesses she lied to her friends. According to her, all of her girlfriends have already had some sort of intimacy and experiences and she had none by this point.

So she invented this story to look cool in front of her friends. I lost it. I called her a disgusting POS, a psychopath and told her she risked my son's father's life just to boost her stupid social life among her friends. I told the rest of my family that going forward I will never bring my family near Kelly again. The consequences for this girl came fast.

My nephew told everybody at school the truth, my sister and Joe went to school and informed the principal about what happened so in case any teacher hears that BS they know it's made up so they don't take action, my parents cut contact with her and will not host her in their house anymore and my sister refuses to have Kelly live with them so she was permanently moved to her mother's place.

Before you start judging my sister for this, please keep in mind that she has a bio son who needs to be protected.

If Kelly could so easily invent and tell those things about my husband, who can guarantee she will not lie about her step brother too? Now Joe is obviously hurt and torn about everything that happened. He keeps telling me that Kelly is depressed and wants to apologize to my family but I keep refusing.

I explained to him that I don't need her apology and she shouldn't waste her time with this because I will never forget what happened or move past it. Joe keeps begging me to forgive her because she is just a stupid teenager and maybe if my sister sees me forgiving her she will be willing to eventually accept Kelly back.

I told Joe that a stupid teenager can have the power to ruin a man's life and reputation so I am not risking it. Also I fully support my sister and I want to protect my nephew too. Before Kelly was moved to her mother's, Kevin stayed with me and my husband for some days.

So I don't regret my decision at all. I stand by everything that I said but I feel bad for my BIL. Regardless of how messed up his daughter is, he is a great guy, respectful and he really values the concept of family and honesty. So idk, I guess I want to ask if I was the AH towards him?

The internet had a lot to say in response.

Worried_Suit4820 wrote:

Kevin showed his maturity here; he realised how devastating this lie could be for your husband.

Ok_West_6711 wrote:

Wow, good point, I’d overlooked that if Kevin hadn’t said something, this could/would have escalated before OP could prevent the escalation. He was very mature.

Beth21286 wrote:

That kid has a good head on his shoulders. It's a shame Kelly has BIL for a father who is making excuses for her instead of someone who takes this seriously.

GoodBadUserName wrote:

OP does not say he made excuses for her. But he is still her father. That isn’t going to change. He still cares for her even when she did something incredibly stupid due to social pressure.

So trying to make amends and trying to get his family back isn’t something weird to do, nor not-serious. People with kids don’t just write them off. The fact that he agreed she live with her mother and sticked to his wife side of the family, shows he does take it seriously. It doesn’t mean he won’t try to fix it.

OP responded:

He is an amazing kid indeed. And he is very close to my husband and me and knew from the start everything was a lie.

CarelessZucchini8477 wrote:

The thing that everyone keeps forgetting is even though it sounds like an accident the way she told it, it could still end up with him being arrested and charged with indecent exposure to a minor. Even if found innocent, he would ALWAYS have that stigma attached to him. People around here don’t mess around when it comes to things like this.

OP responded:

Exactly! Thank you for this. I left a lot out of the post because I am not sure what it's allowed here or not but let's say that no sane adult who heard her story would ever think it was an accident. She provided some details and made some remarks that made it look like he flashed her.

Two days later, OP shared an update.

Hi all! Thank you very much for your replies to my previous post! I really appreciate you taking time in helping me with your words, your experiences and your feedback. Talking to you here has been really therapeutic to me but also really sad to hear about some of your experiences.

I have received many messages from you asking me to update. There is nothing really much to say, nothing big happened but I have talked to my sister and she gave me some updates. But before getting to that I want to clarify 3 main aspects that keep coming around: We are all sure that Kelly lied, there is no debate there, no what if, no one has any doubts.

Some of you really have a sick mind just like Kelly so I can understand why you are taking her side. But please try to stop being so gross even for a little bit. I get that some of you speak from personal experiences, but for the love of God not all deranged teenagers were victims of SA and most certainly my husband did not SA her.

For the ones who need things to be spelled out to them because they don't understand otherwise: stop sending me DMs claiming my husband is a predator, telling me I will regret when the truth comes out, calling me names for defending my husband, saying that I am protecting predators.

