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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Specific-Appeal-8031 on 2023-08-13 02:32:46.

I’m not giving exact ages because this story covers some time and it will get confusing, but my parents are in their 70s, me (F) and my brother are in our 40s, my daughter was 5 in 2019.

In 2019 I was in cancer treatment and newly separated from my husband (not because of the cancer, it was a couple months earlier. He doesn’t come into this). In the middle of my treatment and at a particularly low point, my brother and/or his wife made a false report to DCF (Department of Children and Families) saying that my daughter was neglected. There were specific allegations like she was wearing dirty clothes to school, living in an unsanitary house, etc, all false. It was anonymous but to make a long story short, there were strong reasons to believe that brother + wife were the ones who made the call. My parents had instantly thought so.

DCF interviewed me but decided the report was bogus and didn’t investigate. But they had called her school, they called my ex. We were divorcing and if he *had* decided to be an AH bad things could have happened. Not to even mention the stress this put me under at what was already easily the lowest point in my life physically and mentally.

For a couple of years nothing happened. Brother + wife denied that they had been involved. There was nothing anyone could do, and there was still the remote possibility that some nurse might have called (but why make up these details?) Mostly my life went on but now and then when I thought about it and how we were all sweeping it under the rug I was mad.

Why would brother + wife do this? Being a cancer patient in a major depression, I was very needy. I was staying with my parents. This meant that they were not as available to my brother, and he did have some problems during that period. He injured his back, meaning he could not work for a few months and needed surgery. But he had disability money and a wife to help, and he was still getting around. Also, his wife depended to some degree on my mother for emotional support, which must have been less available. Finally, my brother is just kind of a dick in the first place, a right-wing blowhard with authoritarian / racist tendencies.

Recently, my brother told my parents (not me) that his *marriage counselor* had been the one to call DCF, and that he had lied because he was embarrassed. But why would the counselor make a report with such specific lies? Okay, what if she didn’t think she was lying, but that means that brother + wife told her those specific things. To me this confirms it was them.

Earlier of this year, I snapped at him once and made a reference to this situation. From there, he decided to refuse to be in my presence — to be clear, *not* the other way around. Now my mother sees this as an estrangement that I may not be responsible for, but that I need to help straighten out.

I have said I’m not having any conversation unless there’s an admission / apology. But it’s a strain on my parents. So, AITA?

Ed:spacing