Dealing with a troubled brother (Warning: long post)

[Dibble]

I have a brother, my only sibling, who is 2 years older than me. He was born with slight learning disabilities or at least so I've been told. He tends to be very difficult to deal with. My question is how could I have a meaningful relationship with him? I don't have much of a connection with my extended family or my parents and as we grew up together I want to stay connected, sharing a background as we do. I just find it really hard not to just turn my back on him. What should I do?

The details of the query are as follows:

He can't have a serious conversation with me as he ridicules everything I say and do. He is violent, volatile, suppresses his emotions and has issues with his sexuality. He frequently disrespects me both verbally and physically, though he does use my presence as a support, wanting to hang out with me and take me places. I know he has issues because of our childhoods which I'll try to sum up below.

 

I don't remember anything from before age 7 or so but what I do remember is an uneasy feeling that always hung around our family. My parents didn't marry out of love; my dad was living in his mother's house even though his mother had moved to a different town. In order not to be kicked out of the house by the bank due to the mortgage being in the name of Mrs. Jones (not my real name, btw) he needed to guarantee that there would be a Mrs. Jones living at the house so he married his girlfriend at the time; my mother.

My mother comes from a strict Catholic family. I don't know why she said yes to marrying an atheist (my father) but I suspect it was her way of rebelling against her parents. I never asked her, though, as we don't really tend to have actual conversations. My parents never showed signs of affection toward each other so my brother and I didn't have very good role models when it comes to healthy relationships. They pretty much ignored each other. My mom did the housework and did most of the interacting with my brother and I while my dad would either be at work, out with his friends or sitting on the couch reading the newspaper. My brother was very violent while growing up and specifically toward me. Though he would also do harmful things to himself like slamming his head in to the wall while claiming it didn't hurt. I suspect that was mostly to get my mother's attention as she would react strongly in such situations which he seemed to enjoy. My brother would hit me hard and often and has tried on at least one occasion to drown me in a public swimming pool and several times to smother me with a pillow. If either of my parents were near by they never seemed to notice what was happening until I managed to break free and would start screaming at him and then they'd be mad at me for being so loud.

My mother treated us both as though we weren't capable of making our own decisions. She would arrange things for us, making us dependent on her actions. She never approved of anything we did, our friends, our interests, our choices, etc. She seemed to think that I was especially clueless as often, when she needed to go to the store, she would take my brother with her but lock me in my brother's bedroom with a bedpan. This did nothing to increase my self esteem as you could imagine.

She has always had a preference for my brother as he could (and still can't) do no wrong, probably because of his learning disability. I specifically recall a time where she was sitting on her bed with my brother beside her and they were reading a book. My brother was supposed to read out each line but I got impatient after a while and read some lines out for him as I had learned to read much quicker than him. My mother got so upset with me that she grabbed my hair with both hands and shook my head violently, yelling at me to let him read the lines. I ran in to my room afterward and put a note on the door which read 'Off limits to bad mothers', which I meant wholeheartedly. Once she noticed the sign she was amused and started telling me that I couldn't possibly mean it, being all apologetic all of a sudden.

A year or so later my brother started trying to abuse me sexually. He didn't quite know how it was done but he knew where all the parts where so would frequently want to play this 'game' with me. One day my mother walked in on one such occasions and got mad, of course. But what shocked me the most is that she was mostly mad at me, stating that 'I should have known better'.

Then came the evening of January the 1st of 1991. My parents had decided that this was a good evening to tell us that they were getting a divorce. Why they figured this, I still don't know. We were never really involved in any of the family's decisions. My brother got to choose which parent he wanted to live with as he was 13 and I was to leave the house with my mother. He chose to live with my father, not because he liked him so much but because he didn't want to leave the neighborhood where all his friends lived. On the evening it self I was very upset, naturally, and I turned to hug my dad. My dad didn't respond at all, just sat there staring blankly ahead. It felt really awkward and I moved away after a while and just sat quietly in my corner of the sofa.

