Christmas Obligations

[grits]

My dad and sister both hated their lives, and were determined to make everybody miserable. They'd rather be lazy about their own lives, and expend energy trying to destroy somebody else.. Bunch of sickos.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Swamp, I agree, but I see the problem being the parents not defending their other children. 

Granted my kids are still minors, but if one crosses the line with teasing/hatefulness, I say right to them "I do not allow anyone to treat my child that way including you." If the sister or Shelia demonstrate how hurt they are, it would be more difficult for the parents to keep pretending the annoying son's behavior is acceptable. 

[swamp]

Dec 28, 2013 22:48:50 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

Swamp, I agree, but I see the problem being the parents not defending their other children. 

Granted my kids are still minors, but if one crosses the line with teasing/hatefulness, I say right to them "I do not allow anyone to treat my child that way including you." If the sister or Shelia demonstrate how hurt they are, it would be more difficult for the parents to keep pretending the annoying son's behavior is acceptable. 

I agree,  mom is a problem.  However, it seems like mom and bro get off on the emotional clusterfuck so they need to stop reacting emotionally. 

[sheilaincali]

People always think my sister and I are exaggerating when we tell them stories about our brother. We aren't. This is just the way it will always be.

At my niece's (his daughter's) 5th birthday party I scolded my niece for calling my mom a stupid bitch.  They had the candles on the cakes lit and my mom was all "hold on I have to find my camera" so everyone started teasing her (good natured) and saying "jeez Nana, find your camera".  My niece said "yeah you stupid Bitch get your camera!".  I just said "Alisha! we don't call Nana names like that". 

My brother freaked out and started screaming at me, my husband, my sister and my BIL.  We were standing off to the side because all the kids were standing around the table behind Alisha waiting to smile for the picture with her and her cake. 

When my dad told him to "calm down" he shoved my dad across the kitchen and slammed him into the cabinets.  My brother was swearing and screaming so much I thought for sure he'd have a heart attack.  My dad yells "that's it, parties over everyone go home"  So my sister and I and our families left.  Not 20 minutes later my dad calls to tell me that the entire thing was my fault and that my brother was just suffering from low blood sugar (10 minutes after dinner).  Spent the next several minutes listing off excuses for my brother's behavior.

After that day I told my dad he could have major holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, his and mom's bdays) and that was it.  I refuse to go to their house for any other meal or family get together that my brother is at.  I told them that we were raising our son in a non-violent home and that I didn't want him exposed to that shit.  DH was regularly beat and abused by one of his stepfathers so he is very sensitive to that.  He doesn't ask me for much but he has requested that we limit DS' exposure to my brother.  

[sheilaincali]

mom is the problem. She is my brother's number one champion. Everything that happens is someone else's fault and my brother is always the innocent victim.

My dad claims that it all stems from guilt because she admitted to dad when my brother was a teenager that she didn't like my brother at all. That he was exhausted and just unpleasant to be around.  He claims she is shocked that she ever voiced that opinion to my dad and has been trying to make up for it ever since.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Eee-gads!

I cannot fathom why anyone would pretend it was okay for your niece to say that!

DH and I are currently struggling with DD#1--who by all measures is a typical teenage girl. 
DH is not reacting well to her attitude. It's okay to not like someone's current attitude and still like and/or love them. 

So, this ridiculousness didn't start until your brother was a teenager? How old were you then? Did you immediately notice the change? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it; I'm just baffled by how your mom allows 3/4 of her children to be treated by 1/4 of them.

[grits]

Dec 28, 2013 23:54:37 GMT -5 sheilaincali said:

mom is the problem. She is my brother's number one champion. Everything that happens is someone else's fault and my brother is always the innocent victim.

My dad claims that it all stems from guilt because she admitted to dad when my brother was a teenager that she didn't like my brother at all. That he was exhausted and just unpleasant to be around.  He claims she is shocked that she ever voiced that opinion to my dad and has been trying to make up for it ever since.

Your parents are both enablers. Your dad enables your mom and brother. Your mom enables all the others. To be perfectly frank, I would not expose my family to that behavior. You can bet that you'll be trashed talked but who gives a rat's butt? By continuing in this insanity, you are participating in the pattern, and it is going to continue until the day your parents die. Who knows, they might leave him everything they have? Also, if brother has already shoved dad, his violent behavior could escalate.

We have chosen to remove ourselves from a lot of gatherings, and contact with relatives who act like your brother/parents. Life is too short to put up with that much crap, and drama.  

[Spellbound454]

Yep.......or  just do a short half hour visit to exchange niceties... then leave.

