I don’t have time for a major rant right now, but you are a FUCKING MORON.
My brother is the best thing that ever happened to you and you are throwing it all all way because you can’t be bothered to discipline your son. He’s a teenage brat and you let him get away with everything and when my brother tries to instill some sort of reason and respect and discipline on the little shithead you make him the bad guy and let the shithead get away with everything. You have refused counseling and prefer to just walk away when things get tough.
He worries about your health more than you do. You have IBS, Chron’s, and a clotting disorder and treat yourself like shit. You eat crap for food, never exercise, and drink too much. He’s been afraid for your life more than once and you dismiss his fears.
He loves you more than life itself and you are pissing all over him because he wants to make an effort to make the three of you a functioning family. You are a fucking hypocrite and a coward. Face up to the shithead you have let your child become because he’s your one and only.
I just talked to my brother, and apparently, Shithead Teenager has been after his mom for a while to get him gone. Well, I guess he got what he wanted.
Sounds like they’re better off without each other, since they clearly have very different expectations of the relationship. Everything else aside, I wouldn’t take kindly to anyone disciplining my kid without regard for my opinion, either.
We don’t know the age of the child in this situation, but responsibility regarding discipline should have been discussed before a new man (your brother) is brought into a child’s life.
I hope the next time he gets involved with someone, he’ll settle that sort of thing before he moves in with her or gets married.
Good luck to your brother. He’ll need your emotional support in the coming days/weeks. The end of a relationship is never easy, even if it wasn’t a very good one-- and especially in this case since it wasn’t his decision to leave…
I feel for ya, OP, but your brother has … questionable taste in women, methinks. On the other hand, many a shitbag teenager has grown up to mature into a respectable member of society. Cripes, if they didn’t occasionally, we’d never get anywhere as a species!
(obligatory note that if there’s a marriage licence or jointly-owned propery involved, that now a laywer should be as well…)
There’s no reason they both can’t be morons. And I’d give the (positive) edge to the brother. He’s at least trying to improve a bad situation. Even if I don’t take the OP at face value, I can’t see how the mother is doing anything good.
It amazes me how many men think they can ‘fix’ their stepkids. Especially teenagers. If it’s not your kid, you can’t be the disciplinarian. When a mom feels like her child is being attacked, she will defend him. Even if she doesn’t condone his behavior, that becomes minor compared to the immediate problem of her child being attacked.
Chances are the kid will outgrow most of the problems. Mine did. Even the one that stood outside the house yelling “Fuck you Mom” for an hour. If there had been a man in my life at that point, I’m sure that could have gotten ugly. As it was he cooled off after a while and came back in. (Fast forward twelve years and you find a responsible adult)
Point is, what you aim at the kid hits the mom full on and hurts her way more than him.
Your brother sounds like a ‘fixer’ who wants to rescue a fair maiden and make her all better. But that’s easier said than done, after a lifetime of her living a particular way, it’s very hard to change, unless of course you WANT to. And the hostile kid is making it impossible. I think of the main character in “Of Human Bondage”, totally besotted with the slutty waitress, Mildred. Every offering he makes is met with with a bored, “I don’t mind”, and then she dumps him and when she’s at death’s door with TB and probably syphillis, she turns up again… Brother is much better off without this girlfriend but love hurts.
Just to be clear, Avarie537, the kid isn’t your brother’s son, right? People are assuming he’s a stepson, but you haven’t specifically said so.
If this kid is flesh-and-blood to your brother, he’s got a complicated situation on his hands and some difficult decisions to make. If not, it’s much, much simpler: he has to wash his hands of these two completely and permanently. It will be hard to do if he thinks he loves this woman “more than life itself,” but I’m willing to bet he’ll get over that soon enough, if things are as bad as you describe.