Dear Prudence: Give Prudie a Hand With This WHOPPER

[minoanmiss]

I wasn't going to post today but OMG, I've read this fanfic.

Give Prudie a Hand!. New this week! Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. Every Thursday in this column, we’ll post a question that has her stumped. This week’s tricky situation is below. Join the conversation about it on Twitter with Jenée jdesmondharris on Thursday, and then look back for the final answer here on Friday.



Dear Prudence,

My husband and I are at crossroads about how to confront our sons about a discovery we made while visiting their shared flat. They are stepbrothers technically—note the word “technically.” My husband and I are both widowers who met and bonded at a support group for single parents surviving after cancer.

My son was 10 when I met my husband and 12 when we married. My stepson is 9 months younger, so they are very close in age. After a somewhat rocky start (both boys were grieving and trying to adjust to a new family norm), they became the best of friends, inseparable from about age 13. They even took the same classes together in high school so they could spend more time together, and made sure to go to the same university.

My hubby and I went on to have four more kids, three girls and a boy, so our lives got pretty hectic. Because our older sons were teenagers when our house became baby crazy, I admit my husband and I probably let the older two fend for themselves a bit more than usual, especially with four young kids in the house.

They are both adults now (25 and 26), live a state over, and rent a flat together. We went to visit them once COVID restrictions had eased, and my husband accidentally walked into the second bedroom (in a two-bedroom flat) thinking it was the bathroom, and discovered it was set up as an office. My husband’s curiosity got the better of him and he snuck around, discovering one king-sized bed in the only other bedroom that contained both of their stuff.

My husband didn’t say anything in front of the kids, but told me about it when we got home the following week. He had been mulling it over and decided it best not to tell me until after our holiday was over. We haven’t told the boys, but have been distraught over it. My husband is convinced they are sleeping together, which makes me feel sick. Yes, they are stepbrothers, but have been raised together since they were 9 and 10. My husband’s mind went straight to them sleeping together, but maybe it is non-sexual codependency? Because we were so busy with the younger kids, maybe in their teenage years they just got closer and closer, maybe they weren’t handling the grief over their respective losses as we thought they were?

My husband argues that they have never brought home girlfriends, and we should have noticed the signs earlier. What signs? To me there were no signs. But if my husband is right, how do we handle this? Did it start when they were underage? Did it start when they were adults, at university? Honestly, we don’t know and it has made me feel so sick, and like such a bad mum.

Should we confront the boys about it? Or act like we have no idea what is going on and hope for the best? It is just a very close friendship they grow out of as they get older and meet women? Please give us some insight on how to handle this as I feel so lost. We have the four other kids to think about as well; I am not sure I would want them exposed to what would be an unhealthy relationship if our worries are confirmed.

— Concerned and Confused Mama Bear

Comments

[movingfinger]

Dear OP, first things first: Anything someone learns about other people because they "snuck around" is none of the someone's business unless it involves a corpse.

Secondly, they're adults, and it's none of your business. When, who, where, how, history: none of your business.

Thirdly, the real problem here appears to be your revulsion at the G@y$3x!!!!, and you should be ashamed of yourself and mind your own business, and consider some therapy for yourself and your husband. You are assuming a lot of horrible, horrible things when you flip straight to "unhealthy relationship" your other children shouldn't be "exposed to."

[fox]

All of this, and I'm also going to object to "technically." They are literally stepbrothers. People can argue all they want about whether and how much of a creepiness factor there is given they were kids together - I mean, maybe there is and maybe there isn't? If a person grows up and marries someone they knew all their life, classmates in fourth grade, families have been friends forever, is that creepy? I submit it is not inherently creepy and only gets that way when the parents start planning to marry the kids off when the kids are still, you know. Kids. - but given that these dudes share no genetic material and at time of writing two cis dudes can't produce a child that is genetically related to both of them anyway, the potential medical concerns are absent. But I'd have pretty much the same response if either of these young adults were afab and the OMG G@Y$3X weren't a(n extremely tiresome) factor.

[redbird]

There are two people who are technically my step-siblings, and "technically" does seem to fit--my mother and their father met when we were all adults, and I never lived with him or his children (or evend in the same country).

The LW's situation isn't remotely like that.

[conuly]

Right, like, it's not like the remarriage happened when they were two, in which case the "technically" might seem a little more warranted. They were ten, a totally different scenario.

[ashbet]

My mother married (after my Dad died) someone who had been her childhood neighbor and first crush — they grew up together from childhood, literally next door.

Different from intra-family, but PROXIMITY HAPPENS.

[rmc28]

What makes me sad is that these young men are presumably happy in their current living arrangements, and in an ideal world could count on their family being equally happy for them. (They're not genetically related, and any number of "boy next door" romances don't get treated as "unhealthy".)