My brother hadn't been much of a talker before the divorce but he got really quiet and secretive after. He would talk to me about how it had all been his fault and say things like how it wouldn't have happened if he just hadn't been born. I knew him to be violent and unpredictable so I didn't question him as he was also very paranoid that I might tell either of my parents what he was telling me. At one point he started telling me how he was going to commit suicide. That in particular upset me because I couldn't break the vow of silence to tell my parents as if I told my mother about it she would really underestimate the severity of the situation and patronize him which would probably have made him angry enough to go through with it to 'prove' to her how serious he was. If I had told my father he would have tried to have my brother committed to a mental hospital which I feared wouldn't work; if they did commit him he would eventually get out again, having been deemed 'cured', and probably have come after me and my parents for having locked him in there as one of the things that made him the most violent was calling him crazy. If they didn't commit him because they saw nothing wrong with him than this retribution would only have come sooner.

I wasn't sure if he was really planning anything until I one day found an actual suicide note in his room, signed with a bloody finger print, laying next to a full bottle of whiskey. He never drank. I'm not sure what he thought the whiskey would do, maybe for courage, maybe he was hoping it would lead to alcohol poisoning, but I knew the note and the bottle were connected. So now I knew that not only could I not tell anyone, he had actually gone and prepared himself.

Luckily he never actually did try to commit suicide. He didn't try to make anything of himself either. He failed his schooling and got turned down by the military. He was resentful of everyone. He lived at my dad's house but the two never spoke to each other. My dad would occasionally try to 'motivate' my brother in to doing something with his life by reminding him what a failure he was. When he was at my mother's house she would just do more of the same; patronize him some more and keep him dependent. Meanwhile he and I were at war; he was convinced that I had been talking about him behind his back so he refused to talk to me and would refuse to go places with my mother if I was coming as well. This only got me in to trouble with my mother more as it was obviously my fault that he was being so stubborn.

 

Both of us are living on our own now and we usually meet once a week. He tries to push my buttons constantly to get a rise out of me and seems to be struggling with his sexuality. By that I mean that he makes an awful lot of unnecessary gay-jokes and keeps trying to pass me off as a lesbian, and points out women on the street trying to get me to notice them. When I tell him he should be chasing after the women himself he'll give any kind of evasive answer but never a straight one (pun not intended).

Meanwhile I've failed consistently in landing an actual relationship. Having had no solid foundation while growing up I got bullied constantly, grew very insecure and reclusive. Having had no real relationship with my dad (and still not having one today) I've only ever had negative experiences with men. I never dated while I was a teenager and my mother asked me twice if I was a lesbian which I could only deny. I just can't see myself getting intimate with someone as there's just too much old scar tissue there.

So I foresee a very lonely future for both my brother and myself and would like to keep the lines of communication open between the two of us, but it's very, very difficult...

[Livemike]

First thing, tell your brother that it's not his fault his mother got pregnant and had to marry his father.  Because that's what happened, not the bizarre mortgage situation they claimed.  Seriously what bank bothers to check if there is a Mr. or a Mrs. on the cheque as long as it clears?   I'm sure if someone else had told you this story as an adult you would have spotted the obvious flaws.  I'm pretty sure he knows it too.  

Another thing you might not have caught on to was that her keeping you locked in a room wasn't because she thought you might get in trouble.  It's because you might have got her in trouble, specifically with child services.  If they had gotten involved it would have been obvious how badly she was allowing your brother to behave.  

