Will my brother-in-law’s affair ruin Christmas? Anne Robinson advises

A reader asks

A year ago, my sister confided that her husband was having an affair. I wasn’t that surprised.

I told my husband, who was furious and said he was no longer welcome in our house.

Somewhat awkwardly, she has now taken him back and is expecting they will come to ours as usual for the traditional Christmas get-together, including their adult children (who don’t know) and partners.

My sister doesn’t know I told my husband. It’s all a mess and I’m afraid what might be said after a few gins. Should I cancel?

Anne Robinson replies

Whoops and whoops again!

By telling your husband about your brother-in-law’s misdeeds you have managed to get yourself and the whole family in a right pickle.

It’s a bit late for you to make use of one of my golden rules, which I call, ‘I never liked him anyway’. These are the five words it is wise on no account to utter when a sister or girlfriend tells you she now hates her partner. And because of his dastardly behaviour she no longer wishes to share her life with him.

It might be you never liked him anyway. Or you say this in sympathy at her plight.

The trouble, as you have discovered, is that it’s not unknown for a sister or friend a few months or a year later to make a 180-degree turn.

What’s more, she would prefer that no one ever mentions how she previously threw him out for good. Dear me, no! As far as she is concerned, everything, miraculously, is now ‘tickety-boo’.

Alas, at your end, things are far from ‘tickety-boo’ because your husband, unlike your sister, does not wish to forget that your sister’s husband has been unfaithful.

I suggest you start by appealing to your husband’s better nature and beg, yes beg, him to change his mind.

Your sister would not be the first wife to conclude that life with a husband who has strayed is preferable to breaking up the family and having to explain a life-changing decision to her adult children and their partners.

But unless your husband backs down, it effectively means your sister’s family can’t come for Christmas, thereby punishing a host of innocent bystanders.

If your husband will not budge, then you have no alternative but to explain to your sister that – quite wrongly – you shared her story with your husband and his disapproval means her family will have to make other arrangements for the holiday.

To slightly misquote Sir Walter Scott in his famous poem that preaches the consequences of duplicity: ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave / When first we pass a secret we’ve received…’