I just moved back to the US with my English DH and our 6 month old DD, partially in order to be closer to my family, epecially my mother who I am very close to. My father has a history of anger issues and just generally acting immaturely. My brother can be very disrespectful towards him, and although I try not to I sometimes lose my temper and snap at him. My mom generally stays out of our disagreements, but they have a lot of fights as well. I spent a lot of my childhood listening to yelling and have worked really hard in my adult life to control my temper and not repeat my parents' mistakes.
My parents and brother (32 years old, but still living with and mainly supported by my parents as he hasn't been able to get/hold down a full time job in this economy) came to visit us for a week around Thanksgiving. Since arriving, my father has been constantly critiquing my driving. I have asked him politely many times to not do this, but he hasn't stopped. While parking yesterday, he told me that I was never going to get into a parking space, and I snapped at him something along the lines of "Can you please shut up? It isn't that hard to do." He then proceeded to sulk and give me the silent treatment for the rest of the night. I apologised to him after I calmed down, and he didn't even acknowledge that I had spoken.
Later that evening, my brother was mouthing off to my father about a football game. My father was getting over emotional about it, and my brother was telling him to calm down. Finally, my brother said that my father needed to stop getting angry and acting immature. My father yelled "I'm not angry," and lunged at my brother, trying to physically attack him. My brother is about twice the size of my father and managed to hold him off, while my mother tried to get in the middle of them. I screamed out that if it didn't stop right now I would call the police, and then my father let go. My mother said it was time to go and I drove them to their hotel in silence.
My DH is livid about this, as am I. First, we don't think my father's reaction to my remark (which set the mood for the altercation - my mother actually said during the fight that my dad was really mad at me and not my brother) was reasonable, but mainly because we cannot believe he attacked my brother in our living room. Luckily my DD was sleeping in the other room, but I'm not sure he would have contained himself if she was there, and this happened right over her play mat.
This morning my mother had us sit for a "family meeting", during which my dad did not accept any responsibility for his behaviour. Everything was our fault for "ganging up" on him. He also firmly stated that he did not accept my earlier apology for snapping at him. Finally, I said that after "the stunt" (not particularly mature of me - I was getting angry at this point) he pulled last night... At this, he stood up, pointed at my brother and screamed "The stunt I pulled? No, the stunt HE pulled." He was being very intimidating and my DD started crying. I said I wasn't going to expose my DD to this and left.
Now, my parents and brother are still in town, but not with me as I do not want to be around my father anymore. Also, my DH no longer wants to visit my family at Christmas. He is saying that he is upset that we moved here to be closer to my familiy if this is what they will act like, and I kind of agree with him. His family are lovely, and would never dream of behaving like this. This is really extreme for my family, although my dad attacked my brother one other time (that I know of) when my brother was around 14.
Am I doing the right thing to create an estrangement over this? Is there any other solution?
Thanks for reading this far...I'd really appreciate some perspective. I am too close to know what to do, and feel really guitly that I am the one who started the whole thing. Plus I'm upset that I am missing time with my mother because of this, and am not sure how things will be in the future.