The Joys of Being An Older Sister

It's been a while since I've posted anything. I can't say it's because I'm no longer single or I've been so ridiculously busy that I just haven't had time. Nope. It's because a bitterness of sorts finally caught up with me and I'm trying to follow the old adage "If you don't have anything nice to say, then shut up!"

Let's catch up-

I moved last year over Thanksgiving weekend to a retirement condo community- the joys of renting from your parents. I am the youngest person here by at least 30 years. It's an older, larger, quieter place than where I used to live. I no longer have ghettofab next door neighbors to make things interesting in a trashy way and to complain about their annoying trashy ways.

I am still on talking terms with that one ex-boyfriend I started talking to. That's surprising actually. Don't get me wrong- we're not besties, we don't talk regularly, we're not dating again and won't in the foreseeable future but he has been a great listener and provided me with some entertainment as well.

I learned to hate my younger brother but I'm still trying to love him.

My younger brother got divorced, kind of had an emotional meltdown of astronomical proportions from which I don't think he has quite recovered from yet, and to be honest, I'm not sure that he will. In the year and a half since his former wife gave him the boot, he has three separate psychological evaluations by three separate doctors, two of which were not of his own choice. Apparently he just has anxiety, ADD, and acute situational depression but no medications or therapy were prescribed. Let me just tell you, apparently that untreatable combination makes a person erratic, illogical, volatile, immature, self centered, angry, aggressive, lazy, sleep deprived, incapable of making sound choices, unresponsive, manipulative, passive-aggressive, vulgar, spiteful, unreliable, incapable of coherent thought or creating complete sentences or successfully holding down a part time job, and it turns them into a victim. This is my brother 2.0 and he is difficult to love and accept now.


I obviously haven't been married, and thus I've not personally experienced a divorce. I know me well enough to know that it would be devastating to me. I'd be a blithering idiot turned emotional basket case for a while. I'd get depressed and shut down. I'd be angry at my spouse, blame myself, cry a lot, and wish I were dead for a while. I get the emotional distress part of it, the heartache, the loss, and the anger.

My brother has always been different. We didn't anticipate him ever getting married and fathering children. We were excited when he had the occasional girlfriend, who has a little different, like himself. My brother was born with brain damage, and though incredibly intelligent, has learning difficulties, speech impediments, behavioral problems, ADHD, a heart problem, is emotionally and socially immature, and has a lot of autistic type behaviors although autism spectrum has been ruled out. We were content that he moved away from home and into an apartment of good, returned missionary LDS guys who were nice to him and included him (he was 25 when he left home) and got a job washing dishes. Marriage was truly a surprise and something my parents never thought to prepare him for. That is a decision they will regret the rest of their lives, considering how things have evolved.

Because I'm the single kid, who happens to live closest, and has always really understood my brother, it kind of fell to my lot to act in my parents stead and help my brother through his divorce. I helped him find doctors to work with to try to get help, helped him find a job and a place to live, took him to therapy, went with him to visit his kids, helped him find an attorney and went with him to nearly every meeting and court date, and made sure his bills were paid and that he had food. After the divorce was final, my sister and I both helped with his supervised visits. Twice a week and every other Sunday initially, we helped with the visits. It became increasingly difficult and taxing because my brother was inconsistent, late, short tempered, inattentive to his kids, and refused to plan ahead.Very quickly, the visits became more sporadic and unplanned.

I have to back track, very briefly here. In the midst of the divorce, my brother made a friend at work, and he started bringing her to every visit, without consent from his ex-wife, my sister, or myself- just showed up with her in tow, and some excuse of why she had to be with him. At this time he was still married. My parents, my sister, and myself all pointed out to him at different times that he was still married and had made Temple covenants with his soon to be ex-wife, and since he had been through the temple he should not start dating until his divorce was final, even if he felt like he  wasn't married anymore. He swore up and down that they were just friends and he wasn't thinking of dating her- he just liked her company and she was nice to him. Considering that's how he explained the early stages of his relationship with his ex-wife, this didn't bode well. His daughter was hospitalized with RSV- he and the 'friend' stayed overnight at the hospital with her both nights. Just before the supervised visits became completely unraveled, my brother completely ditched a visit with no call or text to anyone involved. No one heard from him for 24 hours straight- this was at a time where hearing from 5-20 times a day was not uncommon. Then my aunt in southern Utah calls me and asks if my brother had made it home yet. I had no idea what she was talking about. Seems he'd called her the night before asking for a place to stay because he was having car troubles and hadn't shown up. Several calls were placed- no answer from my brother and no one had heard from him. Suddenly he and this girl show up at my aunts house- they'd gone to Vegas. I thought they'd gotten married secretly- thankfully they didn't. (She just needed to go get her SSI money from her alcoholic step-brother to keep it out of the hands of the grandmother that had tried to murder her after she had aged out of foster care, and she was in foster care because she had put her mafiosa drug dealing dad in prison after her mom abandoned them.)

Three weeks later, my neighbor lady, comes over and excitedly asks how I feel about what my brother did the week before. I had a sick feeling of horror as I said to her, "please tell me he didn't marry that stupid girl", and suddenly my neighbor wasn't so excited. She thought we all knew, she shouldn't have told me, he'd told the bishop he'd told the family and we were all okay with it, she didn't initially find it odd not one of us attended, she was really sorry to have been the one to break the news. Yup- three weeks after his divorce was final, my brother secretly married this girl 12 years his junior. He claimed it wasn't planned, but then their friends posted pictures on faceboook. Their "unplanned" wedding had guests, a bouquet, a wedding dress and veil, the bride had a fresh manicure and her hair was done, and there was cake and a photographer. but it was totally unplanned! And my brother didn't see any of this as inconsiderate, or hurtful, or possibly problematic.


So, why am I angry? Because he's turned into an idiot! And not only an idiot, but he's an idiot who can find two different girls to marry him when I can't even find a decent guy to date. I'm jealous only because he can get married and I can't. Do I want marriage badly enough to settle as he did in both cases? Not a chance in hell! I get lonely sometimes, but I'm not so stupid, desperate, or pathetic that I'll marry someone I hardly know, who I know has serious mental health issues that aren't being worked on and whose financial status is basically destitute and about $1.47 away from being homeless all in hopes that I can make babies with him and avoid the dreaded spinsterhood perceived in certain Mormon circles, get more welfare benefits, or whatever they married him for. I don't want or need bragging rights that desperately.

And I'm angry because, I know that when marriage 2 doesn't work out for him, if I'm still single and local, I'll be stuck babysitting him through all the same crap again. And I don't want to be stuck with that unwanted responsibility... again!

How do you love someone who blames you for their problems? How do you help someone that doesn't want your help? How do you help someone without providing benefits for someone attached to them that you want nothing to do with? At what point do you turn your back on family, who has done nothing wrong, other than be lazy, make poor choices, married an idiot, and be born with brain damage? And, I'm probably going to go to hell for this. Piece of crap!