My Brother’s Behavior Toward My Girlfriend at a Wedding Went Too Far

My brother stalked and assaulted my girlfriend at a wedding. My parents defended him; now he’s in prison for domestic violence.

The second Victoria, 25f, my girlfriend, walked in, Samuel instantly started behaving inappropriately. He made her deeply uncomfortable with his totally inappropriate actions.

He practically pushed our mom out of the way to be the first to hug Victoria. He held on way too long until she had to physically step back.

Throughout dinner, he kept finding excuses to touch her arm or shoulder. He told these fake inside jokes that made no sense since they just met.

He was literally shoving past me multiple times to sit next to her until he completely crossed the line by trying to feed her from his own fork while making intense eye contact. Victoria was obviously uncomfortable but kept being polite since it was our first family gathering and she wanted to make a good impression.

The whole evening, Samuel kept bringing up embarrassing stories about me from childhood. He was twisting them to make me look like a pathetic fool.

He told this completely fabricated story about how he had to save my high school girlfriend from my alleged emotional abuse, which never happened. Victoria knew these stories weren’t true because I’d already told her about my teenage years, but my parents just sat there nodding along like Samuel was telling gospel truth.

After dinner, things got even worse. Victoria offered to help clean up, trying to be helpful.

I was helping my dad move some boxes in the garage when I realized I hadn’t seen Victoria for a while. I found her in the kitchen with Samuel literally blocking her path to the door.

He had her cornered by the sink.

“She deserved someone more exciting than his boring unstable older brother.”

He was telling her how. He was standing way too close and had his hand on the counter next to her hip.

Victoria had already told him to back off twice by the time I walked in. When she saw me, she looked relieved and immediately came to stand by me.

Samuel just laughed it off like it was all some big joke, but I could feel Victoria trembling.

My girlfriend Victoria and I have been together for eight months and everything was absolutely perfect until Samuel decided to completely wreck our lives with his obsessive behavior. I guess I need to provide some background about our family dynamic for this to make sense.

Samuel and I grew up in an upper-middle-class family in a small town in Minnesota. Our parents both work in real estate and make good money, but they’ve always been more focused on maintaining appearances than actual family relationships.

Samuel was born when I was three, and from the moment he arrived, he became the center of our parents’ universe. Nothing he did was ever wrong, and somehow everything was always my fault.

Growing up, Samuel showed some really concerning behavior that my parents completely ignored. When he was six, he deliberately broke my gaming console because I wouldn’t let him play when he wanted to.

Instead of punishing him, my parents bought him his own and told me I should have shared better. When he was 12, he killed my pet hamster by feeding it chocolate, knowing it was toxic.

My parents said it was an accident and that I shouldn’t have kept pets if I wasn’t going to watch them properly. In high school, he spread rumors about me cheating on my girlfriend at the time, which caused us to break up.

My parents said he was just being protective of her. This pattern has continued into our adult years.

Samuel still lives at home with our parents, working at my dad’s real estate office and basically doing whatever he wants. He sabotaged every relationship I’ve tried to have.

With my last girlfriend before Victoria, he convinced her family that I had a gambling addiction, which was completely false. Before that, he told another girlfriend that I had cheated on all my previous girlfriends, which was also false.

Each time, my parents either defended his actions or accused me of exaggerating. When I met Victoria, I decided to do things differently.

I kept our relationship completely secret from my family for the first three months because I wanted to protect her from Samuel’s usual tactics. Victoria is honestly the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

She’s brilliant, compassionate, and works as a pediatric nurse at our local hospital. We met in the hospital cafe where I was getting coffee while visiting a coworker who had surgery.

She was on her lunch break and we started talking about the horrible hospital coffee. After a few more coffee chats, we started dating and everything just felt right.

Victoria knows all about my family history because I wanted her to be prepared. She was actually the one who encouraged me to try introducing her to them, saying that maybe things would be different now that we’re all adults.

She’s always trying to see the best in people, which is one of the things I love about her. I finally agreed to introduce Victoria to my family at a dinner party last month, and that’s when everything started falling apart.

The real problem started a few days after the dinner. Victoria began getting strange calls and texts from numbers she didn’t recognize.