As for communicating with your brother, tell him he has to take responsibility for the physical abuse, the sexual abuse, the manipulative fake suicide threats (really, bloody thumb prints? what a drama queen) which were obviously designed to get sympathy from you so you wouldn't inform the authorities. Oh and tell him "talking behind his back" is another way of saying "warning everyone how bad he is" and that's a good thing.  Mif he doesn't want you saying bad things about him, he as to stop being evil.  It's that simple.  If he doesn't want to acknowledge his fault then fine, you lose nothing if you lose this relationship.  Ask yourself "if this wasn't my brother and he had treated someone else like he treated me, would I want to associate with him?".  Next time you meet you might want to say something about how child sex abuse doesn't have a statute of limitations (not sure if that's true).  I bet he starts treating you real nice then.  That's. the real reason he keeps putting you down of course, so you don't have the courage to tell people how vicious and abusive he is.  Look up the concept of de-FOOing on these boards.  It's your best option IMHO.

[TheRobin]

First, let me tell you how sorry I am about what happened to you and your brother. That's a really awful and horrible childhood you had. I'm a bit lost for words on how to express my sympathy here, but I'm really really sorry to hear what you've been through and I can't even truly imagine how bad that must've been.In regards to the relationship between you and your borther: It seems you never had a relationship with him, that was based on mutual respect and empathy for each other. No doubt thanks to your parents, who, it seems, also weren't that capable of treating you two with respect or empathy and furthermore enabled your brother to be abusive towards you, which was just as damaging to his deveolpment of empathy as it was towards yours. I don't want to say he isn't responsible for anything he did, but I personally have a hard time assinging full responsibility for one's actions to a kid before somewhere in his/her teen-years, as just so much of the behaviour is dependant (or a reaction) of the environment and the people a kid grows up with and how he/she is being treated by them.That being said, it still needs to be talked about an acknowledged if you want to have a meaningful relationship with your brother. Else it's just that big elephant in the room that both just try to avoid looking at all the time. (I mean, him almost drowning you and abusing you emotionally and physically and almost sexually is really not something that can (or should) just be brushed away that easily, regardless of whether or not one wants to hold him fully responsible or not).Whether or not you can even have a relationship with him depends a lot on him wanting that too though and is not something that can be willed or done solely from your end. You can state what you want/need out of the relationship with him and ask him whether or not he wants that too (things like maybe honesty, more openness, respect, him not being abusive towards you or ridiculing you etc.), if he doesn't or can't accept those terms then there's nothing you can do, I think, as you can't make another person want to behave a certain way (or want to want certain things). My opinion would be to try as hard as you can to establish an actual relationship with him and tell him honestly how you feel when he treats you disrespectfully and see how he reacts to that, but if you find you really can't have any meaningful connection with him then I'd advice to not torturing yourself by continuing to try, as that would seem to me to be just a continuation of the theme in your relationship that he has power over you and you being powerless and begging for him to change his behaviour.On a side note: I wouldn't be too quick to jump to the conclusion that he might be homosexual just because he makes gay jokes and doesn't date women. From what you tell here he seems extremely unable to form any meaningful or intimate relationships from a lack of empathy towards other people, so that alone can make him feel anxious or frightened to try to date (regardless of orientation). Also, I think, in some cases the anger towards homosexuals can also be the result of experienced sexual abuse that was never acknowledged (and considering he also tried to sexually abuse you, that might really be worth asking him, although of course it's an extremly volatile topic).I hope some of that can help you somewhat or give you at least some ideas. I personally don't have any older siblings with whom I grew up with nor am I in any way an expert (or even amateur really) on relationships or psychology, so this is really just an opinion of some guy on an internet board and nothing more.

[Dibble]

@Livemike

Thank you for your response. I'm not sure if the mortgage story really is false. Here in the Netherlands they do tend to be more wary of who lives in a house and who's name it's in. Plus, my dad worked for the bank as a mail courier so it doesn't seem unlikely to me that someone he worked with turned him on to this rule that there should be a Mrs there if the mortgage is in the Mrs' name. But let's say that it wasn't the case. Why would they then have a second child if they couldn't stand to be around each other?

I have to say that neither parent really talks about the past and questions are met with curt answers after which the topic is changed. I could try finding out what day they were married and then compare that to my brother's birthday. That might clear something up.

