My wife and I have been together for around 4 years, married for about 8 months. During wedding planning my wife and my little brother and his current girlfriend had a falling out. They both essentially hate each other. My brother and his gf skip out on family events when they know we’re going and my wife tells me she wants to do the same when we know they’re going. We’ve tried to talk it out, but it ended with my brother not thinking we took any accountability and honestly making the relationship worse. Being frustrated, my wife vents to her friend and for reasons unknown to us, her friend went and told my brother’s gf everything. This made it a lot worse.
We reached out to them and asked to hang out a couple of months ago and my brother’s gf straight up told us that because of all the hurtful things she’s heard, that she wasn’t ready to hang out with just us.
This has put me in a hard place. I’m trying to be on my wife’s side, which tbh I do agree with all the reasons she’s mad. But I also see the perspective from the other side. Basically nobody is right in the conflict. But I disagree with the way both my wife and my brother/brother’s gf are handling the situation which is by isolating themselves from each other and the family.
I grew up with my brother all my life, and he’s an important part of my life. I also love my wife. I’ve been trying my best to try and salvage my relationship with my brother while at the same time supporting my wife. It hasn’t been working. My wife sees my brother and his gf treat her poorly, which I have called them out on that before. (That’s what lead to us trying to talk it out in the first place but ultimately didn’t lead anywhere) But since then I’ve been ignoring it/letting it go. But she sees me do nothing but try and salvage the relationship with my brother. This makes her feel like I’m not on her side, which I understand why it makes her feel that way.
We just had our gender reveal for our baby that we’re having (she’s about 5 months pregnant). And my brother and his gf were there, we took pictures, they congratulated us (we remain civil with each other when we do meet). My brothers gf after texted again in our family group chat congratulating us, to which my wife replied with a thank you message and told me to go like her message but not the gf’s. I thought that was mean and there’s no harm in liking a message (I thought it showed a little that we appreciated her coming) so I liked it anyway.
My wife was extremely upset and said she felt betrayed, that she doesn’t know if she can trust me again, that she can’t keep living with the stress the situation is causing on the family, that she doesn’t feel like we’re on the same team. She told me I had to choose her or my brother or tomorrow she’d look into divorce lawyers.
I don’t know what to do. Yes I love my wife. But how can I choose between her and one of my family? And if I were to choose her, how could I live the rest of my life without a relationship with my brother? I’m also trying to think about what’s best for my kid. Growing up with separated parents, or growing up with parents whose relationship probably won’t ever be the same after this.