Is there something really wrong or is it me?

[lostinhisworld]

I've recently moved back to be local to my family, and since I did have just felt really down when in contact with my family or spending time with them.

My Dad, 64, is quite sexist. He thinks all books by women are not worth reading, he thinks fat women are disgusting (I am a size 14 - 16 and get the feeling he includes me on that list) and I have never really heard him say anything positive about a woman that ws not related to her tits or her being beautiful. He thinks housework is for women etc.

My Mum is 61 and stunningly beautiful. She looks about 40, is very slim and she has always been a SAHM and pushed her sexist views subtly onto me also. Like she has a go at me because I don't regularly offer DS (12) drinks and think he should go and get one himself. She is always maing comments about how my DS is not lookked after the way we were or whatever. I work and am a single Mum and my son is really well cared for by I do expect him to bring his plates to the kitchen and get himself a drink.

My brother 2 is married to a girl from overseas and a subservient culture and he belives women should hold their tongue around men. He has also made comments that he finds my weight gross. He says only skinny women are attractive and finds single Mum's to be "losers".

My brother 1 is twice divorced, and also only dates skinny and beautiful women. He has two children and so when his kids and my DS are at my prents house for sunday lunch I am expected to look after his kids also. I am also told by Mum to "get your brother a drink" while he lasy on the sofa. If the kids are being naughty (even his kids) she shouts at me.

Brother 1 is also extremely shady. Twice divorced. Banned from driving three times for alcohol and now lost his licence. 2 businesses went bankrupt. Didn't see his kids for two years. Had affairs on both wives. Openly sleeps with hookers -his last ex wife took the children to FIND him at the brothel and he also slept with my other brothers long term girlfriend. In the end he was so abusive to his last wife that she took off and left him with the children and is now being treated for a total breakdown - making him essentailly a single father by default.

And yet all my parents do is go on about how fucking wonderful he is. "Isn't he a wonderful father", "isn't he a wonderful businessman", "he stayed with so and so and they said what a wonderful house guest he is".

I, by contrast, have never had an affair, always done very well with my job, always supported myself and DS, always been a really devoted Mum and yet they never say a fucking word nice about me.

So today I was sitting there and brother 1 who is 44, rich (through shady means), fat bald, ugly and wears his trousers hanging round his arse and he is on POF looking at girls to date. They are all 25 and gorgeous.

So I said to him I thought he should look more around his own age instead of keep bringing these Polish and Russian whores into his life because he has kids to think about.

He said that he wanted a woman under 30 because any older was ugly (I am 38)

He said he wanted a woman who was a sixe 10 or less because he had a "weight limit" and anything else made him want to vomit (I am a 14 - 16)

He said he had no interest in personality, and only wanted good looks and preferred a woman who wanted him for his money so she would stay at home and do the laundry.

I told him that making those decisions when single was fine, but what abut his children.

Brother 2 and Dad totally agree with him and tell me I am basically a tree hugger and no man wants an ugly old fat woman and that looks in the number one most important quality in a woman.

He then tells my Mum I am picking on him, and she turns around and says to me she agrees with him too and why should he have someone ugly. It;s almost like she doesn't care at all about her Granchildren who have already been through so much with all the mental 25 year olds he shags (the last one was a cocaine addict who hit him and I had to go round in the middle of the night to pull her off him and phone police).

Then Mum shouts at me to control the children and tells me I am a drama queen when I got upset.

Is any of this normal? I feel like they are just all so shallow and sexist and I am made to feel like I am the one with a problem?

My brothers openly discuss women and their tits and shagging prostitutes and they are so demeaning to women it makes me sick.

Well I am also 38. I am a size 16 and have silver hair at the front of my otherwise dark hair, I know I am a sexy babe - if anyone wants to be negative about me that is their problem not mine.

I'm intrigued, why on earth did you go round and pull his cocaine addict GF off him? I'd have left them to it, or told his(your) father to sort it out seeing as women are no good at breaking up fights are they? that's a man's job, I'm being ironic of course, maybe you were worried about his kids.

Quite right to bring your son up to be independent.

You seem to mention your weight a lot. Do you want them all to change their deeply ingrained view that thin people are more attractive so that you feel more attractive? I don't think that's going to happen

If you feel bad about your weight why don't you try to lose some? To please yourself, not them.

The weight issue, is based on them being obsessed by thin people at the expense of OP feelings, They are insensitive to the point of not even caring! You can be attractive and a size 16!

Vavia!