You bite your tongue a lot at these family gatherings...I remember a friends child (who was a spoilt little brat) and his wife constantly interrupting the kids games to say "Its Andrew's turn now, on that"
Whenever there were racing games outside...he, and his mother, were always arguing how the winner should be disqualified for such and such.... and actually Andrew was the real winner.
and if he got a speck of dirt on his designer shoes, she would have a nervous breakdown.

The other mums and me wouldn't say anything.... just look at each other and role our eyes in a sort of "Here we go again"

And when our kids were romping about outside and Andrew was on the side lines...Id ask them to include him, to a reply of "but we don't like him"
I guess his mum thought my kids were brats for not including her little Prince.

[sheilaincali]

Chloe- My brother has always been a difficult person. Even as a child he was a jerk and had this overwhelming need to belittle people and demand attention. His is extremely paranoid. He assumes if he isn't there than people are talking behind his back or that he will miss something.  My parents have paid for therapists before but unless you are honest with the therapist there isn't much they can do to help them. He plays himself off as the victim and will tell anyone who listens how mean and horrible we all are to him.

Rukh- My niece is now 6 and my nephew is 4.  My brother is divorced and has 50/50 custody of the kids. When they are with their mom they have rules, bedtimes, regular meal times, etc. When they are with my brother it's all chaos. The kids fall asleep watching late night tv on the couch and he just leaves them there.   One my brother's 50% of the time they spend the bulk of that time at my parents house.

grits- everything you said is spot on. I do try to limit my son's exposure to my brother. My brother is rather indifferent towards my son and refers to my DH as "that asshole you married". I don't think he has said more then 6 sentences to my son in the past 2 years.

spellbound- my sister and I were talking on the phone last night about all of this. I mentioned that I thought it was said that the kids don't participate in any activities and have never had kids over to play at their house. She told me that she was asking my niece about school and her friends on Friday. My niece told her that she didn't have any friends and that she just played by herself at recess.

She's not a bad kid right now and it breaks my heart that she says she doesn't have any friends.  But I think that my brother is raising her to be a bully and that as she gets older her behavior will get worse. 

My parents refuse to hear anything about my brother or his parenting.  My DS started speech therapy when he was 2 1/2 years old and continued in it until he was 12.  When I suggested that they look in to speech therapy for my nephew my mom started crying and my brother called me a bitch.  That was 18 months ago.  They finally have him in speech therapy because his preschool teacher reported his speech problems to the school district. 

Could you imagine the hell that would rain down on me if I suggested he was a bad parent or called dcfs? 

[sheilaincali]

Rukh:  no the mom can't handle full custody. They split up when my nephew was a few months old. He was born in August and they were separated by Thanksgiving of the same year.

She has checked herself into the psych ward half a dozen times in the past 4 years. She claims the kids "stress her out" and overwhelm her. She claimed she has attempted suicide a few times as well.  I take mental illness very seriously but I don't really believe her claims.  Her last attempt was to hold her breath in the bathtub and try to drown herself.  It's a pretty shallow tub where she lives so the water barely covered her nose.  My brother's lawyer told him at this point to fight for full custody he'd have to drag both of their mental issues out in front of the court and in the end no one would "win".

Now that the kids are getting older she deals with them better but she still has her issues. Her boyfriend (they've been together since like 2 months after her and my brother separated) is a positive influence on the kids. He is a local Army recruiter and they are looking at buying a house together. He is very supportive of her and has encourage her to go back to school and get her bachelor's degree (she works on an assembly line now with her entire family). She was the first in her family to graduate high school so her graduating college would be HUGE for her. The kids are very close to M and he treats them great.

All things considered I have a decent relationship with my exSIL. She wasn't prepared to be a single mom and was not happy to be pregnant with my nephew. She claims my brother tricked her in to getting pregnant by lying about wearing a condom.  I've had her and M over to my house for dinner before and have invited them to my son's birthday parties and things like that. She is much better off not being married to my brother.

She's a sweet kid but I don't think she'd do well having the kids full time while trying to work and finish college. She gets zero support from her family (with the exception of M) and gets easily overwhelmed.

My brother hates M and will no let his kids say his name. The man has always been polite anytime we've seen him and has never said one bad word towards my brother. If he asks the kids what they did at mom's house and they say "Mommy and M took us to see a movie" he will scold them and tell them "We don't say his name in my house!". It's a messed up situation.

[Deleted]

My DH brother is like that, I  no longer go to every family gathering. I will show up to a few because I love my DH but his brother is a freaking psycho I think. It is all about him and frankly it gets old. I remember MIL trying to excuse his behaviour because he was divorced, she still says that and it has been 25 YEARS....though it hurts them they do know I prefer not to be around the brother, he is so self centered.