I've been sitting on this post for awhile now because it's really hard for me to write. I don't know why. It isn't anything new or surprising, it's just that it has finally started to bother me on a fundamental level.

I went on a family vacation in July. Just my immediate family consisting of dad, mom, her new husband, my brothers, sisters -in-law, niece and nephew. MM did not come with me because of work and school obligations - there was just no getting around it.

I drove with one of my brothers and his wife. Everything was great on the drive there. He teased me a little bit when, at a restaurant we stopped at for lunch, I tried to get them to sub a pancake for the sausage links in a breakfast combo. They wouldn't. But whatever. All in all the drive was pleasant. The drive home was good too (except for losing my phone) they played what I wanted from their iPod for most of the trip and treated to coffee and donuts when we got stuck at a restaurant during a torrential down pour (1/2 the parking lot flooded!).

It was how he treated me during the actual vacation that I have a problem with. It started with the breakfast issue - telling my family that I had given her such a hard time that I made the waitress cry with my unreasonable demand for a pancake instead of sausage. Went to a joke about my inability to dress myself because I missed a button on my cardigan, and it got to the point where he even ragged my boyfriend's way of using a knife and fork (MM spent a good deal of time in Europe).

I realize this about my brother - he's great to me, until there is an audience. Then his need to be king of the mountain superior comes out and he turns on the weakest link he can find. It's usually me, but I've seen him do it to his wife too. It's not malicious. He thinks it's funny and just "good fun" teasing. Or sometimes it's about him being right about everything and everyone else just isn't as smart, enlightened, or knowledgeable as him. Although, the comment about MM came at a time when my brother was incredibly cranky, it was entirely uncalled for. My response, because at this point in the vacation I had completely had it, was "if you don't like it, don't look at him while he eats. Or better yet, don't hang out with us anymore."

The weird thing is - and maybe in the above case it was a blood sugar thing and dinner calmed him down - that when I pretend like I don't care about what he's saying or that he's not hurting my feelings, he calms down about it or stops entirely.

When I was in high school and college he used to be really mean to my cat. The cat hated men in general and my dad and brothers in particular. It didn't help that this brother would egg her on. It used to really upset me and I would complain about it - try to appeal to any sense of his love/like for animals, the fact that his would-be-wife had a cat - but he still wouldn't stop. He just didn't. Then I wised up. Just like it's no fun to tickle somebody who doesn't laugh, it's not fun to tease someone when you don't get a rise out of them. So one day when he was bothering my cat, I just said, "well, she knows she doesn't like you, and if she won't leave the room, it's her own fault" and walked away. It felt horrible to do, because really it was my brother's fault for aggravating her, not the cat's fault for acting on territorial instinct. But, lo and behold, he stopped. He rarely, if ever, bothered her again.

Från
    Kom ihåg mig
URL

Säkerhetskod
     

Kommentar

I feel like a jenga game. My foundation is being taken away from me piece by piece and it's a matter of time before it all comes crashing down. I tried to talk to MM last night but he was drunk and I don't think he remembers it now. I'm trying t...

So, my strategy for dealing with this revelation about MM did not go well. And why would it. I wasn't upset about the anniversary thing. I was upset that he slept with somebody else (even if it was early days) and went to Europe with her (I have yet ...

I can't remember when India officially went on my list of places I want to visit. In high school I was obsessed with the Beatles and especially George Harrison. There is no doubt that India effected them. Then in graduate school I started reading the...

I'm teaching at a school in the west end called Emery Collegiate, it's about as different from SATEC as chalk and cheese. I do miss the halls at SATEC, and I've discovered something - I came back to SATEC a little while ago, before I started here,...

Heya folks, once again it's time for Mr. K's exam tips roundup: 1) Get lots of sleep. Exams suck, don't let them get to you. 2) Exercise. Especially my students in uni - You don't want the Freshie 15 any more than you want to catch a bad rash from ...