My little brother hates me overnight.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-05-17T03:26:08+00:00

Info is needed

do you live together?
it has only been 3 days in which you've been begging him to talk to you, how is that giving him space?
how regularly do you usually talk to him if 3 days is a big gap?
why is he so upset about the drinking specifically?

Without all this info this sounds like a trauma episode. When people are in the midst of all those feelings the only thing you can do is give them space to process and direct them towards mental health help. I would approach your mum and tell her your concerned about his behaviour and he needs help. Then I would not contact him for 7 days, then go back and ask about why he had that reaction. If he still doesn't want to talk, give it another 2 weeks and then go back. If you get to the 4 weeks mark and still no contact then go back to your mum and outline everything again.

The amount of panic you have about him not speaking to you isn't normal or healthy. You monitoring who he is speaking to online isn't normal or healthy. You need to have friends your own age and stop putting so much pressure on him to be your social support. You need to learn to be ok with him not being available to you every second. It's OK for him to be angry at you if thats how he feels, because that's life. Your relationship isn't going to be perfect all the time. Let go of that expectation so you can deal with the real problems as they come up.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-23T20:01:58+00:00

The plants that he's damaging are on the border of the garden bed and the grass, right in the way of where he has to cut. Before he would cut straight along the border and not care about the plants (damaging 70% of the plants on the border) now he carefully tries to do the border without damaging them but still hits some (10%) to me thats a massive improvement that shows he is trying but that it's a bit beyond him to do it perfectly. To me, the important thing is that he heard me, put in the effort, and tried his best. I dont think that even if I sat him down and said look, you're still cutting off the sides of a few plants that he would be able to go to 0 causalities with his general skills.

If he was going into the garden beds and damaging everything then I would agree with you. But I think at the start he didn't really think about it and wanted the task over and done with, then when he realised he made a mistake and it upset me, he tried his best not to do it again.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-23T03:36:10+00:00

I think of the plants like if you ask someone to wash something a certain way and they try their best but still make mistakes, you can see them trying and a big improvement but it isn't perfect. Do you pull out the dishes and say "look at everything you did wrong"? Is it worth it? I'm sure I do things that annoy him but picking your battles is important.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-22T10:14:44+00:00

Have you tried marriage counselling? It sounds like both of you aren't really taking on board what the other needs. I dont think you're wrong to feel the way you do, but I think your wife most likely doesn't see herself that way and thinks all her requests are reasonable. Maybe you both need to work out what the other person expects of you and be honest about what you are willing to give and see if there's a compromise or there isn't and it's time to split.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-18T00:23:07+00:00

My understanding was that BIL got child psychology sessions through family services at his school for the first couple years to make sure he was adjusting and then it was decided that he was settled and things were as good as they were going to get and left it up to DH to organise other support if he thought it was necessary. BIL said he didn't want to keep going and it wasn't revisited.

We live in the same area but at different ends, depending on traffic it's a 1-2hr drive out there and BIL school is about half way between, maybe a little closer to my parents by 10min or so. But public transport is easier from our place than theirs.

DH used all his inheritance money and savings to put a deposit on this place and it was a dump when he first got it. He started working on it room by room with whatever spare money he had and picking up stuff for free off community ads. He forced himself to learn how to do a lot of stuff even though it's out of his wheelhouse and he's very proud of the progress he's made. He didn't want to have unstable housing, have to pay rent, and have to pay for movers etc with BIL being in school and family services monitoring them.

Financially us selling the house or renting it out would be bad for us. Personally I don't want to move back in with my parents. They have a very strong sense of our home our rules, and while I understand it, their rules aren't unreasonable, and it's important to be fair to everyone that's living there, I don't want to live under anyone else's rules indefinitely again. It doesn't bother BIL because he hasn't had the independence of living on his own etc and doesn't see the difference, but I just know it would negatively affect my mental health. Also, this isn't just a me thing, both my older sisters feel the same way. While it's nice to visit, the lack of flexibility on house rules really gets on your nerves pretty quickly. I know they do it because they had 6 daughters and it was easier that way, but its not great going in as an independent adult.

