You can love your family even when you don’t agree with everything that they do in their own lives.

What would you do if your brother was getting remarried years after his first wife died, and in order to accommodate that, he had to rehome his cats, which you did not agree with?

That is the situation the sister in this story is in, so even after a year she is barely talking with his brother because she thinks he should have kept the cats over his new wife.

AITAH for going low/no contact with my family over SIL and pets?

I’m (35f) typically very close with my brothers, but I’ve gone no/low contact with my eldest brother (45m) over his life decisions to accommodate his new fiancé.

Some background is definitely needed on this.

So, a little bit of background: He’s a widower and had a long and happy marriage with his late wife. I was very close to my SIL. No kids during their time being married, but they did end up having a few cats that they raised from being kittens.

Unfortunately she passed several years ago.

Of course, he deserves to find happiness again.

I’ve been very supportive of my brother, essentially I told him he can do whatever he needs to do to be happy, as long as no one’s getting hurt and he’s not being forced to do something against his will (Mom was putting pressure on him to remarry since she wasn’t fond of his late wife in the first place).

He had a few rocky relationships before getting engaged to a long time friend of his.

How wonderful.

I eventually got to meet her and I thought she was great; she had our approval and everyone in our family loved her.

I found out after they got engaged that she wanted him to get rid of his cats for the some asinine reasons (imo) like that they smell and they might scratch a guest (they didn’t have a history of that for the 10-12 years they’ve been in the home).

Some people don’t like having pets, and that’s ok.

He has tried to convince her to let them stay, but she wouldn’t budge, so him agreeing to getting rid of them was his “compromise”.

She wanted them gone before she moved in and he was scrambling to get them rehomed.

He should put some effort into finding a good home for them.

He was thinking of just dropping them off at any shelter before my husband and I intervened.

We didn’t have a lot of faith that they would survive being in a shelter (two of them are skittish and all of them are senior cats). Unfortunately we couldn’t take them ourselves (our dogs are cat reactive).

People should treat animals well, but they aren’t humans.

We’re huge animal lovers and were under the impression that the cats were going to get to stay, so we were shocked.

Up to this point he was always all about his cats, always playing with them and he was the only one who could bond with the skittish ones.

It is hard to get rid of cats because people usually only want kittens.

The next six months were super high stress for us trying to figure out a solution for these cats, all the while becoming more resentful of the decision that was made.

It even led to strain in my own marriage because my husband and I had different views on how to deal with my family. My husband took it especially hard.

What does she mean they went into retirement?

We were able to re-home one of the cats and the other two went into retirement. They still haven’t fully settled in yet since I keep in contact with the rescue.

Despite the cats being taken care of for the most part, I’m still just really angry. My attempts to talk to him about it have been met with him trying to protect her when I blame the both of them for crappy decisions. “Don’t blame her, blame me” and such.

This is always a difficult situation, but as long as they are both happy with it, it is none of the sister’s business.

I also found out later that he wouldn’t be allowed to have pictures of his late wife in the house because the new fiancé is insecure about it and just other red flags that indicate some bad communication.

Now that the cats are more or less accounted for, I’ve gone low/no contact with my brother because the whole half a year dealing with that situation was so stressful.

Why is there still drama? Let the brother live his life.

It feels like conversations with him are pretty fruitless and I’m trying to protect my husband from the drama. I’ve also been distancing myself from the rest of my family because they love the new fiancé and don’t necessarily share my views on the cats.

I’m also just really upset for my SIL, because getting rid of the cats and not being allowed to display her pictures feels like spitting on her memory.

Maybe just let it go. Don’t let an issue with cats and pictures ruin a relationship in the family.

Other people in my family have noticed and are encouraging me to talk it out, but I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.

Also, I don’t even know if the fiancé knows that we’re upset? All of my communication has been with my brother and she hasn’t been brought to the table essentially.

If she knows, she is letting her husband handle his family, as she should.

So, either she knows and doesn’t care, or she doesn’t and my brother hasn’t been communicating that to her. Either situation isn’t great.

So far, I don’t really have any expectations of them taking the cats back or anything, but I think their removal needed to be done with more care (actually getting all of them rehomed instead of just throwing money at the remaining two).

Are those issues with the brother? Or with this sister who seems to push herself into the relationship for some reason?

There’s some serious issues with the new fiancé and how she sees herself in context with my brother’s late wife which probably should’ve been worked out before they then got engaged in the first place.

The sister seems to think that her and her feelings should be of some importance when it comes to her brother’s life, and that is not right. Let the brother and his new wife live their lives how they want.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this.

Here is someone who thinks she is right.

I definitely disagree with this commenter.

This commenter is jumping to conclusions.

People are really ok with ruining a relationship with a sibling over some cats.

Wow, that’s a bit extreme.

Come on, lady. Let your brother live his life.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.