Did your brother ever say anything inappropriate to you? *MNHQ adding content warning for abuse*

[Sarahpaula]

I was just feeling a bit sad about this today. I have a brother who is two years older than me.
He has said two inappropriate things to me that I can remember well.

When we were teenagers he said "I want to be in you".
I said 'what!', and he said he was joking.

When we were in my twenties, I was around his flat. He said how he wasn't dating anyone, and how he really wanted a girlfriend. I was thinking in a normal way, that we were talking about our respective dating lives, and how we were not seeing anyone. He said 'I really want a girlfriend", and I said 'yes, and I would like a boyfriend'!. He then said "So why don't we..." and paused. I said 'what' and he said no more. It made me so uncomfortable.

My aunty has also told me that one of her brothers tried it on with her, whenhe was drunk, and she was really upset about it. One of my friends also told me that one of her brothers has made her very uncomfortable several times.

Has this happened to anyone else? I am sad about it. I see my brother at my mother's house, but I don't go around his flat anymore.

I am so sad about it. I just have the feeling of "why can't men respect fucking boundaries, Are they that animalistic that they see every woman as something they can say anything to?"

@Bubbletrouble43 I wish I had a brother like that

Some one mentioned on here about abuse in boarding schools. I personally think that is where all of the problems in my family started. In a boarding school.

My dad won a scholarship to a residential boarding school in the East of England. My dad was very handsome. He told me that when he went to boarding school, all of the older boys would pick out the best looking younger boys and abuse them. He was never mentally well after his abuse at boarding school. He suffered with terrible anxiety all his life, and eventually killed himself.

When he was alive, he sexually touched me, and I don't know - but maybe he did to my brother as well,

My brother was then sexually inappropriate with me. Sexual abuse starts somewhere and goes down a long chain, and affects so many people's lives.

I don't know why we still have residential boarding schools.

Having said that, both my dad and my brother, no matter what happened, still had a choice not to repeat the behaviour and hurt some one else.

I was abused, and I have never as an adult touched a child.
And I never would

Thank you for lovely words and reassurance x

@Heffalooomia and @Sarahpaula

My brother wasn't at boarding school, but it was a fee paying grammar school. I think they started accepting girls in the sixth form just as he began his A levels. As I've said, it was a hotbed of misogyny from the prep school upwards.

Those posters with solid, respectful, dependable brothers, you are so lucky. My brother continued to be a physically and mentally abusive prick into adulthood... when I was younger (20s/30s) and drinking, I used to be obsessed with wanting to fall asleep in a heap with my friends like wolves. These days, I find being able to sleep around just one other person (in relationships etc) really difficult because i just get hypervigilant.

I've started off that separate thread for the whole messy subject of surviving familial CSA if anyone would find it helpful to post in, now or in the future

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4030971-CW-A-thread-for-survivors-of-childhood-familial-CSA

Love to all of us xx

Not my family, but my ex dp once asked me to pretend to be his cousin in bed when he was really drunk. She was a lot younger than him, about 17 and more like a niece than a cousin. Then he tried to gaslight me into thinking that it never happened/I imagined it.

Another similar age cousin of his implied once that that they'd slept together, again I was gaslighted into thinking I was the weird one for even thinking that was possible, I was paranoid etc although I already had my suspicions by then. Had this woman in our home a few times, he admitted recently when he was drunk that it did happen, just before we met, although I now think it carried on when I was pregnant too (we'd split before I found out, got back together later). I can remember being heavily pregnant, and visiting him in his grandparents house (getting to know the extended family better), and them having a tickle fight. I was really grossed out by at, and it's still burned into my brain now, it was so flirty/inappropriate. It sickens me to think they'd shagged/were still at it by this point, and laughing at how naive I was behind my back (it was about four or five years later that she implied it had happened).

He know overtly oogles this woman's older sister every time he sees her, and I think he's slept with that cousin too.

What is wrong with these men?! I'm glad he didn't have a sister tbh, cousins were enough of a head fuck.

*by that

I keep re-writing this first sentence, but anything I say about how sorry I am that this ever happened to you all just seems like it isn’t enough.

I never even knew things like this happened when I was a child, you shouldn’t have had your innocence snatched away so cruelly. In places and with people who were meanat to protect you.

I was the same as others here, happily sharing beds/camping out under tables with my brother and have many happy memories.

After reading this thread I must say that if I have dc I would now probably be more aware of this (hopefully remote) possibility and a) keep a keen eye out and b) make sure any dc know that anyone touching them is wrong and not their fault (in an age appropriate way) including me, Dh and siblings. And hope that I can make them feel secure enough to tell me/ a trusted adult about anything at all, even someone just making them uncomfortable.

As to the point of the thread, in adult life I did meet a colleague who confided that she had a son she had kicked out and hadn’t seen in years. She never explicitly said it, but from bits and pieces she said over the years I gather that he somehow hurt his sister when younger. She used to say she loved him but would kill him if he ever tried to come back in to their lives. She was a very kind woman so he must have deserved it.

I didn't ask her any direct questions about it, but a friend of mine said that her brother used to tickle her until she almost cried and she hated him for it and I think she still dislikes him now. It wouldn't surprise me if there was more to it. She had been sexually abused as a child on top of that.

I'm sorry to hear that your brother's a pervert. I wouldn't let someone like that anywhere near my children and I hope you don't. I'd be watching them like a hawk.

@passthemustard

My brother abused me too. I had a breakdown in my 20s and told my mum about it. She said it was normal.

One can only imagine the upbringing she had to think this was normal!

My brother claims he abused me, I have absolutely no recollection of this and am inclined to think he is lying. Just the lie makes me feel hugely uncomfortable.
to all those who have suffered.

@Smellbellina That's terrible. Why would he want to claim such a horrible thing!
Even if his claim was true, why would he want to make you feel embarrassed by making a claim like that, especially when you have no recollection of it.
💐

Not my brother but my uncle.
I was 19 he was mid 40s, we'd been out drinking, his friends and mine. I offered him the couch at my flat, he got in to bed with me, both very drunk, I got out absolutely horrified that he'd come on to me.

I told my mum about 10 years later, her first words were "why did you let have him there?"
Erg, he's my uncle and I trusted him? I was so shocked he'd done that, I never told anyone as I knew I'd never be believed.

My mum knows that now and they didn't speak for a number of years, not because of my revelations , but a family death brought them closer.

Now if I suggest keeping him at arms length I'm apparently "sour"

I was 9/10? Complicit, too, I adored my older brother and would have done anything to be close to him. I’m very glad I don’t ever see him (different countries). He regrets it, he once told me. He should have fucking known better.