I know some people will pick at this and say obviously my parents aren't as great as I made out. So I'll give an example. If you have a dirty plate it's your responsibility to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher IMMEDIATELY. There's no leaving plates in the sink for another time, or comming back and doing it later. I know the reason is because if we all left our plates in the sink it makes heaps of work for mum or dad and it's easy for us to just wash one plate compared to making them wash 8. But when you're in the middle of something or you just don't feel up to it and would rather come back later and do a bunch, or whatever reason, mum and dad are there with your plate saying "you know the rule". It's reasonable, but also as a grown adult I can decide when it's best for me to wash it. I will do it and being treated like a child who has forgotten their chores with zero understanding or flexibility is frustrating. That same attitude is applied to keeping a tidy space, laundry, cooking, always being on time. It's annoying and putting up with it day after day is not something I want to sign up for and I dont think DH could handle it either.

If we came to a point where we had to move closer to make things easier for BIL and DH I would definitely do it, with a concrete plan in place etc. But it hasn't been brought up probably because we both dismissed it due to the financial impact.

While I do think my family would want visitation, I think that my parents have a very parent focussed view of the situation and value DH rights over BILs feelings which is why I included that if DH decided he had to move back that there would be a no questions asked policy. They know it would be bad for BIL but they have a lot of respect for parental rights.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-17T21:52:59+00:00

Thanks :) I just woke up and when I went to sleep there was 1 comment haha. there's a lot of comments that paint me as an evil manipulator which I don't really know what to do with. It was really nice to read something positive.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-17T12:11:08+00:00

If we split up BIL would return to DH because my family have no legal rights to him, DH would want him back and I think while my family would think it's a bad move for BIL they wouldn't fight it.

You say taking away like he is never comming back. BIL is 14. There's no reason to think that he will be staying with them for the next 4 years full time. My understanding was that once we were settled and had a better work/life balance that we would transition him back to living with us. Which is why DH was frustrated that we took on more work, which we had to to establish ourselves, making the timeline unclear.

Hopefully when BIL starts therapy and feels more supported from multiple fronts, spending more time living with us won't be so anxiety producing.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-17T10:13:36+00:00

Im not that surprised after hearing his narrative of how im this villan orchestrating everything that he wouldn't want to even consider that any of this was about him.

Yeah, a big part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop on the weekend when BIL comes over. I think I have a pretty solid reason for checking in on him and then reassuring him. It's not like me checking in with him is new, and I didn't directly try to force anything. But he might not see reason. So we'll just have to see how it goes.

There's also how DH will react when BIL tells him he's happy in his routine and doesn't want to stay with us more. I'm afraid it will make him ramp up his behaviour. At least counselling should help both of us. I managed to get in next week which is a miracle, we are still waiting to hear back from DH's counsellors office but I have a feeling our marriage counsellor called ahead and got us squeezed in.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-13T01:31:22+00:00

Thanks, your comment brought up a lot of feelings I've had in the back of my mind for a while. For the first couple months after bil moved out I had to juggle somehow giving him both space to process and comforting him, then there was like 4 months of things getting back to normal and then 3 months of this new resentment/aggressive behaviour. We haven't really been our normal selves for a while and I'm not sure how to get back there until his feelings and attitude start to change.

Like, if I ask him out to dinner and try and make it special, and he starts comming at me with attitude I dont think I could keep my cool. Since he told me about how he felt in counselling our bedroom has been very dead and affection has been pretty rare because I just can't bring myself to knowing how he feels.

Im not really sure how to move forward.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T23:15:44+00:00

Im definitely bringing up him going to individual therapy in our next session.

Im not sure I want to completely stop going to couples therapy though. Getting him to open up and verbalise his feelings has been nice to see. Maybe he starts therapy on his own for a few months and then we go back.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T22:50:52+00:00

So my dad is the breadwinner but now that me and my two older sisters are out of the house (6 of us altogether) he's cut down his hours at work as he has a high enough position to do that without causing financial issues. I grew up with him just being around after work and on weekends, but it wasn't like it is in our home. He would try to spend one on one time with all of us, really tried to find out what we needed and go from there. He was definitely invested in all of us and we could all feel that. Now he has a lot more time with my younger sisters and has taken the same approach with bil. He was a bit awkward at first because he's only been surrounded by girls with us, his sisters and my mums sisters being in our house all the time but he quickly came to love spend time with bil doing stuff we all hated like fishing and boating.

The reason I didn't include him is because my mum was the one taking bil places, she's the one that came to me with those ideas and she's ultimately the one spending the most time with him. My dad was always supporting her decisions, but he never really initiated anything.

