What should I do with my toxic brother?

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findme

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Hello. My brother is 27 years old. Since ten years ago my brother has been an “issue” in my family, he’s irresponsible and haven’t finished any kind of study in the university out of laziness. Right now, due the pandemic, he’s living with us. My brother is a troublemaker, he doesn’t help in the house, his room really dirty, 90% of the time is playing video games and cursing a lot while playing, he doesn’t help paying bills and my parents let him use the car. He doesn’t respect my parents, every time they talk to him or ask him to change his behavior he gets really mad and shouts, gets aggressive, or just laugh about it, sadly he has a 90% narcissist personality. Through all these years we have tried almost everything, from talking to him to sending him to a psychologist, we pray a lot for him. We are a good family, my parents are really good parents and we have grown in a good place, not like he has a big real trauma about anything. This is just a sneak peak of all the stuff he does and as a Catholic I don’t know what’s the best solution to this. My father says that he is his son so he can’t ask him to leave the house and I get that but where are the limits? my mother is already too tired of all this situation. As him being really aggressive, he has tried to punch me and push me. Should I wait for him to punch me in the face so we have an excuse to take him out of the house? I know we must pray for him and believe that God will change him or help him (if my brother wants to, God won’t force him). but I can’t find it fair anymore to live through this situation just because he’s my brother, I think there must be limits. what should I do? Believe me, we have tried everything. We just can’t force this anymore, I feel like my fathers only solution is just waiting for god to come and tell him to change. 🤷‍♀️
 
Welcome, findme. I was talking to a police prosecutor acquaintance recently and he said that the most distressing situations he deals with are adult children who are still taking advantage of parents who are in their 70’s and 80’s who always thought that one day the child would ‘change’. He said that he makes a point of advising parents in this situation to lovingly push the child from the nest. It’s the only way anything will ever change. Especially if narcissism is suspected, there’s little hope of a sudden conversion. There are programs like Tough Love that your parents could explore and if they could get professional support themselves if they choose to go that road it would be much healthier.

A prayer for you and your family at this time. 🙏
 
From the Catholic point of view, your parents would be fine explaining that he has to leave, considering his behavior.

This may be hard for your father, and the best thing you can do for him is to pray for him, because parents do not always listen to their children 😉

It seems like your mother is ready to do it, though!

Counseling might well help any or all three of you. If you are going to school in the US, they probably have a counseling center where you could get help learning some strategies for dealing with your brother and for thinking about things, because sometimes living with a person like that causes us to think in ways that don’t work well away from that person.
 
Thanks, yeah, it should be fine but my father thinks that if he makes him leave the house and my brother becomes worse because of it, my father thinks it’s will be his responsibility for letting his son go and not giving him money or a place to stay. 🤷‍♀️
 
findme said:
my father thinks it’s will be his responsibility
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You need to tell your father that he is being selfish. At 27, his son is no longer his responsibility even though your brother is still in the house.

Your father needs to let go of his feelings of responsibility if something happens. Something is probably just as likely to happen where he is now as it is elsewhere.
 
Your father needs to talk with someone about this. It is absolutely not his responsibility if your brother leaves the house and does something. Your brother is an adult and responsible for his own decisions.

In fact, your father is helping your brother to be bad by allowing him to live for free while behaving badly and irresponsibly.

Your father is protecting your brother from the normal human consequences of his bad behavior.

Is there anyone your father would be able to talk to about this? Like an uncle or priest or friend?

Anyway, each person in your family would probably benefit from counseling.
 
Can’t make your parents do anything, unfortunately.

I was in a slightly similar situation; as an adult, I used to live with my Mom and my older sister. We all three paid the bills and took care of the house and the like, but my sister had some significant anger management issues, which culminated in her giving me a black eye one night. Because Mom didn’t want to kick her to the curb, I chose to move out.

It may come down to that for you, too. You might talk with your parents one more time and explain, for your safety and health, that you can’t live with your brother anymore. If they can’t bring themselves to make him leave, it may be up to you to take yourself out of the situation.

You’ve got my prayer, either way.
 
It’s possible your brother made this threat or insinuation to your dad privately—or dangled the carrot “living here is the only thing holding me back from doing {insert possibility that breaks your fathers heart} is because I live here”.

Which is manipulative and ugly.
 
Motherwit said:
Welcome, findme. I was talking to a police prosecutor acquaintance recently and he said that the most distressing situations he deals with are adult children who are still taking advantage of parents who are in their 70’s and 80’s who always thought that one day the child would ‘change’. He said that he makes a point of advising parents in this situation to lovingly push the child from the nest. It’s the only way anything will ever change. Especially if narcissism is suspected, there’s little hope of a sudden conversion. There are programs like Tough Love that your parents could explore and if they could get professional support themselves if they choose to go that road it would be much healthier.
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All you can really do is leave yourself.

I was raised by my Grandparents. My uncle lived with them too. He was basically a man child. Only working odd jobs once in awhile, extremely messy, getting drunk and making scenes and being a all around pain. He was decent when he was sober but still more a burden then help. And yes, he was somewhat abusive sometimes when I was a kid. Definitely a bully. Imagine a 30 year old man being a bully to a 9 year old boy. My Grandfather could not kick him out because my Grandmother would have thrown a absolute fit. So he lived with them… then my Grandfather died and he really had free range of the house. My Grandfathers presence kept him a bit in check but then… All the stuff he would do, my Grandmother refused to kick him out. I realized she would never kick him out. She would rather enable him even though it messed him up. The guilt would be too hard on her if he dies on the streets. That is what she told me. I realized they were a package deal. So, I left. I did not leave my Grandmother, I left him. Could not take it anymore. He was the last thing I saw when I went to work and the first thing I saw when I came home. I cleaned up after him, fixed stuff he broke. Although when I was About 19 or 20 he learned that he could not bully me anymore after I beat him up a couple times, he was still extremely obnoxious in other ways.

