Visiting my family always has it's ups and downs. The upsides include seeing people that I only get to see only a handful of times each year, catching up, spending quality time with my little sister, not needing to cook, etc. The downsides include dealing with my brother's existential woes and/or latest revelations.
I love my brother, he is one of those men who would give you the shirt off of his back without a second's hesitation. However, that shirt might come with a debate on whether or not him giving you the shirt was going to assist you in your participation of the project that is life. He and I attended the same undergraduate school, majored in the same program, and took all of the same classes. (It is a very small school that only offers one program). But where I took the "project" of the school, namely to experience this thing called life while trying to figure out what is truth, and ran with it, converting in my sophomore year to Greek Orthodoxy and continuing my pursuit of truth and knowledge through a gentle challenging of my belief system; he has taken on the project in a different manner. He believes he needs to be constantly challenging the deck of cards that was dealt to him in a very confrontational manner in order to grow. And in doing so, he wants to and needs to challenge those around him in a similar manner. I applaud him in doing this. I think that with where he is at in life this is exactly what he should be doing. I just don't appreciate the manner in which he is going about doing it.
Sometime during my sophomore year I started to put up barriers. I had some good (or perhaps just reactionary) reasons for doing so. Slowly but surely with the gentle support and encouragement of my husband those barriers are starting to come down. But it's not been an easy dismantling project. Unfortunately those barriers have affected my brother and my relationship in a negative way. Where he wants to engage with me on issues that he's been struggling with in his generally confrontational way, I've just wanted to avoid confrontation and disagreements altogether. Our way of doing things has finally come to a head on this visit after he started trying to "assist" me in my growth process. Essentially he was an ass who decided that critiquing my parenting style and pointing out that I'm an insecure nervous new mother was a good decision. I am an insecure nervous new mother, hands down I'm the first person to admit that. I've never done this before. Do I need him to point out my insecurities with the air of one just trying to make me feel ridiculous (as was his later stated goal), absolutely not. Especially not in front of little bug.
I couldn't figure out why it bothered me so much, aside from the obvious, he was just being rude, reason. It was only later that I realized why. He totally disrespected me in front of my child. While little bug is in no way consciously aware of what is being said around him he definitely picks up on tone. If Sir and I argue we try not to do it in front of him and we try to always be respectful to each other, especially around him. Part of this stems from our D/s contract, I am at all times to maintain an air of respect towards Sir (which I'm constantly failing at and working on), but it primarily stems from the fact that we love each other deeply and care about each other. This respect is essential to our relationship, and to the relationships with my friends and family.
We pause this post for a life interruption. More on this thought later.
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