Thank you all. I am tending to lean toward Hankster in his assessment of it all.

My husband said before with the beginning of the email that he thinks my brother is playing the victim card. He didn't respond really besides saying something about a camera and him being made to. When I asked about the camera he changed the story which made my husband think it was a way to make me feel sorry for him. Not to mention he got the dates way off and I'm guessing it's his attempt to make it seem better. But I have a good memory when it's not blacking out and I know when it ended.

He said it started when we moved into our first apartments, I was 3 which would make him 6 or 7. A 7 year old doesn't really understand. But when the boyfriend who beat moved in, he lived with us until I was 9. I remember it specifically happening in that home which we lived in for another two years after they broke up. So he was 14 at this time. When she met the boyfriend that my brother says stepped in and it stopped was the next year when he got put into therapy. He was 15 I was 11 (shortly before my 12th birthday). I remember these instances and people very well and often have to correct my family on the time line. By the time I was 9 I started getting more brave and avoiding any situations with my brother where we were alone but there were still things that weren't so extreme.

So it happened for 6 years extreme and another 2 years not so extreme but he denied the age. Maybe he just doesn't realize how much older he was.

But he pretended like it didn't happen for that long and that it stopped when he was young, but it's not true. He also, what it seemed like to me, tried to make me feel bad for him when I was confronting him.

I don't think he lied about it all, but I think he is justifying it with these excuses. But I did feel bad for him and I did want to build a relationship with him one day when I am ready.

But his text during the wedding made it seem like he's worried about his own issues and the email he sent to me after the wedding about the excuse seemed like he was blaming it on me that he wasn't there. Like it was my responsibility, since I brought this up or didn't invite him, to fix everything for him. And on top of that, there was nothing to fix and he just wanted another pity party or to make me feel bad for something I should not.

I spent the first 22 years of my life being made to feel like every abusive thing that happened to me was my fault in some way, made to feel sympathy for my abuser. And I'm sorry but I'm done with that. I'm done feeling bad for them when I haven't had a chance to feel bad for myself and what they put me through. I deserve better than that. And the more I think about my brothers emails the more angry I get.

He hasn't responded since I gave him the excuses, I think he was expecting me to feel bad for him, say I'm so sorry I didn't let him go, tell everyone it was all my fault and he's just a stand up guy... But I wont. I hate feeling this way about my brother but I' hate feeling guilty for things I had no control over when I was victimized and I wont go back to that life.