Hi all.
Going to have a bit of a rant. It's not strictly dating related so I hope it's ok to put it here. I just feel you lot 'know' me well enough to ask on this thread. I don't feel strong enough to ask anywhere else...
You all know my issues with my mother. I think my brother might be the same.
When my husband and I separated, he didn't once ask if I was ok or if there was anything he could do. He didn't listen or let me just talk. Because he was too upset and angry. Angry that his BIL had let him down like that. Worried that his daughter and any future children had lost an uncle. He was very angry and I found myself consoling him a lot of the time because he felt so let down and betrayed by my exH's actions. Before and immediately after my dad died, my exH had been the one trying to get everyone through it. The one who had been suggesting things we could do afterwards to remember my dad and 'treat' ourselves. My brother was in disbelief that the same man who had been so supportive could now the be same person who had abandoned his young niece in such a selfish way. He was the same age as my son when our parents split and he was angry that it reminded him of how he felt at the time. Angry. Angry. Angry. I'd phone him up because I felt lonely or scared or upset and he would be angry; speak over me, interrupt, huffed and got annoyed if I asked him not to interrupt... And I found myself trying to make him feel better about it.
Because of my mother, I've had numerous assessments for various MH things and was on ADs for most of my adult life. They always said there was nothing wrong and I always felt I'd misrepresented myself. The last thing was a referral for an ASD assessment because it was felt I might have Aspergers. But I didn't go for the assessment in the end. This is a result of my mother telling me there was "something wrong" with me. My brother agrees that the only thing 'wrong' with me was created by my mother and nothing else, but he still uses these things against me if we disagree on something. He will quite often throw out, "I think there might be something in that ASD thing after all" as a way of shutting me down if he doesn't like what I'm saying.
Yesterday we chatted on the phone. Or rather, he talked about himself on the phone for a couple of hours and every conversation I started, he turned round on to him. He never asks how I am. I sometimes get the feeling that he only asks how the children are so that he can offer some improvement or pass a comment on the status quo. I told him I was going to end things with my boyfreind. He didn't ask, but I started to justify it by saying that he was lovely, but it just wasn't something that I felt I could cope with at the moment (didn't want to give him ammo by saying how I really felt) and his only response was a pompous, "well this is why I didn't want you to bring him to my daughter's birthday party" blah blah. I tried to tell him that it had only been because I hadn't wanted to spend the afternoon on my own (which is what happened) and his response was, "FG, you need to understand, it's not always all about you". I started crying and said I wasn't in the mood for it and just put the phone down. How I felt wasn't important at all. It was only about him and how he felt. He feels very angry that he doesn't have any more family. Family is very important to him and he has very high expectations of me and my role in the family. But all roads lead back to him. As they did with my mother. He wants a good relationship with me, but I let him down because I'm not as good a sister as he wants me to me.
Not for the first time, I'm left thinking I don't want to see him ever again. He's loud and boorish and opinionated and self centred a bit of a bully. I've also heard him being a bit of a bully to his wife, but she just takes it. But he's my only family. He's not much of one, but he is there. If I had nothing to do with him again, it would be just me and my children. No one else. I have no other family. No one.