Dear Prudence,
My older brother lost his wife suddenly when he was 28. She was literally the girl next door and they’d been together since they were 14. It was devastating and I don’t think he has ever really gotten over her loss despite grief counseling and time. He briefly tried dating about five years after she’d passed but said it felt empty and hollow and he didn’t enjoy it. Fast forward 14 years and he is a successful businessman with a lot of hobbies. His life is pretty full but he gets lonely sometimes and wants human connection, but not a commitment. With the popularity of hook up apps, he is able to have his sexual needs met and when he wants to go out to dinner or have companionship on a date, he hires an escort. He has two escorts he has been seeing for about three years. He told me he does not have sex with them, but that he likes to go on dates with them because there is none of the awkward first date conversations and getting to know you period. One is a career escort and the other is paying for law school. I have met them both and they seem like nice women and the arrangement seems to work out for everyone involved. There are only a handful of people who know they are escorts, and he doesn’t usually bring them as dates to family functions.
Recently, my fiancée and I were going out for dinner and ran into my brother and one of the escorts. We ended up joining them for dinner and the live music they were seeing after. My fiancée really hit it off with my brother’s date and talked afterwards about meeting up with her and how she was so glad to see my brother with someone. She kept pushing in the days after for us to do another double date, so I broke it to her what their arrangement was. She was not only taken aback but finds the whole thing “disgusting.” She called my brother pathetic and immoral and doesn’t want him to be the best man at our wedding. We had a big fight where I told her if my brother wasn’t invited, there wasn’t going to be a wedding. I pointed out that her sister had an affair that ended her marriage, as well as her affair partner’s marriage, and yet her sister was her maid of honor and the affair partner was a guest. I told her I thought that was more egregious than having casual sex with Tinder hookups and hiring escorts to go out to dinner.
We are now at a stalemate. We are sleeping in separate rooms and haven’t spoken for about a week except to fight about how unreasonable the other person is being. I will absolutely choose my brother in this situation and am ready to call off the wedding. She thinks that means I don’t love her. I do love her but don’t want to marry someone who calls my brother “pathetic and disgusting” and has no empathy or understanding for his situation. Should I keep trying to get her to understand? Just call off the whole thing? My brother would be devastated if he knew he was the reason our relationship ended, but I also don’t want him to know how my fiancé feels.
—Brother’s Keeper