DB is 42 and I’m a few years younger.
He’s had mental health problems all his life. Hadn’t worked since he was 20. I also believe him to be on the autistic spectrum although no formal diagnosis has been made.
I’ve spend my entire life hearing about his problems from my parents/family. I’m not without my own issues, including self harming for years, ongoing depression etc.
I rarely see him and none of the family have even been allowed in his home for about a year now. He claims to be decorating
He usually comes to my parents for dinner on Sunday, but will leave almost the second he’s finished unless I shame him into staying longer. He never offers to wash up, bring a dessert etc. He hardly ever visits them apart from this and lives five minutes away.
All this would be fine with me if it wasn’t for my DM and her incessant bigging up of him. I’m always been told how much he cares about me, loves me etc. You can often spend less than five minutes in DMs company before she’ll be mentioning him out of nowhere and bigging him up.
I had twins in August. DB has probably seen them five times since they were born and is too scared to hold them
Yet I’m forever being told how taken he is with them, how good he is with them etc.
It was my birthday yesterday and DM and DF came over to kindly babysit while DH and I went out for a few hours. DB came with them and we later found out spent the time we were away on DH new PlayStation without even asking permission first. When we got back the first thing DM said was how good DB is with the twins!!!
DM came over today and as I was tidying away Xmas gifts she mentioned what a generous present my DB has gotten us. In reality what he bought us wasn’t the model we asked for (it was a present for twins) and is no good for the purpose we require. Perhaps childishly I said this to DM as I’m so sick of hearing her big him up. She put my DS down on couch quickly enough to make him cry and started shouting at me about how nothing DB ever does is good enough for me. How I don’t understand his problems etc. I’m afraid I lost it and yelled back about how bloody sick I am of hearing about my DB. It culminated in my DM barging out of the house.
AIBU? I am so fed up of having to listen to my DBs praises being constantly sung. DM is really good at making me feel guilty about it, but if she just stopped going on about him all the time then these arguments wouldn’t happen!