[KittyKay]

Thank you for any advice and for this forum. I need help with understanding my relationships with my mother and brother. I’m 56 and the middle daughter and have been on 4 different meds for depression over 20 yrs; now I’m finally stabilizing. Depression and suicide is in both sides of my family. Maternal grandfather committed suicide at 49 and my mom tried to commit suicide in her 30’s after breaking up with my dad with 3 small kids at home. My father committed suicide after becoming sick and my step father committed suicide.

My sister died of cancer at 49 after having abused alcohol and cigarettes since she was 13. She was beautiful, a model and loved to party. She married 3 times and had a son and daughter, my only niece and nephew. My brother is 3 yrs younger, never married and is way too smart, lazy and lives with mom. I live with my only husband of 26 yrs not too far away from my mom. We work hard, own our home, are conservative, keep to ourselves, could not have kids but have a good, if somewhat boring, married life. He drinks way too much but goes to work every day, is very grounded, has a lot of common sense and I believe, loves me. His drinking will be another topic but so far I am able to deal with it and he has admitted his weakness, for what it’s worth.

My childhood was traumatic, my parents divorcing when I was in the third grade and mom and kids moving across the country, leaving my paternal grandparents whom I was very close to. Dad kept in touch sporadically. He married again in another country and had a son. He committed suicide at 46 after getting sick after working in many foreign countries. I had few visits with him through my high school years but he did write and sent us presents from other countries. I loved my father fiercely and still think about the day my grandmother told me he committed suicide over the phone when I was 17.

My mom went back to school with hard work and 3 kids with sporadic financial support. After she got her degree, she bought a house 2 hours from my maternal grandmother and things were fairly normal through my early high school years. I moved in with my maternal grandmother when I was a in high school and I lived with her on and off through my early 20’s.
My brother joined the service and was in for 6 yrs, getting out when my mom called and asked him to come home after her second of 3 divorces. He moved back with her, had two or three short term jobs and has lived with mom ever since. She married a final time and my brother worked for stepfather’s business and they moved to his mom’s house after she died. I was very close to him and he confided in me that he ‘married it’ (meaning my brother) and the complications my brother brought into his marriage with my mom. He lost the business and committed suicide. My husband and I visited regularly but were upset over what my stepfather had revealed to me. We kept it to ourselves and I don't know why to this day. My mom and brother sold the house and moved back near my maternal grandmother, who needed help as she lived alone. They helped her every day at mealtimes for the last 3 yrs of her life when she ended up in the nursing home.

My husband and I have always had boats with my mom being invited and coming along more often than not. The last 10 years mom has enjoyed the boat and has helped us a time or two financially. Husband cannot do the work any longer and as we lost our jobs, and our current jobs are no way near the financial ability we need to support a boat. We also want to start camping and have invited mom to join us. We told mom we were selling the boat and she didn’t speak to me for over 2 weeks, then she offered to pay for everything, then got angry, and now has finally come to terms with the inevitable, I guess but I suspect is still very resentful and angry.

After writing this I am confused. Proud my husband and I made a decision and are sticking with it, guilty that I made my mom sad and angry because she made me feel so guilty that she says she has ‘only a few good years left and she wants to spend them on the water’ and after thinking about it, thinks to herself and said to me on the telephone that ‘if she didn’t spend all that money on the boat that she would have a new bathroom now’; putting the guilt on me. However, brother started that project almost 6 yrs ago but hasn’t worked on it for over 2 years. In fact, my husband and I quit asking about the status of the project because it was a joke. My brother is more than capable of finishing it and my husband has offered to help many times. Mom makes excuses for him and then got angry when I asked about it.
Meanwhile, I’m angry at my brother because he is so very smart and doesn’t have any job, even a part time job. I feel so badly that this situation is such a waste of great intelligence. He does clean and cook and takes care of the house and mom says she could not live there without him. Her retirement has shrunk as well. I love my brother but I guess I’m just feeling sibling rivalry and jealousy? She buys him everything and he can sleep late and play on the computer. She also told me last summer that she has changed her will to leave the majority of her assets to my brother because ‘he takes care of me’.

I’m hurt and angry and I feel it is unfair of her. I feel guilty about selling the boat and she has cried over the phone to me because of this. Is this feeling normal or am I being selfish, like usual? How do I get over my sibling rivalry? I really do love my brother and have fun teasing him about cooking because we are both good cooks. I understand she has every right to do what she wants but it feels unfair that she has supported him all his life and he is lazy. It is not a huge big deal except emotional but I feel angry and hurt and jealous. This is what I need help with.

