‘I’m eaten up with guilt after I slept with my brother’s wife’

Resident agony aunt Coleen Nolan has advice for a reader consumed by negative emotions after he slept with his sister-in-law after a confession and too many drinks

Dear Coleen

Recently, I went on a night out with my mates from work and the group included my brother’s wife, who works alongside me in the same department.

It was a great night and everyone was having a good time… until the shots arrived. I got chatting to my sister-in-law about life and then we moved on to discussing my brother and she admitted that she’s fallen out of love with him.

The conversation got really deep and personal, and sparks started to fly. Unfortunately, one thing led to another and I ended up in bed with her.

We haven’t spoken a word about it since, but we have to see each other at family events and things are tense between us.

My brother still has no idea that anything happened.

What should I do, should I tell my brother what I did? The guilt is killing me and I think it’s probably up to me to come clean, as I know his wife won’t say anything. What would be worse for him?

I’ve recently come through a divorce, so I understand how hard it is and know how it affected me mentally. I’d appreciate your opinion.

Coleen says

Whichever way you look at it, this is a bad situation and what you did was pretty unforgivable, which you know because the guilt is eating you up. Being drunk is not an excuse and won’t ease the pain.

I can’t tell you what to do – I can just help you to look at it from all angles, so you can think it over, but don’t make any knee-jerk decisions.

To be completely honest, I think if you tell your brother, your relationship is as good as over. Ask yourself what your motive is for telling him – is it just about you and getting rid of your guilt by handing the problem to him?

It is hard to live with guilt, but sometimes when you’ve made a bad choice, you have to.

I guess there’s a chance his wife will pursue a divorce, as it’s clear the marriage is in trouble and she’s admitted she’s not in love with him, so your problem might go away. You could leave it and pray it never comes out – the danger is, if your brother and his wife get into an argument and she wants to hurt him, she might blurt out that she slept with you.

So, the next question is, can you trust her? It’s less important for her to keep what happened a secret because she can walk away and move on, but your relationship with your brother will be left in ruins.

You say you’ve never spoken to her about that night, but maybe it would be a good idea to have a conversation during a break at work about how you handle things going forward.

It might make things less awkward when you have to see each other with the rest of the family and provide some sort
of reassurance.