To want my mum to spend christmas with us and not my deadbeat brother?

[BupcakesandCunting]

I'm not sure whether I am asking whether AIBU really or just wanting to blow off steam...

Bit of backstory (the condensed version, if pressed I will expand on issues, not drip-feeding) my brother is a notoriously selfish and toxic arsehole. He lives in Brighton, my mum lives here in the Midlands close to us. He has done various things to upset mum, myself and others including leeching money from mum because he refuses to get a job, cajoled my step-gran into handing cash over to him to pay his rent (he is at uni, should say that he is 22 though, not 18) then point-blank refuses to answer the 'phone to her when she calls him to make sure he has handed teh rent money to his landlord, threatened to stab my uncle, cheated on several girlfriends then gone AWOL when caught out and left "suicide" messages to get attention... The latest thing is that my mum has been ill the last few weeks and despite everyone trying to get hold of him, he refuses to return calls/get in touch. He is alive and well and I know this because my cousin says he is on Facebook most days... So he has had no contact with my mum for four weeks, despite her being quite poorly.

Mum had been staying with us up until last thursday. I've cooked for her, washed her clothes, ran her to doctors/hospital/emergency doctors etc. I'm not complaining, I liked looking after her and miss her now she's gone back home. I've been checking on her to make sure she has everything she needs and have been taking her shopping in etc.

Now, I refuse to have my brother here for christmas. past experience has taught me that it is no good for my blood pressure. DH and I do all of the work whilst he sits on his arse with his face in his iPhone. Doesn't offer to help wash-up/lay table or anything. I don't want him here anyway, really as I just don't like him. He is coming back in a few weeks and I've told mum that she is very welcome, we would like her to be here with us if she likes, but he is not. He would be more than welcome at my ex stepdad's so it's not like he has nowhere to go. Mum says she can't leave him on christmas day. So she will cook dinner for the two of them, then he will leave her to wash-up and bugger off out with his mates.

I feel like I should be the one that gets to have her here at christmas. He won't even so much as offer to make her a cup of tea, much les have thought to get her a present or card. I feel like I deserve to have her here and he doesn't.

There I said it. I sound like a spoiled brat but it's how I feel :( Sorry that was LONG...

wordfactory, 'tis a good suggestion and one that I have proffered but she won't budge. She can have her miserable day with the little arsewipe. I'll see her on Boxing Day. If there's anything left of her tiny bird, we can have sandwiches.

He IS a little bit Cockoozer. The wannabe rock-star posturing, the wimmin, the drugs, the cuntery... the only thing is is that brother is vaguely mussically talented.

"greasy malevolent cunt" Your poor DP is under the same illusion as mine; that this is a forum to learn mummycraft. Bwah ha ha ha ha ha! The poor, deluded fools!

The entire family is expected to react in a certain way to the hurt face. One day I snapped like you said and she drove home crying, but stopped off en route at my uncle's. Then I got a furious phonecall from uncle because I had not answered the summon of the hurt face by providing lots of nods, "of course it's not your fault"s and that type of business.

at walk and shake.

Awww sorry that you've not got a relationship with your mum, though. I expect that you are saner than I am as a result, though!

No, don't be sorry, I am glad I no longer see her (it wasn't just the hurt faces, she was actually bloody horrible tbh) - it's just a bit odd at this time of year because it's all abaht the fahmily, innit.

Oh poor you, especially as everyone else in the family goes along with it, and you feel a complete tool for being the only one to stand up to it.

I showed DP the floral fuck offs a couple of weeks ago - he was utterly shocked that an internet forum allowed people to swear. I just point him in the direction of netmums

'A Forum to learn Mummycraft'

I hope Justines's listening, genius new tagline there.

Well, if it works for you that's what counts. I didn't speak to my dad for years but started again when I had DS. I yearn for the simpler times when I didn't...

I do feel like a tool especially because I tend to get branded the one who doesn't mince her words/take any crap/tell it how it is and I'm really NOT like that at all. It's taken me a lot of years to reach this point with ONE person, well two (mum and brother) but most of the time I am diplomatic and more interested in peace-keeping.

