I live with my mom now, but I'm leaving in ~2 months for work. I was supposed to leave a long time ago, but covid got in the way. On the other hand, my brother has lived abroad since he graduated college, but still visits twice a year. He is very controlling, angry and often physically imposing, so I try to avoid him when he visits -- when he was here in June, he got frustrated with me not giving him as much time as he wanted so he demanded that I make a final decision on if I wanted to have a relationship with him at all. One week later, I said no. For the rest of his stay, he would go ballistic, having screaming arguments with our mom about how she needed to make me apologize, going into my room and breaking my stuff while I was away, and trying to get our mom to not let me into the house to prevent further conflict. The conflict culminated when he physically threatened me -- I had to leave the house in a hurry, without my phone or wallet, and did not return for 16 hours until I was assured of my safety.
After he left, I told my mom that if he ever walked back into our house again, I would immediately stop paying my share of the rent, and that I would no longer attempt to peaceably disengage when he threatened me (he's 100 pounds heavier, but I've been boxing and wrestling for years). She accepted my ultimatum, and told me that she informed him that he would not be allowed back in while I still lived here. My brother, once again, returned here in December after our grandmother died. Both of them insisted that I needed to make a special exception and let him in in this circumstance -- but I said that it was already clear that grandma was dying when the deal was originally made, and boundaries were irrelevant if they could be crossed whenever they became inconvenient. He was so wounded by this that after he left, he told our mom that she should have disregarded me and let him in anyway, and that he would never speak to her again because of it. Nb: I did allow him to enter the house a few days later, when I knew I would be gone until late at night, which he accepted.
For two months after the funeral, my mom would cry to me about how much she missed him, how she should have just let him in, and how I just needed to deal with him and his aggressive behavior because he passionately loved me no matter what. I argued and argued, but in the end I just accepted that this is how they were and I was going to skip town soon enough anyway.
On what would have been our grandmother's 91st birthday a few days ago, my brother called and they spoke for the first time in 2 months. At some point, the conversation got heated, with my mom yelling at him and saying "You know I love you. You are my first and favorite son." (The conversation was in Russian, but I'm pretty sure "ti moi pervi y lyubimi syn" can't be understood any other way. Russophiles correct me if I'm wrong). I had suspected as much, but I was still pretty surprised at how blatant it was. I haven't brought it up, and neither have I brought up the fact that I, too, am going to take some time away from her after I move.
tldr: Brother and I haven't spoken in almost a year. Brother hadn't spoken to mom in 2 months. In their first conversation since, she told him she loved him the most, and now I might break her heart by not talking to her too. Or maybe I'll tell her I'm gay so that I can just get disowned.
Submitted February 22, 2021 at 10:18PM by dan_quadratus https://ift.tt/3bvOvv8
No comments:
Post a Comment