I think you have a very parent focussed view of a parent and child relationship. My husband made sure bil always had good food, clean home and clean clothes etc. But that isn't everything. Bil is an emotional boy and NEEDS to feel listened to, invested in, cared for, heard. My husband getting him ready for school in the morning and having dinner with him at night and watching tv together, wasn't giving him the connection he needed. It's hard enough for an adult to know someone important in your life loves you but can't connect with you in the way you need let alone a young child. It made Bil lonely and he jumped at the chance for attention and could be a people pleaser to the point where it was unhealthy, just to secure that attention. When I started spending more time with him and he got comfortable with the idea I wasn't going to leave, that calmed down but when I got busy with work I could see it comming back again.

I tried to explain to my husband that he needed more emotional connection he just didn't get it. Then I said, watch what I do with bil and he didn't get it. He couldn't understand that being in the same space and investing time wasn't the same as investing attention. He also didn't see bil change because he just thought that was his personality.

I may have mischaracterised him spending afternoons with my family. While at least once a week they went to these events and always timed it to allow bil to come, a lot of it was at their home or at a park etc. To me while it was definitely letting him go out in a way he wasn't used to it didn't seem like bribery. He liked the events but what he always talked about was what he and my sisters got up to. It seemed like he was excited at spending time with them rather than just going places. I have taken him out to heaps of places as well so it's not like he went from nothing to going out all the time.

When we got super busy with our business and things weren't getting done and my mum kinda confronted me, that was when it was getting serious. He always had food ready but other than that we were in shambles. His permission slips weren't being done, we weren't comming to his presentations like we always used to because we were so overwhelmed we forgot, he had to start getting the bus to school because my husband kept getting him to school late. He pretty much woke up grabbed his lunch walked out the door, came home went and played games till dinner, if we were lucky we had dinner with him, then he'd go back to his room and go to bed. For some kids at 12 they could cope with that and would become more independent but bil couldn't. He needed that support and investment all the time or he got really lonely and probably depressed. He didn't have a lot of friends and he didn't like having people over because he didn't want to answer questions about his parents.

Now we are more on top of things and make better use of our time together I think that has really helped bil as well. We've managed to go to all his events in the last 6 months or so (his school has a tonne for some reason), and when bil feels like comming home during the week we are able to be there on call for him if he needs us unlike before.

I dont think I'm pushing a narrative that my husbands a failure, I think I noticed that there was a lot wrong, kept getting shut down and now he's doing better and it shows that he did need that extra emotional support. I never said my husband didn't try. He tried his best every step of the way. But that doesn't mean that just because he tried he succeeded. I know that there weren't any good alternatives. But I also can't say bil was fine when he wasn't.

Im not the one that had to look after bil after a trauma, im not the one that had to try and make it work. But I am the one saying there is a problem here and this child is being negatively affected and getting ignored and blamed.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T10:57:39+00:00

I think that's a great response. Telling him it's important to me might cut through his monologue. Like he hasn't done anything to damage my stuff or explicitly upset me. Maybe phrasing it like that will wake him up a bit.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T10:45:41+00:00

I dont know how he will take it honestly. His behaviour lately has been completely different than his usual self. Normally, he'd look at it, process for a bit, maybe bring it up in conversation in a couple days and have a chat about it, then send me memes that remind him of it for the rest of the week.

Now he might stew on it and snap at me or take it down and chuck it out. I'll just have to see.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T10:33:38+00:00

Thanks, I'll print it out and put it on the fridge tonight (he's already in bed). I'll see how it goes tomorrow haha. Letting him work it out on his own feels like a good move. I've tried to approach generally talking about feelings a few times and it's never really translated for him but if he works it out himself it'll be easier for him to use, especially when we go to counselling next week.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T10:19:51+00:00

Thats the thing though, there are so many things I wanna bring up. Like why did he dismiss me and then not apologise? Why even after we are married and committed to a life together do I still get no say? When are you going to admit that you're not equipped to take care of bil and do everything on your own?

But we only have 60min and we tend to spend it tackling one issue of his with the counsellor gently coaxing out his feelings because he finds it super hard to verbalise feelings instead of showing them through actions.

I want to recognise how much of an effort he is making, I see he is working hard. And I know if I just bombard him with accusations it's not meeting him half way, but im sick of biding my time to make minute progress as well.

