Brother issues

[Person66]

I know it's wrong to say that, but we have nothing in common, and he mostly just talks about himself. Spending time with him takes energy, I don't feel comfortable around him, I feel like all he cares about is trying to impress me with his life, and I hate having to pretend that I'm impressed, I doubt he's stupid enough to not see right through that. .

Why is it wrong to say that?
Some brothers have nothing in common.
Like me and my brother-we weren't even close as little kids, as a baby if I tried to pick him up, he'd bite and scratch me!

Your brother sounds a lot like my own younger brother.
Things will get better once you don't have to live together anymore, I've been there.
You are not alone.

[CellarDweller]

I think you need to see a counselor. Not because I think you're crazy, but because you are carrying all this anger for your brother in you, and it's affecting you. Once you unload some of it, you will start to feel better. You won't like your brother suddenly, but you'll feel like a burden has been lifted.

it's perfectly fine to not like your brother, it sounds like he treated you very shitty for a long time. Once you are not living together, the stress level will change.

[VidasParalelas]

My sister bullied me, molested me, dropped out of high school, got pregnant at 16, had more kids with a different man, does nothing but has a sense of entitlement, behaves like trash, told me I'm going to Hell because I'm not Christian, leaves her kids with another family member who abused myself and my sister, tries to demean my education and good life choices... etc.. it never ends.

All in the past - I haven't talked to her in years and I'm much happier now.

Sometimes you have to move on. Siblings don't always get along. If your parents are pressuring you to include your brother in your life maybe you should have a sit down with them and explain your history with your brother.

If your parents refuse to understand then that should tell you something. Put your emotional needs first or you will grow to resent your family. You can be civil but you don't have to be a doormat.

[KingOfChaos]

First of all, you're not wrong to feel that way.
What I get from your posts is that you both still live with your parents and that they're expecting you to be the one to somehow make things right. And that you won't be able to move out for a while yet.
I think that time is the only things that might (and I say might, not will) make a difference. Hew sounds very immature, and I think he has a lot of growing to do. You feel like he'll never change, but he well may at some point.
There doesn't seem to be a lot you can do right now. Perhaps spend less time at home - I spent most of my senior year of high school at the library, the student center, the mall and the video arcade, trying to avoid my dad.
Unfortunately, until you move out you're in a bit of a holding pattern. The important thing is to not turn this on yourself. Your feelings are valid and you need not apologize for them.

[VidasParalelas]

^

Getting out of the house as much as possible is a great idea.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

You are not going to like what I have to say.

However I am known for blunt truth over tact, so forgive me if I hurt you in my words. Truth is often hurtful. Get used to it, there is a lot of truth in life.

he was always really attached, which became a problem when I started making friends in middle school, he wanted to hang out with us all the time, and I was always made to let him tag along. Whenever my friends came over, we never had any time away from him, he'd be all chipper and jolly while we were seething over our obligation to let him hang out with us.

Like it or not that is rejection, and whilst you may not have said much to him on the matter your whole attitude there caused him deep, emotional pain which most likely contributed to the way he developed as a human being.

I'm willing to bet that when he seeks the help of a therapist they will work on the way you treated him as a kid and he will spend thousands of dollars and many hours trying to accept that rejection and move on from it.

Granted we can strike up your attitude to being a young stupid human child, however you need to understand here that you caused him hurt, real hurt which has impacted the way he has developed.

What is sad here is he still looks up to you and desires a real younger brother to older brother relationship and you are unwilling or unable to give him that. You are still flat refusing to accept your role in his life and are doing more damage to him than you understand.

Things like trying to impress you - Do you not understand he is seeking your approval here? Sure he may not be doing the best things in life, but he really, really wants your approval and you are denying him that. Impressing you, trying to make you laugh with his stupid jokes, all of these things are symptoms of his desperately trying to have a relationship of the younger brother with the older brother.

Yes he lashed out and knew instinctively about your homosexuality, but you had it coming after treating him like an obligation and loathing his very existence and setting higher priorities to appease strangers over family.

Younger brothers often take up the role of the more submissive/follower to their older brother. Granted you ain't so world wise with decades of experience beyond his, but you are older, thus slightly more experienced and most likely have been the leader in many areas.

Younger brothers tend to look up to their older brothers as heroes.

What is really sad is that his hero hates him and reminds him of that hatred, that simmering loathing all the time, and he is only going to respond with trying harder to impress you, to get your approval, to get your love and acceptance.