Also if you feel you have to "sneak around" to see the sleeping arrangements, rather than it being obvious upon being given the tour, that says a lot too about the trust in play.

[harpers_child]

I have a feeling the husband suspected something and that's why he went snooping. I think they're freaking out over the gay thing more than the stepbrothers thing. There's a lot of bargaining and not so thinly veiled revulsion.

Other people have pointed out if they were classmates or grew up next door it wouldn't be a big deal, and given that these dudes share no genetic material I'm going to agree.

[ellen_fremedon]

I feel like there are definitely dynamics at play in this relationship that would not be there in a relationship between two unrelated childhood best friends, and those dynamics are worth being concerned about--but the LW and their husband seem to be mostly oblivious to them and freaked about the gay thing, which, fuck that and fuck them.

(When the parents and the in-laws are the same set of people, that's going to put a hell of a lot of pressure on the parents to not take sides in disputes within the relationship and not unfairly throw their weight around, and put a lot of strain on the parent- and step-parent-child relationships; and if the romantic relationship ends it would be impossible for either of them to get a clean break from the partner without it severely affecting their relationship with their parents. I would expect an accepting and tolerant parent to still worry about how that might play out. But that's an issue you deal with through good communication, supportive friendships outside the family, and therapy--not through whatever sort of shaming the LW has in mind.)

[melannen]

Yes. We had that other recent letter about the stepsiblings who broke up and it caused issues.

I think there is also a bit of a legitimate concern about codependence/isolation - modern people tend to talk a lot about incest as being about genetic defects in the kids, and that's certainly part of it, but it's also about marrying out. If your brother-in-law and brother are the same person, you have half the family support and community connections, if you need it, than if you'd married into a different family. (In this example, if they'd both met other boyfriends, they'd each have a chance of *one* set of inlaws not being homophobic boundary-crossers like this one is, but as it is they're stuck.)

And if the only person you've ever formed a close connection with is someone who was grew up in the same house, that can also be honestly worrying in a "maybe see a therapist?" way. That seems to be what LW is trying to say she is worried about, that the way they raised them led to them being too isolated with only each other. If only it weren't slathered in such a thick coat of "gay sex is icky" I might have some sympathy!

[laurajv]

I feel like there's an additional concern here, and that's the younger children. Not because the relationship between the two step-siblings is necessarily unhealthy, but because those kids are going to need help working through "our brothers aren't brothers to each other AND are in a romantic relationship but that's only ok BECAUSE they aren't brothers to each other". There is a morass there that hasn't got anything to do with the adult relationships at all.

[teaotter]

1. I can think of several reasons for this room arrangement that have nothing to do with sex.

2. If your kids *are* queer, and not out to you, there's probably a reason for that. If you want to be a good parent, maybe make it easier/safer to come out to you first before you start poking around in anything else.

[conuly]

Hey, at least it's not a redo of the twincest letter from days of yore.

These two became stepbrothers at ten, not two. Nobody would reasonably say that they're only "technically" stepbrothers, because they have clear and distinct childhood memories from before they even met. OP needs to close that door and pretend she never opened it.

With that said, I think it's entirely possible that OP and Hubby *were* bad parents if, as she says, she mostly focused on the little kids and left the older two to raise themselves the rest of the way. Not that that has anything to do with anything.

[cereta]

I admit to a little "ew ew ew," because I'm adopted and have read one two many VC Andrews novels/ watched one too many soaps where people discover they're not genetically related and their first thought is to boff each other, and...no. But in this case, I'm inclined to tell the LW to MYOB. If the men weren't fully functional adults, I'm pretty sure LW would have mentioned it. And with the way out culture romanticizes childhood friendships becoming romantic, I can't really find it all that bizarre. LW and their spouse either need to work on their relationships, together and separately, with their sons to get to a point where they can talk about it minus the revulsion, or they need to just leave well enough alone.

(Also, even if the couple in question could have kids together and were genetically related, there are very few real risks from one generation of relatives having a kid. The kinds of things people tend to assume will happen usually take several generations on inbreeding to show up.)

[shirou]

Did the stepbrothers expect their parents would visit without noticing anything? I agree with the preceding comments—the young men aren't related; this is a non-issue—but I can't understand the setup. If the stepbrothers are hiding a secret relationship, inviting their parents to their flat was a perplexing choice. If they are not, they should have recognized how their living arrangement would appear.

I guess I can't wrap my head around the idea that merely entering a room qualifies as "sneaking." Do many people consider their bedrooms off-limits to their own family members? My mother would have quite openly walked through the apartment, no sneaking required.

