My Brother-in-Law Is Awful to His Girlfriend. Should I Break Them Up? - The New York Times

The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on whether to intervene when a family member is in an emotionally damaging relationship — and more.

My brother-in-law has been dating his partner longer than my husband and I have been together. They have stayed together through many trials, job changes and relocations, but he does not seem that interested in her. He constantly tells her that she is not making enough money; she abandoned her dream job in favor of a more lucrative one. Over the holidays, she expressed the desire to try to get into the same field as me, which makes me think that my brother-in-law is making unfair comparisons.

My mother-in-law and I have discussed the various ways in which he treats her unkindly. Last year, my brother-in-law and his partner came to visit over the holidays, and he was very rude to her on many occasions. I spent several hours talking to her and trying to make her feel better about the situation. While we have told her multiple times that he treats her unkindly, she does not seem to want to acknowledge the abuse. She’s concerned that she would lose all the family she has, and I understand this. Having been in an emotionally abusive relationship myself, I know it is incredibly hard to get out of. But at what point do I continue to support her while telling her she needs to get out? And at what point do I stop being supportive? Name Withheld

The dynamic you’re describing is a delicate one. On the one hand, you’re convinced that your brother-in-law is bad for this woman because of the way he puts her down. On the other, you’re evidently concerned that you’re bad for her because of the way you build her up. He belittles her; you provide false reassurances.

Of course, you have only an outsider’s perspective on this relationship, and an intermittent one; there could be better aspects to it — or worse ones. What you’ve witnessed, though, is obviously worrisome. If you think that the relationship is doomed to continue in this emotionally damaging way, you’ll want not just to assist her in recognizing the truth of her situation but also to bolster her confidence.

When you talk about stopping being supportive, do you mean telling her that she’s making a serious mistake and that you will have nothing more to do with her? I doubt this would help her leave. She surely isn’t sticking with him because of your holiday chats. Pushing her to leave will probably not do as much as treating her respectfully, affirming her as a person and letting her know that you’ll support her if she does gain the fortitude to make an exit. Listening to her fears about what leaving will entail — and reassuring her that many women, you included, have escaped damaging relationships and moved on to better lives — may be an important part of the conversation.

You — or your mother-in-law, or your husband — might also urge your brother-in-law to consider couples counseling. That might help them both recognize that the relationship should come to an end, as you’ve concluded. If there’s no chance of couples counseling, she might benefit from getting counseling on her own, and perhaps you should encourage her to do so. Peers can sometimes shore up loving couples who are at odds amid periods of stress and difficulty; coupledom has both a private and a public dimension. But the story is different when a relationship is clearly sustained by contempt and acquiescence. People of good will shouldn’t pretend that a sneer is a smile. This woman deserves better and should find something better. Always remember, though, that the decision is hers to make.

I recently ended a romantic relationship with a military officer. One sticking point was his revelation that, before dating me, he had sexual relationships with multiple enlisted women who served under him and were in his direct chain of command. He said that he wished he hadn’t engaged in these relationships, as knowledge of them could lead to significant disciplinary action and possibly a dishonorable discharge; he disagreed, however, that they were wrong or potentially harmful or compromising for the women involved. He asked me to keep those relationships secret. I agreed, but that decision has weighed heavily on me ever since. I’m struggling now to reconcile my responsibilities to preserve his confidentiality with my responsibility to reveal information that might help protect other women. Your thoughts would be most welcome. Name Withheld

There are a number of ethical issues here, and they pull in different directions. First, what you plan to reveal was confided to you in the context of an intimate relationship. Confidences of that kind are especially important to respect because the possibility of intimacy depends on being able to make yourself vulnerable to someone — including by revealing what you don’t want others to know.

Second, however, it’s unsettling that your ex doesn’t grasp the wrongness of what he was doing. He was betraying an oath; he risked undermining good order and discipline in the ranks; and above all, his institutional power would have made the genuineness of his partner’s continuing consent hard to assess. Yet he is evidently deterred only by the knowledge that he could get in trouble if his conduct were exposed.

A third consideration is that the women he had relationships with in the past have decided not to report him. Although they may have refrained because they were afraid for their careers — which is one reason he shouldn’t have had the relationships in the first place — you should be cautious about second-guessing their decision. And in outing him, you risk outing them, too, and exposing them to punishment.

Without more information, it’s hard to resolve the clashing considerations here. What evidence do you have of what he did? Do you know who any of these women were? Can you contact them to seek their consent? If not, he might be able to brazen it out, insisting that you were just an ex-lover seeking to punish him for leaving you.

Which brings us to a fourth ethical issue. You’ll want to be clear about your own feelings here. Revenge is an unattractive motive, especially when clothed in an expression of concern for others. And it may distort your view of the situation. Given that he at least recognizes that those previous relationships were imprudent, how should you appraise the likelihood that he’ll continue to offend? All this counsels deeper reflection on your own state of mind before you address the balance of the other considerations.

Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches philosophy at N.Y.U. His books include “Cosmopolitanism,” “The Honor Code” and “The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity.” To submit a query: Send an email to [email protected]; or send mail to The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018. (Include a daytime phone number.)

source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/magazine/abusive-relationship-ethics.html

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