Not to want my brother round for meals

[FrauMoose]

It's a tricky one. I've recently worked out that my late father had Aspergers and that my brother - in his late 40s - also is 'on the spectrum.'

He lives alone and has a habit of ringing up and suggesting visits that are around lunchtime or the time when we eat in the evening.

Because on Sunday, two relatives on my husband's side of the family were visiting - one of them elderly and senile. So I put my brother off when he suggested a Sunday visit. He said he would come after work on Monday, but ring first to confirm.

When he rang my husband invited him to eat with us. He duly arrived at exactly the time he knows we eat. He didn't have wine/fruit juice/chocolate/biscuits with him. He didn't say thanks for the invitation. He walked in as if he owned the place, sat down and ate his food - without complimenting us on the rather good meal. He didn't offer to clear or wash up. He didn't say thanks when he left.

It's just very frustrating and draining. But also hard to instruct adults in the social cues/norms. (He also drives my older brother mad, but I haven't discussed the Aspergers/autism thing with him yet. My older brother and mother are much more into wanting to pretend everything is normal. 'X is just X and that's the way he is.' That sort of thing.

NB He has not invited us to his house - twenty miles away - for food for ten years. Nor has he ever taken us out to eat. We have probably fed him once every month or two over that period.

Any ideas?

Yabu to expect intuative neurotypical behaviourfrom someone whose brain is not wired that way! My children are bothon the spectrum and i would haveto beNUTS to sit back and just expect them to do the rightsort of social dances that nt people just seem to grasp.

IF your brother is in the autistic spectrum stop expecting a sudden and unprompted display of nt reasoning and open your gob and talk to him!

Nothing about having autism makes someone an arsehole so if they are inadvertently making social mistakes it is ok to say so and ask for specific changes.

Me and my children eat at my mothers about once a month and it has never, ever occured to me that I need to take her a gift.

This has made me think that perhaps she has been expecting something for all of these years and is disappointed every time.

On the other hand, when she comes around to my house, I wouldn't expect anything either, so perhaps its OK.

He isnt a "jerk" if he has a social communicwtion disorder.

Good grief.

My daughter has more severe autism.

If she is hungry she goes into the fridge and grabs handfuls of food.

She isnt concerned with the niceties but the practicalities.

Yabu

He's your brother, have a heart.

Just to come back to everyone. Some families are obviously very close and do drop in on each other a lot. My own (birth) family is quite geographically scattered and we'd always ring up and arrange things because of the distances involved.

It's obviously difficult to know quite how people tick, and there are dangers in labelling people. However since finding out more about AS, I've realised that provides a good explanation for my later father's strange habits, his withdrawal and difficult communication with others. My mother found his behaviour very very trying/distressing/embarassing - which is pretty typical for someone with an AS partner

My younger brother was very much the favoured 'baby' of the family, so for years my older brother and I just attributed his behaviour to a rather odd upbringing in which he wasn't given the boundaries that the two of uswere given. We also feel that our brother has modeled himself on my father who frequently appeared, rude, graceless and inconsiderate - as if other people were just there to give him what he wanted.

Anyway both of us feel used by him. Younger brother typically stays at my brother's house - in a large city - when on work-related business, but claims from his employers the expenses for hotel accommodation. He earns a good salary so it's certainly nothing to do with being hard up

Only once after a great deal of prompting did he make any return to my older brother - by buying them a meal at the nearby pub. I used to drop round on my younger brother sometimes. The last time would be when he invited us round to tea and buns, and didn't have any milk. Or any tea. (Just coffee.) We had to prompt him about the buns.

Hard to know re us modelling behaviour etc. My own child and stepchildren are used to relatives coming over and being fed and cared for. My honest feeling is that the way you care for people who are NT (neurotypical), who communicate readily and who are responsive - is rather different from the more frustrating kind of caring you have for people who are very much shut in their own world.

So, you did some personal research and 'worked out' your father and brother had/have autism? I'm surprised more people haven't picked up on your self-diagnonsense!

FrauMoose I hear your frustration rather than think you are being nasty, I guess at some point you just have to accept your brother is the way he is, I'm guessing his life isn't too great with being single, perhaps not having heaps of friends and being generally considered a bit 'odd'. It might help to think of him as having a social disability rather than being thoughtless or using you.

I can't see a once a month visit as 'using' myself, though, and I think you are going to have to let this expectation of reciprocal fun social events go if you are to carry on a relationship with him. Having no tea in just shows he's totally unequipped for normal social relationships (probably others don't go around). It's unlikely to be malicious.

Just give what you have to give freely- time, a dinner, letting him be part of your family for that short time and then let the rest go. It is irritating though.

My daughter is very responsive.

The shut in own world thing is a bit of a myth.

I believe we shouldn't just care for those who are rewarding to us. I have a difficult elderly relative and I have her round for dinner every week..because she is my family.

