Hello, I’ll quickly give a bit of background, but this is a long one. I’m 35 + 5 with my first child. My brother (30 y/o) and I lost our mum when we were v young, and have both had up-and-downs and complex relationship with my dad and step mum. My brother especially. But we’re OK now.
(I’m explaining this as I wonder if this childhood is at the root of my brother’s recent behaviour).
He lives and studies in Manchester, I live and work in London. He’s a quirky guy - smokes a lot of weed and does a fair amount of drugs - he is also v intelligent and normally we get on really well.
Except the last 2 times he’s visited my DH and I since i’ve been pregnant we’ve got on each others’ nerves, but i’ve just put it down to siblings sometimes winding each other up and my pregnancy hormones.
The last time he stayed he came to paint a mural in the baby’s room - an offer he made which we were excited about as he’s a really talented artist and it seemed like a lovely way of him being involved with his niece/nephew.
Anyway, he spent a lot of visit really stressed as he didn’t leave himself enough time and had a PhD deadline. On the last night he was really short with me and my DH, but then seemed to vaguely snap out of it.
He said he’d some down again to finish it off. Again, this was him offering, we have literally never said anything about him coming down, or finishing as we know he has a lot of work on and when he’s stressed, he turns in on himself.
He came down this weekend, and told my dad he’d be down. My dad then suggested to me that we all have dinner, but when i told my brother, i got a foul-mouthed text “For f*’s sake I just wanted to come down get the painting down and get back as early as possible”.
I called him to see if he was ok, and all i got was him ranting at me about how much work he had. When i explained to him dinner wasn’t obligatory, he got really pissy at me, when I asked if he felt under pressure to come down he got really defensive, and everything i said resulted in a rant from. Throughout this i was calm.
But In the end I lost my rag a bit and told him i didn’t need his unpleasantness and hung up. Not very adult, i admit, and i regret that, but his aggression and refusal to talk properly really got to me.
I’ve been at work all weekend, so have not seen that much of him. Yesterday my DH said all he got from my bro was one-word answers, no eye contact and really terse answers whenever he tried to talk to him and make try to make him smile.
Then last night after dinner i tried to talk to him, and said i was sorry we’d had cross words.
And he kicked off.
He said i’d only called him to launch an attack on him, that all i did was shout at him on the phone, every time he visits “you treat me like sh*t and act like you don’t want me around” that i am “cheerless” and that i sneered at his post PhD plans . That he knows i’m pregnant and hormonal but that behaved miserably every time he visits.
I was actually stunned.
I literally do not remember behaving at all like he said. Yes we sniped at each other a couple of times on previous recent (he called me “boring” on one occasion which i got upset at), but it blew over and we also had fun hanging out.
As for me calling up to rant at him, it was he who ranted at me when i asked if he was ok.
I said to him i did not remember any of what he said panning out that way, and all i got was him saying how much money he spent coming down (again, his choice??) and he didn’t “need this sh*t”.
I went to bed in floods of tears. It’s like he sees things completely differently to me and remembers them completely differently, it was like trying to reason with a mad person.
But then i panicked and wondered if i had been as awful as he said...
But when i asked my husband (who’s been present for most of these “incidents” my brother refers to) he said “no”, i hadn’t been.
I don’t know what to do. On the one hand i’m SO worried about my brother as he seems so, so unhappy. On the other, i’m furious at him as i think he’s been horribly unfair. He’ll be a good uncle, but i also don;t want him around me for a while as he seems to really not like me. Then i’m also worried i have been as bad as he says, and that makes me worried too.
He’s leaving today and am at work, but any advice on how to handle this would be much appreciated.