To be hurt that my brother won't take my side

[estrogone]

We were raised in a home with an unstable, alcoholic mother, lots of domestic violence, suicide attempts. I was subject to some physical abuse from my father and an enormous barrage of verbal and emotional abuse from my drunk mother. I was SA as a 6 year old on one of their benders by the teenage daughter of one of their friends. I told them about this year's later and they ignored me, later welcoming that person into their home.

I bore the brunt. So I am not in contact with my parents. My brother just pretends nothing is wrong. He goes about his business as if it was all normal. AIBU to feel hurt that he has never had the balls to call this out? I dont expect him to go NC or even say anything to my parents at all, but he could at least acknowledge it to me. I know he knows. He told me once in a single sentence, that he remembers.

I haven't said anything to him, but this is starting to burn a hole in my brain. I feel hurt and irrational. It feels like he is taking sides just by his lack of anything. I tried talking him about it and ever since he has been distant.

EDIT to fix autocorrect.

There must be somebody with an opinion on this?

How much older than you is he? Isn’t it probably that as he was also a child he also suffered the abuse? Could be sexual abuse as well for all you no

I’m really sorry that happened to you. Your parents are utter scum, it’s good you are NC with them.

But your brother is also probably traumatised from childhood and his way of coping with it is likely to pretend everything is fine.

Don’t transfer your anger to him, he didn’t abuse you.

Take a step back from him and focus on getting therapy for yourself

He is four years younger. I don't recall him being hit or screamed at. It really was me that copped it. I was vocal when my Dad hit my mum, he never ever said a word.

It’s not unusual to feel the way you do.

Your brother was also a victim, and is making his own choices for how best to cope with that.

Family dynamics are extremely complex in this kind of situation and his perspective could be very different (not to invalidate your experience). He may also be in FOG with your parents. He might change in time but for now I think you need to distance yourself from him because he could end up being a flying monkey to your parents. Of course it’s hurtful but I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to change his mind or behaviour so you need to do what you can do to protect your own well being.
Have you had any therapy about your expeirneces?

Your feelings are totally justified and it’s totally shit. They were different parents to him in a way because he was a different child and they were slightly different parents at the time.
But the only person your anger hurts is you in the longer term. So my kindest advice is find a way to work through a lot of it. Even if you just use ChatGPT to start to put an order to your thoughts on the subject. I’m not saying use it as counseling or anything but it does help me work my way through thorny tangles so I can put them down.

Your feelings are completely natural and I’m sorry you endured such a horrific childhood OP ❤️

Your brother is locked in denial and maybe in the future he will process it further - but the pain is in there.

At 4 years younger I do think that’s actually incredibly unfair of you. And obviously he won’t have know what was happening to you at all until you were at least 8 or 9. I’m so sorry this happened to you, but you are putting blame and expectation in the wrong place. I hope you can find some support and start to heal

You're right. Its displaced, it just burns that he carries on now as if all is well. Visits and calls them and won't even acknowledge what happened. I am early 50s.

He is quite an angry person with his own family. Very short tempered but not violent. I take on board though that his demons might be sitting in a different place in his heart.

I have not had any counselling. I think it is time.

You needed to cut them off. Maybe your DB needs to keep the relationship. Maybe he's forgiven them or compartmentalised. Maybe he sees strengths in them that you don't. Maybe he has an understanding of what led to their behaviour and is grateful for what they could do in their circumstances. We're all different and all on our own journeys. It's not fair for siblings to have expectations on each other about how they manage their relationship with their parents. Just as he should respect your choice to go NC, you should respect his choice to maintain the relationship.

Then it’s also possible that your brother has inherited some of their nastier traits. Like identifies with like.

All the more reason to take a step back from him.

People have different experiences, different memories and different ways of dealing with things.

That's hard to accept but doesn't make either of you wrong.

Each child in the same family has a different childhood. I’m one of 6 DC in a reasonably happy ordinary family - but each of us had a different experience of our family.

As you get older, memories and understanding may converge, but don’t alienate your brother for what your parents did.

I hope you both find some sort of reconciliation with your childhood.

You say you only want him to acknowledge it… and then describe when he did exactly that? So actually what you do want is for him to say something to your parents or cut them off despite saying you don’t want that.

Youre also angry with him for not standing up to them, despite being much younger, and for not being hit or shouted at. You know that’s unfair even though it’s very common among abused children.