My guess is that you will never be able to convince your parents to kick him out. Hes 28, no job and acts that way and they are okay with enabling that behavior? I would send my own son packing for his own good.

No, your only options are to stay and endure or to make exit plans. I know that is easier said then done, believe me, I have been there. But after years of planning I did it. God bless
 
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I’m very sorry for your situation and dilemma. Your brother is not going to change…why should he? He has room and board and is able to manipulate your parents whenever any pressure is placed on him. This isn’t your problem to solve, unfortunately. It’s a situation created by your parents and they are the only ones that could fix it. They are unwilling to do this as it would require them to stop the enabling of your brother. Maybe, at some future time, they will realize that they are continuing to allow this behavior.

You do have some choices, though. You can not make your parents fix the problem but you can remove yourself from the harm of living like this. I would do so as quickly as possible. Yes, get a job that will allow you to have your own place or even renting a room from someone. Is there other family you could move in with?

We can’t fix other people as much as we want to so badly! We can fix ourselves. You need to get out of there. You aren’t cutting off your family, you are instead making sure you have some normalcy and away from such an abusive situation. Start the process as soon as possible. I wish you the best in this!
 
thanks for the answer and for your prayers, below I let an answer to another user, if you like too, you can read it.
 
findme said:
My father says that he is his son so he can’t ask him to leave the house and I get that but where are the limits? my mother is already too tired of all this situation. As him being really aggressive, he has tried to punch me and push me. Should I wait for him to punch me in the face so we have an excuse to take him out of the house?
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The bolded part is what caught my eye. Whereas waiting for him to assault you may allow you to force him out of the house, I want to caution you to make sure you are NEVER alone with him, that way if he does assault you, you will have a witness.

Forgive me if I missed this, but are you male or female, and how old are you? You may need to ask your dad point blank “Am I not your son/daughter as well? Doesn’t MY safety matter to you?” Also, if you are a minor, whatever child protective services agency there is in your jurisdiction may be able to force action (whether it be to remove the brother or take you out of the situation).
 
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Hello, your answer is very important to me. My father lives in a toxic cycle with my brother = my brother does something bad, my father nags him, a week or two pass, my brother does something worse, my father gets angrier and complains. some time later, my brother finishes getting my dad out of his mind, a big verbal fight comes and my father says after the fight: I gave him some real “advertisements”, “I told him im not forcing him to stay in my house” (not the same as asking him directly to leave), my brother acts "better’ for some days, my father is tranquil, some days later my brother stars the whole cycle again. My internal discussion is the fact that I have talked several times with my father and he has told me that he’s not ok with my brother behaviors and that “he can’t do anything more” “you can’t deny home to your family” and that he “doesn’t have all the answers and solutions to this” and this is what makes myself as a catholic to doubt about my point of view about my brother leaving the house (maybe im too selfish?, maybe this is a cross I must take?). I asked myself a lot if im too “tough” with my brother (he’s the oldest one), my middle brother thinks the same as I do and my mother too. My father is a real catholic, believe me, he acts in a very holy way in his everyday life and everybody loves him and sees him as a little saint. For this exact reason I see two ways: he’s so holy that sees this situation in a way we can’t and have too much patience, peace and faith, or second, this is his Achilles heels (ill be very happy if you tell me your opinions). Yes he talks with a priest, sadly I think maybe the priest have told him to be patient with his son idk. Right now I have decide to look for a job to be able to pay for a room anywhere, im young and its not easy to find a job in my country but im decided to do it.
 
I am Female (22). I’ve already told him that. My brother punched me two times when I was older but I have “forgotten” about it because he was younger. Now, some weeks ago in an argument he went really mad (I told him in his face that he was an irresponsible blah blah) he then went so mad he pushed me against a furniture and I kind of “wrestle” to make him stop, then my father came and separated us, I clarify I didn’t punched back, I just tried to push him back away from me and didn’t make any allegation of trying to punch him when I was arguing at the beginning. Yes, I told my father after if he was aware that this “attempt” from my brother of fighting with me is a red flag of him being more aggressive. My father “talked” to him about it and a month later, my boyfriend corrected my brother about a bad behaviour (just told my brother like 10 words) and my brother went bad and made the attempt and gesture of pushing my boyfriend. Now, after this last fight my brother is trying to be “normal” with me cuz now he’s trying to put my boyfriend as the bad and disrespectful one and saying that he “lives and tries to handle my bad behaviours” because I’m her sister and he can’t “do anything about it” but that he won’t handle “anyone” who “tries to act the same as my sister”.
 
And I’ll add. Some days ago my father talked to him again as I expected and now the cycle is once again repeating as I expected. I’m 99% sure in some weeks my brother will do some bad stuff and there’ll be an argument again and then the “talk” with my father and on and on just as always.
 
Mitchk said:
Yes he is frustrated with his lack of success and his social standing.
How to break the cycle of failure is rough
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Sounds more like he wants success and social standing without doing anything to earn them.
 
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