[melannen]

I was always raised that bedrooms are private spaces and you don't go in without permission, even if you all live in the same house - doubly so if you were a guest. The only times I entered my grandparents' bedrooms was if I was specifically sent in to fetch something, and there was a spare bedroom at Grandma's house where the door was never opened (I think just because that room wasn't kept up to standard for guests.) Certainly if you were a guest and a door was kept closed and it wasn't pointed out to you as a bathroom, you didn't enter. How else can you panic-clean before a visit by shoving all the clutter into the spare room??? That's probably a specific White American People cultural thing? But "Dad looked in every room in the house without explicit permission" definitely reads to me as boundary-crossing, and it sounds like it does to LW too.

[shirou]

I have similar expectations for people outside my family, but not my parents or children. My children definitely play in the bedroom of their grandparents (my parents) when visiting. I’m also from a culture in which bedroom doors are typically kept open.

[minoanmiss]

We have raised my 'little' roommates to knock on my door before entering and to not be in my room when I'm not in it, both as an example of respecting others' space and for me to get a chance at healthy boundaries after my childhood without any.

[mommy]

Even if the young men split up at some point, they'd each still be some variety of queer/gay/bi/pan. No amount of wishing they'd find some women to date will change this. LW's homophobia has to go.

The young men grew up as best friends and then (probably!) entered a romantic relationship at some point. It's about fifteen years too late for LW and her husband to try to fit their sons into a sibling mold, so it's time to accept things as they are and put this in the "none of our business" bin.

[jadelennox]

1. I went to grade school with a girl whose parents were step-siblings. Admittedly, they were almost a decade older when the parents married, but by all accounts the whole family was extremely well adjusted.
2. It's totally believable that what the parents thought of as "two middle schoolers becoming brothers and the best of friends" the boys thought of as "omg I'm hitting puberty and a cute guy who isn't related to me has moved into my house."
3. I totally understand the parents being skeeved out as all hell! It has to stay between them and their therapists, but they've spent 16 years thinking of the kids as brothers, and no amount of meaning well is going to keep this from being nauseating. Don't mention it, process in both solo and couples therapy with a queer friendly therapist, and let the kids control how and if it comes out.
4. I want to read the hell out of this unpublishable middle grade novel.

[torachan]

but they've spent 16 years thinking of the kids as brothers, and no amount of meaning well is going to keep this from being nauseating

It's really hard to tell how much of their "ew gross" reaction is due to them being stepbrothers and how much is due to them being gay, because the LW's only alternative she can imagine here is them meeting women and settling down.

[jadelennox]

Fair. I was giving LW the benefit of the doubt but they clearly are having a Gay Panic here, above and beyond the claimed reasons.

[green_grrl]

The subtext I’m seeing in the letter is that LW can’t stop picturing two 9-year olds doing buttsex under their parents noses. Which is likely catastrophizing and mostly just the age-old “stop picturing your children/parents having sex” problem. She definitely needs to keep it away from the kids and go see a therapist.

[heavenscalyx]

It's totally believable that what the parents thought of as "two middle schoolers becoming brothers and the best of friends" the boys thought of as "omg I'm hitting puberty and a cute guy who isn't related to me has moved into my house."

Also, we have no idea how small/insular their town was. My bets, if they are a couple, are on "I'm hitting puberty, I'm into guys, expressing it anywhere at school will get me a beatdown" on both sides with late-night revelations and experimentation and a lot of secret boffing.

[minoanmiss]

fights off the plot bunny with a stick and a bottle of holy water

[bikergeek]

lobs the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch at the plot bunny

Seriously, the world has enough "Help me stepbro I'm stuck!" porn.

[cereta]

Tsk. There can never be enough porn of that sort.

[jadelennox]

steals your stick and holy water so you have no defenses

[minoanmiss]

The results are in your inbox, steaming with sin.

[lemonsharks]

I'd age them up and try to pass the book off as literary fiction, but that's mostly because MG/YA book twitter is fucking terrifying. I still want about 80,000 words of this setup.

[jadelennox]

Alternative text

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that YA Twitter shall find my post overnight—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a fe

— Ruth Graham (publicroad) March 5, 2019

[mirlacca]

I have to wonder just how upset the husband of this wife really is; she seems to be projecting her own ideas on him. And I absolutely agree, this is less about brothers and more about gay--and the two involved know it, because they're in their twenties now, and haven't come out to their parents. I wish them luck in their relationship and their lives.

(And personally, I am definitely in the my-bedroom-is-private-space club. When I moved out of my parents' home, my mother wanted a key to my apartment, and I told her no. She tried to claim it was so she could use the apartment pool, and I told her she couldn't do that when I wasn't around, either. The idea of someone, even and especially family, snooping through my room is just violently repulsive to me.