You both had a difficult childhood and cope with that in different ways. You won’t even admit to yourself that you actually do want him to face off with them probably because you know it’s unfair to force that. So just accept that he knows, you know and you’re both making your choices.

I think given you know what sort of childhood he had, you ought to cut him some slack.
He was there too. He is doing what he needs to do to manage his trauma, just as you do yours.

My sister and I were both SA in childhood. Our parents knew, but chose not to act. We have made different decisions about how to navigate the relationship with them, but we both try to respect as far as possible the other person’s choices.

My db, same history, some issue. I think he just wants to gloss over it and pretend he comes from a respectable family. He wants to shut out the fact his f was an utter lowlife. That is his right and I respect that. We all deal with things in different ways.

I have sisters who remember exactly what it was like so I talk to them if I need to.

I don’t think it’s about lacking in balls. He way of dealing with your parents, and navigating the relationship is different to yours. As are his feelings, and his perspective. Your way is right for you, but his way may be right for him.

There is no one correct way to address and process trauma, or to move forward through it. It is very much dependent on the individual. Despite the popular narrative, openness doesn’t benefit everybody, therapeutically. As much as some find it liberating and helpful, there are those for whom it can be harmful.

You are disappointed that he hasn’t acted in the way you had hoped or expected he would. It’s unlikely that he ever will. I think that’s something you it would benefit you to come to terms with and accept (what this would look like for you I don’t know, it may mean reducing or cutting off contact with your brother), rather than getting angry and resentful when your hopes are continuously disappointed. I understand this is easier said than done, but it is something that it is within your power to influence and control, whereas your brother is not.

"He told me once in a single sentence, that he remembers."

So he HAS acknowledged it verbally. I guess you want that acknowledgement in the form of action as well, to show that he sympathises with you, that he stands with you.

It's very understandable. But PPs are right that he very likely suffered too, in his own way. He was 4 years younger and he saw his parents abusing you horribly, and your father attacking you when you tried to protect your mother. Because he was (like you) a dependent child, he may have reasoned that to stay safe, he had to not rock the boat. And then he might have built up a rationale about this, maybe one that blamed you, or your mother, or women, for the way your father/mother behaved. That rationale would also excuse HIM for not acting heroically.

Questioning that rationale and reviewing his memories would mean him remembering feeling unsafe at the hands of the people who were supposed to keep him safe. And he would have to admit his helplessness then, and likely a face his deep seated sense of shame that he didn't then and doesn't now stand up to his parents.

I doubt that he feels nothing about what happened. Those feelings may be very firmly locked and compartmentalised away in a small room in his mind but they are there, and he likely doesn't want to open that room, for fear of what may fall out.

I hope therapy will help you. I'm sorry you had such a terrible childhood.

I think it would help. Remember that at the time your brother was very young and vulnerable and will have created his own defences against the awfulness of what happened to you. He is another victim. The adults were the perpetrators.

It is incomprehensible to anyone who is not them. If you look at Virginia Guiffre, the reason she ended up being trafficked was because her father sexually abused her on a daily basis, her mother physically abused her and turned a blind eye to the SA and they then passed her onto a family friend so that he too could abuse her. She was broken by her own family and Epstein took advantage of her vulnerability. And yet through most of her life she focused her law suits on Epstein and Andrew but made limited attempt to sue the others she was trafficked to and maintained a relatively normal parent/daughter relationship throughout. Why did she not bring charges against her parents? Why did she maintain a relationship with them? She moved back from Oz to the US for a while to be closer to them - Why? It is incomprehensible but in her mind she obviously didn't see it that way. This might all seem odd to say this but what I'm trying to say is that nobody truly understands what goes through the head of an abuse victim.

I'm sorry this happened to you. I agree with other posters, counselling might help, I hope it does.

I can relate to a lot of what you say. I know what I’m about to say is unfair but it’s how I feel. My sister has taken the side of my parents which I find incredibly hurtful. She recently acknowledged what I experienced in childhood was very wrong but continues to have a close relationship with my parents. I acknowledge that she is entitled to have whatever relationship with our parents she wants, I recognise that she herself is traumatised, but it hurts. For me I no longer have a relationship with her or my parents. I’m LC with my sister but NC with our parents. She is constantly manipulated and triangulated but due to her own issues she chooses to have them in her life over me. I was scapegoated in childhood and still am in adulthood so I’ve chosen to step back. It’s very tough and I’m sorry you’ve had such a terrible childhood but you owe yourself some peace so I would strongly recommend therapy.

Thank you.