My [23f] older brother [27m] said hurtful things to me. I want to confront him but I don't know how.
Some backstory: I live several states away from my family, and I'm bad at keeping in communication long distance. I admittedly haven't made the best decisions in my life. I got married and had kids very young, and I got divorced last year. I live in a different state because my ex husband was in the military, and I decided to stay here because I'm tired of moving. I'm currently working and going to school here (never went to college before, just finished my freshman year). I have a couple friends and a boyfriend who live here, my kids love their daycare/preschool, and I really like this area. My family continuously pesters me to move back home. We see each other once a year at Christmas, and my ex husband has the kids for three months out of the year. We split somewhat amicably and he is engaged to a new woman, and she's lovely. He lives back home as well. I've struggled with depression and anxiety, as well as with financial issues. I'm still only making minimum wage and things are very tight but I'm okay. I have never asked my parents for financial assistance, as they're not extremely well off (lower middle class). So I'm basically on my own aside from child support and student loans.
Over Christmas, I went back home. My boyfriend came with me, at the insistence of my mom (wanted to meet him). I met him at school, and he is a couple years younger than me. This was the first source of drama, because when my brother learned my boyfriend's age he made a disgusted face and whispered something to his wife. He then proceeded to ignore my bf for most of the day, and stated that he didn't talk to SOs unless they had been around for a while. He said this in front of everyone including my cousins, all of whom are a couple years younger than me and had their SOs present. He then made several other rude comments to me, I don't remember everything, but one of them had to do with me being a hobbit and antisocial. His wife was embarrassed for him and apologized to me in private later on, but my brother did not.
My brother is very opinionated. He hasn't always made perfect decisions in his life either, but the past couple years he's been very successful. He has a good job, just bought a house, went on a cruise recently. He dresses differently and is very judgmental of others. And this is maybe less relevant but he and his wife are devout Christians. Anyway.
Over the week of my stay he makes several more comments about me/my life choices. 1)my bf is too young for me, isn't smart enough/at my level mentally (he's 20, we are very happy together) 2) expressed disdain over my weight loss (I've lost weight due to stress) 3) tried to convince me to change my major to programming (what he does) but I've stated I'm not interested several times 4) commented on my lack of a social life (I work 30 hours a week and go to school, so I'm a little busy). Other stuff I can't remember. I'm pretty pissed by the end of my stay and I barely speak to him the next few months.
A few days ago we start talking. This is probably the worst of it because I've been pretty depressed since. He said a few things, like my kids are a burden to me and holding me back in life and I should give custody to my ex husband, I made a poor decision choosing to stay far from home, that I'm severely depressed and need serious help (I was in therapy but I don't have much time to go during the school year)...and then basically he called me a failure. And I certainly feel like one at times. I know I haven't taken the best path in life. I ended the conversation and I feel really upset. He has constantly made comments like this to me the last few years and I feel like I've had enough. I love my brother and I feel like he just doesn't realize what a dick he's being to me; if I can bring this up to him in the right way, he will understand and back off, but so far I've said nothing. Most of my fear comes from wondering if he's right about everything. What should I do?
tl;dr My brother is kind of a dick to me and I want to confront him, but I'm afraid to and don't know what to say. Help.
Posted Apr 26, 2017, 5:50 PM UTC