Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1rixb05/my_sister_32_f_called_cps_on_my_husband_and_i_now/

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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/BigONerd on 2026-03-02 16:22:34+00:00.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/randomredhead10

Published on: r/TwoHotTakes

Trigger Warning: False accusations, CPS investigation, family betrayal, verbal abuse, alcohol misuse, family estrangement

Story timeline

• Main Post: January 24, 2025
• Final Update: January 29, 2025

Main Post

January 24, 2025

My sister (32 F) called CPS on my husband and I. Now that the case has been closed, I have no idea how to confront her.

My sister and I have always been close. Every year she spends Christmas Eve sleeping over with her fiance (M 31) and helps us get toys from Santa built and set up for Christmas Morning. We call ourselves Santa’s helpers, and have a lot of fun with it.

This year, she spent the night, and saw my husband and father disciplining our son. (M 13) Our son is now a teenager and likes to ignore us when we ask him to do something, pretend he doesn’t know how to do something incredibly simple, slam doors, general teenager sassy behavior. His teachers at school notice it as well, so it’s something we’re working on at home. Our discipline style is somewhere between tough love, and “talk it out”. Every-time a conflict at home arises my son does the argue/flip out then “run upstairs and slam the door” thing, my husband will wait 10 minutes and go upstairs and have a heartfelt meaningful dialogue with him. This happened on Christmas Eve, he told his 3 year old sister Santa wasn’t real, and we both immediately told him that wasn’t okay, and he started arguing with us. It lead to the same typical back and fourth, the difference was, my sister and her fiance were present. Neither of them said anything and went about our usual Christmas Eve routine. Everything seemed fine, our son apologized and went to bed…

Upon his return to school after break a CPS worker showed up and pulled him out of class to interview him, about how his parents treat him. He told them he loved his parents and that things at home were fine. He expressed that when we discipline him we sometimes ground him and we take away his electronics for a week, and sometimes he will argue with us, but he knows that when we discipline that we do it because we love him and want him to grow and learn.

Now, a little detail about the month of December and its difficulties…I have a seizure disorder, I have not had a seizure in 10 years, and in the month of December out of nowhere I had 3 back to back to back. I was sitting at my neurologists office, preparing for an EEG sleep study, when I get a call that goes to voicemail from that same CPS worker saying the next day she would be coming to our house to interview us and our 3 year old…I immediately shared the number and voicemail to my husband and told him to call her back immediately because I couldn’t. So the very next day after an exhausting round of seizure tests, she came over.

When she arrived the next day, we got a better picture of the accusations she made against us.

1. she claimed my husband was an alcoholic with anger issues.
2. she claimed we were starving our 3 children and had no food in the house.

To answer the first accusation, it was Christmas Eve…ALL of our family was there, drinking egg nog or wine. NO ONE in the house got sloshed EXCEPT my sister who drank an entire 18 pack of beer to herself that night. We do not have a drinking problem, it was a holiday with family and a delicious meal I spent all day preparing. My husband does not have anger problems whatsoever. We WERE upset at what our son said to his sister, but not in any way that would justify saying anyone in this house has anger issues. My dad and my husband pulled our son aside to talk to him about it. I really Don’t understand this one.

To answer accusation 2 as the CPS worker toured our house, we showed her our pantry, fridge and freezer. She literally laughed out loud and said “there’s enough food here to feed everyone in this house for 3 months.” We are absolutely NOT starving our kids AT ALL, and that was obvious right away.

When the CPS worker was packing up to leave, she stated “I’m grateful to be handling a case in a functional home with happy healthy kids, usually it’s quite the opposite”

Today, she called us back and is closing the case by the end of today. She does not believe any further action is needed and our risk score is low.

Upon talking to my parents and brother, all agree this was for sure my sister based on talking with her themselves though she has not outright admitted it. All agree this was the last thing my family needed while dealing with my health issues, and restructuring our lives and schedules around the reality that I can’t drive for 6 months, so I can’t work.

My husband and I see this as a MAJOR betrayal. I’m still reeling from the reality that a family member I’ve always been so close with and trusted would make such an impulsive, dishonest and quite frankly cruel decision like this. I have spent weeks trying to figure out how to confront her, as she has not fully admitted to doing this, but has heavily implied it to everyone who’s spoken to her…she went from being overly communicative the day of this interview, demanding I call her and tell her how it went, and in general blowing up my phone…to being silent, and not speaking to me for weeks after I told her it went fine. I believe she knows I assume she did this. I want to have a conversation with her, but I do not know how to do it. I feel betrayed by my sister, and incredibly hurt. I do not want to react emotionally, but I do want her to know this was WRONG.