Missed the point MUCH

She's been told her entire life women are worthless if they are not a slim blow-up doll who is only good for draping the arm of some fat, bloated pig; that she's LUCKY to be deemed worthwhile to a grotbag. That sort of stuff goes deep.

Plus weight/eating is a major deal with most women. It's a complex social problem, multi layered arf

But hey, just lose weight op (you know how easy that is NOT ) and all will be well

I agree with everybody else but please don't say things like

keep bringing these Polish and Russian whores

It's a really horrible way to speak about women, and as someone of Russian origin, it's really offensive, the whole "Russian whore" thing is getting a bit old now. If they are horrible, they're horrible, their nationality has nothing to do with it.

"brother 1 who is 44, rich (through shady means), fat bald, ugly and wears his trousers hanging round his arse and he is on POF looking at girls to date. They are all 25 and gorgeous."

It's because of men like him that I gave up on POF. I'm 43, intelligent, attractive, informed, educated and yet revolting slobs look down on me for being 43 when they're the same age as me and frankly look about 15 years older.

OP this is not normal and even if it were, it would still be wrong. Just because a lot of people do it, doesn't make it right. I think you should distance yourself. I'm sorry they leave you feeling so bad.

I really don't see what middle eastern culture has to do with this

This
And as for Is what my brother says true? That being thin / attractive is the most important thing for a woman to be? only if you want a prostitute shagging violent partner who treats you like a mindless drudge.

You should be relieved that no man like them would ever love you. You wouldn't want someone like them controlling you. Eventually someone will come along who will value what's on the inside.

Your brothers had better stay rich, because if the money goes, everything will. The woman who only wants his money will divorce him and take at least half.

This is 2015, not 1912 - The World has changed somewhat

You have to put yourself first as IMHO, it is all about "control / power" i.e. 1912 attitudes in 2015

It is NOT you :)

Sorry Rachel I did not mean to be offensive to you...you're right, I shouldn't have said that. It's only based on the fact that in his particular case, he is attracting / seeking out certain natinalities / types of women. I certainly don't believe applies to all people of those nationalities and sorry if I implied that I did. Only the ones he has had specific contact with, as sadly, there is an element in existence of economic exchange for a relationship between a young, beautiful woman and an older man with a bit of money and he takes advantage of what is on offer.

I spent my teens ranting at my chauvinist DF who expected the DDs to help DM in the kitchen while the DSs watched football on TV with DF.
I got out and educated myself for a good career. Then I found a DH who subtly persuaded me to take on the same role as my DM and run around after him and the DC at the same time as holding down the professional job. Result: total exhaustion and marriage failure.

What do I teach my DDs? Partnerships should be equal. Each contributes according to their strengths. Value people by how they treat you not by financial worth. Good looks are fleeting true beauty shines from within.

You have somehow worked it out OP despite your hideously prejudiced and sexist family. They sound soul destroying and exhausting and I would want to limit exposure.

If this makes any sense...I actually don't WANT to lose weight because I feel like doing so makes me a sexual object. I feel like a bit of extra fat protects me in a funny way. if men tell me I am beautiful or sexy it makes me nauseated in ways.

lost I recommend the book "Fat is a Feminist Issue", I think you might identify with it a lot.
I don't think you need to lose weight to repair your self esteem. You need to distance yourself from your toxic family and get some counselling.

I'n not surprised you loathe sexual attention if your father was your male role model (and aren't all our fathers...)

I relate to the weight for 'protection', also sexual unavailability. Post baby, I inadvertently lost a lot of weight and, curious, I stepped on the scales to see what was going on [so out of tune was I with my body]. I LEAPT off the scales in fear at how much weight I'd lost! I was frightened: suddenly I felt i was accountable somehow? Complex.

I expect my 7 year old to get her own drink. Sometimes I ask her to get one for me at the same time! !!

It probably is "normal" for a lot of people and as you know what they say in gods chosen county of Yorkshire,

" There's nowt as queer as folk"

Bloody true;(

Least you have a sane handle on the issue. You could it seems write a silly comedy series for TV round this lot.

Could call it "A thousand years BC and counting" but backwards;!.

Seems about right;!.

Gosh, I wonder why you've got low self esteem?

I'd make a full on effort to meet new friends locally, who are at home in the 21st century, so you can dial down your contact with family massively.

The only thing wrong with this family picture is that you're still a fully paid up member!

You've got a good handle on reality but see how easily it's getting eroded and twisted by spending time with them. It's very obvious tgT they are bad for you, and it's sad you've got such little self protection you've walked straight back into this hideous set up.