Your DP sounds like a delicate flower. Has he forayed over here on Bumsex Fridays yet?

Well then 8Bupcakes* you have done all you can.
You have made two generous offers.
She has declined both.
I'm afraid she must now face the consequences ie a rubbish day.

This is her doing. Not yours.

Enjoy your day.

My God!!! This sounds so familiar, apart from in my case, it is my mum and DS.

Mum doted on him to the exclusion of her other GC since he was born, and as he grew older, he ran to my mums every time he didn't like what I asked of him. He would wait until I had to go out, then ring my mum, and she'd roll up before I returned and whisk him off to hers for a few days to give me a break apparently.
Back and forth, back and forth, until I felt I couldn't leave the house. I asked my mum not to pick him up, yet she refused to stand by and do nothing if he needed her, I couldn't ground him or punish him because he would leave to go to my mums.
Eventually, he left to go to my mum's permanently when he was 16. Police did nothing.
Since he went to my mother's permanently, she has waited on him hand and foot..in return, he has absolutely no respect for her, but tbh, she is all hot air....moan moan moan...nag nag nag....nothing changes.

I am sick of hearing it, and have now told my mother I don't know what the answer to DS's lack of respect to her is, or why he doesn't give a toss when she pulls her hurt face (Can't he see I'm suffering?' she says).

The truth is the answer is not what she wants to hear though. Stop issuing threats you have no intention of carrying out, they have lost their effect, and he knows you say them in anger...start telling him what you will do if he does XYZ and then DO IT if he actually does XYZ IYSWIM.

Just one example....DS arrived back at mums after a night out with 2 complete strangers and told (yes told, not asked) mum they were staying, because they had nowhere else to go that night. (Too far to travel back home and not enough money for a taxi).
Mum said she was frightened.
Mum could have told DS 'Get them out of my home in 5 minutes or I will call the police and have them removed' and do it if they don't leave.
What did mum do?? She hid in her bedroom clutching the phone and cried and panicked all night unable to sleep, yet she didn't phone me or my sister or anyone who would've come over and turfed them out.

She went mad at DS, who took very little notice, and told him if it happened again, if he brought friends back that she didn't know, they would not be staying again. She would not live like that again.

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEKEND?

Yes, DS invited another 2 friends mum has never seen before, who came into her home, swearing and shouting...left oily footprints all over her carpet....and what did mum do??

She let them stay (because of course they had nowhere to go that night again) and got on her hands and knees to scrub the carpet the next day, after cooking them a full english breakfast first.

Apparently, she has had yet another go at DS and told him it definitely wont be happening again, like she has told him she is kicking him out umpteen times and never ever does.

I wont hold my breath while I am waiting, and I will be surprised if DS ever shows her any respect.

I blame her for allowing him to treat her that way. Just throw him out.

I think ignoring the hurt face is sensible and if she just exaggerates it say "mum if you're upset about something then talk about it, don't just pull a sulky face in a manipulative way".
I don't have much sympathy for this mother. She has the choice of being with either of her adult children for christmas, she is choosing to be with her son. If it was just me and my teenage son I'd probably be quite happy. It's her choice to decide she'll have a miserable time and decide she is being a martyr through her choice.
If my kids don't get on when they are older I have no intention of telling my daughter I won't go to her house for xmas unless she invites her brother.
How come if he's a wannabe rock star he doesn't have loads of friends to hang out with at xmas like my arty stepson (who could go to either parent but chooses to do "cool" stuff instead). He's sounding more like a geeky kid with no friends than a wannabe rock star. It doesn't add up.
I do like my stepson by the way, and suspect his is more typical of a 22 year old bloke's attitude to xmas than this lad's.

Good lord, he's 22 not 2. Quite capable of spending Christmas Day on his own. I'd spent three Christmasses without my parents by that age.

Your mother is being daft and your brother sounds incompetent, abusive and awful. I can't imagine why anyone would want him around.

