Estranged brother causes trouble for me with our cousins

[writergal]

I knew this would happen. Ugh. After I left my aunt and uncle's anniversary dinner I worried that my estranged brother might spread nasty gossip about me to our cousins. A few weeks prior to the dinner, I was in contact with two cousins and everything seemed fine, they greeted me with smiles when I arrived and implied that we would stay in touch after the dinner too. Well, I haven't heard a peep from those two cousins since I left the dinner.

 

And I'm convinced it is the result of my brother's doing. I know that one can't squeeze blood from a turnip - that I can't get my brother to stop being such a jerk - but I just don't know what to do. I can't control my brother or my cousins, but I don't like being a passive victim here either of his supposed-slander about me behind my back. I think it occurred after I left, and since I didn't stay for the dinner portion, that left my brother with 2 hours to drag my name through the mud with my relatives that I haven't seen consistently in a long time for various reasons.

 

Should I accept my cousins' silence as a response to my brother's supposed act of slandering me at our aunt and uncle's anniversary dinner? Or should I just chill out and let it be? I already texted my cousins to check in with them but haven't heard anything in three days.

[whichwayisup]

If your cousins choose to believe him, after knowing you and having a good time with you, then they aren't worth it. One would hope they would be smart enough to know that your bro was shi.t disturbing and being a jerk.

 

I'm sure it hurts, I can't imagine having to deal with that, but just know that you know all that your brother has said is NOT true.

 

You could email both your cousins, tell them that your brother can be a jerk sometimes and spew out lies, and that you hope whatever lies he said don't affect how they feel towards you. But, also add, that if they infact believe his gossip then that's their loss.

 

Actions speak for themselves. You're a good person, seems like your brother isn't. time will show this, and your cousins may regret believing his lies.

[writergal]

Thanks for your encouragement whichwayisup. I need it. Years ago everything was fine between him and I. Then suddenly, it wasn't and he never explained to me why. I guess that's what irritates me the most about this whole situation!

 

I suspect it could be his crazy ultra-born-again Luthern church, whose spiritual sales pitch is "the whole world is going to hell except this church's parishioners." I only say this because six years ago he invited me to his son's baptism there so I got to see his craziness first hand. During the church's laying-on-of-hands portion, (weird interval between their homily and communion) my brother refused to touch me because of my "impure sould" which he told me after...how's that for mean (i.e. my head injury, and the fact that years prior I spent a year living in Southern China where I hung out with Buddhist monks, which in turn sparked my interest in Buddhism as a life-philosophy). He's one of those types who inserts "God" and "Jesus" into every other sentence because that's the lens he chooses to interact with the world through. As a Buddhist minded person I should practice objective detachment and just observe him, but sometimes I feel like Buddhism doesn't really help me cope with family stress like this.

 

And estrangement runs in my family as I indicate in another post; my grandfather estranged his siblings when their father died and left him in charge of the will. Apparently my grandfather didn't divide the family assets up equally enough to his siblings satisfaction, so they all left town and only one kept in touch with him whereas the others became total strangers to the rest of the generations on the family tree, if that makes sense. So basically, I have relatives out there - distant cousins whom I"ll never meet nor know about because of my grandfather's poor decision making.

 

When he and his wife greeted me with their fake enthusiasm and smiles at the anniversary dinner I cringed because it was like on the surface, their message appeared to be: "Hey great to see you" for everyone else's benefit, but beneath the surface, the truth was: "we can't stand you." Why would I return their greeting with my own version of fake enthusiasm? I guess I felt like my not being there for the meal portion meant I couldn't be there to defend myself just in case...but there's always texting and email so if he was going to slander me, why wait until the anniversary dinner to do it. So I'm overreacting I guess in that sense, but I don't like not having control over my reputation within my own family system, if that makes sense.

 

And you're right about my cousins showing me their true colors if they choose not to stay in contact with me. I had a feeling this would happen even if I'd stayed for the meal portion of the dinner, because there's email and texts too.

Edited November 29, 2011 by writergal

[sLiPpeTh]

hmm...are we related?

 

I think whichwayisup has given some excellent advice. However, if it were me? I'd just 'forget' the brother and the cousins. Apply my energy toward reciprocal relationships. One's based upon mutual trust and natural affinity.

 

No one can do anything to us in life. Unless other's 'choose' to participate... Even then they really cannot; for so long as we choose to keep our own power and not give it to them.

 

So basically, 'duff them'...treating yourself well is the greatest revenge.

[sadintexas]

I find it interesting that you automatically blame your brother without any proof or even inclination whatsoever.

 

He may have said bad things about you and he may not.

 

Could it be possible at all that perhaps you did or said something that was offputting to them? They were polite and "implied" (as you put it) that you would stay in touch, but were perhaps disingenuine and disinterested from the start?

 

Just another possibility since we're pulling from a grab bag of possible scenarios.

[writergal]

I find it interesting that you automatically blame your brother without any proof or even inclination whatsoever.

 

He may have said bad things about you and he may not.

 

Could it be possible at all that perhaps you did or said something that was offputting to them? They were polite and "implied" (as you put it) that you would stay in touch, but were perhaps disingenuine and disinterested from the start?

 

Just another possibility since we're pulling from a grab bag of possible scenarios.

 

Proof? If you read my other post about family boundaries then you'd know there's been acrimony between my brother and I for a long, long time not to mention he's done some awful things to me in the past. My brother works in public relations so he gets paid to put "the spin" on people and situations. Naturally I would automatically blame my brother based on the way he's been a real jerk to me since our father died. I'm not the type to gossip about family to other family and my brother *is* the type. That's one of the differences between us. I talk things out. He represses his emotions until something tips him over the edge, then he explodes in a rage blaming the other person for not being able to read his mind. I'm not without faults either, but this thread was about me expressing concern that my brother gossiped about me and my worry over the consequences since these were cousins I haven't seen in years. My cousins may respect my brother more than me because I appear to have stayed "stuck" whereas he and my sister have developed careers, got married, had kids, etc.,. whereas I haven't done any of that yet.

 

There's nothing I could have done to be offputting to my cousins since that anniversary dinner was the first time in years I'd seen any of them. They hadn't seen me before that for years. After my father died they were nice to my family for a few years, then basically stopped contacting us, and stopped inviting us over for holiday gatherings like they did when my father was alive.

 

As a follow up, I did go to lunch with the two cousins finally and it was truly awkward because we were like strangers to each other, having not kept in touch for years.

Edited December 22, 2011 by writergal

[writergal]

I read your other posts about your family relations before I responded to this one. But you're not questioning if this is what has happened (the brother bad mouthing you) you've decided this is what happened.

 

I was only suggesting that you might consider other possible scenarios as well because you don't *know* that he did it.

 

Well he's done it to me before so that's all the proof that I need.