AIBU to expect my mum not to be such a MORON?

[bupcakesandcunting]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

That's better. Right, this could get long and ranty but please read as I need some advice before my head explodes.

My brother and I haven't spoken since July this year. We had a falling out when he cheated on his long-term girlfriend (who my mum and I were close to) and basically treated her like shit afterwards, leaving her distraught. He rang me for advice on the situation and I told him it was probably best if we didn't speak at that point in time as I was cross with him and didn't want to permanently damage our relationship. The next thing I know, he swans off to uni' in Brighton two months early whilst my mum is on holiday. She only finds out when she returns and all of his stuff has gone. My mum was devastated as she has stuck by him through his various scrapes. I was furious and said that I did not want to talk to him.

He is now home for christmas and my mum wants me to forgive and forget but I am insistant that I get an apology for his fucking off without saying goodbye to me, my DH and my DS who adores him. DH and I have been really good to my brother trying to help him with jobs/places to live/money etc. He doesn't work, never has, is a habitual user of people and is very manipulative. My mother seems to have forgotten the upset he caused in July and is just glad to have him back despite the fact he can never be arsed to ring her/return her calls and she spends half of her life fretting he is lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Truth is he just can't be bothered.

I've forgiven him lots of times in the past without ever getting an apology from him but I refuse to this time. I've just had a heated phone conversation with my mum because she was due to visit me this afternoon. She casually drops into the chat that DB is coming and I said "oh, does this mean I am getting an apology then?" and she was all "it's christmas, let it go. You're making me feel ill" WTF?! I'M making her feel ill? Then she said she wasn't coming if he couldn't come with her. So I am good enough for her when he can't be arsed with her but as soon as he deigns to turn up again, I am out on the cold because i took a stand against his selfishness?

It sucks. We're a few days from christmas and I'm being emotionally blackmailed by my own mum. I knew this would get turned round onto me as my mother can be very manipulative. She will start telling other family members how unreasonable I am being and how ill I am making her next. I just know it.

AIBU in wanting an apology? My DH thinks not. My mum has just made me feel terrible about this and I really don't think i am in the wrong :(

It's a PITA isn't it - but that's what mums do.

I do not get on with my brother. No major reason, such as you have, but we just don't get on. His (now ex) GF didn't help - couldnt' stand her. Yet mum was always on at me to "be the bigger person" and "do the right thing" and "not embarrass or upset her" - in other words, suck it up and turn up to family events etc. where they would be. I hated it, I resented it, but I did it because some small part of me realised how much it hurt her that her DC couldn't stand each other - especially as she was an only child and never wanted us to suffer from that (I don't think I would have suffered but who knows!)

My DH has a problem brother. He has drink issues and is currently on a good behaviour bond after two incidents involving alcohol and violence against my DH, with my 2yo DS in the near vicinity. Yet his mum still wants us to go and visit her, despite the problem brother living there - and we are expected to go and play happy families on Christmas Eve with him (I refused to have any sight of him on Christmas Day and he is forbidden from setting foot on our property). MIL has created much of the problem by giving in to DH's brother instead of standing up to him early on - she is paying for it now but still cannot bite the bullet and kick him into touch to stand on his own feet and stop leeching off her.

So - I understand and feel your pain. However, I also 'get' the problems your mother has with it - it hurts them when one of their DC "goes bad", and hurts them again when their DC don't get on. Question is - how much can you bear to subjugate your own feelings just to keep your mum happy? And if you've done it too much before, where do you draw the line?

I had to pretend to mum on her deathbed that things were ok between me and my brother. I was prepared to do that for her - he wasn't, to the extent that he told my Dad he didn't want to be in the same room as me (while she was dying). Dad told him to grow the fuck up (extreme scenario, nothing like yours, not making any kind of comment on your scenario here, just on my brother's attitude)

I don't think your brother is going to feel sorry for his ways - I don't think he's even going to pretend to, or give lip-service to an apology for you - so you have to decide whether you can back down for your mum's sake (NOT his) or stand your ground but risk upsetting her.

I don't quite understand why you expect him to apologise for doing what you asked: not talk to you
If you wanted an apology for behaving like a prize twat, I can understand that, but you told him it would be best for him not to talk to you, so he didn't.

Just read your other thread. You are in the same position now as you were when you posted back then. He is coming to visit and you are refusing to let him set foot in your hosue.

IMVHO you need to stick to your guns this time or be prepared to go round in circles ad infinitum.

Break the pattern and let him see that his selfish ways will get him nowhere.

Hopefully, in the next few years he will grow up and wise up and then really feel sorry for being such a tit.

Well, your brother is not invited round to your house, is he, so why does your Mum think its alright to bring him?

Tbh, I doubt you would really forgive your db even if he did apologise to you for going off to Brighton early.

You are being stubborn over this apology thing when it isn't really the problem.

If you want to have nothing more to do with your brother then you have to find a way to say to your Mum "look, don't let this make you feel ill, I just don't love or even like him in the same way that you do. It would make me stressed and unhappy to have him round at my house - is that what you want?".

Or similar.

I think you are making a bigger deal of this than you need to. Your brother threatening to stab your uncle etc, whilst incredibly shitty behaviour, is not about YOU and YOU don't need an apology for it. As for going to university wihout saying goodbye, yes it could be hurtful I suppose but in the scheme of things....

