He Was Tired of Doing All the Work Around the House While His Brother Did Nothing. He Texted His Complaints, and His Brother Didn’t Seem to Care
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When someone does something that really bothers you, it can be cathartic to list out your grievances to them. If they don’t respond well to the complaint, however, it can be worse than if you said nothing at all.
That is what happened to the person in this story when they told their brother all about their complaints related to him not helping around the house.
Unfortunately, the brother didn’t seem to care, so now they are feeling worse than if they had said nothing at all.
Read through the full story and see what you think of what happened.
AITA for telling my brother my problems with him?
I’m 17(nb) and my brother, let’s call him Jim for privacy, is 21(m).
His brother seems a bit lazy.
Recently, our mom went away for four days for a work thing, my dad and other brother are usually gone for weeks to months for work, which left just me and Jim alone.
I don’t hate him, in fact I actually love him. But, over these four days, he hardly helped out around the house, and I had to get myself to and from school during this time, between that and doing the dishes, recycling, taking the bins out, studying for tests, I felt very stressed.
Siblings can be mean sometimes.
The only thing he did was mow the back lawn, which I really appreciate, but I just felt maybe he could’ve done more, especially since the recycling is his chore, and I asked him to do some of the dishes to make supper.
He’s larger then me, and dealing with a few diagnosed mental issues, which he’s taking medication for, but he still scares me whenever he’s mad, since I’m anything but a fighter. He’s never hurt me before, but I’m still afraid he could start if I make him mad.
Telling him how he feels might be risky.
He also has this habit to shut down when upset, and from a young age I’ve always had this nagging feeling that it’s always my fault, so I never feel like I can say no to his requests, or even ask him for help since if he shuts down, even less gets done.
I’ve been bottling up how I feel, and my grievances with his behavior for many years now, and after getting four headaches in a row from stress, I finally texted him how I felt.
Did he expect his brother to make a dramatic change?
However, he made excuses for all my points, and I feel like he didn’t really understand the point I was trying to make telling him everything, and now he’s just replying to all my replies in the same way.
I honestly feel like it might have been better to just not say anything though, since we haven’t talked face to face, nor has he come to the table for supper. I haven’t apologized or retracted my statements, but I’m starting to think I should and just go back to but voicing any complaints.
AITA?
It seems like he had high hopes that his brother would make a change in his behavior because of this text, but that is unrealistic. His brother is still young and undoubtedly self-centered (as almost everyone is at that age). He vented his feelings; now he should drop it.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this situation.
More information is needed to make any type of judgment.
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This person says to stop worrying about his brother.
Here is a good point.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a bride who invites her groom’s “best woman” out to dinner in order to get to the bottom of her true feelings for her future husband.
This person thinks he is complaining too much.
You can tell people how you feel, but you can’t tell them how to react.
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