Is my brother abusive?

[SunshineRainflower]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been feeling a bit confused and doubting myself about my brother’s behaviour.

Growing up my brother was always teasing me, putting me down, physically hurting me (mainly hitting). He dictated what was ‘cool’ or ‘sad’ ie. all of my toys, hobbies and interests were rubbish, all of his things were cool and good. I just always accepted his views as ‘the truth’ if that makes sense, I guess he was ‘the boss’ and I was always quiet, shy, anxious and a peace and animal lover.

My mum always idolised him so whatever he did, it was always praised highly. She never seemed as keen on me, and as a child she was always disappointed and irritated that I was quiet, creative, shy etc and she tried to get me to change into being this loud, confident child, which made me cry a lot.

As teenagers he continued to mock and tease me, but was also protective of me too so it was that confusing mixture of care and abuse? All the girls at school adored him, all my cousins adored him, he had a fan club because he was good looking and charming in public.

Growing up he started to drink a lot and has got in trouble with the law, and has cheated on all of his girlfriends. He is pretty vain and shallow. He has sought help for alcohol which I saw as a positive, but now he is rather ‘holier than thou’ in his lifestyle choices. Whatever fad he is into (such as becoming vegetarian), my mum agrees with and adopts, until he decides it’s no longer cool and drops it, and she agrees with that too. Often the things he picks up are things I’ve done my whole life, but my mum only takes interest when he is doing it.

He is unpredictable and will suddenly just turn up at the house. He will be all charming at first then suddenly snap and turn aggressive and rude, or mock and tease me, then suddenly decides he’s leaving. My mum continues the idolisation of him today and won’t accept a bad word said against him. For years I’ve always just wanted his love and approval, finally I am starting to realise I probably just need to distance myself from him and look after myself.

Would his behaviour be considered abusive? I heard a sort of intuitive voice after I left my ex which said “It’s your brother” when I was wondering why I keep ending up with abusive men. My exes have also mostly been vain, shallow, unpredictable, moody, putting me down etc and at times aggressive with the recent ex being scary and violent. I think I am choosing them because the behaviour is familiar to me?

Any thoughts on this would be great, thank you.

[Confused123]

HI hUn

Your brother does sound abusive from his beahviour, i think u need to re evaluate what kind of guy u want and put boundaries in place in what u accepet and what u dont, i personally had no excpreience in realtionship and my now ex wsa my first partner who i married, due to lack of expereince i just bascially let him treat me like c**p and fell for all his tricks , didnt even know about red flags, hell do they make a dfifference, when i spot them in a guy i just back off staright away

[SunshineRainflower]

Hi Confused,

Thanks for much for your reply. I’m trying to piece together why I only seem to attract these sorts of men, and have been reading about how we attract and are attracted to people who remind us of important people from our childhood, like our parents, uncles, siblings etc.

My ex even commented on how much like my brother he was, in terms of his looks, colouring, age, hobbies and personality. It was a bit eerie, as I don’t consciously choose men like my brother, but I seem to be doing it subconsciously.

I’m on a waiting list for the Power to Change programme which should help I think.

I think in future I need to look for someone who is the opposite of my brother as clearly choosing men like him is a really bad idea.

It’s a shame they don’t teach us this stuff in school before we start dating, I didn’t recognise the red flags with my ex either. I noticed odd stuff that I couldn’t make sense of, only afterwards did it all make sense, like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces come together at the end.

I’m enjoying being single and not dating at the moment. I hope that one day I do meet a good man, but I have zero desire to ever date one of these awful abusive men again, it’s so much better being single than being involved with one of them.

Thanks again,
Sunshine

[Confused123]

Hi hun

These men just go for strong people as they find us a challenge to break down, im not sure why u go for guys like your brother ,and all i can say is follow the red flag rules, if u see a red flag its a warning for u . They say abuse is related to something deep in our concisous a message that was inputted prob whilst we were children , hence impacts the way we respond. I would recommend you take counselling up to explore what happened in your relationship with your ex.

I found through self exploring myself deep back to my childhood, messages that were deep in me were 1. i had no value and wasn’t wanted, hence let ex get away with so much as had no value for myself, 2. my mum always told me to sacrfice my feelings for my children, hence i kept making relationship work. I know now i do have value, yes am broken and will take time to repair myself and all i can suggest is love yourself and hold value for yourself

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