All three of my "nieces and nephews" from my brother are actually my children and it's the only thing keeping his marriage together.

My title is pretty much what this whole situation boils down too. However, I need give the context for this whole thing.

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Back over 13 years ago my older brother married his wife. The two of them were high school sweethearts and got married after he graduated college. They immediately wanted kids. But after almost 2 years of trying they realized something. After that it was revealed that my brother suffered from a extremely rare genetic defect that left him almost entirely infertile. According to the doctors there was less than a .1% chance of him ever fathering offspring.

I come a very tight knit family. Even today almost all of my extended family live in the same town and see each other on a monthly basis. Because of this we all heard this news almost immediately. All of my sibling who had married at this point already had kids and a big part of my families religious views were based on children so the pressure was already pretty heavy on them when the news hit.

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My brother and his wife did not take this news well. Over the next year the two of them tried their hardest to have that .1% baby. They sunk over 50k into "fertility treatments" and over medical shams that never resulted in anything. Their marriage was falling apart by the day and it soon became clear that the both of them only ever did this to have kids.

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This is where i come in. It was almost a year after he had received the news that I caught my sister-in-law crying alone at a family event. I sat and talked with her for over an hour about this whole nightmare. At the time I was just getting over my fiance cheating on me so we both had a lot to say about marriage. From this we started talking to each other a lot. And one thing led to another and we started having sex. I was a young stupid college kid at the time and she was desperate for anything so neither of us used protection, and she got pregnant.

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My sister in law decided to tell him about her pregnancy while eliminating the fact of me and her, And he was ecstatic. It was if overnight their marriage repaired itself and the two of them were as happy as ever. And 9 months later they were "blessed" with not one but two sons. My whole family called them miracle children and that my brother and his wife were blessed. Me and my sister in law made an agreement to never tell a soul and take this with us to our graves. My brother was the happiest he had been in years and they both finally were happy. They had finally had the children they both wanted and would be content. Even when I moved away she still wanted nothing more than to keep the lie going.

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3 years later I met back up with my sister-in-law behind my brothers back again. The reasons were less malicious than before initially. I had moved away for a job and came back to see my family one christmas. Me and her started talking and decided to meet for coffee. One thing led to another and we ended up sleeping with each other multiple times during this visit. She got pregnant once again and somehow convinced my brother it was his. 9 months later and their daughter was born.

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I know for a fact that the both of them live for this lie. One of the last real conversations i had with my brother was how his marriage was a joke, and he only lived for his kids. My sister in law shares the same sentiment. And I know that she would end her life if not for it.

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I cut my family out of my life recently, and honestly, this is one of the reasons. Where I came from family and kids were all that mattered. Ironically, in the end I was the black sheep for never marring and having kids. For me this is a way of trying to let go and move on. But I never will