I will keep on ignoring your messages, I will not lower myself at your level and I will not entertain your delusions. Right now to me it seems the only predators is you because otherwise you would not be such sick individuals wishing bad things to happen to people who you don't even know.

You do not offend me claiming this is fake. If you truly believe the story is fake and I made it up, why would you waste time to comment? You are free to move on and just ignore me. I am not willing to forgive Kelly, I am not willing to allow her to apologize, I am not willing to ever have her near my family (meaning my husband and my son).

My husband is not willing to do any of these things either. This is a shared decision and we will never have anything to do with this girl. Stop blaming me for what the rest of my family is doing. I do not command my parents, my sister, Kelly's father or my nephew.

If they cut contact with her it was their own decision, we just told them our boundaries but they can do what they want. Now into the update. As I said I talked to my sister and some things are going to happen this week. First of all, Kevin is coming to our place tomorrow and will spend the entire week with us so that my sister and her husband can have time to sort things out.

They plan to go visit Kelly at her mother's place, sit her down and tell her what is going to happen. My sister asked Kevin if he wants her to divorce or if he feels unsafe living with her husband. My newphew told her he does not want to ruin her marriage, he does not hate Joe even if he said it a couple of times, he does not feel unsafe with him but he does not want to ever have to be near Kelly.

My sister and Joe started working with a therapist to see if they can salvage their marriage and it really helped them. So for the ones wishing them to divorce, they will not. The therapist explained to Joe that he can still have a relationship with his daughter while keeping his other family too, the only thing needed is for him to be willing to work for it.

She also said that divorcing and giving up his own life and happiness is not a solution because where does it end? He divorces my sister, in a few years gets a new wife and if Kelly does something again to that new family, is he going to once again give up everything he has and start over?

He needs to see himself and Kelly as 2 different individuals with their own path in life, they don't need to be tied together to have a parent-child relationship and he also needs to show to his kids that marriages are not jokes, you don't give up the first time something sh#$ty happens.

So they decided to work together for their marriage. They will let Kelly know how things will be from now on, meaning Joe will continue seeing and supporting her but she will live full time with her mother (her mother is on board with this, she was part of these discussions).

Some commenter suggested in the future Kevin can stay at my place if they want to have Kelly over and I suggested this to my sister. I told her that our house will always be open for Kevin so we can do that if Kevin also wants it.

I don't think he will refuse since he enjoys spending time with us and his baby cousin but we need to see how he'll feel for the girl to be in his house. Right now Kevin is also in therapy because he has been having nightmares and violent outbursts when he hears about Kelly so this will not be suggested to him anytime soon.

The last time he heard about her he had a panic attack, started crying and shouting that he hates her and wishes we never met her. I am confident that with therapy he will go back to his happy self but baby steps, he does not need to be rushed right now. We are all focused on his well being and mental health right now and the summer break will be perfect for him.

The girl will also be moved to a different school during this summer. This is for both her and Kevin because they will not need to see each other in school and she will avoid getting bullied. Her friends who she told the stories to went home and told the drama to their parents so now Kelly is forbidden to ever go to these kids' houses since their parents don't want to risk it.

I would want to say that I am surprised, but honestly I am not. No sane adults will have someone like her in their home and risk being accused of things. I am also somehow happy the adults who were close to her in one way or another are aware of what is happening so they are able to protect themselves and not have to face what we did.

So that's pretty much it for now. I think I will keep updating if anything interesting happens. I am excited to have my nephew here for the week! I will finally have my partner to game with since my boomer of a husband is not that much into games so obviously not fun like Kevin.

The internet continued to share their thoughts.

Icky-Tree-Branch wrote:

I remember being Kelly’s age and some friends told me stories of their exploits…meanwhile, I didn’t even have my first kiss until I was 15. I didn’t make anything up because I saw it as a “can’t win” situation. Be honest, be a prude. Make something up, someone will slt-shame. Probably because I was a bit of a dork.*

But as an adult thinking back on my friends’ stories? I’m sure they weren’t all legit. But they still managed to not accuse a member of their extended families of perving.

Jesus, if she wanted to make up an “accidental p*nis” story, she could have gone with her walking in on the guy changing instead of uncle flashed his junkle. Instead, she made herself into someone you need to protect your family from instead of someone to protect. You’re making the only reasonable call.

