Brother's Difficult Behavior Jeopardizes Reconciliation

[conuly]

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My brother and I have had issues on and off for the last 10 years. Over the last few years, we reconnected, and it’s been great. We both moved to our home state and were getting along great.

The other night, he was clearly intoxicated and called my cell phone, which my 6-year-old son was watching videos on. My son brought me my phone, and I could hear my brother screaming on the other end. He was yelling something to the effect of, “Bring your mother the f---ing phone,” and when I spoke with him he continued on with the cussing, telling me how my son should not be allowed to use my phone, and that if I continue letting him, I’ll have nothing but problems with my son, who he called a “little f---er” and so on.

I bit my tongue hoping he was talking in a joking way. Well, he was not, and continued cussing and referring to my son as a “little f---er”.

Whatever he said to my son hurt his feeling so much that he cried. He loves his uncle so much.

I waited until the next day to confront my brother. I told him how his behavior hurt my son and that I hoped that he was just having a bad day. Well, as I figured would happen, he told me to never speak to him again.

He has three children, two of them have birthdays this month. They have been estranged for about 10 years and he does not have relationships with them. They have not been a part of his life since they were five and six. So I figure he was just dealing with that in a bad way. Even so, I will not allow anyone to speak to my children that way.

I guess my question is, do I try to mend this relationship, or do I let it go? Last time I let it go, it lasted 5 years.

Our father passed away in 2011 and I do not speak to our mother. My stepmother just passed away a few weeks ago. I am running out of family. --- BROKENHEARTED SISTER

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Dear Therapist: Should My Parents Get Divorced?

[conuly]

Dear Therapist,

For quite some time, I’ve known that my parents haven’t gotten along. They are polar opposites: My father is mild-mannered to the point of reticence; my mother is mercurial and can go from playful and loving to angry in a matter of minutes. Often, when they fought in the past, I played mediator even though I was a teenager. After I left for college, the fights became bigger and more serious.

Now my mother seems to resent my father’s very existence. My father has retreated from her and the rest of us. I have only really seen him happy when my mother is out of town.

My parents have never once talked about divorce openly; they come from a social, religious, and cultural background that attaches a lot of shame to it. But recently, my father confided in me—an act that I see as monumental—that after a particularly heated fight, he realized he was reaching a breaking point. He said he has been thinking of divorce, unless something can change. He is open to marriage counseling, but he knows that persuading my mother to attend is an uphill battle. I know that he came to me because he thinks I might be the only one in our family who can convince her. I’m closer to my mother than my father or sister are, and I realize I have many of her tendencies and can read her mood better than they can. But I have no clue how to approach her, because I suspect, based on previous but brief conversations we’ve had about their marriage, that she’ll see my intervention as me taking my father’s side over hers.

I want her to know that I’m asking from a place of love as her son, in the hopes that there can be reconciliation if she agrees to work for it. I’m worried that if I don’t approach it correctly, she’ll shut the idea down completely. How do I avoid that?

Anonymous

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