My brother is an absolute f*cking dickhead since he met his girlfriend

[SMJYellow]

I'm in my 30s and I live at home. I have 3 brothers, 2 live abroad and one at home. He is 26.

This past year has been an absolute mess.

He used to be lovely and sound and we used to get on well. Not anymore.

I first noticed something earlier this year around about February or maybe March. He became quite. A lot of time if he was at home, he would be in his room and on the rare occasion of coming out, he just didn't speak. There was no conversation from him.

I tried but he was just so cold and distant. Any time I tried to talk, there was a grunt but there was a difficulty understanding him.

I thought maybe it would be stress or work related but the quiteness continued on for months so much so, work just can't be the reason for this.

Family were like shit at the end of his shoe. Zero conversation from him towards me and also our mother. He also started giving out to our mother and criticising everything she did. That was the only time he would speak.

This change occurred around about the same time he started dating a girl.

Over the past few months, I noticed something. Any time he went out with his friends, we bore the brunt of his moods in the aftermath of him going out. He would stay in bed all day and whenever he would get up - he would be in a proper mood slamming kitchen presses and he even broke the fridge during one episode.

I suspect the girlfriend might be on his back about him going out with his friends and giving out to him for going out with his friends and maybe 'feeling ignored' for an evening. God knows.

Thing is Christmas has been an absolute mess with his moods. We have one brother at home visiting and me and our mother wanted to try and make it a good one but it was an absolute mess.

My brother who lives at home, went out Friday night with his friends and he didn't come home until Saturday evening. On Sunday morning, Christmas Eve morning, he woke up in a dirty mood.

My mam said to me, please try and ignore that, I bet there is a row going on between him and the girlfriend. Sure enough, I think she is right. My brother was in a mood all day Christmas. He got up for dinner and then went back to bed. Eventually he got up again just to bang around the kitchen. A while later we heard him shouting down the phone having a row. We suspect shouting down the phone to the girlfriend.

This morning he got up and his mood continued.

This is absolutely unbearable. He's gone out again tonight with his friends and no doubt we will bear the brunt of this over the next few more days.

I'm ready to throw him a smack in the gob at this stage.

I am sorry OP for the way that your brother is treating you. I can understand that you are hurt by him. Being treated disrespectfully by family member can be as painful as being friend/boss/etc. treating you like shit.

You are obviously Irish. I lived there for many years and I noticed that (declaimer: generalisation and not all irish people) sons could really take the piss and the parents (especially the mothers) would pander to it. I had a male friend who refused to pay rent living at home while his sisters did. Also I heard many times a girlfriend being blamed for a friend/son acting undesirably.

This is a toxic situation. You can try to get your mother to stand up to your brother. I suspect that won't happen. So the only two options are for you to suck it up or remove yourself. But don't blame his girlfriend. His actions are not her fault. Btw where is your dad in all this?

Everything you have said points towards drugs im afraid... your personality doesnt just change like that, the anger.. the frustration... it all sounds like the affects of drugs /alcohol abuse.

i know people are saying hes 26 but he is still your brother and i can imagine that its hurtful to feel like your losing him and not knowing why its happening.

the fact OP is 30 and living with parents is irrelevant BUT i do think your mum needs to either have a talk with him and see whats been bothering him or if he that doesnt get results then he needs to be kicked out as that may be the only way to get through to him.

Postagestamppat,

That's it. I am hurt with what has gone on and I suppose calling the girlfriend a pretend wife and a tramp, etc (not to my brothers face by the way) is out of disappointment. I don't know the girl and I hope she is nice and I don't want to judge her and I won't. Its just my way of dealing with disappointment at the situation. I have a brother who lives with me and someone who doesn't even want to know me.

Darcychu,
That should be the most appropriate action from my mam but do know someone else summed it up well here. She's not happy with his behaviour but she will jump out the closest window the second he moves.

Rubbish ending of 2017, and equally rubbish start to 2018.

I'm from Ireland and there's an online site for accommodation. Its very comprehensive containing properties for sale, rent and share. I spent all weekend browsing and looking and checking prices and I'm having huge difficulty trying to find a house or apartment share within my price range and within distance to work etc. I hope to find new work anyways but it's a huge mess of a situation.

My mam is talking about oil this morning, so that will be a bill coming up. That's usually around 400. Then there is a bin bill for 180 euro and electricity bill will be in later this month and I would estimate that to be about 240 euro.

Not a penny will my brother be expected to pay by my mother.

My mam saw me getting ready for a date night with the boyfriend on Saturday night. She became hostile with me then, giving out to me and telling me that my boyfriend is not allowed to stay overnight.

So, she gets me to pay like an adult and dictates to me like a teenager. A smack in the face came then when she allowed my brothers girlfriend to stay over on Saturday night.

There was no rhyme or reason to her rant and hostility towards me.

I now have a huge headache on me like a hangover even though I wasn't drinking. I suspect maybe a migraine or a pressure headache.

The brothers mood picked up a little bit on the Friday but not for long. He went back to being all moody over the weekend.

It sounds very much to me like your brother is a boring cokehead. I feel sorry for his girlfriend - it's very odd that you seem to have blamed his behaviour on her when he is an adult and totally responsible for his own behaviour.

At 30 you are way too old to be living at home and come across as very enmeshed with your family.