Losing Friends. That you place more importance on the roles of strangers in your life over the role of blood in your life tells me you have a few serious priority issues. And I seriously doubt you understand what 'friend' means. Oh that is not an uncommon problem. Society is so sick and twisted it has broken the definition of friend and acquaintance to the point few people understand what those relationships really are.

You need to own your part in your brother's development. He is trying to replace brotherly love with material gain - and that is by an large a response to all of that "seething over our obligation".

You keep on going on and on about his shit, you need to start looking at your own shit. You need to get it through your skull that YOU caused a lot of his issues by the way you treated him.

Why you can't see that, why you can't read your very own words and see that your treatment of him is wrong is beyond me.

Try switching this up and putting yourself in his shoes.

"he'd be all chipper and jolly while we were seething over our obligation to let him hang out with us."

If you were on the receiving end of that seething obligation (hatred) how would it make you feel?

Yeah he was chipper and jolly, desperately trying to make his older brother like him, ergo love him, thus want him around.

The harder he tried the harder you shoved him away. Like it or not you communicated to him your loathing and hatred of his very presence. You may not have said a single word of that at him, but your body language and most likely tone of voice said all that needed to be said.

You own a part in this broken relationship, and from your own words I think that the real devil this matter, the real bad person who did the most to break this relationship is you - not him.

[Uneunsae]

Yeah, you didn't treat him well when you were kids. Bowyn is right about that.

[Gideon]

I have a younger brother too. We grew up in an abusive household and because of that we were extremely close growing up and very protective of one another.

Maybe it's because of that and my need to protect him, I let him hang around with me and my friends growing up. I've always been really picky about who I called friends though, so I didn't lose any from letting my little brother tag along. It was just how it was.

We grew up though, and stayed tight for a long time. Even when he met and got together with the chick who is now his wife. Even though I didn't like her. She's abusive in her own way, controlling..and often downright psychotic. Unfortunately though, her manipulations led him to alot of really -bad- decisions. Stupid decisions and eventually it changed the person he was.

This is as much his fault in my estimation as hers..he -let- her manipulate him. He made the decisions himself regardless of influence.

Drugs, alcohol and a crazy wife and I started losing respect for him and eventually cut ties with him for the most part. I don't hate him, I just refuse to let myself be pulled into that craziness. I'm too damn responsible for that.

Relationships take work no matter what type of relationship it is. People make mistakes, they grow apart, sometimes they fall apart....the thing is, if you miss him, if you -want- him back as your brother and friend then you have to -work- for it. If it's not worth the effort for you, or you really just can't stand him as you say...then I'd say move on and live your life and let him live his.

I still -love- my brother, he's my brother. I might not like him much these days, but that doesn't change that I love him and always will. Even when he's a dumbass. I just have to make my -own- decisions and decide what's best for me.

[Charon]

It's an article of faith among adults that all siblings will love one another; How could they not? Even with examples of how they could not in front of them, they've another shibboleth which is, "As they grow up they'll come to appreciate each other." Well, no. My sister and I were both adopted, from different litters I 'm pleased to report, and we've loathed each other for decades. When I was about 6, she put a nifty scar at the front of my hairline with a claw hammer-everybody noticed, the blood was everywhere and taking the whole family to the ER, plus our servants, wasn't a good idea. But I recovered. Her next adventure in pre-med was almost cutting of both my eyelids. Oh, and on that same occasion, she almost, but not quite, got a Phillips head screw driver into my throat in her version of a tracheotomy. My parents are.....worried. But hopeful, after all, we're only 8 and 6. However, the carving knife to the gut put an exclamation point on our relationship and I moved to live with my grandparents. Although it didn't effect me, some back ground. She was tossed out of the public school system for attempting to burn down a gymnasium and only a close friendship between a golfing mad bishop and my father kept her in parochial school. University wasn't much. As my mother learned to say, she "finished" her education there neglecting to mention she was expelled as a Freshman for moving out of the Freshman dorm and into the Holiday Inn with her boy friend du jour. The charges there were moral turpitude. Pre Roe v Wade, and her 18th birthday she had five abortions and, after her last gasp at education married the man she shared the room at the Holiday Inn. I was not asked to her wedding. Against enormous odds, they've been married for over forty years and she became a television star. Which leads us to her final bit of filial mischief. A friend called to ask if I'd read her studio issued bio-which I hadn't-but they suggested I might like to. Interestingly, she states that her parents and sibling are all deceased. At our mother's funeral she gave me a black eye so the old enmity continues. Do all siblings love each other? Hell no, indeed in some instances, they should be separated and kept that way, I'm sure it saved my life. Her show is in its tenth season and I hope they kill her character off. I know, that's small minded of me but...I'm already dead, as it were, and I want her to know the feeling of being the living dead or the deadly living. Seems only fair.