Soooo, Step 1: back out nicely and quietly, become a shadow in that family, you don't have to cut them off completely but you do need to distance yourself enough to protect your mental & emotional health. Step 2: councelling or similiar to get those foundations strong and your self esteem healed.
Step 3: have a freer, kinder, bigger life.

But you can't skip to step 3 without protecting yourself from their influence, it will mess with your head. And no one is strong enough to resist it all if that's your main source of support/ social life etc.

OP, 'nice' of you to call gorgeous 25-year old women on POF Russian and Polish whores. How the hell do you know and how dare you make such assumptions? And interestingly noone picked up on that. If you were to mention black or Muslim women here, no doubt, there would be cries about racism and you would be flamed.

Somebody has picked that up brandis and op has apologised.

I apologised for the sterotype inferred. The fact is the particular women I was commenting on are "whores" though, that is not to mean, and is silly to suggest, that I think all people of those nationalities are so.

They are exchanging sex for money in very simple terms. He has employed them, paid their rent, bought them cars. He even hired one for two years to work in his company and she could not even speak English and he had her answering the phones. This isn't him being kind - this is a form of sex for advantage. They are young and beautiful and he is old and quite unpleasant. There was absolutely no exchange of anything beyond sexual relationship for money.

Whilst he has met some on POF and Tinder (and I have heard exchanges between my brothers in how to spot a prostitute on those websites) as I also mentioned he frequented brothels. Quite literally, we are dealing with prostitutes. It so happens that they were near his home in Spain that he met them where sadly there is an influx of economically disadvantaged young women from certain parts of the world who work at those places and are looking for help from men like my brother and he is happy to oblige.

If I sounded unkind towards those women, it is personal to them specifically, as I have witnessed my sister-in-law in tears after extracting my brother, baby in arms from their beds where the woman crazenly sat there naked laughing- and believe me - the particular women we are talking about felt no guilt, conscience or embarrassment over the pain and suferring they were contributing to.

They were not very "nice" people, which means I do not speak of them nicely. I am happy to admit there might be some very nice prostitutes around (although I am dubious of the character of anyone who sleeps with married men for money or not) and I am also certain that job, nationality and situation make no diferrence to how good a person is but I can also tell you that it's reality that economics means there is an element of certain nationalities looking for wealthy british men to make these arrangements with.

I am absolutely not against Polish or Russian people, and already apologised for it sounding even remotely to be the case. As I said I am mixed race myself, from a multi-cultural immigrant family and meant no offence.

Anyway, important to note no offence was meant to anyone, and that I hve apologised for prasing something in an offensive way. I was upset at the time, and angry at specific people, not broad nationalities. I hope we can move on from that and anyone offended will accept it was not meant as such.

Personally, I think prostitute is a job description, whereas whore is a misogynist insult.

I think it's a good indication of the brainwashing from your ghastly family as to acceptable ways to talk about women.

Personally I wouldn't give your family the time of day. Your son sounds wonderful.

Back on topic, thanks very much for all the comments and help. I think I have decided the solution is to stop trying to argue with them / defend my point and to try and make them see how wrong they are, and instead I am just going to refuse to put up with it by creating my own firm boundaries.

I won't tolerate criticising of my parenting in front of my son
I wont tolerate my son being told I should wait on him or being waited on by anyone else and made to feel this is normal
I won't wait on my brother
I won't wait on my brother's children
I won't be spoken to badly or shouted at when I have done nothing
I won't listen to talk that is negative about women or offensive or hurtful to me
I won't look at photos of my brothers conquests or chat with him about his love life

Those are my boundaries and if they are crossed, I will stand up and walk out taking DS with me. And when I have done is 5 or 6 times maybe they will get the picture.

I think half the battle is believeing I am not the one with the problem, and the thread helped me to do that. I do love my family, a lot of good points, but when you grow up with something you feel it's normal. their logic becomes normal.

I will start to calmly and politely stand up for myself and simply say "if you are going to talk badly to me I am going to leave" or "if you are going to say those things about women, I am going to leave".

If they think I am a drama Queen, I don't really care. I am too old to put up with this toss anymore and won't do it but also don't want to go NC with them over it if I can help it. It can be there choice whether or not to respect what I find offensive or not.

I am really tired of coming home crying and feeling down and yesterday I was honestly so deeply hurt and troubled that I felt like nothing and nobody and I am a good person, size 16 or not, and I will not live a life where I feel like my only value in life is in the bedroom or the kitchen.

Good for you. It does worry me that your mom ignores them for a quiet life. Maybe she will make a stand if you do?