Thanks wordfactory, I will definitely enjoy my day! No refereeing, no politics... bliss!

littlemiss, bloody hell, what a situation! I can imagine how frustrated you must feel with your mum, but good on YOU for seeing through your DS. It's easy for me seeing what a cock my brother is, it must take a lot to admit that of your own son.

2rebecca, where to start... he lost a lot of his friends from home before he moved to Brighton, mainly because of the way he treats people. He also got arrested for something quite bad and almost took a mate down with him when he had nothing to do with it. I think he has one mate left here. All of his friends are in Brighton. Obviously, they don't know the real him, they only know what he shows them.

The thing with sociopathic siblings is that you get caught in a trap of enabling them, and then if you try to stop, you are considered the worst in the world by said sociopath AND enabler-in-chief AKA mother.

Mine's a sister. She gives not one tiny shiny shit about anyone other than herself, lurches from disaster to disaster and costs everyone a fortune. But it's not her FAULT, you know, always other peoples.

Sorry went a bit ranty there. As you were.

"enabler-in-chief"

My brother costs a fortune, too. Fucking £5000 he's been given this year. FIVE. GRAND. And I'm the one giving my mum £150 to go on holiday!

Is your brother moving back in with your mother for the foreseeable future or just coming for xmas? If the latter then I don't see why your mum doesn't just tell him she's coming to you for xmas and for him to do his own thing in Brighton where he has been living independantly and visit her in the New Year.
You sound as though you've been mothering your mother a bit recently with her illness so perhaps part of the problem is you having difficulty relinquishing that role and letting her get on with making stupid decisions about your half brother if that's what she chooses to do.

Dancingmustard - the big difference between your BIL and the OP's brother is that your BIL was alchoholic - an addiction, a real disease, whereas the OP's brother is a lazy user who will spoil christmas day for everyone else. Look again at what the OP said in her OP that he has done recently:

"leeching money from mum because he refuses to get a job, cajoled my step-gran into handing cash over to him to pay his rent (he is at uni, should say that he is 22 though, not 18) then point-blank refuses to answer the 'phone to her when she calls him to make sure he has handed teh rent money to his landlord, threatened to stab my uncle, cheated on several girlfriends then gone AWOL when caught out and left "suicide" messages to get attention... The latest thing is that my mum has been ill the last few weeks and despite everyone trying to get hold of him, he refuses to return calls/get in touch. He is alive and well and I know this because my cousin says he is on Facebook most days... So he has had no contact with my mum for four weeks, despite her being quite poorly."

None of these are an illness like alchoholism - they are sheer human nastiness and selfishness. An alchoholic cannot help having this condition, but no-one has an excuse for this kind of vile behaviour.

Why don't you invite the OP's brother round to your house for a lovely christmas, and then the OP's mum can go to her house and everyone will be happy.

He's just coming back for christmas rebecca. He is only coming back for christmas because all of his Brighton mates are going home too so he has no choice unless he wants to sit in his student digs alone watching Only Fools and Horses with a Cuppa Soup.

Thank you SDTG, for explaining my position so well :)

How long have his parents been divorced? Did his dad and your mum split up a long time ago if he regards your mums house as home rather than his dad's? I was still a student at 22 so still went to my parents' house for xmas. I am the eldest so my parents didn't have adult kids they could have gone to but if your mum hasn't seen her son for a while they could have a pleasant xmas together. If they don't then next year when he asks to spend xmas with her she has to learn to stand up to him and tell him that he made xmas unpleasant for her and she is spending it with you.
She has to accept she has 2 children who don't get on and that she is going to have to decide what she does at xmas every year now you are adults and pretending you and your half brother are still in a nuclear family with her as mother hen isn't an option.

They got divorced when my brother was 9 so that's erm... thirteen years or so ago.

Agree with the thing about her needing to accept that we just don't get on. I don't think that she will ever accept it.

I don't think she is choosing him over you, OP, at least not because she prefers him; maybe because she feels she has no choice, as he is single whereas you have your family.

I think what your mum is doing is trying, whatever it takes, for her and her two children to be together at Christmas. As you have clearly stated that this won't happen, she is trying to guilt-trip you into it. It worked last year, after all.

