To think my mum and brothers relationship is fucking bizarre?

[TheSnowball]

My brother and I are in our 30s. He still lives at home with our mum. I've moved out (thank god!), but had to live with their odd relationship and routine for many years, and according to them, it's still ongoing.

He's always competed with me for her favour, ever since we were kids. But it got worse when our parents separated, it's almost like he's took on the role of being her surrogate husband?

They set their alarm clocks to wake up at the same time as eachother, if one of them has to get up earlier for work, the other one will set their alarm accordingly. They spend hours talking every morning, drive off to work together, drive back home together and then spend 1-2 more hours talking about their day. They don't go anywhere without eachother. They go shopping together, they visit people together. Etc etc.

He agrees with everything she says, hangs onto her every word, she's never in the wrong in his eyes, they slag people off all the time (including me!) and egg eachother on. It's bizarre. I feel awful anxiety speaking to them now because I know when I walk away they're gonna be slagging me off, as always.

Any kind of argument I had with her as a teenager (just normal arguments teenage girls have with their mums), he'd aggressively square up to me, shouting in my face, calling me every name under the sun. She'd then thank him for 'standing up for her', then come and ask me if I was okay and tell me he was out of order ???
I felt suffocated and stifled in my own home for years.
Now I'm not allowed to have any kind of disagreement with her without him involving himself and getting aggressive with me.

I'm not being nosey, it wouldn't bother me at all if it wasn't for the fact that I'm not allowed to have a normal relationship with my own mother. I can't speak to her on her own, she's always with him. He makes it a them vs me situation all the time, and gets confrontational and competitive with me. I have to walk on eggshells and watch what I say.

I lived with them and their behaviour for so long and whenever I tried to bring it up they made out that I was the weird one. But surely it's not just me that thinks this is completely fucking abnormal?

Not that we know of.

My MIL and BIL have the exact same type of relationship and my BIL is aggressive towards my DH about his Mum that can do no wrong. As an outsider, I think it is messed up and also that it is of the MIL making. It suits her to have her DS live with her and hang on her every word. She doesn't care that he has no friends or job or anything in his life other than her. She pitted the children against each other thus the competition. I feel sorry for my BIL even though it looks like he is the problem and my MIL is trying to be supportive. You seem to see your Mum as the victim. Maybe think about it more.

They are in a codependent relationship. Many people believe codependency only happens in marriages/partnerships, but it can happen in any type of relationship, including parent/adult child.

Just be glad you are out of that dysfunctionality.

Yep, this sounds like a very similar situation.

I don't think of my mum as the victim, I think they're probably both narcs in their own ways tbh. They're a match made in heaven, really.

Google Emotional Incest or Covert Incest. There's a very good book called The Emotional Incest Syndrome too. You've basically just described my brother and mum's relationship, right from the idolising one another, spending all their time together, him getting in on any arguments the rest of us had with her, and refusing to let any of us near her. He's 50 and has never had a relationship. Also, if any of us dared argue with the chosen brother, she'd be down on us like a tonne of bricks.
Our mum didn't divorce our dad but he was emotionally abusive and an alcoholic, so she basically expected my brother to provide the support she should have got from her husband.

For years, I didn't have a name for it, and it properly messed our family up.

I know someone like this. She left her husband and father of her 3 kids to have an affair with a guy who was only barely 20 and not more than a few years older than her kids. She had a kid with him and he left her.

Since then she has leaned HEAVILY on her son. He's become in lots of ways her surrogate husband and now in his 30s he still lives at home. He's only recently got a girlfriend and she is about 18 and like a mini-carbon-copy of his mum!

The mum is very dependent on him and he indulges it, he takes her on holidays and she posts weird photos of her draped over this chest (as you might your bf / dh); every Valentine's Day she posts photos of bouquets of red roses he buys her.
None of these things are weird in themselves I know but there's a strangeness and intensity about it all that it makes me feel like shuddering. It's all very odd.