If you really won't have your brother in the house or in your presence without an apology then say so - but it does seem a bit overly dramatci to me, especially at Christmas. I would just go for the cool, distant but polite approach.

I have a brother with drug and alcohol issues as well as MH and generally shitty behaviour, so I am not saying this from a position of smuggy smugness. I just think that you need to pick your battles and not try and get your mum to agree with you - she is never going to. She is in denial and mother tiger mode.

Don't know how much help I can be, but wanted to post some support. Different family members, but otherwise have been right where you are and it is not easy. I think you are not only right to take a stand, but if you don't, you're just perpetuating the cycle of his behaviours.

It's really, really tough though. Even people who know everything he's put your family through may side with your mum that you are the one splitting up the family by not yet again choosing to "forget it."

I completely understand why you want an apology - an acknowledgement that he understands that what he did was wrong... and maybe gives you some hope that he would try to avoid repeating that type of behaviour. You may never get it. I didn't.

But I can say that years later, my life (as well as that of my DH and DS) is much better without that person's incessant drama in it. The rest of the family will eventually understand that you've certainly done nothing wrong, you are just setting standards for what will be in your own life. Some of them will likely come to respect you for it.

I wholeheartedly hope it works out for you. Stay strong.

TBH, I think that I am making a big deal out of the apology thing. I've just been thinking about it whilst making DS lunch and I think that it's this that is bothering me; DM trying to foist blame onto me. If she'd rang and said "look, I know your brother is an idiot but it's christmas and I don't want to choose between you. Could you do me a favour and grit your teeth and let us visit" I'd have probably said yes. But because I feel like the onus is on me to backtrack, I feel like digging my heels in even more. I am a stubborn cow at the best of times.

Your mum is picking the soft target - she knows you can be swayed into "doing the right thing", whereas your brother probably can't be - so she's trying to make things smoother for herself and him by getting you to back down.

And I fully understand your feelings - had them all the time too. I even told her to stop it because she was fuelling my dislike of my brother by causing all this resentment - didn't really work though.

That's what DH just said on the 'phone, Thumbwitch. "You are the path of least resistance."

Totally relate to the fueling resentment thing too. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Yes that is it exactly - you are a reasonable being and your brother isn't, and your mother knows it. She can't say so because that would be an admission of her failings and of how hopeless she feels about your DB.

"Mum, I am not happy with how you have tried to emotionally blackmail , or how DB has behaved, but I am willing to put my feelings aside so that we can have a decent family Christmas" would be my word on the subject.

You need to learn to detatch yourself from your DB's behaviour so that it doesn't hurt you as much. My DB used to really upset me (though he was always very nice to me from age 21 onwards) with the things he did to other people, but ultimately I have no control over him or anyone else (my mum included) so there is no point in losing sleep.

I agree with what the Provincial Lady said (I too have a 'problem' sibling though in a slightly different way to give you some context.)

You need to separate out your relationship with your brother from your mother's and treat them differently. Don't get dragged into their dynamic. If you want her to come, fine but if you don't want him tell her and stick to it.

Of course she forgives him, he's her baby.

This is all easier said than done of course.

Wel, I've told her my decision (that I don't want him to come but she is more than welcome) and she's chosen not to come.

So she's choosing that twunt over me and her grandson. Nice.

Well, you see, bupcakes - she will look at it that you are trying to force her to choose between her DC, which she isn't prepared to do (by leaving her precious DS out) - so therefore you deserve to be punished for that.

:( for you and your DS. And your mum, actually - tis a shit position to be in.

Oh well. I'm sure she'll want to see us when he pisses off back under his rock and cba'd with her again.

Merry Christmas to you too!

I expect she will. I do hate how the awkward one in the family is always the one that the mum/people seem to feel the need to bend over backwards to accommodate. I especially hate it when everyone else gets blamed for it rather than the actual person causing it.
(my MIL told DH that I was "splitting up the family" because I refuse to allow our DS to be in the same room as DH's brother most of the time - DH's brother has no consideration for DS at all and swears his head off all the time, to say nothing of the drinking - yet somehow I am the problem! )

Well, yes MDS. Was tempted to point this out during our phone conversation but wanted to keep the moral high ground.

BTW, she just rang to say "I'll be over shortly but won't be staying as I am feeling ill. I have made a jam roly poly for DS so will drop it in then go." WTF? This is guilt-tripping on a new level. I've made her feel ill but through her illness she has made DS a jam roly poly which she will drive over despite being kitten-weak. Then she will make the drive home in the snow as she is unwelcome-by-proxy. Ha ha ha ha ha oh dear. I expect there will be a Band Aid effort next to highlight the plight of dopey,martyr mothers.

TBH, the financial help was minimal. Just the odd twenty here and there when the dopey tit couldn't pay off his Topman store card and money to buy mum birthday/mother's day gifts. It's not like I was giving him deposits for houses or anything like it but still. I have no money so was a lot for me.

Still, older and wiser now

Don't let her guilt-trip you! (I realise this is easier said than done). Just say 'oh well what a shame' shrug and move on. (I realise this is easier said than done).

Tell her you are modelling healthy mother-child relationships for the benefit of your DS. You don't want to raise another man-child who won't take responsibility and in fact she is doing you a favour by not bringing her game-playing for DS to imitate.