Giving up on my Brother

[BuzzyBee]

I have pretty much given up on my brother a while ago, the last two times I visited him and my dad. I drove across 3 states and wasted my vacation 2 years in a row only for them to practically ignore me the whole time I was there... they were too absorbed into themselves. It felt terrible.

So I kind of just gave up and said I'll never visit that awful place again. Whenever I'd call them it was rarely a productive or engaging conversation.  They never called me at all really. Just a 1 way street.

Until my brother lost his job..... He got fired. Of course he blames the woman boss he has, because he inherited a disdain for women from my father... Takes no responsibility. Then he decides he wants to talk everyday now that he's unemployed. At first I was glad, thinking we may get closer. Nope.. all he wanted to do was talk about conspiracy theories, his religious views (and brow beat me with them when I didn't agree), even though he knows I believe in the same religion... He'd tell me things I already know, but talking down to me like I had no idea... Basically controlling and insulting.  It was 100% his way or the highway. 

Oh and then he'd bring up our horrible childhood, and in his recollection, I was a terrible kid......

I decided these phone calls weren't productive at all. All our convos made me leave feeling awful. For my sanity, I stopped answering them.

Then he kept texting his conspiracy theory videos. I never responded.  He'd put me on a group text with our whole family and a few other numbers I had no idea who they were.

I'd just ignore it...

Then it was my fault.  I texted him today.
He started texting me about a bunch of his theories... I objectively said I didn't agree but he's entitled to his opinion. He tried to call me. I red buttoned him.  I said i don't want to argue and I love him.  Then he basically told me off, quoted a scripture (twisting it), saying I was never a good sister, he was trying to get close to me, I dont have to worry about him talking to me ever again.

Of course.....
I just blocked him.  I feel guilty but he is not the person I used to know anymore (not that he was ever great but he wasn't this crazy).

The way my family has this conditional love is so messed up. And the more I try to protect myself they despise it and twist it...

I have luckily been working on my self esteem. I've been working on validating myself. I understand now that it's not me, its them. I shouldnt have texted him.  Now I know he's just not a safe person. I think i knew it deep down before, but its just hard to accept.

[Thru the Rain]

I'm sorry that your relationship with your brother has come to this.

I too am low contact with two of my siblings for similar reasons. Sometimes they can appear like they want to have a normal, adult sibling relationship, but it never lasts long until some of the conspiracy theories kick in.

With my brother, he goes on and on about how he's held back in his career because he's not part of the dominant religion in the state he chose to live in. And with my sister, the entire world is out to get her - and the villain shifts over time. The common thread seems to be some one else is always responsible for their disappointments in life. Some "They" who can never be confronted or changed directly.

And I've also completely stopped giving up my vacation days for family. I used to go visit my FOO - I live about 1500 miles away from where I grew up. But I would get the same treatment you described. The last time I visited my parents, my uPDM spent the whole time alone either reading a book or sleeping all day. After a long weekend, she was really upset that I was heading home - lots of tears and self-pity. But she hadn't spend more than a minute or two with me the whole time I was there.

[wilderness256]

I am with you and sending hugs. This is all so familiar to me. For the longest time I didn't want to let go of the ideal of having a sibling that could be my friend. I have spent much of my adult life wishing for my family members to be something they are not, and then getting angry at them for not being different people. I have wasted so much time and energy walking on eggshells around them, wondering what I can do to make things right, or beating myself up and asking myself what I did to make things so wrong. It is all so exhausting - blaming myself, trying to fix myself, wondering what's wrong with me, because my family told me that I was the problem, that I didn't deserve any happiness or success. They would be rude or disrespectful to me and the first place my mind would go was "this must be my fault, what did I do wrong, if only I was a better person, I just have to try harder to be better!" 

