My brother's problems.

[Mooshamoo]

I have one older brother. He is two years older than me. He hasn't been particularly nice to me . He has been nasty to me many times. He has had a lot of problems in his life. But so have I. I have had loads of problems. I have had a very hard life. I honestly don't care about him that much. I care about him in general but I have distanced myself from his problems as I need to look after myself.

My problem is my mother. Every time she rings me she talks about my brother's problems. It's always "your poor brother". At the moment one of the problems he has is that he is very overweight and he is upset that he can't get a girlfriend . He can't get a job. He has no friends . He never leaves his house etc I pointed out to her that no one is entitled to have a girlfriend.

Every time she rings me she tells me about 10 problems that my brother is going through. It makes me ill with stress. I've told her that I don't want to hear about his problems and that I have to look after myself. She will say "oh you tell me what I can talk about then".

She's done this to me since I was very young. I remember being away at college at 18, and I couldn't relax and enjoy college life as my mother would ring me every couple of days and talk about all my brothers problems. There was always some massive problem. And I was expected to listen about his problems before my own life.

I feel ill with the stress of it all. I was in a good mood today and then she rang me saying "your brother is so unhappy because of this this and this". And I instantly felt drained. I had planned to go to the swimming pool and after she rang me , I felt too drained of energy to get off the couche.

I feel like I am in a fucking prison. I am going to have to listen to the problems of someone for the rest of my life. I think he is spoilt selfish and has brought alot of his problems on himself. My mother babies him. hearing about his problems all my life totally drains my happiness and drains me of energy. If I tell her not to talk about it she'll say I'm telling her what she can and can't talk about. Shell say "well you tell me what I can talk about then". And nothing gets resolved. What to do? I'm 39 and I've been listening to my brother's problems for most of my fucking life.

Mate. I’m sorry the dynamic is stressful. But you can just not listen. It sounds like you’re making this incredibly, incredibly fraught and high-stakes. But “listening to your mum talk about someone else’s problems” should not be making you feel too drained to move. Either tune out and go “mmm hmm, mmm hmm,” while writing your shopping list, or invent a reason to get off the phone when she starts. That’s all you need to do. The extreme emotional reaction is something you’re doing to yourself. You can just not! Your brother is an adult! He’s not your fucking problem! Detach! Detach!

The thing is that the more you disagree with someone who's caught in a pattern the more entrenched they become and they won't be able to listen to your reasoning
Very true and great post @Barbecuebeans
As infuriating as it is she can't really help it, she's trapped in a pattern and can't see what she's doing. It's very difficult because it makes you feel angry upset insulted etc and then you become tangled up in your own emotions. She likely doesn't have the self-awareness or insight to really understand what's going on😖

So he’s a 40-something year old man, who doesn’t work, has made himself fat, is horrible to you and is furious that women don’t want to shag him? (Sounds like a potential if not fully-fledged incel)

And your mother thinks he deserves your total sympathy?

Fuck that.

I’d consider telling her calmly and straight how I felt and then not answer the phone for a bit.

I had similar with my mum but it was always about her own life and what was wrong with it and all the people she didn’t like. I used to dutifully ring her once a week and the calls would last about an hour and a half.

I tried once telling her exactly what I thought about the way our relationship was, she replied “well it’s sounds as though you don’t like me very much” and never referred to it again.

I stopped telling her about anything good or nice in my life, because she only said things like “oh it’s alright for some” as in jealous of my life. I tried moaning back to her and bigging up any problems, but she just talked over me about how everything was worse for her.

In the end, I never phoned or visited her. When she called and talked I often held the phone away from my ear and just said “yes, no,oh I know” etc. I would often go to my door and bang on it or set a cooker timer so she would hear it and I could say “I’ve got to go”.

Nothing worked because in her mind I was the only person she could ‘unload to’. I just had to become the most boring and non reactive person I could become. I even pettishly would make angry faces at the phone.

Can you either ask her to ring later in the day or just not answer your phone in the mornings?

I do sympathise and can hear your frustration really clearly. I dont know what to suggest other than an uninterested response to her….( I can relate a little with my own db and my dm). It is very annoying

Thanks for all the replies!

Yea I think it's best to either answer the phone less or if I do answer just listen and mildly agree , just grey rock and not really listen and say it is yes it is sad he he is like that.

Because I find if I get into an argument with her about it , it drains my energy more and makes me more upset.

I'd say this is nothing to do with your brother and everything to do with your mother controlling and abusing you.

You need to go no contact with her until you can recover a little and enforce strict boundaries.
Therapy would be good for you.

If she stopped moaning about your brother she would find another topic to control your happiness and freedom with.

Exactly this. All of it.
I thought I was the only grown woman pulling faces at my mother over the phone, holding the phone from my ear, and muttering inaudible ‘fuck off fuck off fuck off’s at her.

