My (22M) girlfriend (24F) came to meet my folks for the first time. I’m a CODA, and the only hearing person in a deaf family; both my parents are deaf and so are my brothers (18 and 12). My girlfriend was very sweet, she learned a few basic signs to start communicating with them and I mostly interpreted for everyone during dinner.
Shortly afterwards, my girlfriend and I were in the living room and my brother (18M) came in and started talking to me about some personal stuff (I won’t go too much into it, it was about a pregnancy scare he and a girl he’s seeing just had). Obviously, this wouldn’t be an appropriate conversation to have with my girlfriend he met a couple hours ago. It was all intended for me, and I think it’s just as rude as talking a foreign language while leaving out someone that can’t understand you.
So I told him to drop it and that he was being rude to approach this with my girlfriend in the room, this wasn’t the time or place to talk to me about that. After my girlfriend left, I went to talk with him to better understand what he was trying to tell me. He was clearly upset by the way I brushed him off before, and that he got the hint that he can’t talk to me about this stuff, and for me to forget about it.
In hindsight, given that this seemed to be a potentially serious issue, maybe I should have excused myself and give him my undivided attention. We still live in the same house, I wonder how can I approach this with him again in the morning and get past this?
TL;DR: My brother, who’s deaf, started talking to me in ASL and it was a personal matter I couldn’t interpret to my girlfriend; now he’s upset I reprimanded him and won’t bring the subject up again.