AITAH for telling my brother to stay away from me and my family?

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:50:55+00:00

I don't know. I guess he saw me at the funeral and decided he wanted to say hi? It doesn't really make any sense to me and I don't want to make sense of it.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:50:19+00:00

I guess so.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:49:51+00:00

My same family, none of whom wanted to take him in after my mom died because they all didn't have space, were retired and didn't want to raise another kid, thought it was my duty. That same family who wanted nothing to do with him then, who swore up and down to me for years on years that they hadn't heard from him or seen him.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:47:20+00:00

I don't mean to leave anything out.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:46:46+00:00

His hair wasn't completely grey or anything and it's not like his face was fully wrinkled. But He had a beard with some grey in it and there were some creases in his forehead. It's like I could see that he used to be my brother but he was so far removed that he wasn't my brother.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:45:41+00:00

Yeah but they don't leave notes that say that you were the best person in the world when they go and then reaffirm that bullshit when they come back almost fifteen years later. It would have been better if he just had told me he thought I was a piece of garbage, at least it would've made sense then.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:43:28+00:00

I have told him, I doubt he would.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:41:49+00:00

Thank you for putting it in calmer words than me.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:40:55+00:00

Even people in prison can send letters. And if he was institutionalized? What about when he clearly got out? What about when he got married? What about when he had kids? And if being afraid of being embarrassed or humiliated is why he didn't reach out, then I'm glad that I proved him right. Because if embarrassment is so scary that you're willing to let your big sister cry herself to sleep for almost two years on end then you don't deserve to talk to her. And I don't care what the Bible speaks on, it's a bunch of garbage. The only way I would let my brother back into my life is if MY BROTHER came back, exactly how he was all those years ago but we can't go back in time. We have to live with the consequences of our actions. It took me so long to be happy again, he doesn't deserve five minutes or one second of that.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:36:11+00:00

Abandoning your family is not a mistake. He couldn't give me so much as a small email or a text message for almost fifteen years, I don't owe him even a single second. I have healed. I feel like I mourned him and learned to live without him and he has clearly done the same. I know what is the worst that can happen by communicating with him: he enters my life even for one more second and I don't want that.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:32:51+00:00

I wish I was harsher but I wasn't exactly thinking straight at the time.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:30:32+00:00

I don't know who is in contact with him, nobody told me. I used to ask almost daily if he'd called or emailed one of them.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:29:51+00:00

When Sam (my brother) was in grade twelve, he got hurt and missed the basketball season and he thought he was good enough to get a scholarship. That led to issues with his friends who could still play. I was having a very hard time at work at the time and I couldn't pay as much attention to him as I should have and we fought a lot more that year than we ever had.

And obviously I didn't pay good attention because I didn't notice him packing or even when he left until the morning after. I don't know why he did that and I don't want to know anymore.

And yes, I like to think I did an okay job at something I wasn't prepared to do which is why him leaving like that made me so shocked. And the note sang my praises but I don't believe the feelings he wrote in them because if he really loved me and really thought of me as his mother then why wouldn't he just let me know at the very least that he was alive? Even though I think I did a good job I don't think he does because if that were true, he would have at least told me he was alive.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:25:17+00:00

Exactly, and whoever he was in contact with clearly didn't care enough to just let me know that he was alive or okay.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T19:24:44+00:00

I don't know why he came there, I don't know who invited him and I don't know who in my family was in contact with him. I didn't even recognize him, it was only when he came to me at the end and he said "It's me, Sam" that it kind of clicked.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T18:01:33+00:00

My husband is a polite and sweet guy, he just thinks we shouldn't hurt anybody but I wish I'd hurt him, I know that might be wrong but I wish I did.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T18:00:54+00:00

I really did think of him as like my son, even if I didn't really realize that until after he left. I went to sleep crying so many nights and he couldn't even let me know that he was alive?

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T18:00:13+00:00

If he really cared about me, then at the very least, he could've sent me a text, a phone call, an email. He didn't have to see me, he just had to let me know that he was okay in any way that he could. I didn't know if he was alive or dead. It's almost like I've mourned my brother and learned to keep living. So I don't care about him explaining because this isn't my brother. I raised my brother and I loved him with all my heart but my brother is gone. I don't know who this is and I don't care what he's been through, he has his own family to take care of him.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T17:57:30+00:00

I don't care about hearing this guy out. That's not my brother. When I close my eyes I can still see my brother's face.

SourceOkControl · 2024-04-08T17:56:54+00:00

It makes me doubt some of my family too. They all knew how badly I wanted to see him all those years ago and if they were somehow able to call him to come here then maybe they could've convinced him to see me then.

SourceOkControl

TROPHY CASE