It is incredibly difficult to detach yourself and be dispassionate, despite what some OPs are saying. This is the woman who shaped you. She has been grooming you into accepting this relationship dynamic for your whole life. It feels deeply deeply uncomfortable to limit contact or challenge the behaviour.

@Mooshamoo I could have written this myself. My mum was exactly the same and in hindsight causing an even bigger distance between myself and 2 brothers. Every time I spoke to her, it was always about their problems/unhappiness. I would dread any contact with her as it was draining and leave me worrying for them. I can't remember what made me switch off from it but I remember thinking that they weren't the actual issue - how they live their life is up to them and that wasn't affecting me. What was affecting me was the poor them phone calls and conversations from my mother. So I told her, I wouldn't talk about them anymore with her and if she had any concerns to address it with them. Every time she called. Just repeated this. Conversations soon dwindled to seconds as I refused to entertain it. Took months of doing this but she did stop in the end. She now rings and asks me about how things are going and other mundane stuff but never about them. I'm not interested. It actually helped my relationship with my brothers as I didn't see them as endless "victims" anymore through the eyes of my mother. If I want to speak to them, I'll call them. Don't need a completely biased poor them narration through anyone else.

Anytime you are going to do something fun or if you're in a great mood make it a priority not to speak to her before hand. You won't change her sadly so you can only control when you speak to her and for how long. Siblings can bring so much stress in life.

You need to think of it like training a dog. You reward good behaviour and jump immediately on bad behaviour.
She said to you “Don’t come if I can’t talk about your brother.”
That should have been your cue to say “Okay. That’s good, I’ll go to the gym and get my groceries done. See you later, then. Bye.” Hang up.
Don't go.
She will want to see you. She will want to talk to you. You have to IMMEDIATELY hang up/leave when she starts on your brother. Make sure she knows that he is not the only person in the world.
Ask her how you like your tea. See if she knows.

The problem is nothing to do with your brother and everything to do with your mother.

Focus on setting boundaries with her that you feel comfortable and sticking to them.

Every time she rings me she tells me about 10 problems that my brother is going through. It makes me ill with stress.

You really need to distance yourself. Your relationship with your brother sounds rather similar to mine with my brother. If anyone tells me about his problems, I tend to say "that's a shame" and move on, because he's an adult, it's up to him to sort out his life, I don't feel any responsibility for it. Why do you stress so much about this?

Makes perfect sense to me. It's far less a 'strange thing to write' than it's a strange thing for his mother to have said in the first place.

Adults have agency. OP is quite right, he's not entitled to a relationship. If he's upset that he can't find a girlfriend then he needs to consider what he can offer a potential partner; not what the world can bring to him. Sitting on his backside, jobless and complaining that what he wants isn't automatically coming to him is a pointless waste of energy that could be extended into working on himself.

Either way, it's not OP's problem. She didn't cause her brother's situation, she can't control it, and she can't cure it. It's a pointless waste of energy bending anyone else's ear over something only he can fix.

If he won't, that's solely on him. In future I'd try to focus on the swimming OP. It will make you feel a good deal better.

As to your DM, you are going to have to be ruthless. If you give a clear and consistent message that any phone calls offloading about her DS will be terminated tout suite, she will stop doing it.

I sympathize, OP. I’m my Dad’s emotional support and every day, I have to listen to him rambling on about all his problems (sometimes blaming me for them).

I say “have to”, because I love him and I feel obliged to support him as best I can, physically and mentally. He’s 85 and I won’t have him for much longer.

it’s incredibly draining though and as PP’s said, you need to look after yourself. I find it best to mentally detach myself when he’s rambling on, I just say “yes” or “no” periodically and get on with other things in the background. Don’t give up on exercise and things you enjoy after a call, they’ll help you recover.

Tbh, I don’t think anything would be different if you were an only child-if an adult craves emotional support like this, they’ll find something to go on about.

You can definitely cut down on the contact and also mentally detach yourself. Personally, I speak to my Dad daily…but I’m detached when he starts ranting on.

Honestly I could have written this too OP. My older brother is exactly the same - spent his 20s and early 30s constantly bemoaning why he didn’t have a girlfriend and how it was all the fault of women. I do genuinely think there’s some incel influence that’s deeply unhealthy.

My mum also is NC with two of her brothers yet expected me to pick up the pieces for my own brother when frankly I was sick and tired of doing it.

What changed for me was that I told her I would go NC with her if she carried on trying to force a relationship I didn’t want. It took some pretty intense conversations but now she respects it at least.

It's literally the least strange thing she wrote. It's completely correct, he's not entitled to have a girlfriend, nobody is. Plenty of incels who think they are though.

Whats clouding your critical thinking?

I'd say 'mum I'm not telling you what you can talk about, of course you can talk about whatever you like. I'm just explaining what I have the mental capacity to listen to. And I don't have the mental capacity to listen about my brother any more. It's literally making me ill with the stress and I am not going to put myself through it any more, for my own sake and also because it doesn't appear to help either you or him either. So if you don't respect what I am willing to listen to, I will stop the conversation. Every time. I know this might not be easy as it has become something of a habit so I'm giving you advance warning.'

