I’m 25f and my brother is 30m. I don’t think either of us have made life choices that were necessarily “wrong” or “right”, good or bad, but my brother has a habit of making fun of my choices. Everything from my family situation to my degree choice to my work situation. I am happy with the choices I have made, but he isn’t, mainly because they are choices he wouldn’t make himself. We’ve made choices just about as opposite as we could from each other. I assume he’s happy with the choices he’s made, the way I am with mine, but again they aren’t choices I would make for myself.
He cemented a big lifestyle choice lately and told me all about it, and I said that I was happy for him, but I had a question about the practicalities, and I asked him, and he got upset with me because he expected total support, not questions about his choice. My question wasn’t even particularly harshly phrased in my opinion, and certainly felt nicer than my brother’s outright insults, but the way he reacted to anything less than 100% unflinching support compared to how I tolerate no real support made me realised how unbalanced this whole situation is, and I would like to bring this up with him.
I have, however, tried to bring this up before now, and he’s brushed me off, and I don’t want that to happen again, and considering my issue with him is that he takes anything less than total support as criticism, I’m also concerned that if I approach it in the wrong way, he’ll get upset the way he did here.
How do I address my brother’s attitude with him?
TL;DR: Brother is unsupportive and a bit mean on my life choices but when I so much as question his he gets upset. How do I address this without making things worse?
3 comments
So he doesn’t want anyone to point out something he may have overlooked or forgotten in his decision making process?
Do you think bringing up the matter would achieve anything? He doesn’t sound like the kind of person who is receptive to any kind of criticism at all. So why bother?
Is your concern that if he gets upset that he’s not going to listen to you? I would probably think about your goals here and what you want to get from your relationship with your brother.
Why don’t you respond to his judgement the same way he does to your perceived criticism? You expect full support and don’t question my choices blah blah.