My brother was horrid to me last night

OP, I understand why you don’t think your brother's insults should be classed as "abuse" and usually I disagree with Mumsnet advice to barge ahead with confrontation regardless of how it affects others. But I really think you ought to seriously reconsider your conviction that you can’t possibly challenge your brother because it would cause upset to your parents. You say "it's not worth the fallout" but that is how bullies get power. I feel you are dismissing the idea without really thinking it through. If a friend told you they were going through this, what would you advise them to do?

The fact that your father hasn't remonstrated with DB probably makes DB think that your parents secretly agree with him. Is that what you want?

Think the unthinkable. Sometimes some temporary upset has to be gone through, to attain longer-term benefit.

ultimate madness, doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
I get that its not feasible to move out but why is it not feasible to give your brother what for and to not stop your father doing the same? I mean what's the worst that could happen?

The only reason I’m not yet full No Contact with my awful sibling is that our elderly parent needs a lot of looking after.

I can document years of sibling being awful to me. Therapy is expensive but it’s helping me through this particularly difficult time.

Hearing an alleged NHS professional say they don't understand what abuse is is frustrating and concerning.

All the advice given is feasible, you just don’t want to do it. Your username and responses give the impression you like being a victim hence the refusal to help your own situation, basically help rejection complaining. I hope you grow up and actually impliment the useful advice people have given you, but I doubt you will, you enjoy the cycle. My SIL is the same, I grey rock her, because victim mentality drains everyone around them.

Not to be funny, but lots of people have advised you to go no contact or grey rock, lots of people have advised you to allow your dad to speak out and you’ve said you can’t because it would hurt disrupt the family. People have told you it’s abusive behaviour but you say it isn’t. So what do people want advise on exactly? What outcome do you want to happen if you don’t take action or allow anyone else to take action?

He lived with his mum until a little older than me,

What does he say when you point out this hypocrisy of his?

When I was married and worked in the public sector, I had a husband who constantly referred to the whole of the public sector as wasters. I have no idea why he thought this as I worked hard at my job and climbed the career ladder and had loads of nice conscientious work colleagues. He was a bit of a loner, not overly career motivated or ambitious, but was prone to exaggerated tales, Walter Mitty style on the odd occasion when we socialised. I came to the conclusion that he had problems finding his self worth and preferred to belittle other people's achievements simply to make himself feel better

What was interesting to note was during the COVID pandemic it was largely the public sector and those that worked in low paid retail that kept the country going, while many private sector employees stayed at home decorating their houses or doing their gardens while furloughed., or in a few high profile cases milked the system for lucrative emergency supplies contracts.

I just hate confrontation and would do anything to avoid it, I mean, that is a classic peacekeeper attitude!

Your dad's health situation is obviously a concern for you though, so I do understand wanting to avoid him getting worked up. It's not up to you to control him but at the same time, if he wasn't even there when it happened, you presumably had to have told him and I can see why that makes you feel responsible.

I would tell your parents you're avoiding your brother from now on (and ask they just let you know when he's invited round) and do it.

Nothing a misogynist arsehole hates more than a woman who doesn't arrange her entire life around men. Ick.

Abuse comes in many forms other than physical violence: sexual, emotional, verbal, financial. Racism, sexism etc. Neglect (when the victim is dependent on the abuser, eg a child). Again: would you tolerate it from anyone you didn't feel obliged to keep seeing for the sake of the other family members? Would you sit back and ignore it if someone at your workplace was talking to someone else in the office like that? Would you tell a friend it was ok if her partner spoke to her like that? It's not ok.

Are you her brother? 🤣

It won’t stop if she moves out - he has launched a campaign against her - maybe to discredit her to their parents because he wants a clear path to taking the house for himself.

Maybe he’s just a nasty f.. who enjoys picking on women.

Please google Domestic Abuse Act 2021 which gives the long definition of DA and much more. DA is not just physical. NHS usually run good safeguarding training on this issue and as you are employed by them it would be available for you.

I wouldn’t want to do my non-clinical colleagues jobs. They are the ones who face abuse and complaints day in, day out, on shit salaries, and with none of the gratitude that we usually get as clinical staff. If we need to move things around or let patients down due to sickness or whatever, they are the ones who have to call around and take it in the neck. They are the ones communicating and dealing with whatever shit new policy or system the higher ups have ‘innovated’ this week.

Just because other jobs have terrible pensions, doesn’t mean that those who have vaguely acceptable pensions don’t deserve them.

I did challenge when I was younger, but with no one else saying anything. Eventually Mum asked me to stop, and it’s her sibling, so I do what she asked, because she’s my Mum. But that’s the point. Op is behaving like my mum wanting to keep the peace at any price and from experience, those who love her will comply with her wishes because they love her, and nothing will get better. If Mum wasn’t around, Dad my sibling and I would already be NC with that sibling.

He’s hitting you with his words.
His words are designed to deliberately upset you, injure your self esteem. He takes pleasure from taunting you. He hits you with his words where it hurts most. He is an abuser. You are an easy willing target and he’s an abuser.

You admit you found it hurtful.
You admit he was vile for three hours.
You admit he was horrid
You admit he resents your existence.

Because you can’t recognise abuse when it’s happening to you, it seems to me that you’ve somehow been conditioned to be a good girl and put up with it. You are in denial about how serious this is for you.
It is damaging for you, please wake up to that.

Dig deep OP and take a small step towards recognising his treatment of you for what it is. Abuse.
Then think about doing something about it to break the pattern.
You owe that to yourself and to your any future relationships.

You have had so much good advice here, but you are still reading it with blinkers on and still finding excuses …even to the point of defending him that it was not abuse, just a rant.
It was a very personal rant designed fir you OP. He enjoys having a go at you. That’s abuse.
For three hours you let him, and didn’t stand up for yourself.
Please find the strength not to let it happen again.

I would print this out, show it to your parents, then send it to him!
Bloody nasty man.

Most people's jobs are not a walk in the park. And most of them don't come with the fantastically cushy pension scheme NHS non-clinical staff get, either.

However, I'm not arguing with you. I was responding to someone else's comment which specifically mentioned working in risky environments with tricky patients, saving lives. I was just making the point that being an NHS employee doesn't necessarily mean any of those things. In fact for roughly half of all NHS employees it doesn't mean any of those things. The 'non-coal face' administrative side of the NHS is absolutely vast.

You sound lovely and caring. I think some people are just
confrontation avoidant. I’m one and get it.

The only way to avoid confrontation with brother is to not be around him. Your parents know why. Don’t give in to thst.

It sounds as if that old trouble maker alcohol had something to do with the interaction though. Just making it idiotic and confrontational for the sake of it. If you had said you were travelling with a male companion brother would have said you were pathetic for not having the balls to go alone.

He sounds frustrated at life and taking it out on you.

• ^He said he thinks it’s “utterly pathetic” that I travel alone. He thinks I should grow up and, in his words, “find a man” to travel with.

He's pathetic. I love travelling solo. It's great.

Sorry you have to put up with such a wanker for a brother OP. Just ignore him.

Yikes, hopefully you don't work in a patient-facing role, because if you do, you urgently need to re-do your safeguarding training.

You don't really think this, do you?