My older brother died almost 11 months ago at Christmas from alcoholism. Long story short, my other brother phoned me this week and spent 10 minutes verbally attacking me. He has had a go at me on a couple of occasions in the past, which I’ve always let lie, settle, then moved on from. One was our mum’s milestone birthday meal which I said I wouldn’t go to if he insisted on excluding our alcoholic brother’s children (her grandchildren). The other time was over our parents house move.
This time however, I cannot let it lie, he has gone too far and it’s making me ill. As our brother fell deeper into alcoholism, my other brother disowned him, completely washed his hands of him for 6 years. I was the one spending the endless hours, days, weeks months, years listening to our brother struggling on the phone 27 times a day, making calls to doctors, the hospital, housing, arranging counselling, sorting out his debts, arranging and supervising contact his children even though I live 30 miles away, paying for his days out with his children, being the middle person communicating on his behalf with his ex wife, courts, filling in forms, trying to go through the difficult legal deputyship process when he was diagnosed with brain damage… you name it, I did it all. My other brother did nothing, he absolutely refused.
The verbal abuse I got this week was over something trivial but it was completely uncalled for - shouting, swearing, refusing to let me speak, barking orders at me, not allowing me to respond… I’m aware there may well be a lot of guilt and regret etc after our brothers death that he’s experiencing and I am sympathetic about that. But I’m not a punchbag. I will not be disrespected, shouted and sworn at, repeatedly ordered to agree with what he is saying, refused any chance to speak myself, defend myself or respond to what he was shouting about. I don’t deserve that and need to address it with him.
I need advice- do I pursue a conversation with him (I fully expect him to refuse to engage with me), do I make any kind of allowances for him or do I say no, that kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable and he needs to realise there are consequences. I do not want to be his punchbag!