While she insists they are NOT ‘Folgers siblings’ details about how he touches her, their matching tattoos, living together, and a $7k bracelet he locked to her wrist all raised the internet’s collective eyebrow … what to speak of her own mother
A 26-year-old woman has taken to the internet for advice after her boyfriend freaked out learning the man she calls her brother was in fact not biologically related to her.
The entire tale was presented one way — with the woman at first insisting they were not “Folgers siblings” (included below is the OG commercial for reference) — but then began to add details that didn’t seem to add up for many a Redditor.
While impossible to verify, as it was posted to an anonymous forum, the twists and turns of the narrative certainly had the internet on the edge of their collective seats.
Read on to see the whole drama play out for yourself.
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First Things First: Watch the Iconic Folgers Commercial
Now that we’ve got that reference out of the way…read on for the entire original post below.
AITA for not telling my boyfriend my “brother” and I are not biologically related?
“My (26f) ‘half brother’ ‘M’ and I are not biologically related. I found this out at age 16, but nothing in our family’s dynamic changed and it’s not something we really speak about,” the post began innocuously enough.
“My boyfriend ‘Dan’ (together 1 year) found this out over Christmas (we visited my family) and has since been really weird about it,” she explained.
“He says that first and foremost he’s mad I never told him. I don’t see why it would matter, but he says it’s something you would normally share with a partner after being together as long as we have and he didn’t think we had secrets. I don’t think this is a secret or even an omission, it’s not some dark family history that you get told once you take an oath, it’s an ancillary bit of info that is either relevant or not. No one treats M any differently now that we know (and my dad always knew and didn’t care), so why would I go around advertising it?”
“Dan says he looks at my relationship with M totally differently now,” she continued. “He says he feels a bit weird about how he’s observed us behaving now that he knows we’re not even related (we are NOT Folger’s siblings so [I don’t even know] what he’s talking about). He says there’s a part of him that’s wondering if I didn’t tell him so that it would make our ‘lack of boundaries’ less of a red flag.”
My mother has warned me about being close with M being a red flag to guys so I’m now second guessing if it really does look from the outside like I was hiding it?
“Dan is not a jealous or controlling person [in] the slightest, so this has me quite shocked. He seems really hurt and worried about it and I’m wondering if this is a big deal and I’m just [desensitized] because it’s my own situation?” she pondered. “My mother has warned me about being close with M being a red flag to guys so I’m now second guessing if it really does look from the outside like I was hiding it?”
“The reaction is so out of character for Dan I’m really starting to feel like I messed up but at the same time, I also don’t get why it’s a big deal that we don’t share blood?” she concluded in the initial post.
However, soon came two edits with more information:
“Edit because I saw a few people asking about what my mother said,” she added. “She’s a bit conservative so I think she’s overreacting but this whole thing just reminded me. She mentioned it at a time when M and I were living together, and she said men might be uncomfortable because we’re roommates, and M is protective of me. We also have matching tattoos, which my mother says is weird (but she also just hates that I have a tattoo so I don’t take that too seriously) and that he gave me a Cartier love bracelet that I wear all the time. Also he apparently has a habit of touching my neck that she finds weird (I say ‘apparently’ because yes he does this sometimes to steer me in a crowded room or a signal if we’re in social situations the same way you would nudge someone under the table to get their attention, but I don’t consider it a ‘habit’).”
“Edit 2 – when Dan said ‘lack of boundaries’ he just means I tell M a lot of things and ask for his advice a lot. He does the same with me. It’s not related to anything physical.”
“For anyone asking how we were meant to be related – My dad presented M as the son from his short lived marriage to his ex (M is 9 years older than me), so we thought we were half siblings,” she explained. “Turns out his mother and my father had separated by the time he was conceived but my dad went along with M being his ‘son’ because he wanted a child.”
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She Then Hit the Comments Section with Lots of Explanations
As one might imagine, the post got plenty of quizzical remarks — albeit amid quite a few commenters declaring OP (original poster) was NOT in the wrong and was in fact NTA (not the asshole).