COMMENTS

GroundbreakingPast31

I don't know how or if I would confront her - where are your parents in this? Why aren't they giving her hell? - but for sure, she would NEVER be welcomed into my home again and her relationship with my children would be completely over. And I mean completely. No calls, no texts, no visits, no interactions, no visiting with her at the parents, NOTHING. You don't threaten my family and then have a relationship with them. I would be DONE. Personally, I think you should be done because you need to know that you can never, ever trust her again. Ever.

OOP

My parents aren’t giving her hell yet, because they’ve been trying to information gather from her while she’s gone silent on me. I definitely plan to go no contact for awhile, the sad part is she’s been progressively unstable and getting worse over the years. I feel like I’ve lost my sister, this feels like a betrayal I’m not sure she can come back from without a lot of work on her end…and not anytime soon.

I want to confront her, and let her know that I know this was her, that she put my kids at serious risk making baseless accusations, and that she will not be welcome at my sons birthday next week, and that she will not be welcome here for a long time…

beautifulcreature86

How did you find out it was her? CPS isn't allowed to tell you who reported you. I'm not judging and I think you need to go NC immediately and don't even stress yourself about confrontation. Don't work yourself up over trash. I'm just very curious how you know it was her.

OOP

My parents and my brother, each individually got a hold of her just to talk about the situation and see what she would say, and the way that she was responding made it sound like she felt justified in the actions of whoever must have done this… that and the wording of the complaint fits into what seems like a projection of her own behavior that night, mixed in with some baseless accusations and lies. She’s also super granola health food nut so it’s highly possible that she said we weren’t feeding our kids because when you look in our pantry, we have an abundance of food that her all organic nothing processed no chips no snacks, they should be eating salads and vegan food mentality came out as we’re not feeding our kids the diet she thinks they should be eating. I remember her boyfriend actually saying wow you guys have a lot of spaghetti sauce do you ever worry about the GMO’s?

I make dinner and feed my children every single night. We never order out. They eat a home-cooked meal every night. I definitely buy jars of pasta sauce sometimes to make it easier when I make spaghetti or a baked ziti, and we have canned goods like beans and soups and all kinds of things like rice and pasta noodles, they would scoff at based on their diet.

Mashcamp

Do you know for certain it wasn't her fiancee who called? I'd sit both of them down and talk because it was surely one of them. Or your son did it in a fit of teenage angst and regretted it later and thought just telling them at school that it was all good would reverse it. Best make sure before any actual accusat...

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Mashcamp

Do you know for certain it wasn't her fiancee who called? I'd sit both of them down and talk because it was surely one of them. Or your son did it in a fit of teenage angst and regretted it later and thought just telling them at school that it was all good would reverse it. Best make sure before any actual accusations.

OOP

Her fiance is a social worker, it is possible she used his position to do something like this, but her fiance was busy flirting with my youngest sister…so quite frankly I have no idea what’s going on there between them. My son 100% did not do this, he came home and immediately told my husband some lady came to talk to him at school and it genuinely confused him.

Fluid-Candidate4839

Does your sister have children? Is she jealous of your life? I dont know maybe I’m off base but I can’t help to wonder if she was hoping CPS would take the kids and place them in her home

OOP

My sister can’t have children actually. She was always the sibling that wanted the big family with tons of kids, which seems a little like a rage induced motive to me…and definitely like family would get first dibs on the kids before foster care.

evilslothofdoom

This IS a major betrayal. Is she projecting the alcohol usage onto you guys? Is she jealous of your life? Has she done anything like this in the past? Has someone else been talking badly about you and gotten in her ear?

If you do have a conversation with her face to face, and it's legal, record it. If it's not legal then keep it to SMS or email, something with a paper trail. Either way; when someone makes false accusations about you and your immediate family you need to cut them off. I say this because if they've done it once they could do it again in a worse way. The best way to cover your ass is to make sure you aren't around them, it lessens their credibility, especially with the closed CPS case.

This woman is no longer your sister; she's a threat to your family. You have to put your, your husband's and your children's health and wellbeing above her issues.

OOP

She is a tad bit jealous of our lives. We have three children and due to her fiance being sterile She cannot have kids unless through IVF. She always wanted lots of kids. My mother also just recovered from breast cancer, and we all got tested for breast cancer, and I’m in the clear she is at a high risk. That happened over the summer. I think her drinking has gotten more out of control in the time that she’s been coping with that information. It was already bad, but it seems like she went off the deep end. I empathize with her a lot

BUT…

she has done some messed up things to other family members, and this out of all Of them this us the worst thing she’s ever done. I genuinely do not believe she understands what her impulsive decision could have caused with the wrong social worker. What she did is scary and a really big betrayal and putting all three of my kids at risk.