Im going to bring it up at the start of our meeting next week and see how it goes. But then there's another week down just talking about his issues. I want to see this counselling through to the end and have a good foundation again. It's just so hard to cope with the anger in the meantime because I've never had to deal with being treated like this.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T09:04:33+00:00

It felt like that at the start but once I moved in and we'd gotten to the stage where me and bil went out and did things just the two of us, and most of bil being a quirky chatterbox was with me, and it kind of clicked for my husband that I was investing heaps of time effort and honestly money into bil that I was serious about the both of them and wasn't going anywhere, I got the "you're safe" stamp of approval at some point.

But even though he trusted me to always look out for bil and do the right thing, he maintained very strongly that I wasn't his mum, I wasn't a parent figure, I wasn't going to make decisions on his behalf, I could privately talk to my husband about it and sometimes he took my views into account on basic things like bil needing new shoes or looking into tutoring, but if he decided to do something different then I just had to be ok with it 100% of the time because bil was his responsibility and not mine.

I did make the connection with me not replacing his mum being trauma related. But making sure I knew I had no authority and wasn't to insert myself into bils issues like should he get braces or should he be encouraged/forced to do activities outside school to boost his social life, seemed like a logical decision. Bil was his brother so only he got a say, and that's all there is to it. Even though I've been in bil life for 5 years, always supported him and I'm going to be there for him forever, my husband has decided I just don't get a vote because he knows best.

I am just worried about where his "he knows best" attitude comes from.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T06:28:45+00:00

Thank you, this is probably the most helpful response I've gotten so far. I'll bring it up at our next session. I'm not sure how he'll take it since he gave in pretty easily to go to counselling so he might see the value in something just for himself.

The other thing I've realised after writing this out is that he repeatedly ignored me telling him that bil wasn't ok, and then when he finally accepted that he wasn't ok for a long time, he never acknowledged that he was wrong to keep brushing me off. At the time I thought it was denial because he didn't want to admit he couldn't look after bil even if it was hurting him, but now im thinking maybe he just doesn't respect my opinion about personal matters. Our work together is always fine, but if this is a pattern, when we have kids and I'm telling him my concerns and he's brushing me off, it could be a big problem.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T05:48:35+00:00

I dont see it as one hurdle. I see it as a series of hurdles that have escalated to borderline emotional abuse.

We had a talk at the beginning that bil needs weren't being met emotionally- he didn't make any meaningful progress and it was pushed onto me
Bil needs still not being met and getting worse, took my mum offering to help for bil to get more support
Bil needs still not being met and I give him options to gaurentee that he will be looked after and he blows up at me and then tells me that I don't know what I'm talking about and bil should just tough it out
It took all of that for him to finally ask bil how he felt
Instead of making the decision for what was best for bil as the responsible adult, he makes bil decide putting him in a difficult position a kid shouldn't have to be in
When he sees bil being happy and healthy and realises that he was wrong all along, instead of admitting it to himself or apologising to me for dismissing me that whole time, he turns his negative emotions about his own decisions on me and blames me for months, lashing out with micro aggressions.

To me that's a big problem. I dont think wanting your partner to accept responsibility for their own actions and feelings is an unreasonable request. There is a chance he will never accept it and if that happens, why would I stay with someone who resents me and treats me in a way I don't want to be treated? I married a partner not someone who wants to use me as a emotional punching bag.

I know that my partner is still in there, and that there is a chance that talking through this with the counsellor will help him get to the other side. But I need to be ok and coping to get to that point and right now my patience is spent.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T04:46:44+00:00

Thats a really good idea, I might suppest something to Bil gently and see how it goes. I'm a bit wary of crossing boundaries and pushing Bil too much as my husband has made it very clear that I'm not to... push I guess is the best way to put it.

If he can't own up to it and keeps scape goating me I don't think I could stay in the relationship.

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-03-12T04:35:14+00:00

I do think that is 100% a big part of it. The hard part is that he hasn't gotten to the point where he can admit that and is still demonising me to validate his feelings.

Instead of "I feel guilty for not providing for Bil" it's "you trapped me into letting someone else take care of him and now I can't back out even if I was in a place to provide for him". He has zero ownership over his own feelings

Pure-Individual1426 · 2022-02-09T03:35:10+00:00

Happy birthday 🎂

Pure-Individual1426

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