Guilt will keep you trapped. It’s misplaced guilt anyway because you’re putting her desire to talk at you above your right not to be used for this. You do NOT have to allow her to do this to you. She starts on the brother nonsense, you end the call.
Again, is she kind to you, does she bring anything positive to your relationship? If not you will feel better if you reduce contact.
She isn’t doing herself any good either. She can’t make anything better for him by whinging to you.
People aren’t good for us just because they’re our parent.

It seems like you do not want to loose contact with your mum, and she is unlikely to change.

So you could take the drivers seat. You call her, you drive the conversation, and you get off the phone before it turns to db.

If she calls you either do not take the call, instread sending a text that you will call later OR take the call, and when it turns to dbro stop the call with "opps, is that the time? I have x y z to do - will call you back".

You create your own game plan, one that works for you and try to implement it.

It is not perfect but could work.

Basically - boundries!

By the way - it is fine to not like your brother. It is also possible to not like him and still love him. The two positions can co exist.

My mum is so much the same..all her life is spent being entrenched with my brothers problems.all of which are entirely of his own making may I add. All I hear is "poor little bugger , it always happens to him" He is 46 ffs. It is totally bizzarre, She knows literally nothing about me at all. I think on balance and I have had many years of thinking about this is that she secretly loves the drama of it all, where as I think its bullshit and self inflicted chaos, He gets in to situations etc cos he thinks he is fucking marvellous and normal rules of life do not apply to him but when he realises they do his world comes crashing down and he runs to her to sort it out for him,she does then spills her guts to me to make him seem helpless which he isnt and to make herself feel way more important for being his saviour,When on the odd times things are going right she is itching for the next drama to come along. They are a mess both of them and I leave them to it. I say oh dear thats a shame and feel nothing at all. It works for me, My life is healthy,happy and productive theirs is self impossed chaos lurching from one drama to another, I just think I treat it like white noise but what I wouldnt do is let it influence my life in any way shape or form,that would make me as bad as them.

Sounds like he offloads on her and she offloads on you. You're going to have to just say I need to go every time she brings him up

I actually think it's a bit odd that hearing about someone else's problems - someone you don't even care about - upsets you so much.

Can't you just nod along? That's what I do when people talk about things that don't interest me.

She's 75. The two things that consume her thoughts are you and your brother. She's loved you both and you are both important to her. She talks to you about him, she talks to him about you. What else would she talk about, her hobbies, her friends, her health?

Has this dynamic with your family been like this since you were young? From the outside it is so obvious you have choices to change this dynamic however when you have been in it for such a long time, and the dynamic is so enmeshed, it can feel almost impossible to imagine how things could be otherwise.

There have been some good ideas about how to create a boundary with your mum. Yes, there may be a backlash. However, your main task in life is to figure out how to live your own good life and then, to use the airline analogy, you can help others put on their own air mask. Feeling completely drained after a conversation with your mum is very real and not ok. You deserve to protect your life-force and you may need to draw on some anger or frustration and channel it into creating a boundary with your mum. If you can create some distance from her, using any of the suggestions given on this thread that feel most true to you, you can begin to claim back your life-force and make small steps towards other friendships that are mutual rather than those that are a one way street where you listen and absorb the negative energy of another person.

Read 'the dance of anger' it is a classic book for women who are in situations of feeling obligated in situations that offer them very little. It's by Harriet Lerner. You could get imaginative with finding a solution. Eg, imagine a how a protective fictional person/strong determined part of yourself,/guardian angel-being who steps in to help you when your mother calls. They might interfere with the phone line causing the call to drop out every time you're mum starts to talk about your dB. ("Goah mum, I'm not sure what happened the other day, my phone just stopperd working" Or if you are visiting you suddenly realise you left the stove on and need to leave immediately. If you keep shutting the conversation down as soon as your brother is the topic your mum may learn to try some other topics that interest both of you. Thing is, the current dynamic is helpful for her because as you absorb the stress she can feel lighter and less burdened, so she may strongly resist any changes you try to make. You may need to have a consequence if she talks about your dB that gives her a cost for doing so, eg blocking her calls for a few days or not visiting the next week. You do have the power in yourself to say with your actions, "no mum, I was not put on this planet as a sounding board for all his woes in life. I have my own life to lead and all my energy is now going into that"

How about buying her a bunch of flowers, and going round to talk to her properly and calmly over a pot of tea.
Tell her that you just aren't in the right mind space to listen to someone else's problems right now and that you would like to do something positive and enjoyable together, without any talk of your brother.
Don't get into blaming her for the years of misery she's put you through and try to stay calm.
Set out your stall. This is what I can provide and this is what I want in return.
If that doesn't work then I'd move to ignoring her calls.
Y a n b u.