Dear Prudence,
Should I confront my brother about lying to his new wife about his education? Last year my newly married brother and very pregnant sister-in-law came over for dinner. During our conversation, my SIL mentioned something about my brother’s master’s degree. Surprised, I looked at my brother and said, “Since when do you have a master’s degree!?!” He responded with a story and some details about his schooling that seemed pretty unbelievable to me. I asked a few questions that had some equally unbelievable responses, (like the university not requiring him to do a final master’s thesis due to the start of the pandemic), but I didn’t want to cross-examine him more in the moment, so my husband and I just congratulated him on the accomplishment.
When they left, my husband and I began discussing it. Not only was it improbable that he had a master’s degree, but an undergraduate degree as well. The timeline was impossible and the last schooling we had heard about was his high school diploma. My husband was doing a PhD and teaching at the same university my brother said he graduated from during this time, so of course, my husband looked at the school records and couldn’t find anything mentioning my brother for either degree. He was clearly lying. My husband and I discussed at length what we should do with this information and given that his wife was days away from having their first child, and we didn’t even know if it was our place to drop a bomb like that, we decided not to say anything. Since then, my brother’s career became very unstable and he began working for his wife’s family—I’m assuming under the lie of his education. They are struggling financially because his job is commission-based and he’s just not performing. They’re also trying to get pregnant again. We see them fairly often for family gatherings and I am actively trying not to get close to her because I know I’m being deceptive and the closer we get the worse the hidden secret feels. I HATE this. Do I confront my brother and tell him that if he doesn’t come clean with her I will? Or do I mind my own business and let them deal with their own marriage?
—Stuck in Someone Else’s Lie