to be irritated with brother constantly mansplaining/minimising?

[RobinsAreTerritorialFuckers]

My brother is very big on liberal principles and likes to see himself as very tolerant. I am really fond of him, but he always raises the topic of how our parents are, and then insists on telling me I'm getting it all wrong. So I'd like to know what you think.

For example, I left my ex-H in what most people would see as a very amicable split a couple of years ago (no children). My dad was devastated and developed a set of frankly bonkers theories. We ended up not speaking for months as he and my mum simply couldn't accept I wasn't mentally ill or on the verge of breakdown, and refused to stop telling me how to get back together with ex.

At that time, my brother repeatedly insisted that my dad should be humoured, and explained away the more sexist bits of what he was saying (dad had got the idea my DP must be unhappy with me having a career, which absolutely wasn't the case, but which dad thought was an obvious reason for divorce).

Since then, I met my DP. We are very happy, TTC, planning to get married. DP is a woman. I would say my parents coped unexpectedly well with this. They are quite socially sheltered and have very little experience of either divorce or same sex relationships, and they certainly weren't happy when I was in my teens and came out - though obviously that's a long time ago and I'm quite impressed how much they've changed. But, they do obviously still find aspects of it a bit difficult.

DP and I were chatting about this, and my brother insisted that we were overreacting, saying he was sure our parents didn't think being a same-sex relationship was a big deal. He told me that in 2016 there's no prejudice any more, and I ended up feeling as if I'd just accused my parents of flagrant homophobia. Which I hadn't.

I feel he goes through the world as a straight white man, believing that if he says prejudice doesn't exist, he must be right. It's beginning to strain our relationship, because he won't simply avoid the subject of how dad is, or sit out of an argument.

HisName yep

My 17 year old son knows that you only have to look at the Reddit boards to see that rampant homophobia and misogyny are out there. (And those are his words.)

I agree your brother is trying to fit your family's worlds into a pretty box. A female relative of mine does this. She denies other people's realities. It's quite common.

I think if he was reassuring you he'd say 'yes, its a bit of an adjustment for them, but I think they'll come round and they've come on a long way from when you were a teenager'. But he's not reassuring you, he's denying what you're picking up on. I went through a very similar thing when I was with my ex girlfriend. My sister wouldn't accept that my parents were struggling (my mum would start tearing up when I mentioned gf's name). It was annoying because I felt I couldn't talk about it. And I was never overly critical of my parents, so it wasn't that she might feel defensive of them. I think the thing for my parents was (and maybe for yours) that any acceptance they had of my relationship at that time was constantly being brought into conflict with them being surrounded by people of their own age who were outspokenly homophobic. We had relatives come over and spout all kinds of offensive crap without realising I was in a same sex relationship. I think they wanted to be okay with it but it didn't help with people pushing negative views on them constantly. I don't think you're accusing them of being homophobic if you're observing that it's an adjustment for them. I think you're being really sensitive to it. Maybe his identity as the most liberal family member is now under threat because of your new relationship?!

Womansplain right back. Practice some pompous nonsense about liberal white males/ younger brothers/ his profession/ whatever you can think of and bore him to death.

I think it's easy for the sibling who doesn't suffer the behaviour so much to lecture the other - add a gendered discourse in there and you have a real irritant!

Your story about them thinking you were having some kind of breakdown rather than making a rational decision rings some more serious alarm bells, however. I may be projecting here, though.

Families are story-generating. They tell themselves and each other narratives about who they are, and how things have come to be the way they are. I have a similar thing with my sister- my parents have always differed wildly in their attitudes to both of us, and she simply refuses to engage with their behaviour towards me in any way. It suits her narrative to pretend that I was an outrageously stroppy teenager who ruined her childhood, whereas the truth of the matter was that my mother was being emotionally, physically and occasionally sexually abusive and controlling beyond belief. (I'm not saying she didn't suffer as a result of the dynamic, just that it wasn't set up by me or my fault!) My parents very much go along with this story, and at times in the past I've found that hurtful and infuriating. Sometimes families establish these stories as a way of protecting themselves against confronting the truth - it's how a lot of scapegoating starts. In my case, it's led to a long term situation in which I am very much out on a limb with my family. I love them and we have regular contact, but they are a unit of three from which I will always be excluded. That's what this story does.