[Anonymous]

You are not going to like what I have to say.

However I am known for blunt truth over tact, so forgive me if I hurt you in my words. Truth is often hurtful. Get used to it, there is a lot of truth in life.




Like it or not that is rejection, and whilst you may not have said much to him on the matter your whole attitude there caused him deep, emotional pain which most likely contributed to the way he developed as a human being.

I'm willing to bet that when he seeks the help of a therapist they will work on the way you treated him as a kid and he will spend thousands of dollars and many hours trying to accept that rejection and move on from it.

Granted we can strike up your attitude to being a young stupid human child, however you need to understand here that you caused him hurt, real hurt which has impacted the way he has developed.

What is sad here is he still looks up to you and desires a real younger brother to older brother relationship and you are unwilling or unable to give him that. You are still flat refusing to accept your role in his life and are doing more damage to him than you understand.

Things like trying to impress you - Do you not understand he is seeking your approval here? Sure he may not be doing the best things in life, but he really, really wants your approval and you are denying him that. Impressing you, trying to make you laugh with his stupid jokes, all of these things are symptoms of his desperately trying to have a relationship of the younger brother with the older brother.

Yes he lashed out and knew instinctively about your homosexuality, but you had it coming after treating him like an obligation and loathing his very existence and setting higher priorities to appease strangers over family.

Younger brothers often take up the role of the more submissive/follower to their older brother. Granted you ain't so world wise with decades of experience beyond his, but you are older, thus slightly more experienced and most likely have been the leader in many areas.

Younger brothers tend to look up to their older brothers as heroes.

What is really sad is that his hero hates him and reminds him of that hatred, that simmering loathing all the time, and he is only going to respond with trying harder to impress you, to get your approval, to get your love and acceptance.

Losing Friends. That you place more importance on the roles of strangers in your life over the role of blood in your life tells me you have a few serious priority issues. And I seriously doubt you understand what 'friend' means. Oh that is not an uncommon problem. Society is so sick and twisted it has broken the definition of friend and acquaintance to the point few people understand what those relationships really are.

You need to own your part in your brother's development. He is trying to replace brotherly love with material gain - and that is by an large a response to all of that "seething over our obligation".

You keep on going on and on about his shit, you need to start looking at your own shit. You need to get it through your skull that YOU caused a lot of his issues by the way you treated him.

Why you can't see that, why you can't read your very own words and see that your treatment of him is wrong is beyond me.

Try switching this up and putting yourself in his shoes.


If you were on the receiving end of that seething obligation (hatred) how would it make you feel?

Yeah he was chipper and jolly, desperately trying to make his older brother like him, ergo love him, thus want him around.

The harder he tried the harder you shoved him away. Like it or not you communicated to him your loathing and hatred of his very presence. You may not have said a single word of that at him, but your body language and most likely tone of voice said all that needed to be said.

You own a part in this broken relationship, and from your own words I think that the real devil this matter, the real bad person who did the most to break this relationship is you - not him.

I acknowledge that most of what you say is true, but that last phrase... damn, that was quite an accusation, and I'll tell you why.

You don't understand, it's one thing for your younger sibling to look up to you, it's another for them to have forceful control over you when you don't give them extra attention. I spent plenty of time with my brother when we were little, but he always wanted more, and my parents always made sure I was at his disposal in that sense.

My brother had me wrapped around his finger growing up, because it was easier for my parents that way. I gave in easily to punishment, I was the more well-behaved one, I was the more pliable one. Come to think of it, maybe it is my fault in that sense, maybe I should have given my parents the hell my brother gave them.

They f*cked up big time with him, they raised me with much more discipline, I was raised to know that I won't get whatever the hell I want in life. I was raised to know that if I b!tched or complained, I would be sent to my room with no free pass. My brother was raised knowing that if he gave up enough of a fight, he would win.

So for anyone to tell me that I this is my fault, they do not understand what it was like to be growing up like this, what it was like to not be able to have my own life, and by the time I should have been coming out of my shell, there he was doing his best to ruin things for me.

So don't be telling me that I'm the only "bad guy" in this, you clearly do not understand.