I cannot understand this mother son relationship? She is very dominant and very smart but brother is scary smart and has been like this all his life. She has said that he has threatened suicide when they were both drinking and fighting. Mom’s aunt says he is ‘tweaked’ and he is definitely depressed as well, but with not working has no insurance.

Why can’t I understand this relationship and my own family? Please help me understand what happened with my family as I cannot see the forest through the trees here. I have no self-confidence or self-esteem, having been diagnosed years ago but cannot find the resolve to help myself.

Thank you for finally letting me get this in writing and hopefully some reasons.

[H3rmit]

Hi -- I tried to make out what's happening with your family relationships. I am not in the least an expert on people, and I am sure someone else will jump in with something more insightful. People in your family are not terribly happy or motivated and tend to take the path of least resistance. They take pleasure where they can, and are not driven to strive towards anything in particular. Your mother feels entitled, and responds childishly and resentfully if she doesn't get what she wants. Tweaked sounds like your brother is on uppers of some kind. Doesn't sound good. There's some kind of dependency between them, and it likely doesn't bring out the best in them. Boundaries are often unclear/unhealthy, and this leads to hurt feelings.

I'm sorry you lost your boat! Being on the water can be such a joy.

[Perna]

My husband and I live on the water and own a boat. His ex-wife (we've been married 23 years) and I are friends of a sort but she grew up near the water and would have liked to have lived there when she moved from their marriage home, which she got in the divorce, 5-10 years ago, but could not afford it. So, she's often a bit jealous of me, thinking I have what she "should" have. I have a "Mother's Day" party here every year with her and her boyfriend and the stepsons, etc.

But your boat problem reminded me of when my stepsister and I had to take my stepmother's car away from her because she was no longer a safe driver. We had my brother come in from Hawaii, because she would not have listened to we women :-) and got it done but after he had gone home she would call my stepsister and myself and rant and rave. Some of it was sadly funny, "My friends all drive, I don't see why I can't!" (this from someone in her 80's, deja vu teenage years) but the anger and hurt were quite real and it was very sad to see her deteriorating and not able to see it.

Think about your mother's and brother's relationship as if you were looking at it from the outside, and look at how your mother would like you to behave (keep the boat for her). Your mother, like all of us I suspect, is trying to set things up for herself as best she can; it would be a good life if she had both her children doing her will still and could have the lifestyle she enjoys without having to do much! Your brother cooks for her it sounds like and does "take care" of her, is someone to talk to and argue with and she gets to be totally in charge, it's not a meddlesome husband!

Now look at your brother, who has never been able to quite break away from Mom and live a life of his own? I feel a bit sorry for him. He's a pseudo husband but without benefits. Sure she gives him spending money but what male do you know that wants to be living with his Mom, have no friends or anyone's respect, and has to ask his mother for everything? She's calling all the shots, she wants him there and he's doesn't have enough whatever to say, "no" and get a life of his own.

You on the other hand are living your own life, are doing the best you can with your resources and not caving to your mother and her control. You are married and act married, working with your husband to have your own household. I think you should be proud of yourself, you are living your life, moving forward as best you can.

I don't think you mother has so much that when she dies your brother will be sitting on easy street. Think about it; now he can at least hide behind "caring for his mother" if a casual acquaintance asks him what he does. But when she dies, he won't have her to guide his life, won't have a job/career/interest, won't have anyone to talk to or argue with, no "companion" anymore. His life is too centered on his mother. I would not be surprised if he drank himself to death or some such?

My father worked hard and my stepmother lived well after he died. When she died, my stepsister and her family/children got the bulk of the estate and I was sad because I was a young child when my father and she married so had lived with she and my father the longest of any of my brothers or stepsister. There was a lot unfair and poorly done with the estate after my stepmother died and, I was no longer included in my stepsister's family group (she is 13 years older than I am), not with my stepmother gone. I lost my "mother" for the second time in my life and the majority of my family! I have three brothers but they're guys and only one lives anywhere near me but we are not very close. I am closer to my brothers in law almost than my own brothers. I know I'm closer to my stepsons. But I have no children of my own and am already wondering what it might be like if my husband dies before I do.