It strikes me that the behaviour you describe is on the verge of something similar - they're creating an alternative version of the truth that isn't responsive to your 'reality'. That can lead to some very dark and emotionally devastating places. I don't really have any meaningful advice about how you can tackle it, though. Sometimes the only thing you can do is to accept the distance that is thrust upon you and get on with building your own life and bubble. It sounds as though you are able to do this with your new DP. Good luck!

Oh it drives me bananas. I know exactly where you're coming from OP. Lefty, liberal, "feminist" men are the absolute worst for this - they think they've got it all covered because they've got 5% of the way to grasping that some people have suffered prejudice, but haven't a clue about what it's actually like or how varied it can be or that it certainly is not over.

I had a friends's DH – who sees himself as a gentle liberated feminist soul – mansplaining to me that there are some countries where women are still treated as 2nd-class citizens and we need to help them! I remarked that women are still treated as 2nd-class citizens in this country (UK) in a great many ways, though maybe they aren't all as obvious.

He looked like I was talking Martian and went on to bluster that he had no idea what I could possibly mean.

I know this guy has an anger management problem and is controlling towards his wife too! He can't see it.

I had a really long argument in the pub with another one of them, a men's group type. It was pointless. It's very hard for them to see it at all. they just see a level playing field. Then they wonder why women/LBGT people/black people are so grumpy and argumentative

My brother does exactly this!! The most recent incident involved my challenging a racist joke made in our company, only for my brother to inform me in front of everyone that there was no need for me to say anything, as the person didn't really mean it and besides, no one of that race was present.

I maintained that I didn't want any more discriminatory jokes in my presence, but I didn't really come back to my brother. Wished I had afterwards though.

He seems to see every conversation as an opportunity to show off his 'intelligence'. It's always 'well I think you'll find the REAL issue is...' or 'what you REALLY mean is...'. Erm, no. I mean what j just said. He'll throw out random facts that no one can check out or cares about to try and 'win' an argument no one else is taking part in or cares about.

I think he truly believes he's doing everyone a favour by imparting his wisdom. To me and most others it just unfortunately highlights that his intellect is quite average (like mine I might add!) which is very much not the desired effect!

I love him and it makes
me sad, number one because it makes me not want to be around him, and number two because I think it shows how insecure he is. Which is a shame.

devon - YY, that's the kind of reassuring comment I could use from him.

I actually had the opposite experience to you with my parents in a way, though. My dad was quite shocked that my uncle and his wife were not remotely bothered about meeting my partner - it was awkward, because my uncle's wife wanted to chat to my dad about identity politics and he found it a really hard conversation and kept clamming up. This is why he worries about me, though - he expects everyone around him to be as homophobic as people his age were when he was growing up (if you see what I mean).

pax - tempting!

shove - yes, that's so true about narrative-generating. And the alarm bells - yes, that was a much nastier bit, and I think the reason I mentioned it was to give the context, because although my dad is responding much better than I'd expected to my female partner, he does have some really quite hard-line reactionary views, and I do find it bewildering that my brother doesn't seem able to see this.

And, I should say, I am so very sorry to hear what your mother put you through. That's awful.

Thanks Robin. She has been amazing as a mum in every other way, so much so, friends were genuinely really shocked that she wasn't immediately fine with it. I completely get what you're saying about your dad. I think my parents expected life to be very hard if I remained in a same sex relationship and that having children were off the cards. I think it helped a bit when I talked about lesbian friends who'd had children etc. They both have very straight, white, cis friends and it was just all very new to them. I'm not in a same sex relationship now but my male partner is amazing at taking opportunities to affirm my identity and model attitudes so I'm not the one who's always flying the LGBT flag as it were! I can imagine that when your little ones arrive, they'll be so proud that any anxieties they might have had will go and they'll be too busy showing them off to everyone!