If she were on MN, this might be her OP:
WWYD? My two (adult) DC don't get along. DD is sensible, mature, has a husband and kids, my GC, whom I adore. DS is a bit of a lazy twat, only thinks of himself, recently he didn't even call when I was really poorly, despite me explicitly asking him to. He is single, and is away at uni (which is a relief, frankly) whereas DD lives nearby. In short, I don't blame DD for not being overly fond of DS.
In the past few years, DD had us all over for Christmas, i.e. myself and DS as well as her MIL. DS has constantly behaved reprehensibly, not lifting a finger, letting everyone serve him, and buggering off when it suited him. I have always tried to smooth things over by putting in extra effort, taking on tasks that would have been his, to avoid full-out confrontation - it is Christmas, after all. I don't want DD to have to suffer from his behaviour, so I do what I can.
This year, DD has stated clearly that DS is not invited. It breaks my heart. What did I do wrong, for my children to hate each other so? I really, really wish for them, us, to spend Christmas together. It's just one day of the year, surely they can make an effort? I fear that if they stop seeing each other at all, if not even Christmas is worthy of the effort, that they will never reconcile with each other again. They will be as strangers to each other.
I don't want to choose between them. What I want is to spend Christmas with BOTH of them, I want them to spend some time with each other. I know they don't get along now, it will be a strain, particularly for DD - but if they keep seeing each other, at least for Christmas, their relationship as brother and sister at least has a chance to evolve, to improve.
I have told DD that if DS is not invited, I won't be coming either - I will be spending Christmas with DS, who has no own family. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to that at all - DS won't help at all, will expect me to wait on him, will behave like a spoilt teenager. It would be much nicer to just leave him to his own devices, and go to DD's. But what I'm really after is for us all to be together.
I realise I have been guilt-tripping my DD. Now she's really angry at me, and she's implying I prefer him over her, which I really don't. I just don't know what else to do. How can I get her to invite him as well? How can I get them to keep spending time together, in the hope that their relationship will improve over time (probably only when DS stops being so selfish)?
Or is all hope lost - do I just have to accept that my DC hate each other?

GetOrf are you one of those people who is ultra ultra-nice in RL because you manage to vent all your spleen and hate on here? Does it work? And if so, are you extra chilled at the moment because you've been ranting loads a bit more on here lately?

See Meita, even if Bupcakes's mother does think like that, which I don't think she does, as she seems blind to the faults of her son (shocked that an uncle he has threatened to stab might not like him, for eg. and ffs) it's a profoundly messed up way of thinking which doesn't do anyone any favours.

Getting two people to spend time together might work if we are talking about two fundamentally decent people with a minor personality clash. We're not. We are talkng about someone who has been manipulated for years into being the family "good girl" and the golden boy of the family who has been manipulating his mother and sister for those years. That thinking devalues what bupcakes and her family have been put through for year, trying to be nice to her brother in the vain hope that he might act decently to them and her mother in return.

Bupcakes, fwiw, i also think you are doing thr right thing in breaking the cycle of you being the rescuer and your mother being the rescuee. You will hopefully reduce the level of distress to you and your family by the manipulation, as well as empowering your mother to realise that she is a grown woman who doesn't need to put up with the stuff your DB hands out.

lisianthus, I completely agree. I was just trying to make the point, in a very long winded way, that it doesn't sound to me that the mum is choosing one child over the other because she is so fond of him... after all, she keeps going on how lonely and boring it will be. More like, the only reason she has said she will spend Christmas with her son, is because she thinks/hopes she can guilt-trip her daughter into having them both that way. I do NOT think that is a good thing.
If it comes across as if I were defending the mum, why is that? Because I think the aim of the mum is for them all to have Christmas together, despite her daughter's wishes? I suppose that sounds like not terribly unreasonable, as far as the mother's perspective goes. Except that it is. The clue is in 'despite her wishes'.
My response to the fictive mum's OP I wrote would have been, 'well your kids are grown up and make their own choices, if you want them to get along, then guilt-tripping them into spending a fraught Christmas together is certainly not the right way of going about it.'