Quick Small Update - after 3 days
My brother wants to coordinate lunch where we sit down with her to discuss this, he doesn’t think me texting her is a good idea, so that may happen but I Don’t even know if I can look her in the eye right now. I intend to bring up the drinking issues and concerns for her mental health during this conversation, but also try to get to the truth.

Final Update - after 5 days (after 2 days from last post)
January 29, 2025

My sister (32 F) called CPS on my husband and I. Now that the case has been closed, I have no idea how to confront her.

She ended up reaching out to me, and telling me how much she loved me…I responded saying that I had a question to ask, and I needed her to be honest with me. She called me immediately. She opened with saying “I think you already know the answer if you’re asking this question, so yes it was me”…I followed up with “do you realize what could have happened to my kids? To me and my husband? Do you realize how bad the outcome of this could have been?”

She began to rant and yell, she said me and my husband Don’t deserve to be parents, that I obviously Don’t care about my kids because I hadn’t even brought them up (which I literally opened with “do you realize what could have happened to my kids?” Literally my first question…I think she was drunk again during this call) she just kept yelling and ranting, and I couldn’t get a word in, I kept asking if I could speak and she wouldn’t stop going off, the only words out of my mouth she heard were “you realize we are going to be taking a very long break from you right” and her response was “I’m sure you will, and I Don’t care” then resumed her ranting, so I calmly told her if she was not going to let me speak I was going to hang up. At this point her ranting was incoherent, something about how she cares more about my kids than anyone (obviously not if you think what you did was okay, and think that showing my kids you care about them means putting them at risk and ensuring that the are also losing a family member as a result of her actions then sure I guess that’s caring?)

I once again calmly stated that I was going to hang up if she wouldn’t let me speak…unfortunately that’s where this phone call ended. I hung up and blocked her immediately and then called our father. I told him the way she was behaving on the phone sounded like she was incredibly unstable and either drunk, having a manic episode or both, and that he should call her just to try to calm her down and get through to her, it sounds like he was going to immediately though I Don’t know.

I am devastated and still reeling from this. I knew it was her but I really wanted the slim chance it wasn’t to be true, even if I knew it was impossible that it wasn’t. Hearing her say it, sent chills down my spine, she said it so indignantly and like she was proud of her actions, and then devolved into unhinged ranting. Last night i officially lost my sister, I will be going no contact from here on out, but my heart is broken. My dad clearly didn’t want to believe it was her either, because I heard his tone change instantly when I said she had admitted it. My dad sounded like he was on the verge of tears and quite frankly I Don’t blame him. She just caused a massive rift in our family.

I didn’t even get to bring up the accusations, I really would have loved to ask her where the hell she came up with the idea that we are starving our kids and have no food in the house, she has never left our house hungry, and our kids have never gone hungry, I would have loved an answer to that but never got a word in once she was going off.

I also would have loved to ask her about the drunken anger issues thing, because it was clear and on display on the phone last night, she is the one drunk and angry, not my husband. Of course, I would have loved to make that keen observation but again, I never got to speak once she was going.

This is my final update, I have no idea how I feel today besides heartbroken and numb. I want to thank everyone who commented with words of support, and advice, it meant a lot to me and really helped inform how I was going to handle this moving forward. I wish I had been wrong, but I wasn’t. I’m worried because of her reaction on the phone last night she might retaliate, I have no idea if she will, I hope speaking to my dad maybe helped. I’m a little on edge today and sad but just hoping to move forward from this in peace.

COMMENTS

kaniiksu

of course. i don’t know your family or the situation in full, but i imagine this feels like a betrayal in some ways.

did you get her admission on recording and/or do you have record of it? i know some states have laws allowing false reports of child abuse to be prosecuted if they were made with provable malice.

OOP

I did thank god you can record iPhone phone calls. I’m not sure if it’s admissible in court though, Washington has very strict rules on recordings being used in legal action, when the recording was taken without the other parties knowledge.

This definitely feels like a betrayal. She sees my kids maybe 3-4 times a year, and is simply not around enough to even make accusations like this, or have enough information about our daily lives to have any room to speak. She does not understand how serious this is.

Winter_Ad_5922

Info: Have you called your sister's fiance to see what's going on?

OOP

No. I received confirmation from my sister herself. She is now blocked and I won’t be calling her fiancé. I’m unfortunately also running into the new issue of certain family members still wanting me to invite her to gatherings and they “dont agree with what she did, but she’s still my sister” and I should move on which is not happening anytime soon.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

Naa no forgiveness for using law to hurt family.