Messages By: suemanley1

I am in my early 40s and have not talked to my brother basically since our mother died when I was 21. My brother is three years older than me. He is my only sibling.  

My brother is so emotionally cruel, and on purpose, that I gave up trying to communicate with him 22 years ago. He has never shown any expression of remorse for it, or of wanting to behave differently. The only contact I've had from him, he continues to pretend as if he is not playing a game--which is the majority of the game.  

My brother told me many times, as we were growing up, that he always resented my being born. He never forgot that year I was born, when there were fewer presents under the Christmas tree, and only half were for him.   

He constantly reminded me of that over the years, how my being born ruined his Christmas, and ruined his life, he would tell me.  

My brother continually beat me up and was very mean to me when we were growing up. He would laugh while hitting me, acting like he was playing, with one knuckle extended, to make me bruise.   

The other kids at school, and my teachers, noticed I had bruises all over my arms and legs. He told embarassing personal stories about me to other kids in his classes, and always let them know he hated his sister and didn't want me around. The older kids in school, as a result, his classmates, always ridiculed and heckled me.   

When he was going to be a senior in high school, and I was going to be a frosh, he told me that I was to never speak to him at school or be around him--it would embarass him in front of his friends.  

When he was a sophomore in high school, and I was in 7th grade, he took Psychology. One day in his class, the teacher taught the kids how to play psychological games on people. My brother came home from school that night, and told us all about it at dinner.  

He told us how the teacher had explained the term "gaslighting," from an old movie (I forget the movie--I think it was a Bette Davis film.) "Gaslighting" was used in the movie to play tricks on someone (I think it was on Davis) until it drove the person crazy.  

I still remember him getting very animated and excited, and how he was laughing, telling us about how "gaslighting" worked.  

From that night on, he began to play those games on me. He substituted those games for physically beating me up. I could never recall what all the games were that he had told us about. All I knew was that he was trying to drive me up the wall, to upset and hurt me, and make me feel crazy, and appear crazy to others, including to our parents, by trying to make me angry to my wits' end. He would laugh and grin when he got to me, and just do those games more and more.   

He told his friends about it, and they began to join in, doing the same thing too, at school and when they came over.  

One of the games was to say the opposite of everything he meant--with a broad grin. He would say, "That's a REALLY nice outfit you're wearing!!," in an exaggerated, artificial tone of voice. "Gee, I LOVE your haircut!" Or he would make fun of my environmentalism, saying, "Gee, more people should hug trees. I think it's great you love trees. I love whales, don't you?", etc. Especially in response to anything I ever said about recycling, animal rights, conservation, feminism, anything.   

And he would constantly say, "I LOVE you SO MUCH!! Why am I upsetting you? I'm not trying to upset you--I LOVE you! Is this upsetting you? Is it getting to you? And if so, why? I'm not trying to--I LOVE you!"  

The thing was, he wouldn't let up. No matter what I said, or didn't say at all, he would keep making these sarcastic remarks, even following me around the house to do this, until he got under my skin. He never stopped. That is all he would say to me, morning, noon, and night. Always laughing, and grinning, and insisting he meant what he was saying.  

Whenever I asked him to stop, either nicely, or would get angry, or would even cry, or yell or throw things, he would just say, "What's your problem? Is this getting to you? Why is this bothering you? I'm not mocking you! I mean every word of  what I'm saying!"   

In his mocking tone, of course, with a broad grin on his face, and a laugh.  

I could never figure out how to get him to stop.  

He got to the point where he would say these things in a more and more subtle tone, so that almost no one else would realize he was being sarcastic, except some of his friends--but he'd be using the same phrases he'd said in a more exaggerated tone before, so of course he was sending *me* the message that he was still being sarcastic, and oftentimes others wouldn't realize it.   

Even though my parents would hear it, and saw this pattern evolve, they would forget how it started, and they would sometimes even say to me, "(my real name), he says he loves you! Why is this bothering you?"   

Even though they had heard him trying to upset me over the years, and I had told them how upsetting it was. After awhile, it was as if they had bought into his act.  

Of course, he wasn't doing it to them, so they didn't understand what it felt like, to be on the receiving end of it.  

Day and night. Week after week, year after year, he made these comments. He did this dozens of times a day, every day, for nine years. By the time I was in early college, I had just withdrawn from him. I avoided all interaction with him possible.   

It had long since gotten to the point that every comment he made to me was sarcastic, made in that mocking tone. I couldn't have a single conversation without him purposely mocking me every sentence, with a grin on his face. He could see it always grating on my nerves, and he had a field day with every minute of it.  

No matter how much I tried to not let it bother me, or show that it was, he would keep pressing until he could see it upset me.  

Everything I cared about, he made fun of. My chosen major in college. My friends, my lovers, my interests, my beliefs, my passions. Even my fears and heartaches. All of them were the subject of sarcastic, feigned interest and enthusiasm. Always saying the opposite of what he meant. Always mocking.  

Because every sentence of his to me was the opposite of what he meant, was a mocking comment, there was no opportunity to have a sincere conversation with him about anything. Period. So I finally gave up.  

I moved home, after the end of a quarter at college (my junior year), temporarily, and our mother found out three days later she had lung cancer. She was given 6 months to two years to live. She died in six months.   

Of course, after finding out about her cancer, I stayed home to be with her. My brother, who still lived at home, never lifted a finger to help. He began working more than 40 hours per week, and would take off all weekend to go sailing. My father had shacked up with a new girlfriend he insisted was a platonic "roommate" at his business condo in southern California, six days per week, while my mother was dying. A woman came in to help me with the house and with mom, as I was devasted and a wreck over my mother's failing health and the prospect of losing her.   

