I (33F) feel like my younger brother (24M) verbally abused me, but my family is pushing back on that narrative and I don't know how to move forward.

Throwaway account, for obvious reasons. Some details have been altered for the sake of anonymity. Apologies in advance for the length.

I (33F) have a close relationship with my mom (65F) and a not as close, but still decent relationship with my younger brother (24M). My brother has a full time job and lives at home with my mom, while I live with my husband (40M) in a large city about 1,000 miles away from where they live. Our communication styles are very different (I am on the quiet side, dislike unnecessary conflict, and spend a lot of time considering my words and actions; they tend to be louder, quicker to act on their immediate feelings, and refuse to shy away from conflict), which has led to periods of tension over the years. I started seeing a therapist last year for a number of issues as well, a change that neither of them have been particularly supportive of my making.

Last week, as Hurricane Dorian was set to make landfall near where my mom and brother live, my mom asked for help in booking airline tickets to any city where the two of them could wait out the storm. I booked flights for them to somewhere lovely and far away from the hurricane's path, and despite some snafus along the way, they found a decent hotel and settled in as best they could.

A few days ago, as it became clear that the hurricane’s impact on my family’s home would be negligible, my mom asked me (while on speakerphone, together with my brother) to help them find flights home, leaving as soon as possible. My brother recently started his job and was worried about being punished for missing work while the office was open for business; Mom was antsy to get home. I wasn’t successful in finding them a decent flight out at that time and worried out loud that my brother would be angry that I couldn’t deliver, but I stayed on the phone to talk to them.

During the conversation, my brother brought the topic over to the upcoming Democratic debate and expressed how much he likes a particular candidate that I am not a fan of, with my mother concurring that she likes said candidate as well. We have political discussions all the time, with varying degrees of passion, but everyone was pretty calm. I began to draw a parallel between the candidate in question to the person currently occupying the White House — one that had nothing to do with policy — when my brother interrupted me. I asked him to let me finish what I was saying, but he continued to talk over me. The second time around, I told him, firmly, to please let me finish and that he can say whatever he wants to say afterward. He spoke over me again, raising his voice even more. Finally, I became frustrated and said, in a voice louder than it maybe ought to have been, “Let me finish. Do you do this to everyone or just me and Mom?”

All hell broke loose.

(As an aside, my brother is not good at regulating his anger and frustration; when he gets angry, he will often fly into a red-faced, spittle-flecked, foaming-at-the-mouth rage. Honestly, he scares the shit out of me. Once, during an argument when he was in this state a few years ago, I stood up from the couch and he shoved me in front of my mom. Mom yelled at him to stop, but did not otherwise act, and my brother never apologized for his behavior or took any measures to change it. She has often been the object of his rages, but because they lead her to feel ashamed and guilty, she never enforces consequences and effectively enables him to act this way without repercussions.)

My brother began screaming at me at the top of his lungs, in a rage that sounded like the rages I already knew well. He yelled about how I was, in fact, finished; that I was ranting; that I needed to “shut the fuck up.” He called me a “fucking idiot” over and over again. I have experienced verbal and emotional abuse in the past and have a physical, fight/flight response kick in when I am screamed at, especially by men; I was shaking and clenching as I yelled back that all I wanted was to finish my thought. Finally, I took a breath and said, more calmly, “I just wanted to finish what I was saying.” My mom replied, “You had already finished your thought. You should have let him talk.” At this point, I say that I am going to hang up to calm down and collect my thoughts and will call them back, but they hung up on me before I could get all of the words out.

I didn’t call them back, but my mom called me as I was going into my therapy session that day and asked me to return her call when I got out. It was a difficult session, and I texted her to tell her that I needed time to process what had happened and that we would talk on the phone the next day, but that she could text me instead. She asked me why I was mad at her since she did nothing wrong; I didn’t answer. She later texted me the flight details for their trip home on Wednesday and I acknowledged receipt. We didn’t speak for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, a few hours before their return home, my brother sent me a text, admonishing me for “running away from everything,” telling me that “people aren’t going to be there to protect you for every little thing” and that I need to “man up and understand people” and, essentially, let this incident go as a “sibling spat.” Feeling angry and dismissed, I took my time and eventually sent him a text telling him that his behavior was emotionally and verbally abusive, that self-preservation and setting boundaries is not weak, and that while I apologized that he hadn’t felt like he was being heard and that there were probably other feelings going on about things outside our control, I won’t tolerate or excuse him for what he did. He didn’t see the text until their plane landed, but once he had a chance to respond he mocked me for calling his behavior “emotional abuse,” argued that he screamed at me because I was "mindlessly ranting," belittled me for wanting a “safe space,” taunted me about how if I cut him off I’m the common denominator (I don’t have contact with our dad for a multitude of reasons, including his inability to meet me halfway in repairing what has been broken), and told me to “consult with your gatekeeper, I’ll be waiting.” (My family — wrongly — thinks that I am subservient to my husband because I discuss important issues with him and we come to major life decisions together, not unilaterally. Also, they’re suspicious of how quiet he tends to be because of their major extroversion.)

My mother sent a text a few hours after my brother’s barrage, telling me that I had to let what happened go and I couldn’t “make an issue over everything that doesn’t sit right.” I hid alerts on my phone for my brother’s messages and told my mother that I will not tolerate abuse, but that I’d leave it at that and we’d talk the next day (i.e., today). She did not respond.

I haven’t heard from my mom yet this morning, but I did receive an apology text from my brother. In it, he said he was out of line, but that he was so derisive toward me because he wants me to “be better” and that, “in order for [me] to be great, [I] have to accept [his] constructive criticism and various critiques.” He asserted that everyone tiptoes around my feelings but that he won’t anymore, and finished with writing, “when you build too many barriers and boundaries, you hinder a path forward.”

I’m at a loss for how to move forward here. I don’t accept my brother’s apology. This was not a one-off occurrence, and a lot of my time in therapy is being spent unlearning my tendencies toward people-pleasing and learning how to set boundaries and be explicit about my needs. However, I worry that if I tell him that, while I thank him for his apology, I did not ask for a condescending lecture on “being better” and that I will still not tolerate abusive behavior from him, it will make things worse. If I don’t respond, he will feel vindicated. I also don’t know what to say to my mother when we talk on the phone today, because history bears out that she will likely try to persuade me to not hold grudges because “that’s who he is,” despite the fact that the next time he berates her she will call me in tears to complain. Yelling and name-calling has a long, traumatic history in our family, and I hate it, and I want things to be better, but I worry that I’m overblowing the situation by calling it verbal abuse and that change is futile.

How do I proceed? Please help, Reddit.

TL;DR: My brother screamed and cursed at me on the phone. He has unchecked anger issues and my mom enables him. After taking time for myself, my brother belittled me and my mother tried to gloss things over. I received an apology from my brother that I don’t want to accept but am already viewed as being the problem by reason of my perceived oversensitivity and don’t want to make matters worse. I don’t know where to go from here.

Submitted September 05, 2019 at 09:47AM by broconflictthrowaway https://ift.tt/2HPFvCX