However, as one tends to do on the internet, OP responded mostly to the incredulous comments.
“Do you get lost alot? How often is he ‘directing you places’ that your mom took notice?” asked one curious Redditor.
“Haha no. It’s just if we arrive at a restaurant or something and we’re going to the table he just directs me. Or if we’re in a store and I’m wandering off he’ll jokingly be like ‘no we’re here for xyz it’s this way’ and steer me around,” she explained. “And if we’re sitting somewhere in a group and he wants to leave or someone says something wild he will squeeze my neck. Same way you’d make eye contact with your friend and give each other a look if someone said something funny.”
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“You are the younger, and by a huge margin,” another concerned commenter noted. “It’s all normalized for you because you don’t know better. Bolted on love bracelet, steering you… I think if pressed he would know that this isn’t normal.”
“Split custody while he was growing up? And then out of the house at 19-20, before you reached adolescence, I’m guessing? After which point I’m guessing he maybe didn’t see you that often for a number of years? (just spit balling…) You changed into a woman largely out of his sight?” they continued. “You grew up completely separately, never living together until you moved in with him in your late teens? Lol. He ‘knows’ you’re his ‘sibling’… But he doesn’t see you or treat you as one. Clearly.”
I think it’s the neck touching for me, but your bf should trust you. Also, for steering in public places is def gives Dom/sub vibes especially paired with a bracelet that doesn’t detach. I understand if it’s not what’s going on, but just be aware of how things can look from an outside perspective,” one Redditor noted
OP gave a lengthy response: “First, I have more than one love bracelet. I have one from him, one from my mother, and one I bought myself. I just don’t wear the other two very often, I choose to keep the one he gave me on. It’s not some 50sog collar scenario. I mean, I really don’t think the steering is that weird. It’s like him putting his arm around my shoulders. But okay I can see why some people think that’s odd…kind of? If you squint.”
“He visited on some weekends and school holidays from when he was 12. I moved in with him when I was 18 so it’s not like he didn’t see me for years,” she wrote. “Regardless, my dad is his dad. We don’t share DNA so it’s not illegal but it would still be…wayyyy too Freudian. I’m pretty sure people don’t just get attracted to their siblings, just because they find out they legally can.”
When another person in the same thread asked “Whose idea was it to move in with him?” she replied that it was her idea.
Then she reacted to someone else asking about the neck grabbing, explaining: “I can see why people think that about the neck thing. I think it’s because it’s how animals hold their young maybe? Also you can’t really move out of that if someone is holding you by the neck. But it doesn’t bother me. It’s like him putting an arm around my shoulder to me.”
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When another person in the thread expressed that the back of the neck is often considered an erogenous zone, OP said: “I get it, but also, I don’t find it a ‘sexy’ place to be touched at all[.] I won’t lie I would get a bit squeamish if someone held my neck as a sexual thing.”
Then came the revelation that her “brother” didn’t charge her rent when she moved in: “Most people live with their siblings at some point haha I just didn’t want to pay rent.”
After a bit of back and forth about whether or not the bracelet she received from “M” was the “permanently” screwed on type, she finally admitted: “Well not permanently, I have the screwdriver, and I take it off occasionally. But yes most of the time I wear it, unless there is a specific reason I can’t.”
When someone else noted that the neck steering in public and the screwed on bracelet were all giving BDSM vibes, OP replied: “okay that is FRIGHTENING[,] not to kink shame but…absolutely not for me. I mean, that’s definitely…something to jump to, even if we weren’t family. Those bracelets are very common.”
Elsewhere she clarified a few things about her current living situation: “I don’t live with him anymore. I moved out when I was 22. My mother said this back when I lived with him, she hasn’t said this in relation to Dan, nor does she personally think there’s anything weird going on. She said it might be off putting to others. So many of my friends have been given the same bracelet [by] their parents. It’s not a ‘romantic’ thing unless you want it to be.”
What do you think?
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