My partner (M/22) has a brother (M/24) whom I suspect has feelings for me. Family gatherings are getting a bit difficult for me to deal with the tension I feel from the brother. Partner is completely aware of everything going on. How should I try to confront the situation?

My partner (will be referred to as "L") and I have been together (on and off a little, but that's another story) for about 2 1/2 years and we had a child together decently early on in the relationship.

From the start, I suspected his brother (will be referred to as "J") had a crush on me with how he acted. From what I was told by L and other family, J typically would not open up easily to people. Within a week, J was comfortable with me and would allow me to do things such as enter his room whenever, which he did not allow for anyone else. That could have been just him comfortable with me as a friend, but things started to progress a little more. Whenever L and I would be out in the living room and being affectionate, J would get quiet and act jealous. We tried not to completely rub it into his face all the time once that was noticed and kept affection between ourselves down a bit when around him. After a couple of months, L and I were extremely curious on if J had feelings for me since there was more hints, such as J would have me play video games with him but only if L wasn't in the room or I was awake before L and had nothing better to do.

Over time, J would get more snippy towards me without any good reason, mainly if L was around with me. I tried at one point to talk to J privately, but he went and told his family I was trying to seduce him to make it look like I was the bad guy in the situation and to hurt my relationship with the rest of the family, which he was successful at for a while. I didn't want much to do with him for a while after that understandably, but it still caused tension and a strain on L and I's relationship with the drama.

Things cooled off for a while, and J did stop. We had hardly any contact for a while, with the exception of family events. From what I gathered, he was claiming he hates me and refuses to acknowledge I exist.

Anyway, at a recent family event, we were playing a board game at the table. There was J, L, myself, and a 3 other family members. I was sitting across from J and stretched my legs, accidentally bumping him. I pulled my feet back, but maybe 5 minutes later, I feel his feet on mine. It wasn't like a quick thing either; he was rubbing my foot with his and did so for quite some time. I did not say anything at that time because I did not want to cause a huge issue at a family function. I told L later and he was surprised that he didn't notice. We just had another family event in which I completely received the cold should from J, even worse than before. He's starting to make it more obvious that he supposedly doesn't like me, but him playing footsie with me honestly threw me for a loop.

I am not sure how to address this situation. I am very afraid to confront him again because I am on really good terms with the family and I do not want to ruin that relationship again over stupid drama. I know something needs to be said, because I'm not sure how many times I can handle him playing footsie or doing something else before I can't bite my tongue. I feel like he may know he has me backed into a bit of a corner here. I also do not want to be rude towards him despite everything because I'd like to keep my interactions with him civil and not make it worse than it already is. Any suggestions?

TL;DR Partner's brother was overly friendly towards me in the beginning; friendship went downhill and he tried ruining my relationship with the family. Brother claims to hate me and suddenly flirted, but now is back to the same old. Not sure how to approach to discourage future encounters without being blamed by his family again or making him lash out worse. Need advice.

Submitted April 05, 2021 at 08:27PM by PleasantPanic6318 https://ift.tt/39Jj2p0