Traditional-Field488 wrote:

NTA and the comments for demanding empathy for kid was out of line. She is 15 not 5. You have every right to stay away. You are not even a bio aunt. Why did people keep asking u to help her? How many of these people will allow such kid in their house, if they talk such stuff for them? Noone. You did right. A woman with a spine.

OP responded:

I have no idea...people kept trying to make me responsible for her, telling me that I have to teach her, support her, educate her, love her. Like wtf! Some of them were sending me messages that if I don't forgive her she will hurt herself because of me. That's why I mentioned people are really delusional and deranged

PaulsGrafh wrote:

Ugh…I’m very torn about this story. On one hand, you’re 100% right that you should protect your family. She made up a story that could destroy your life, your husband’s life, her own life (seems like it already has), and her dad’s life, among others. You gotta nip that s#$t in the bud early.

On the other hand, 15-year-olds are really f#$king stupid. Like, REALLY f#$king stupid. Oftentimes they’re a child in an adult’s body. Up until now, she was a child and was just learning about how the world works within the safe confines of whatever universe her parents’ allowed her to be exposed to.

And now she’s going through puberty and (like kids usually do) she gets to compete with all of her friends over who’s becoming a “grownup” fastest. It sounds to me like she wanted to brag to her friends that an older man was turned on by her without realizing the magnitude of her accusations. And it doesn’t sound like she was trying to get your husband in trouble.

You noted that she told these stories to her friends - it’s not like she reported him to her teachers or the police for SA or harassment. Boys brag about getting hit on by older women all the time as well - it’s just unfortunately not taken as seriously. But pubescent teens bragging about being the object of adults’ s#$ual affections is not new.

Can’t there be a healthy medium where she lives with her mom, and to the extent that she ever spends time with your family, it’s never unsupervised? Given how traumatizing the experience of getting caught in a lie has been (and will continue to be) for her, I’d be shocked if she pulls this again. But to completely shun a 15 year old kid for life for making a REALLY stupid decision?

There’s a good chance that this has the unintended effect of her becoming a very bitter person down the road. She’s already faced major consequences for her actions. Making them impossible to come back from could make her double down or become a terrible person (as opposed to naive, which she seems to be currently).

Just food for thought. I totally understand and respect how pissed you are, and while we often give teens less credit for their agency than they deserve, this full on public shunning could be very dangerous to her and others down the road.

ETA: This could also be a teaching moment for Kevin. Do you really want him to learn that going scorched earth is the best solution for every situation he finds himself in? Assuming your sister and Joe stay together for the long haul, they’ll be step siblings for the foreseeable future.

And if your sister and Joe live long happy lives and grow old and die together, they’re going to need to navigate elder care together. I dunno, it just seems like while this is rightfully being taken seriously, it’s also setting these poor kids up for failure with respect to conflict resolution and interpersonal relationships in the long run.

OP responded:

Logically speaking I fully understand your point of view. And I don't say it's wrong but I am left with these: I get peer pressure, I get wanting to brag to her friends, I get your point with wanting to be the the object of someone's sexual affection. But she could have invented an imaginary person.

She could have mentioned an imaginary family friend, an imaginary cousin, anyone. It's not like her friends even know my husband, he is not some eye candy for hormonal teens. So the concerning aspect is she could have literally invented anyone for her imaginary story, still she went for a very real adult who happens to be double her age.

Now she did it once. Who can guarantee it will not happen again? She invented a story about my husband with events that never happened. What if something actually happens by accident?

What if for example my nephew enters a room while she is changing without knowing she is there? What if in her next group of friends she will once again feel left out for not being able go relate to those friends' experiences? What if she next invents stories about someone else in the family? Personally, if you were my husband would you ever feel safe to be in her presence?

I don't see any healthy way for us to ever be in the same space again. Let's leave out the fact that we don't want to and focus on practical details. We don't trust her. Having her near us again would mean for us to always have to move in pairs so that there is always a witness present just in case or constantly record everything. Having her in the same space with us would mean her father having to be with her non stop.

She wants to use the toilet? Good, tale her hand, escort her there, wait for her and then escort her back please. This is uncomfortable, unnatural, forced. I am sorry but there are things you can never come back from and this is one of them in my books. The risks are too high and it's not worth it.