Does age really matter?

My oldest brother and I are four years apart. We're close but we don't really talk about the past, mainly because our mother never talked about it. Yesterday we were in the car driving for 3 hours and actually got the chance to talk. We talked about our childhood, he and I grew up together but during the summers I was send away to live with my father. Well, we mainly spoke about our ex stepfather. My mother married him when my brother was 9, me 5 she left him after 6 years.

To make this short:
Our stepfather in the beginning was in the military, religious FANATIC (anything that involved church we were there), good role model (basically, the father my brother never had)

Then he changed: cheated on our mother, physically, emotionally, spiritually abused her, threatened to kill her multiple times. Choked her once until she couldn't breathe only let her go because I walked in their bedroom. Isolated her from her family so he could completely control her.

My brother is 24 and I'm 20. I believe our stepfather was one of the many things that screwed up our lives the most. He thinks our stepfather was the best thing that happened to us.

I'm I right, or does him being older saw the situation a lot differently then I.

Well, being older is part of what gives him a different viewpoint, possibly even a more mature one, but it doesn't mean you're wrong. What he needed as a child in a father figure (and other things) may have been different than what you needed, and he might be more forgiving of your stepfather's faults.

I'll tell you flat out, though, if all you say is true about your stepfather, it sounds like you have a much more accurate perspective, in my opinion. There's no way that kind of behavior didn't have a negative impact on you two.

Does he agree with you all that happened? Is it possible you actually witnessed more of it than he? The way you capitalized "FANATIC" suggests to me it wasn't a healthy religious life. Abusers often start out seemingly "good" or "normal." They don't always abuse right from the start, and the abuse is often subtle or causes you to question if it really is abuse at first.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but what does your brother think makes him the "best thing that ever happened" to you? How can he think your family was better off with someone who abused your mother, controlled her, cheated on her and nearly killed her?

i had two brothers and two sisters. all much older than me. the brother that, age wise, is closest to me lived at home at the same time til he was in his 20s. his story about our life is so different from the rest of it that you'd think he lived on another planet. every thing that he does, negatively, he blames on our deceased parents. none of the rest of us live as he does. we don't do the things he does. we accept responsibility for our lives. he doesn't. he says it was a hellhole. it was bad, but it wasn't anything like he tells it. i never saw the things that he says happened. and believe me, i was a curious and observant kid. i believe that people just take stuff in differently and process it in a way that perhaps someone else doesn't. or it could be easier for him to remember it differently.

and i'm certainly not saying that your brother is bad for remembering things differently than you do. it sounds to me as if you have a pretty good/bad picture of what went on. and i know that bothers you. don't let it take over your thinking. i just detached from what my brother believes and let it go. i can't change his mind and i'm not going to about it. live and let live. love, pat

Hi there sharita

I have two brothers...one older/one younger. There's four years between each of us. Our father was a lifer in the marines.

We saw, suffered, experienced and dealt with alot...all in the same house. What amazes me is how differently things are remembered by each of us...even how differently we reacted then.

We all don't have much of a childhood set of memories, as I think we're all dissociators. What we do remember is remembered differently, or I will remember different details about a certain memory, brother will remember others, and between the two of us the memory is fuller. It's strange how memories work. T and I have talked alot about it.

Two people experiencing the same event can remember it differntly...even argue the facts. Two members of the same upbringing will even remember a different set of memories, which helps to create their belief(s) on how bad or good the childhood might have been. For instance, my older brother thinks the mother was a saint. I was able to see the tenderness in the father that the boys didn't see. The younger brother hated both of them for the longest time and had next to no communications with either from about 17 yrs. old, until he started seeing the mother a few years back.

The facts that are known about all three of us. We all live the result of severely disturbed childhoods. We all three have severe emotional disturbance. That's about the only thing we can agree on, I think. LOL.

I think the how the experiences affect can be a direct result of being boy or girl as well.

Basically, I feel memories are remembered, stored differently by siblings based on sex, perception, mood, understanding, age, etc.

Another possibility...does your brother not remember alot things at all? It could be that what you remember is not the same for him because he's put it away somewhere?

In short, I know exactly what you're saying and it can be hard not to be able to share a horrible childhood event, or set of them, with your sibling.

Good luck. PM any time.

KD

Every kid grows up in a different family, I think. I'm the youngest in my family, for example, and I got to see things get much worse and much better than my older siblings. My oldest brother had already gone away to college by the time I was just starting to open my eyes as to what was happening. When we talk about growing up, it's two very different stories.

On the other hand, I've got another brother who is just a year and a half older than me and even we look at the past very differently. Just a matter of personality and perception I guess.

We are so not linear....... memory is so much more than a recording of the past..... my mother once asked me "Don't you remember anything good?" re: my growing up years. How do you explain to your mother that it's hard to enjoy the apple dumplings when your father is trying to kill you and make it look like an accident........ My brother thinks we were middle class cause he got whatever he wanted. I think we were poor cause I was Cinderella........ truth is we were a plain old working class just scraping by post WWll conservative babybooming family. "Normal" on our block. Yeh, memory is not linear....... but, yours are yours, his are his, and both are valid. Trippy to sort out, gain insights through each others eyes....... I think it's swell that you can talk about it now.

One of my greatest lessons in life is learning that one person's truth is another person's lie. Fourteen people can see the exact same thing and have fourteen different versions. The important thing is to own your truth and deal with it from there. You sound like you had a horrible time and I am so sorry you went through that. Now is the time to get counseling to deal with the wounds you suffered. I urge you to do this.

Hugs,

Jan

Thanks so much for the replies and the great insight!

No, it wasn't a healthy religious life because he would tell us stuff that scared us. At 6, he read this book to us I don't remember the title but it's about some woman who says God came to her and showed her hell, it wasn't pleasant.

My brother and I agreed that all of that happened, although I actually saw more then him. I know what really provoked the arguments and most of it was the fact that my stepfather felt my mother treated his daughter differently. He was also pissed because he couldn't control me. He tried by whipping me everyday but I was strong I stood up to him. He wanted to switch from a belt to a extension cord like he used on my brother, but my mom said no for the first time. She said I was too young. However, he had a bigger impact then he realized and most of it is hurting me now.

I think my brother believes he was so great because he actually was a father to him. My brother's biological father was a liar, didn't care about him at all. He often wished my father was his biological father, but I guess he settled for our stepfather. At least, he was present.

I'm sorry you had to endure so much pain from your stepfather. Everyone does remember things differently but it sounds like your brother may want to forget all the bad stuff and just remember the good times.

That's a good insight into your brother, sharita. He wanted a father that cared about him and was involved in his life, and it didn't matter to him whether it was healthy or not. This might sound weird, but do you really want to change his mind about that? In your place, my first reaction would be to really push him out of his dream world and make him face reality...maybe because I wanted him to stick up for me. But I don't really know if that would really help him or me.

for some people a bad situation is better than no situation at all. i.e., your brother. xoxoxo pat

Sharita, your post and all of these answers has struck me. I come from a family of many sibs and each one has his/her reality. Everyone sees what they see through a different lense then we do. My sibs will not speak about the past. It's the past and they don't want to "KNOW" how bad it was. I think that as much as I feel your need for validation from your brother, you may do better to just understand his colored lense and get your validation here. It is a hard thing. I tried for many years to have some of my sibs validate my experience and it didn't ever happen fully. I hope you can have a healthy relationship based on adulthood and interests with your brother. Also remember that denial is not a river in Egypt. We have it to protect ourselves. Good luck.