No, you shouldn’t go out of your way to hurt people deliberately, but sometimes the truth needs to come out.

Even if it’s painful…

Is this young man an a**hole for giving his half-brother a dose of reality about why his mom doesn’t want to have anything to do with him?

Get the details below and see what you think.

AITA for telling my half brother the reason why my mom wants nothing to do with him?

“When I (16m) was a baby, my parents divorced. My dad had been cheating on my mom, and it only came to light because his mistress (my stepmom) got pregnant and made him choose between her and my mom. Nine months, and one divorce later, my brother Ethan (now 14) was born.

Needless to say, my mom isn’t fond of Ethan. She doesn’t h**e him, but she doesn’t love him either, or want any type of relationship with him. On the semi-frequently times where she sees him (when she picks me up and drops me off from my dad’s house) she basically ignores him. She avoids making eye contact or ever initiating conversation with him, and when he tries to talk to her, she gives short answers and gets us both on our way asap.

My dad and stepmom have sheltered Ethan from the past family drama, and it’s always been frustrating, but I figured it wasn’t my place to interfere. Because of that, he didn’t understand why my mom doesn’t like him.

He thought it was because she h**es my dad (a bit true) and is a cold, resentful old hag who can’t leave the past behind and is jealous of my stepmom (his words exactly from two years ago, and again partially true minus the jealousy, but imo she has a good reason). Before y’all tell me that my mom lied to me about my dad’s affair, he’s admitted to everything as I’ve told it when I pressed him for details some years back.

Anyway, onto the inciting incident. My mom planned a vacation, and of course I was invited, but she also invited my paternal uncle (who took my mom’s side in the family schism that was the affair and divorce and who still remains close friends with her to this day) and his kids.

When Ethan found out that his cousins were invited on the vacation but not him, he broke down and came to me asking why my mom h**es him so much. He actually broke down crying, I felt so bad for him. I decided that he deserved to know the truth.

I tried to break the truth as gently as I possibly could, but there’s really no good way to tell a sobbing kid that he’s the result of cheating and that’s why my mom never wanted a relationship with him.

The good side is that he wasn’t crying anymore or mad at my mom, the bad side was that he was really p**sed off at his parents. Well, I had to leave for the vacation (I’m actually writing on the flight lol) and my dad and stepmom have been blowing up my phone. They’re furious at me for “telling him before he was ready”.

I let my mom know the situation and she told me that that was “kind of a jerk move” because I dropped a bomb and left them to clean up the mess. Ethan isn’t exactly emotionally mature, and considering the fury that I last saw him in, I wouldn’t want to deal with that clusterf**k either. Now I’m thinking I might have undermined my dad and stepmom’s parenting, and maybe I should have at least waited until after I got back so I could help prevent the implosion that’s going on back home.

AITA?”

Here’s what folks had to say about this on Reddit.

This individual said he’s NTA and made a good point…

Another Reddit user said they think they know what was really going on here.

And this reader said he’s NTA and explained why.

Any way you slice it, this is heartbreaking.