agonyaunt | Dear Prudence: My Brother-in-Law Is Secretly Sleeping With a Married Couple for Cash

Dear Prudence,

My brother-in-law disclosed to me that he had multiple sexual encounters with a married couple in exchange for money. He and my sister are struggling financially, and when he first mentioned that he was propositioned, I urged him to decline the offer because no good would come of it. That was about a year ago; then recently he said he gave in (at least twice, I guess) because they needed the cash. However, he has not told my sister. I am upset that he thought it OK to engage in an affair like this and upset that he disclosed this to me and expects me to keep it from my sister. They have two young children, and I know if I said anything to my sister, their family would implode. Keeping it from her also feels bad because if she were ever to find out that I knew, it would destroy my relationship with her.

—No Good Options

Dear No Good Options,

Why would he tell you this? Maybe on some level he wants you to tell your sister. Perhaps she can tell him to stop? Or she can know how hard he’s working to support the family? I really have no idea. But you don’t owe him anything, and you don’t have to keep this secret. Tell your sister, and she can decide whether or not her family implodes over it. This is a much better scenario than risking your relationship with her by hiding what you know.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If LW's BIL were telling the truth about his motivations, I would feel bad for almost everyone here – though worst for LW's sister. I do agree with Prudie that telling the sister is the best course of action; she deserves to know (if nothing else, because he could be exposing her to STIs!).

I do think that on some level BIL wants to have sex with this couple independent of the monetary concerns, and must know Sister wouldn't go along with it; otherwise, if it really were just about the money, why wouldn't he bring it up with her so they could discuss other options?

Edited 2021-12-17 19:07 (UTC)

But if that was all then WHY would he tell LW? He really does want to have an affair but he also really does want to get caught...?

Guilt, maybe? But I really don't know, the whole situation is bizarre.

Thinking of it financially changes the possible meaning of telling his sister-in-law. It might be a terrible idea for the brother-in-law to be secretly doing dangerous, stigmatized, illegal work because he needs money so badly. But it's not an affair. (Unless of course it is partly an affair? Is the couple paying for his beauty and acting skill and energy, or the knowledge that they're bribing him to commit adultery? People are complicated.)

I know there are more exciting plotbunnies being considered below, but the ones that leap to my mind are more old-fashioned.
"Please don't tell M I had to do this terrible thing just to pay rent and buy baby food for our poor children. If she knew, it would ruin Christmas." Then M's sister [or mom or best friend] either comes through with some kind of day-saving Christmas present.

OMG, best Christmas story ever. *dies*

Oh, I forgot to finish that comment. I wrote the "either" but not the "or."

Either M's sister comes through with something like "Merry Christmas, dear sister, here's a large check. Tell your husband to stop worrying so much about money, and remind the children their godmother loves them even though I can't visit again just now."

OR she tells M her husband is a scoundrel/liar/criminal, and she turns up Christmas morning to whisk her sister and niblings away.

Could the husband have been hoping for the first scenario? Given the timing? Maybe. The total fantasy scenario ("Here's a house, and health insurance, and a hypoallergenic pony!" is not going to happen.) But a few hundred dollars to fix the car can be life-changing for a lot of families.

Okay, see, there's a word we're avoiding here that I think casts a different light on this situation:

Prostitution.

Now, I cannot say for certain that he doesn't want to have/enjoy sex with this couple independent of monetary concerns, but I have to ask: if this were a single mother who engaged in one act of prostitution to avoid having the power cut off, would we maybe have different vibes about this? Would we (and by we, I mean "LW, Prudie, and us" not be less inclined to call this an "affair" and more inclined to believe that she really had done it out of desperation? That perhaps (as Prudie asserts) she told LW as a way of ensuring that she would never have to do it again, if only because a friend/spouse/inlaw forbade it?

And maybe none of that would be true for her! Maybe having sex with Some Person is quite enjoyable, and the (still much-needed) money is just a side-benefit. So it follows that maybe none of that is true for BiL! But I'm really uncomfortable with this being constructed, up to and including LW using the word, as a "affair." I get that BiL specifically telling LW is...weird, although in this case, I think it would make a real difference if LW were a brother or a sister.

And I do agree that LW should tell their sister, because the sister has a right to know, but what and how they tell her worries me. There is obviously no neutral way to phrase it, but, "This married couple propositioned your husband to have sex with them for money, and he did so twice, including Time When You Were Really Desperate" is very different from "Your husband is having an affair with this married couple, who are giving him money."

Agreed.

That's very true, but I do think that the key point is the dishonesty, and that remains the same. If BIL's being honest about his motivations, I agree that it's a different ethical calculus – but he was still wrong to do it without telling his wife (absent suggestions of abuse, etc., which we don't see here); in part because he exposed her to greater risk of STIs without her knowledge or agreement, and in part just because when you're in a sexually monogamous relationship with someone, you have committed to not have sex with other people in secret.

I absolutely don't disagree that his doing so without telling his wife was wrong on pretty much all levels. I actually have very strong feelings about adultery (the lying part, not the sex part, and thus not to be confused with polyamory) absent coercion, and frequently curse the Courtly Love tradition for making it seem romantic.

I'm just really ooged out by how the LW and to a lesser extent Prudie are constructing this as a...recreational? sexual relationship whose only ethical issue is sex outside marriage, without mentioning even the possibility that this couple is exploiting the BiL's dire financial straits (which include supporting two young children) to persuade him to do something he didn't want to do. I mean, maybe he's enthusiastically participating, but if, as you say, he's being honest about things at all, including number of transactions and timing of at least one, it does vibe more like his reasons are financial, specifically pretty dire financial straits. Perhaps I am engaging in the very stereotyping I am decrying, but I would have expected him to have done it more than twice if it was because he wanted/enjoyed it. I know, I know: guilt, conflicted feelings about fidelity, sex, and sexuality, used the money as an excuse. I'm Catholic; I know the narrative. And maybe it's just some recently serious examination of my own views of prostitution (long story short: I'm a lot less convinced that it can be benign under the "right" circumstances), but, well, it bugs me.

I do think the framing has to do in large part with the LW's situation: The question isn't really "Is BIL's behavior ethical?", it's "Should I tell my sister about this?", and the answer to that is yes regardless.

But I agree with you that the couple's behavior is potentially really, really skeevy, especially depending on how much they know about BIL's financial situation – and especially because it sounds like BIL may have turned them down the first time they asked. And it might have been good for Prudie to push back a little on the "affair" framing.

I can see that for Prudie, who is, ahem, prudently answering the question that was asked and not really getting into the narrative the LW has constructed about the situation. I'm much less okay with the LW themself and the narrative they've constructed.

⬆️ All of this

Dear Prudence: My Brother-in-Law Is Secretly Sleeping With a Married Couple for Cash

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