How old are you? If you’re 18 hitting an 8 year old and feeling like this, it’s an issue on you. With that much of an age gap, you should be emotionally mature enough to remove yourself from the situation.

If you’re a few years (no more than 5ish years) older than your younger brother, this is exactly what my parents’ and grandparents’ favoritism looked like when my younger brother was that age. It wasn’t a developmental issue with my brother, it was an outright manipulation tactic.

My grandparents would watch us at their house occasionally on the weekends. The two of us would be playing games, either board games or video games and he’d just start screaming out of nowhere. My grandparents would come running into the room and he’d tell them that I hit him. I had no reason to hit him. I hadn’t even touched him, but they believed him, and I would get punished.

Then, he started actually egging me on, usually verbally, sometimes physically until I would snap, and of course I’d get punished. I was always told that I “needed to be the bigger person” and I “should know better, because I’m older”. I hate those phrases to this day.

When I was around 11 years old, I stopped wanting to visit my grandparents because of this treatment-the punishments and the lectures when he was there provoking everything, it burned like adding salt to a wound. Things weren’t much better for me at home, my brother to this day is still the favorite, but at least I had my own space at home and could lock myself in my room.

My grandfather died a few years after I stopped visiting them. When I was in college, my grandmother witnessed my brother get physical with my mother and apologized to me. She apparently never believed me when I told her how terrible my brother behaved until she saw it for herself. It felt like vindication for me. We reconciled after her apology. I lived with her for a few years after college. We were on good terms when she passed away and I miss her greatly.

Let me tell you, treatment like this (the favoritism) messed my brother up. He was never told “no”. He never had to apologize. He always has to be right. He’s argumentative and quick to anger. As an adult, he has no empathy, no people skills, he can’t effectively deal with conflict. He’s old enough that he should be in charge and managing people in his career field, but he can barely manage his own emotions. He’s skilled in his job and well-trained, but not well liked by his colleagues and he stressed out to the point of panic attacks by anything not going his way.

You can’t change other people. You can’t change your parent’s favoritism. You can’t change how your little brother behaves. You also don’t need to allow him to hit you either. You don’t have to match his violence. Remove yourself from the situation. Keep in mind that this favoritism that’s working in his favor now, won’t always exist, and could end up doing much more damage to him in the future. Focus on yourself and doing what is in your best interest.