When I asked my brother how he could be so callous about Mom, and his never being home with her or helping her or me out, he said, "You can't let it upset you! I wrote her off as dead the day we found out she had cancer." And he would go back to playing with his sailboats, all weekend. I'd be thinking I'd finally get a break on the weekend, when he'd be home, and then I'd hear him hitching up a boat to his trailer and leaving early Saturday mornings at 7 a.m., for the weekend. He'd come home late Sunday night, avoiding everything.   

The day our mother died, I forced myself to go out to dinner that night with my brother and father, not being able to stand being with either one of them, for even a moment. We went to a place with a salad bar.   

As we sat down at a table with our salads, I remember my brother starting the conversation, laughing, with, "Hey, did you hear the one about the black guy that ..." blah, blah, blah. He said that just to piss me off, because he knew it was a mockery of my feelings about racism. We weren't raised that way. Our mother had died, just hours earlier, and he was saying such a thing. Already on the attack.  

A few weeks later, there were several rapes in our neighborhood. Yet my brother would leave for work early in the morning, while I was still in bed, asleep--and he would leave the front door wide open.   

When I confronted him about it, he told me he was doing it on purpose. He said, with a big grin on his face, "You think everyone wants to rape you." (Our father had molested me growing up.) I threw a bowl of cereal on him.  

That was basically the last time I had anything to do with my brother.   

After a long time, I began to be in contact with my father again, and he and I have a sometimes caring, often times acrimonious and underlying very difficult relationship, as he refuses to even admit he has molested me.   

But I am in contact with him as he is the only relative I have left, and I still deal with chronic grief over my mother. I lean on him very heavily, and have a very hard time being independent, including financially.   

It's like I'm still looking for someone to lean on, since my mother died. I didn't feel ready to be on my own. I felt orphaned. Not still a child, but not ready to be a completely independent adult. My young friends didn't understand, or know how to help. My mom was like my security blanket, my rock. The confidence and independence I'd had as a young adult vanished the day she found she had a lung tumor--the moment she told me.  

**  

Dealing with my father is less cruel than dealing with my brother.   

Occasionally my father has forwarded a card from my brother. The cards always say, "I want to have a relationship with you. You're my sister--and after all, I LOVE you!!"  

And my father passes on an occasional message from my brother: "Your brother asked me to tell you he loves you."  

Years ago, a shrink said to me that as long as my brother has no intention of saying what he really means, of always mocking me, always saying the opposite thing in that mocking, sarcastic tone, there is no chance of having a real relationship with him.  

I don't know what to do about this. I haven't spoken to him in 22 years.  

My father is always pressing me to contact my brother again, to have a relationship with him, despite my having told all of this to my father.  

It hurts that I have this brother out there who I can't have anything to do with, because all he wants to do is mock and hurt me.   

Whenever I asked him to stop being sarcastic, to stop mocking me, to say what he means, he would always say, with a big Cheshire cat grin, "I am! I love you! Why do you think I'm mocking you? Does it bother you?  

Suggestions, anyone? (As long as it isn't something cruel/stupid, such as that I not "let" my brother's behavior bother me, or to contact my brother and try to pretend it doesn't!)  

Thanks.  

I'll try and make this as short as I can. My name is Tara, I have three children all under the age of five and another on the way. I have been in an off again on again relationship with there father, whom all the children belong too for the past six years. There dad is from the USA and I am from Canada, we met over the internet while I was attending my second year of college, I though I had found the man of my dreams he was everything I would ask for. I had never been in a relationship prior to this, he was the first man I was ever with intimately or even relationship wise. I fell in love at first sight, everything was going great we were engaged and happy and loving life until within nine months I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. After having the baby everything changed, he began laying around not helping me and was on the internet all the time. I thought it was because he was not in a city and there was really nothing around for him to do, so I moved us to the city and things were going great until two to three months into living there he was getting agitated and I couldn't find a job. So, once again I pulled my roots off this time we moved to another province all together where I worked two jobs just to pay our bills. He never got better, if anything he got worse, one night I came home and there was bottles all over the floor from our daughter he had been on the computer all day and never once took her out of the crib. We had a huge fight and he said he needed some air, well he went to the bank machine withdrew all the money there was in there and took a bus to the greyhound station. I had nothing so the fool I was went after him and with our daughter went to where he was and talked him into coming back home with us, it was the worst thing I could have done because he then started cheating on me with someone else in the apartment building I was trying to be freinds with. Well, I found this out and he left again this time I didnt stop him. Well, I was sick and tired and late and found out I was pregnant with our second child. I missed him and asked him to come back after she was born to try and work things our for the sake of the kids. It was good for about six months and then money was missing and cd's ect. I was working all day and was coming home to a mess, I cried all the time so once again he left and this was about a year later and I found out I was pregnant yet again. I cried for hours, my parents hated me for making my life so difficult. So, before the third baby was born he came back again. We wanted this to work for good, I do love him and I had never held anything against him he just cheated on me constantly. I dont know why I always took him back because I felt sick after seeing him. He was here for the last babys birth and everything was great the best it had ever been then some rumours started in our town, its so small and word gets around fast be it true or not. This time he was forced from our home and this time I was pregnant with our forth the one I am carrying now. He went back to the USA and is now seeking help and is on alot of meds, but he is moving in with another couple and they have a sister who wants to get with him. Well I dont know what to do. Should I fight for him and win this or should I give up and go on with my life. I am single now as I feel is, I work full time plus I am going to college part time I am a busy mom of three soon to be four. What do you think?