“It’s been almost a year since this all went down, and I finally feel ready to get it off my chest,” Bethan bravely typed into Reddit.
“I [got into a romantic relationship with] Allen when I was 23 years old,” Bethan shared to the social media forum.
“About eight months later he moved in with me… his mum told me to be careful,” Bethan recalled.
His mum warned Bethan the relationship meant more to her than it did to her son at that moment.
“I thought she was just jealous because she liked having him at home,” Bethan admitted, ignoring the warning sign.
“We went on to spend three more years together,” Bethan said. “He worked late a lot… then his mum was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.”
Allen started being secretive with his phone, his whereabouts and told Bethan that he wanted to visit his mum alone.
Understanding that Allen was going through a traumatic time, Bethan wanted to be there for him in any way she could.
When he asked her to leave him alone, she did; when he wouldn’t tell her where she was going, she wouldn’t pry.
Logging into their shared laptop one evening, while Allen was out, presumably seeing his mum, Bethan came across a strange sight.
Allen had mistakenly left his email logged in, and Bethan saw that the last seven emails were from Ashley*, Bethan’s younger brother’s girlfriend.
Not one to pry, Bethan asked Allen why he and Ashley had been emailing one another.
Allen fobbed off the correspondence saying she, an English graduate, was looking over one of Allen’s many short stories that he one day would like to be published.
“Like a fool, I believed him,” Bethan shared. “Then I left town for a few days to visit my best friend… I came home to a mess.”
Upon entering her bedroom, she saw the bed dishevelled, lube on the bedside table, and an empty bottle.
“I asked him what was going on… he said, ‘I had a friend over to drink because I’m sad about my mum… I [pleasured myself] because I missed you… my mum is dying’.”
Choosing to believe him once again, a family friend dropped a bombshell. “It seems like everyone but you and your brother know, and I can’t stand the deceit,” it read. “Allen and Ashley are together and have been for months.”
Bethan threw up, not only was the affair sickening, but the thought she had “one person removed sexually from my sibling was too much”.
Breaking up with Allen, and seeking therapy, Bethan has now witnessed Ashley and Allen living together in the small town they’re all from.
