UPDATE: AITAH for blowing up at my sister because her husband’s behavior is not my fault?

A Reddit user shared an update after a tense conflict with her sister, Lilia, who had been spreading false claims that her husband, Shawn, disliked family gatherings and their decor.

During a lunch, the Redditor confronted Shawn, who seemed baffled and clarified he had never said any of the negative comments Lilia had attributed to him. When Lilia realized her deception was exposed, she became visibly upset, storming off.

Later, in a heart-to-heart, she admitted she had been lying to seek attention due to feeling overshadowed by their brother and his recent life events. After an emotional talk, the family embraced, and Lilia committed to individual therapy as well as couples therapy with Shawn. Read the full update below.

‘ UPDATE: AITAH for blowing up at my sister because her husband’s behavior is not my fault?’

I ended up inviting Shawn and Lilia out to lunch. Lilia was still a little upset that I had “dressed like a s**t” at the club, but mostly things went fine. Before we left, I asked Shawn if he thought my outfit at the club was inappropriate. He said no.

I asked if thought my mother’s cooking was bad. He said no again, this time he looked more confused. Before I could ask him about another comment, Lilia grabbed his arm and pulled him up. She said they had to go.

Shawn looked even more confused and told Lilia he wanted to hear what I was going to ask next. She looked visibly angry, and after I asked him if he thought the decorations were tacky Lilia said, “If you’re not coming, I’m leaving without you.” She ran to the car before either if us could stop her.

Shawn was really confused now and asked why I thought he didn’t like the food, etc. I told him the whole story of how Lilia was telling me and my immediate family he was saying rude things. He looked completely shocked now. He said he never said any of those things, and that he thinks the parties are wonderful.

He explained he’s just a little antisocial and gets nervous around people he doesn’t know well, which I totally get. He apologized if anything he did was offensive, but I said there was no need for an apology. I gave him a ride home (Lilia took off with their car). When we got there my sister’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

I went to my mom’s house next to drop off some stuff I had for her in the car. When I got there, Lilia’s car was parked outside. She was sitting at the dining table crying, and my mom was doing her best comfort her. When my sister saw me, she started crying even harder.

I sat down and waitied until she could calm down. When she finally did, I gently asked why she was saying all those things. Lilia said, “I don’t know. To make you hate him, I guess.” My mom asked why she wanted us to hate him. She kept replying to our questions with “I don’t knows” before adimitting the truth.

She said she’d been feeling jealous since our brother “Eric” got married. She felt like he was getting all the attention, especially when his wife announced her pregnancy. She also said Eric was always the “golden child” growing up, and she wanted people to notice her “just this once”.

I never thought he was the golden child; in fact Lilia seemed to be favored over him, but maybe I was too wrapped up in my own stuff to notice. My sister decided to stir up some drama to get the attention back on her.

She used Shawn, because no one in the family knew him very well and it was easy because he doesn’t interact with a lot of people. She claims she wanted the attention so badly, even if it was negative. She wanted to see how far we’d let her go before one of us snapped.

After a long talk, she promised never to do anything like this again, and admitted she mostly did all this out of resenment toward Eric for always stealing the spotlight. My mom promised to pay more attention to her, and she apologized if she ever made Lilia feel like Eric was better than her. We all hugged it out.

Earlier tonight, Lilia called me and said she and Shawn were going to try couples therapy, and she was going to get individual therapy for herself. I said I was happy for her and she can come to me if she ever needs anything. I guess that’s it. I’ll update again if anything else happens!

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

almostinfinity −  Dang. Personally, I would never trust Lilia with anything ever again especially because she craved attention so much she didn’t care if it made her partner, a man she supposedly loves, into the bad guy. What’s stopping her from doing that to any one of you if she could do that to the man she made vows with?

My mom promised to pay more attention to her, and she apologized if she ever made Lilia feel like Eric was better than her. I don’t really like this response to be honest. Lilia straight up admitted she wanted people to hate Shawn for no reason and she gets rewarded with love and more attention.

Square-Minimum-6042 −  Poor Shawn.

Maleficent_Mistake50 −  Honestly OP, if I were you I’d give your sister some LC space. Because she’s acted horribly to all of you and at her poor husbands expense. All because she didn’t have enough attention. She needs help and you need to stay away from her for a bit. She’s just drama at this point.

paddlingtipsy −  What kind of a self-centred person does this to their partner, and then plays the f**king victim!

Feisty_Rooster2177 −  Couples counseling? She needs to do individual counseling. Shawn was just existing, hell.

Enough-Parking164 −  So instead of consequences,she gets MORE PRECIOUS ATTENTION? FFS!

Top_Sheepherder_6041 −  The cancer issue makes everything more difficult. Based on your story, your impression that she was the favored child is probably pretty accurate.

When the attention shifted to your brother, she did not know how to handle the lack of spotlight, so she tried to drag it back to herself. Hopefully she is honest with her therapist and can get the help she needs.

YellowKingSte −  Lilia is full of s**t. She throws her husband in the mud just to get attention and tries to manipulate everyone to feel bad for her.

Frozefoots −  If I was Shawn, this would be a pretty big step backwards in the relationship. I’d shelf the wedding at the very least. She’s turned it into a me, me, me situation and used him as the s**pegoat while acting like a total b**t. He’s fully within his rights to feel very hurt by this.

All the best for your mother. I understand that she wants no fractures in the family, but this was all Lilia’s doing and she needed consequences for this behaviour. Hopefully therapy curbs that.

Financial_Bear_5071 −  NTA. So your sister was willing to throw her husband under the bus, have an entire family hate him, and put him in a position where someone was going to lose their s**t with him, just to get some attention. Damn, who needs enemies when you have a wife like that.

Do you think it’s possible for family dynamics like these to change after honest conversations and therapy? How would you handle a situation where a loved one seeks attention in a harmful way? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!