Circumstances can shake things up and rearrange them like a kaleidoscope, but what I am finding happens most is that one's illusions of how one thought one's family was are forced by the wayside. For almost 50 years I thought I had a relatively happy primary family of two parents and five children. When my father died and I was thrust in with just my stepmother and stepsister (my brothers stayed away, did not really care for our stepmother) and their family, it was a different experience and then, when my stepmother died and I was cut adrift from that family too, it was a completely different family dynamic. The heart wants what it wants and looks to make it so. It may or may not be that way but I believe our spirit always tries to get things to work out for ourselves.

Perhaps you can see your mother doing that? Your brother, it looks like, has much less to work with. I would feel sorry for him rather than jealous. If I could, I would try to better befriend him and use your husband and any other men you know to give him as much of a guy thing as you could.

As we get grown and married, etc. I think it becomes necessary to understand one's parents in a different way, as individuals like ourselves rather than just as our parents. No, it's not "fair" that your mother give your brother everything, nor was it "fair" that my stepsister and I took away my stepmother's car and listened to a month or more of her hissing "I hate you!" on the phone and hanging up on us like a child. Your brother does nothing but it is probably not because he's "lazy" but because he cannot do anything, cannot live a "normal" life anymore, it's beyond him. He cannot even finish the bathroom; it's not that he "won't", I believe he literally can't, like a hoarder can't stop hoarding, or someone with OCD can't stop their rituals or someone with an eating disorder can't eat; that sort of can't. If I were you, I'd try to look at your family as individuals you know rather than those you are related to; pretend you are an outsider and look at them. Thinks can feel less personal, less hurtful that way?

[Koko2]

Is your brother living with mother for financial reasons since he's unemployed?

[MyOnlyHope]

Originally Posted by KittyKay

I’m 56 and the middle daughter and have been on 4 different meds for depression over 20 yrs; now I’m finally stabilizing.



My sister died of cancer at 49 after having abused alcohol and cigarettes since she was 13. She was beautiful, a model and loved to party. She married 3 times and had a son and daughter, my only niece and nephew.

My brother is 3 yrs younger, never married and is way too smart, lazy and lives with mom.

I live with my only husband of 26 yrs

He drinks way too much but goes to work every day, is very grounded, has a lot of common sense and I believe, loves me. His drinking will be another topic but so far I am able to deal with it and he has admitted his weakness, for what it’s worth.

My childhood was traumatic, my parents divorcing when I was in the third grade and mom and kids moving across the country, leaving my paternal grandparents whom I was very close to.

I loved my father fiercely

My mom her second of 3 divorces.

He moved back with her, had two or three short term jobs and has lived with mom ever since.

guilty that I made my mom sad and angry because she made me feel so guilty that she says she has ‘only a few good years left and she wants to spend them on the water’


putting the guilt on me.

Mom makes excuses for him and then got angry when I asked about it.



I’m hurt and angry and I feel it is unfair of her. I feel guilty about selling the boat and she has cried over the phone to me because of this.

Hi, I am new here and sorry, my English is not very good.
So, I have a problem too that belongs to group of topics about Toxic Parents and I'm searching where to write about that; is it a good place to do that here?

I read your introductory text and I set aside some parts of your text that it is familiar to me; about these problems Susan Forward writes in her book "Toxic Parents".

I would like suggest to you to read her book; I was also confused by many things that happened to me and just when I finished that book I understood what was happened in past and what impact had it on my life.

Also, I suggest a book "Emotional BlackMail" by same author because I honestly think, you mom is blackmailing you

[KittyKay]

First off - wow - what an eye opening experience this has been so far - and should have been first - thank you thank you and more thank yous!

I just had to get that out there and will be back later to comment and thank personally - THANK YOU ! all!

[KittyKay]

Perna: I still want to thank you! You are entirely right - I should be looking at them as people, not related to me. You picked up on that, with your experiences. Wow. You know, I did feel sorry for my brother in the past, but then I figured he manipulated my mom into changing her will so I guess I got angry; sibling rivalry here? Now I'm wondering just exactly what did happen with that, but suppose I will never know.

But you are so right, I feel sorry for him and am crying now that over the past couple of years I have been so angry at him. Thank you again. How do I go about fixing this relationship? or should I pose another question?

Your history sounds painful, I feel through your words how painful this has been for you. Perhaps your age at the time all this happened affected things?

Koko2 – you are right – he is unemployed but by choice – he is more than smart enough to get any job – there is more to this than just simple laziness, however that does fit here.

What saddens me the most is that the intelligence is such a waste. I swear he could have been a top notch engineer somewhere. His IQ is scary. Now…how do I approach him? Just simply apologize and go from there?