My therapist helped me let go, and at first it felt very lonely to have zero family members that I can rely on or have a relationship with.  But then I realized, there are healthy people in my life, I had let my grief and anger towards my brother and parents cloud my vision and I wasn't able to see those healthy people.  I still have work to do but I focus on the healthy people.  The people who understand and respect healthy boundaries - the kind of people you don't have to explain the healthy boundaries to.

Here is a quote that I have to remind myself of all the time.  I have it written down in several places to keep reminding myself not to get sucked back into the drama or the delusional ideal of the healthy, loving family:

"The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best." - Epictetus

[ScarlettOHara]

I know how you feel and it's sad and disappointing.  I recently spent some time with my sister (uBPD) and for some reason I thought she had grown or changed a little.  She has not.  I keep wishing my family cared enough about themselves to try and change, but none of them do.  They are exhausting to be around.  They want to use my daughter as their personal prozac.  It is to the point where I almost wish they actually meant it when they told me they wanted nothing to do with me.  My other sister said that to me a year ago and has not been able to go more than a few weeks without contacting me since then.  It's very difficult to find peace when they contact me so frequently. 

[bloomie]

Buzzy Bee - I am so sorry. There does come a time when we have reached our saturation point with toxic behaviors and world views from family members who are draining us dry - we have to move on to higher healthy ground and hope that someday they will get it together and join us there.

I am 9 years NC with a brother who sounds very similar to yours with the addition of a long history of drug addiction and physically violent behaviors. He had a great life - good job, beautiful family, a supportive community around him and he flushed it all and blamed the implosion of his life on everyone and everything but his own choices.

I had to grieve the loss of the potential of his life, the damage he has done to his children and exwife, and the lost relationships that resulted from me setting healthy boundaries with consequences on my side of the street.

I was very sad for awhile, and then I began to realize how much work he was and how I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop and him to be mired in trouble of his own making he needed rescuing from. The specter of his poor choices hung over our relationship, and looking back I realize now, it was never going to end well between us because I was not going to go along and coddle him and clean up his messes forever - and the relationship was completely based on me doing so. I just couldn't see it until I had some distance. And I needed to see it.

I too, am now a terrible, selfish uppity sister who he never cared if he had a relationship with anyway. I can live with that if it means he keeps his nonsense out of my happy and peaceful life.

I hope the guilt (false guilt based on expectations of yourself that are not fair possibly?) fades quickly and you begin to enjoy the silence and peace!

[Meesh]

I feel for you.  We are currently dealing with my brother who has a lot of financial trouble and is currently living with me 77 year old mother because she is his surety for his house arrest.  He has been harassing his ex wife and she finally had enough and called the cops on him.  Now he is facing jail time and it is all our fault especially my mothers that he is in this situation.  We thought he might show some remorse or that he would finally see that his life needs to change but he never sees it.  I feel hopeless and can't seem to let my anger towards him go.  Even though I still feel the need to get him help.

[theonetoblame]

I get the phrase 'giving up on', but for me a more productive approach as been 'letting go of'.

I have a sibling who is very toxic... I won't get into too many details but he's been arrested several times in the last year. He has gotten worse as he aged, contrary to my 'hope' that he would burn out and settle down a bit. Hope is where I started my process of letting go.
Letting go of the hope that he could be a safe relationship. Letting go of the hope that I even have a brother. Letting go of the hope that he will eventually mature and stop doing the cyclical and dysfunctional things that destroy every relationship around him, lead him to binge drink to manage his emotional lability, that phones calls would feel genuine and not like he's just calling to get propped up, to borrow money, to show others that he had a healthy person in his life etc etc etc... on and on it goes.

By focusing on letting go I can take responsibility for the process and move on. When I was in a place of 'giving up on' I was still angry and blaming, thinking he needed to be someone he is not -- this was largely a result of my own needs for a brother and him not fulfilling them. He just isn't that person, I see him for who he is now, that we can't have a healthy relationship, and have released him and the hope and subsequent disappointment that characterized too many of our interactions.