Move out and get on with your own life and leave them to it.

Christ, I know this is insensitive but you are way too obsessed with everything going on with him and his gf, it's not healthy for grown adults to be still living in the nest, monitoring one another's moods, pressuring the other to act a certain way, you all need some space! I see you're looking at finally moving to your own place, I hope you do that. Then your relationship with him will either benefit from some space or you'll no longer be in such close quarters you care this much.

I see this dynamic a lot in houses where the adult kids have failed to launch so to speak, often getting very wrapped up in the drama of it all instead of forging ahead with their own lives. It's such a shame, no good for your development or the familial relationship. Do you have much else going on in your life OP?

As was raised on the other threads you have written you simply pay 1/3 of the bills. You stop subsidising him and you save the money to help with moving out. Keep looking for a place.

In the meantime just ignore all this crap.

1/3 of the bills? To hell with that.

You say "I've paid up far more than my share for many months, this month, I'm saving to move out. You can figure out the bills and assume I don't have the money, the same way you'd do for DB."

Let them sort it out. This is no longer your concern. They have a long, hard think coming.

Womb - on the other threads OP made it clear that her mum can’t afford the house without the OP’s contribution.

Oh well. Perhaps she should have thought of that before taking advantage and treating her daughter poorly. The "woe is me" act somehow only shows up with this kind of user when they're in trouble.

If your child is being your benefactor and enabling you to continue living in your home, you owe them certain freedoms and levels of respect. If you don't deliver those, don't be surprised when the gravy train pulls out of the station and won't come back to pick up the passengers left behind.

I think if the op wants to be respected as a contributing adult it would be best to act like one (changing the agreement and paying her third and not indulging any crap from her mother) rather than like a child (having a hissy fit and not paying anything towards the bills she has accrued).

I’d simply say to you DM ‘I’m struggling financially and I’m no longer going to tolerate subsidising DB. I’ll only be paying one third of the bills from now on. If you want to continue to subsidise DB then that is up to you as you are his mother’

Likewise with stuff about your BF staying ‘DM I’m in my 30’s and I am fully paying my share of the bills, I am going to have my BF to stay over sometimes’

Etc etc

Ignore DB and work on getting out of the house, though I believe it is your DM that is the real problem, she is infantilising him and he is, in turn, behaving like a child.

Talk to him, fgs. He’s your brother, not a stranger. You’ve grown up together. Go and ask him wtf is going on? Why doesn’t he speak to you, why does he treat your home like a hotel, all of it. Get angry with him, or cry, or anything, just show him via some emotion that he is having an effect on youand that his behaviour is not right. Then take it from there. But at least try.

He's stealing from you. If you're paying his way based on the lie that he's worse off he's fraudulently depriving you of vast quantities of money that you could use to get away. But why would your mum and DB want you to leave? You enable their fucked up dynamic.

Do the thieving shit a favour and reduce his disposable income by moving out. Then he won't be able to afford so many drugs and he might become less obnoxious.

I don't think it matters what we all say. We've said it all on the previous threads about the OPs situation and still nothing has changed.

If he is a cokehead, then talking to him won't make a bit of difference,. He's convinced he's right, his mum treats him like God's gift, he's not really going to say 'you know, you're right? I'm going to start pulling my weight, from today!' is he? He's going to justify, strop, lose his temper and sulk and his mother will enable it all.

Factual 'I'm paying my bills, I expect to be treated as an adult' ad nauseum, cut down to paying your one third (if you mother loses the house, sobeit. You can find somewhere else, she can carry on enabling her manchild son (who will probably promptly move in with his girlfriend), and don't take your bf round, your mother will badmouth him with everything she has. She needs to keep the status quo, you see.

Why should OP move out when her brother is an arse.

His moods will still continue and it will just be her mum to face the brunt of it.

You and your mum needs to sit him down and say it cannot go on.

Tbh it does sound like a mix of his gf and drugs. My bet is coke.

ashamed The OP should move out because for years she's been basically paying the vast majority of the bills for her mum as well as this arsehole brother, while her mother continually backs and mollycoddles this arsehole brother and the OP gets shat on from a great height from them both! This is one of those threads where it's worth doing an Advanced Search to see the full picture and the OPs previous threads on this same subject

Don't understand the PP who seem to think that the OP, staying in someone else's house, is able to categorically state they're reducing their contribution and that's that. It's her mother's home, not hers. Her options are to pay what's asked of her or find her own place. Doubt she'll listen to any of this advice anyway.

Honestly you need to stop obsessing over this and get out. Move into a flat share. You are a grown woman and are far too over invested in your brother's life. Your posts reek of misogyny towards the girlfriend too. You don't even know the woman! You need to make the break from your family and lead an independent life like an adult

Drugs is my guess. The gf and him are probably arguing because he is also a grumpy twat with her.

Don't understand the PP who seem to think that the OP, staying in someone else's house, is able to categorically state they're reducing their contribution.

Because this is not likely to be a legal contract. It is her mother’s home, any payment is more likely to be governed by ethics and family ties, not law.

OP could say she is not paying anything anymore but TBH I think this would be counterproductive as one of the problems is that her mother treats her like a dependent child when it suits her. The OP would benefit from asserting that she is neither a dependent nor a child.

Steroids?