To provide context, my brother (28M) is 16 months older than me (26F). Despite being older than me by 16 months, we are basically twins: we hang out together, we chat almost every day, we game and watch shows together, etc. He is one of my best friends and vice versa. I care very deeply for him, is my point.
He has been dating his current girlfriend (26? F) for the past 4 years. They started off rocky, and 4 years later, they're STILL rocky. I learned to like her because obviously I just want what's best for him, but lately she has just been blatantly awful. Because I like lists, I will explain in list format:
Things she has made him do for her:
- When he lived with our parents, he would drive 4 hours to her place to pick her up and then drive her back to his parents to spend a week and then he would drive her back. She would not pay for gas and she never learned how to drive, so it was all him, all of the time. She didn't want to take the train or bus or flight.
- Because she does not cook or clean or offer any basic life skills essentially, she relies on him for rides everywhere, he makes and pays for her meals when they eat in/out. She is a student, so she does not have an income, so she either has her parents or her bf pay for everything.
- She is an incredibly jealous and shy person, which makes it hard for her to socialize with his friends. As a result, he has had to choose between spending time with her and her friends versus spending time with his friends, who he has been friends with since grade school. She has also asked him to speak to me and our cousin (we are a trio) less because she is jealous of how often he talks to us. He said no obviously, but the AUDACITY. She told him he can't be best friends with a girl, and when he said he would not drop her as a friend, they came up with a "compromise" which, in the words of the best friend, mean they cannot effectively be friends anymore. This includes no one on one hang outs, can't talk everyday, etc. He has become more and more isolated from his plethora of friends that he once had.
- When she does make him play with her, they play games he doesn't even like. He just plays it for her. When he could be playing games that he likes with his friends.
- Despite isolating him from his friends, she claims that he does have friends: her friends. He cannot talk to anyone unless approved by her, and even then, he can't get too close or she gets jealous. Exampled by a comment made by my brother in their group chat and his gf said either delete that girl from the group chat or they're breaking up. So he deleted her from the group chat.
- My brother moved to the same city as her because he didn't want to do the aforementioned commute to see her, under the impression she would move in with him. Upon moving there, she suddenly says her father is not okay with them living together. This is, of course, after the lease was signed and also after the 2+ years they spent together in university when they basically lived together. And she doesn't even sleep over often (once every 3 weeks?), which, he chose that apartment because it would halve her commute to school by more than half. But apparently her father doesn't want her to sleep over. Even though her parents love him. But she doesn't want to go against him because "she doesn't want to cause problems with him". His apartment is otherwise in a food desert and is far away from everything and despite moving closer to her, he still feels incredibly lonely. Oh and then she moved out with a roommate like 5 minutes from him, whereby the rent is 500 dollars more a month than my brother's.
- When they both came to visit me since I just recently moved, it was their first time seeing my place and the city. But instead, we drove an hour out to the big metropolis city to go sightseeing and do touristy stuff for her. She then had me drive her out 20 minutes to her dinner with her guy friends, which she only invited us to when she asked me to drive her over. This effectively ruined the dinner plans that my brother and I were going to have, which included going to a restaurant to eat his favourite dish. Oh, and she asked for extra cash from him.
- While hanging out with our cousins, which she was invited to but decided not to join in on, she messaged our cousin urgently for my brother to get in touch with her. She was hanging out with her friends and needed a ride home. Mind you, he was 30 mins out from her, and she was less than 10 minutes away from her place.
- Asked him not to make any more sex or dick jokes because "no one finds them funny." That is literally his entire personality. It has been his entire personality since forever. It's literally the first thing one thinks of when one thinks of my brother. After 4 years of dating, she asked him this.
I have confronted him several times about this in the past year in person (maybe 3 times). I even tell him that as long as she makes him happy, that's all I care about. But he can't even tell me he's happy with her. He recognizes how she is, but he still won't break up with her? I literally tell him I want to like her, I just need something to hold onto, some reason why he still holds onto her, and that's enough for me. But he can't even provide me with that. He doesn't say anything positive about her (he just doesn't mention her, he doesn't actively slander her). We hung out with his high school pals that he was close to before his current gf (and I'm close with because his friends are my friends, vice versa), They all noticed he was a lot quieter and more reserved and unlike himself. This could be because he feels alienated from them after not talking to them as much the past few years. Or it could be his girlfriend's effect. When she's around, he is quieter and more attentive to her instead of being in the moment with everybody else. He always has to tend to her needs, otherwise she gets upset.
I can clearly see she is draining him financially, emotionally, and mentally. She manipulates him so much and I don't know what to do about it. At what point does one go from supporting to saving? Should I continue to standby while my brother's life energy is being sapped away by this she-witch? Do I let him learn his lesson the hard way? I've justified my interventions thus far by reasoning that when I was in a toxic relationship, I wish I had people by my side voicing their concerns instead of just distancing themselves from me. I wish I had someone like me to intervene. But I also recognize that what I need versus what my brother needs is very different. I don't know. She hasn't physically abused him or cheated on him, but I feel like this kind of emotional manipulation is hard to be around. Our parents hate her, I hate her, our cousins hate her, his friends don't even know her enough to hate her (except for the ones I've confided to, who hate her). Outsiders can see how awful their relationship is. I asked him one time what made her irreplaceable and he said that he often feels like he doesn't exist to a lot of people but she makes him feel like he exists all of the time (with the exception of me and his ex-best friend, therefore nullifying the "irreplaceable" aspect of my entire question). And he had to think long and hard about it. So he doesn't even have a real reason for choosing her. Sunken cost fallacy? I don't get it.
I could literally go on for pages and pages about this, but I've already said so much. Please give me advice on what I should do, if I should do anything at all. I'm not very good at being a bystander, so if that's what I need to do, I need some reassurance, please!
TL;DR do i continue to support my brother's toxic relationship or intervene?
Submitted September 24, 2022 at 02:50PM by Huge_Staff6969 https://ift.tt/gzWN2YR
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