My SIL and brother have been married for 3 years, and were together for around 7 years before they were married. Since the beginning of their marriage, they have had problems and a very troublesome marriage, and the family, including myself, have tried to help them both in sorting out their issues and making things work.
Everyone believed that besides all the issues, they were still very much in love with each other, as they both also claimed.
Recently, around the past six months, things between them have improved hugely - they both do lots of things together, their financial pressures have eased as both of them have found permenant work, and everyone has been very happy for them.
They have a gorgeous 2.5 year old DS and my SIL is now 3 months pregnant with their second baby.
But today, my SIL caught my brother chatting to someone else on the phone, arranging a secret meeting, and when she confronted him about it, he admitted that it was a female, and that he does talk to her about everything, because she (my SIL) doesn't listen or understand, and that their marriage is "dead." My SIL said she went hysterical, and my brother then hurried to reassure her that it wasnt what she thought it was. He then left the house, and she went online to check his phone bill, and she saw that he had sent countless texts and made countless phone calls to one number. When she rang the number, it was a female, and my SIL put the phone down without speaking. She's packed her bags, taken her DS and gone to stay at her sisters house.
She says she doesn't want anyone in the family to know, ie, my parents or any of the other elders, as they will all try to bring them back together and remind her of the new baby, and tell her to forgive and forget. My sister and I are both quite close to her, as we're all in our mid-late twenties, me being the youngest of the three.
Although we have respected her wishes and not mentioned this to anyone in the family, my sister and I both feel completely devastated by our brothers actions, and are lost without the advice and guidance of the elders in the family on this matter. Infidelity is almost unheard of in the family, and it definitely is something that will shatter more than one or two lives.
I know that this issue is not about me personally, and I feel very hurt and upset for my SIL and will support her completely in whatever decision she takes. But I can't help feeling betrayed by my brother in some way. He is six years older than me, and I have always been close to him, and looked up to him in many ways. He has always been there for me whenever Ive needed him. But after this, I just feel as though all the admiration, all the trust and the goodness that I saw in him and believed that he held have crumbled to dust, and overnight, the big brother that I looked up to and admired so much has dissapeared.
She is pregnant for Gods sake. How could he do such a low thing? Him, of all people.
I just don't feel like I can have that same relationship that I used to have with him before I knew this. Am I being unfair? How should I react to this? I dont know how to react to this at all.
He has told my SIL that it isnt what she thinks, ie, there hasnt been a physical relationship between them, and that he just needed someone to understand him when they were going through tough times - but is that believable, and even if it is, in my eyes, its still cheating. He was arranging to meet her in secret when my SIL caught him on the phone - so somewhere, somehow, this innocent relationship he claims to have with this other woman is not all what he is making it out to be, right?
My sister and I have been talking over what we should do to help SIL, but we feel so lost without the advice and help of our parents or hers, who havnt got a clue this has happened.