Hi
I'm desperately in need of advice over how to deal with this. There's a fair bit of background which I will try and give so as to not drip feed later.
DS's are 12 and 17(almost 18). Different dads, DH has been in DS1 and my life for 15 years. DS has contact with his Dad, but it isn't regular face to face contact (DS's choice). DS and DH get on well.
DS1 always struggled behaviourally as a young child - used to lash out a lot, very angry a lot of the time. He really struggled to talk about anything. He reached 12/13 and became a really lovely lad, which has continued. We seem to get on really well, he's still a "closed book" but that's ok and we respect that. He has a group of very close friends who I believe he confides in.
DS2 - went through a very traumatic medical situation as a young child , impacted us all, tried our hardest to ensure DS1 wasn't pushed out and offered as much support as possible.
DS2 as a result has been left with some relatively mild learning/behavioural issues. He's a very soft and gentle boy, but has a lot to deal with. He can be irritating - partially due to his needs and also being a pre teen. He's been handling premature puberty which has been difficult. His behavioural difficulties inc mimicking Autism traits, although he isn't Autistic.
Both DS's always seem to get on OK, different characters, but ok.
Roll on to now, DS1 just can't cope with DS2. I know he can be hard work, but DS1 seems to have forgotten how he behaved at the same age (TBH considerably worse that DS2). Refuses point blank to accept that DS2 has behaviour that he can't always control particularly well - although is always pulled up for it, just not to the level DS1 would like. DS1 feels swearing at his brother is acceptable, which obviously it isn't! We had a chat last night (away from DS2) and he said he didn't care about any of us, he didn't care what was going on with DS2 - not his problem, and DS2 needs to stay well away from him.
Now I'm angry, DS1 is almost an adult, DS2's behaviour is annoying at times but no more than you'd expect from a pre teen boy. I can't cope with the idea of the war in the house as DS2 goes through teenage years (and potentially gets worse!) and has an adult brother who thinks he should just always behave himself - esp when he's been very hard work himself in the past! DS1 doesn't hold back in thinking it's acceptable to "parent" DS2, which I've told him he's not to do - but in his opinion we don't tell DS2 off adequately, and actually he announced last night that we didn't tell him off at the same time adequately!!
What do we do? DS1 has been absolutely lovely over the last few years so I'm sad if we're about to watch that undo, but he's naturally quite a feisty character- always wants the last word, quite goady- so always been hard to handle when he's in that sort of mood.
Over the years I've thought to considered some form of counselling for DS (and all of us) as his behaviour as a young child came across very angry etc but wouldn't open up etc. DS refused this.
I now don't really know where to go with this. I understand DS1 finds his brother hard work, but it's unreasonable for him to expect DS2 to behave impeccably whilst going through his teens just because his older brother can't deal with it. As an example- last night DS came in from work (part time, he's at college), DS2 said Hello and DS1 told him to shut up. DS2 retaliated by kicking his brothers Xbox controller.
I pulled up DS2 for the kicking, which he apologised for, but DS1 won't accept that telling his brother to shut up wasn't acceptable. He deserved that, for being who he is.
I know all of this can be typical brother behaviour, but am I being unreasonable expecting DS1 to accept DS2 a bit more, esp as now an adult? We tried to talk about it last night but he still won't open up - simply said he isn't close to any of us, so why would he care if his brother can't always control himself.
To be open about DS2's behaviour - we're talking - talking in silly voices, jumping around, talking "obsessively" about subjects. Strangely DS2 is fairly introverted, he likes his own company so spends a lot of time in his room, so it's not as if he's in ours/DS1's faces all of the time. If I'm honest, I find DS2 a million times easier to parent than DS1 who at the same age used to throw things at us, be physically violent, verbally etc. I think DS1 knows that, it feels almost like he's jealous of that?
Any advice?