Family Disowned Me 8 Yrs Ago For What I Did To My Twin After I Discovered He’s Been Sleeping W/ My G

The Golden Child and the Engineering Student

Hey Reddit. So my family completely cut me off eight years ago because I exposed my twin brother for sleeping with my girlfriend.

Now they’re blowing up my phone begging me to come to Christmas dinner. It took me a while to figure out why.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t because they missed me. I’m Jake, 31 now.

My twin brother is Ethan. Growing up, we looked identical, but that’s where the similarities ended.

I was the responsible one; he was the charismatic one. I studied; he partied.

I worked; he charmed his way through life. Our parents thought he walked on water while I was just there.

The setup started back when we were 23. I’d been dating this girl, Amanda, for three years.

I met her freshman year of college, and she was perfect. She was smart, funny, and ambitious.

We had plans—real plans. We were moving to Portland together after graduation and getting engaged. The whole future was mapped out.

I was working full-time at an engineering firm while finishing my degree at night. I was exhausted constantly, but I was building something real.

Amanda was finishing her marketing degree and working part-time at this boutique downtown. She’d come over to my apartment most nights.

We’d cook dinner together and talk about our days. It was normal couple stuff, the kind of relationship where you just know this is it.

Ethan was doing his usual thing: no real job, living with our parents rent-free, and claiming he was figuring himself out. He worked occasional bartending gigs.

He’d always been good at talking his way into and out of situations. Our parents ate it up.

Mom would actually defend his unemployment by saying he was finding his passion. She said I was just settling for stability.

That year, Amanda started mentioning Ethan more. At first, it didn’t bother me.

They’d run into each other at family dinners. She’d mention funny things he said, but whatever—he was my brother and she was my girlfriend. Of course they’d interact.

The Tuesday Everything Fell Apart

But then it got weird. She’d bring him up constantly.

Ethan said this about her major. Ethan recommended this show. Ethan thinks she should apply to this company.

I figured maybe she just wanted to bond with my family since we were getting serious. The reality hit me on a random Tuesday in March.

I came home early from work. My supervisor had sent everyone home because the office AC died and it was getting unbearable inside.

I texted Amanda to see if she wanted to grab lunch, but she didn’t respond. I figured she was busy at the boutique.

When I got to my apartment, her car was in the parking lot. This was weird since she said she had a shift that day.

I walked up the stairs to my second-floor unit. I was already thinking maybe she’d gotten sick and decided to rest at my place.

The door was unlocked, which was also weird. Amanda was paranoid about locking doors.

I walked in and heard sounds from my bedroom. They were not sick sounds.

They were the kind of sounds that make your stomach drop into your shoes. I stood there for probably ten seconds trying to convince myself I was wrong.

Maybe she was watching something on her phone. I hoped there was any explanation other than the obvious one.

Then I heard Ethan laugh. It was that specific laugh he does when he thinks he’s being clever.

I don’t remember walking to the bedroom. I don’t remember opening the door.

Suddenly, I was standing there looking at my girlfriend and my twin brother in my bed. They were in my actual bed, the bed I’d bought with money from my first engineering bonus.

Amanda screamed and grabbed the sheets. Ethan just froze, this guilty look spreading across his face like spilled water.

Nobody said anything for maybe thirty seconds. There was just this horrible silence where we all stared at each other.

Finally, I said,

“How long?”

Amanda started crying.

“Jake, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to—”

“How long?”

Ethan sat up.

“Bro, listen, we didn’t plan this. It just happened.”

“Answer the question.”

He looked at Amanda, and she looked at the floor. Nobody wanted to say it.

“Six months,”

Amanda finally whispered.

“Six months.”

Half a year. While I was working sixty-hour weeks trying to build our future, they’d been doing this behind my back.

They were doing this in my apartment, probably on days I was at work or class. I remember feeling completely calm.

It was that weird calm you get when something so massive happens that your brain just shuts down the emotion part to deal with logistics.

“Get out,”

I said.

“Both of you. Now.”

Amanda started apologizing again. Ethan actually had the nerve to say we should talk about this like adults.

I repeated myself.

“Get out.”

They left. I sat on my couch for probably three hours just staring at the wall.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. I didn’t break anything.

I just sat there processing the fact that the two people I trusted most in the world had spent six months lying to my face. Around 9:00 p.m., my phone started blowing up with text after text after text.

First from Amanda: “Please let me explain. I never meant to hurt you. I was confused about my feelings and Ethan was there and it just happened. I still care about you.”

Then from Ethan: “Bro, I know you’re mad, but you need to understand. We didn’t want to hurt you. We tried to fight it, but the connection between us was too strong. These things happen.”

That last line made me want to throw my phone through a window. “These things happen.”

Like they’d accidentally bumped into each other and fallen into bed. Like six months of deliberate lying was just some cosmic accident nobody could have prevented.