The OP's brother may not have AS, he may be rather a loner, a bit eccentric, a bit odd, there are lots of people in the world without official diagnoses but still in need of of a family and inclusion. I wouldn't ask him to pick up food/wine beforehand, otherwise the whole interaction is soured before you start. Give what you have to give- if that means a cheap meal and water for drinks, so be it. He isn't going to turn up with the flowers and the thanks and so on, he sounds extremely set in his own ways and somewhat rigid and there could be lots of explanations for that (undiagnosed conditions, mh issues, personality, just not being very nice).

I have a ds17 and a dd15, my ds has Aspergers.

I am really saddened by your post. If my son is living alone in his late 40s I absolutely hope and expect that his sister will have him round to eat regularly and forgive him his lack of social graces, in fact I would want her to have much more contact than that, and I've told her that already.

What is your brother is telling you is that he wants to see you! he wants to spend time with your family when you're actually doing something (eating) rather than coming round for idle chitchat, but he definitely wants your company. It's a shame you're complaining about that - at his age it's probably the most he can manage.

To be honest Prefer this is at least assuaging my periodic guilt about only having one DC (who happens to have ASD).

I thought you were going to say he comes every day!

I wouldn't mind as long as he wasn't actually rude / offensive to us. Unless you can't afford the food? I often invite people round who can't reciprocate and couldn't care less what they bring.

It is very depressing that you dont make any allowances for his (alleged AS).

I guess not all NT people are very nice either.

WilsonFrickett -I see your point. My SIL (OH's Sister) has ASD (very low functioning in her late 30s) and it's always been understood between her parents and her siblings that she will taken care of in the future, maybe not full-time, but certainly we will all watch over her and take her into our homes regularly. It's just what you do when you have a relative with a disability isn't it?

Precious has a point. People with AS arent the stereotypical silent withdrawn dour types that you read about.

You don't mention if you could just ask him to wash up instead of smarting over the lack of an offer. Do you invite him ever or is it always inviting himself? I feel quite sad for your brother TBH, he sounds like he is really trying to maintain a relationship with his siblings. He has found something that seems to work and so repeats it, without an inkling you all find it tiresome.

Either start accepting him for who he is and be grateful he wants to spend time with you or take control a bit more inviting him out to eat and divvying up the bill (do not expect him to offer, spell it out nicely at the end of the meal) or next time he is coming say: "could you pick up a bottle of wine on your way over." You don't get any sort of moral highground if you haven't had the courage to even say something.

You don't appear to understand what autism actually is. I don't know which books you have read, but I suggest that you chuck them away because all that old guff about non responsiveness is gubbins. It belongs in the bin with refrigerator mother theory and the idea that people with autism don't have feelings or aren't aware of sensory input.

I am interested to know more about this 'frustrated sort of caring'. What is that, exactly?

As an aside, nothing that you have described screams asd in any way.

If you don't like his behaviour - challenge him. Tell him what you will and will not accept. If you choose not to do that, then you can't complain if he doesn't behave in the way you would like.

My ds is neither a silent nor withdrawn type - but he still doesn't remember to employ the social niceties. He won't talk to people he doesn't know and he seems rude, but he just doesn't feel the pull towards the 'acceptable' way of behaving socially.

He has known his Learning Support Teacher at school for several years, but still won't acknowledge him in the corridor. At home he is chatty, affectionate, caring and opinionated but he's in home with his comfortable people. It's a complicated disorder which needs much tolerance. It breaks my heart to think that he will be rejected because of it, especially from people that he does have strong feelings for.

With people with Aspergers, you have to spell these things out for them. It just isn't on their radar.

It's good that he wants to visit; and to see you. Lighten up a little.

in fact I would want her to have much more contact than that, and I've told her that already.

:o

OP, your brother is extremely rude.

He may have aspergers, or he may just be a dick who thinks his siblings homes are there for his use.

Given that there is no diagnosis and you seem to have invented this condition to excuse your brother treating you as a skivvy, I'm not sure why you are getting such a hard time.

Just because your parents decided to have another child doesn't mean that you are under any obligation to keep hosting a rude man who treats you badly on a monthly basis.

He never hosts you, so unless being a woman means you are automatically supposed to feed anyone who invites themselves to your home, you're off the hook.

Either start making excuses, or tell him that he is a horrible guest and needs to have better manners if he's going to come for dinner.

Oh, and you should probably let him know that he could lose his job for defrauding his company like that.

Yanbu, op. I would find this wearing too after ten years. His behaviour is thoughtless and selfish and I'm sure you wouldn't tolerate it from anyone else, so you are already cutting him a lot of slack because he is your brother. But I'm not sure there is anything at all you can do other than speak to him about it. How's his sense of humour? Could you make a joke about it?