I'm not entirely sure if it was child services she was afraid of. To the outside world we always appeared perfectly normal. I know that I often appeared odd to people because I didn't reason like most other kids did. I was very much stuck in my own imaginary world (compensating for a lack of attention, perhaps) and would sometimes react based on that. She seemed to take this as me not being capable of much and felt it to be less of a bother if she only had to take one child to the store. I don't recall anyone ever asking me or my parents questions about the situation at home.

One time, when I was 17, I went to an assertiveness training because the people at the school I was attending thought I need to become more assertive. During those meetings I did mention my mother's influence a few times and so one of the therapists asked to meet with my mother and me on a separate occasion. My mother was very surprised and slightly disgruntled having been asked to show up and when the therapist asked her questions about how things were at home and between us she denied there being any trouble. And I, stupidly (though keeping in mind that I was the one going home with my mother later and not the therapist) agreed with her. Still, a therapist I would think would know that a child wouldn't openly criticize his or her parent especially when the parent is sitting right next to the child. But nope, the therapist concluded that she must have been mistaken and never mentioned it again. I highly doubt that child protection services would have bothered. My mother's very good at seeming friendly and heartwarming and I was ever the obedient little girl.

 

I think you're right; if I wasn't related to him I wouldn't bother with him. I guess in a sense it's my internal conflict that tells me on one hand to let him go and on the other still longs to have any kind of relationship. There is definitely a co-dependance factor as he's quite torn up mentally and emotionally and has great difficulty trusting people so when he needs someone around him it'll be me. Not my mother, strangely, even though she'd like that. He's very wary of the way she snoops around his house and keeps asking questions about his private life. Neither of us can stand that, by the way.

I couldn't ask him to own up because he's too volatile. He can have fits of rage just seeing children carelessly crossing the street as though they're tormenting him rather than just being kids. If I were to confront him with something serious I probably won't like the outcome. Guess I'll just stick to only seeing him when I absolutely have to and just leaving him be otherwise. I have recently stopped letting him just annoy and abuse me and just taking it for the sake of keeping the peace. I've just gotten up and left a few times because he needs to learn I'm not accepting that anymore.

 

@TheRobin

Thanks. This may just be an internet forum and we may just be exchanging typed words but it's still quite helpful.

After reading your post I've figured out that I can want a whole lot of things but I can't force him to want those same things. Honestly, he is very easily upset and violent. I don't think it's worth it to me anymore to try and hit that hornet's nest. I had sort of forgiven him along the way for the things he did but I hadn't really thought about what caused the behavior. You're right that for a child to start abusing another child it must have had previous experiences first, else it wouldn't occur to them. I'm not sure I'll ever know. Sometimes he does seem to want to talk but it'll be tricky because anything that disagrees with him fills him with rage. He's got a lot of anger and frustration within him. I'm glad he has no interest in alcohol.

I think the best thing for me to do right now is set and keep my boundaries and wait and see what he'll do further down the line. Perhaps seeing that I'm not accepting his nonsense anymore might make him face some of his issues. Perhaps not. Time will tell.

[Livemike]

There's no way the bank would care, but it's possible your grandmother not living there would mean the interest wouldn't be tax deductible.  Even then what's the chance they would check the last name but not the first?

Of course your mother was trying to hide the facts from child services.  Of course they would care.  You were being repeatedly assaulted.  That one therapist didn't get the hint doesn't mean that they would all have been clueless.  A users and the people who cover up for them know to minimise the contact the victim has with outsiders, which is exactly what your mother did.

Regarding confronting your brother to get him to admit fault, I was remiss not to tell you to do it in a very public place.  Preferably where there are a lot of men around, ideally string ones.  A cafe near a gym or something.  I'm betting he isn't violent when people of equal strength are around.

He clearly wants something from you.  Make it clear, he doesn't get it until he admits what he did.  Otherwise any relationship will be essentially parasitic and disingenuous.

I hope this helps.