I thought this!! OP all I can say is avoid, avoid, avoid.

she posts weird photos of her draped over this chest (as you might your bf / dh); every Valentine's Day she posts photos of bouquets of red roses he buys her.
None of these things are weird in themselves

Oh yes they are! The photos and roses are creepy as hell <shudder>

extricate yourself from this toxic dynamic, they are abusive weirdos. Ghost and block them both.

@ChristinaRussell
they are weird, aren't they!! I was trying to be nice as it's ok for a son to have a photo with his mum or buy her flowers but there's something just 'off' about these.

In photos he puts his arm around her shoulder (that's ok) but she snuggles in with her head on his shoulder and her had on his chest - it's VERY couple-y

And the flowers are always over the top huge arrangements, often with a soft toy or balloon with love hearts etc and always red roses not a generic bunch of flowers.

It creeps me out! And she always captions them like 'My Dave spoiling me again' (his name is not Dave)

This is very odd OP but probably more usual than we think. I too know a family like this - the mum has a husband but he’s got mental health issues so isn’t particularly useful/emotionally present, so she’s converted it all to her eldest son. They go everywhere together, make decisions together etc. The husband and the youngest son just seem to accept this. Very strange!

I would try and spend time with you mum alone, without your brother and see what her reaction is.

Sounds like an enmeshed relationship, it’s called emotional incest I believe - research it

Codependency/emotional incest .

I’m currrently being given therapy for being the child in a similar situation, it is exceptionally hard to cope when that relationship is no longer possible for whatever reason, I’m left with a hundred different feelings from anger to sadness to guilt to terror . I wish to God someone had spotted it sooner . I don’t know if your brother would be receptive to you talking to him . It was a GP and therapist that pointed it out to me . Circumstances have meant that the relationship in my case is no longer possible at all (parent is dying of dementia) but I suspect it’s going to have an effect on me for the rest of my days .

Oh god, I could have written your opening post myself op but would find it too difficult to explain.
Any advice I had from my mother or any viewpoint at all would start with “We think…”.
He lived with her for years at no expense, renting out his own house. When she died he got her house and was visiting a cousin of hers in a nursing home at the time. When he died he got part of his very large inheritance too.
He keeps in close contact with my mother’s brother and has turned him against me.
I worry that I will lose my father to him too as he loses his faculties.
He has never worked and has lots of houses. I worry that my father will end up living with him or in one of his houses and I won’t be able to see him. My house isn’t big enough for my father too.
Neither of my parents would have a word said against him and I do worry about my father and I’ve told him I am worried about what could happen to me when he dies and my brother goes after all he can get from his inheritance.
I expect his neighbours think he’s wonderful though. Helps them out, visits old neighbours in their nursing homes and my mum’s old friends don’t talk to me. he’s actually aggressive, was kicking her dog after she died… I saw a poem she wrote about doors slamming in the night, nothing but darkness etc…
He really is a force to be reckoned with and I don’t think I could have changed anything.

Sounds like a true crime case I read recently. He ended up killing his mum and putting her under the family caravan.

I really don’t know what will happen when my father dies. I will be afraid to go to his house alone to sort things out.

It could have looked like competing for attention, but a little girl was feeling unnoticed and excluded... And that is how the brother has liked it to continue.

1. yadnbu
2. who tf are the 2% that think yAbu??
3. what would happen if you were to discuss very intimate FEMALE/potentially uncomfortable to him topics? Would he still stay around or could you get alone time with a thrush/UTI/pregnancy/gynaecological combo?

Emotional incest?

This made me laugh though ngl 😂 😂 😂

It does give that vibe, doesn't it?

If you've a brother who's going to be this controlling and try to get all the inheritance, why would you go to your father's house to sort things out? Let your brother do it

On the face of it it’s absolutely lovely that they have such a close bond.

But I can see how your relationship is affected as you never get any one on one time with your mum.

He sounds very protective of her.
What was your dad like?
Was there any violence before the separated?

I think your mum is not doing him any favours.

Has he ever had a partner?

Could it have evolved into a romantic relationship?

It isn't uncommon for one DC to stay behind and create a co-dependant with the parent whilst everyone else moves on with their lives.