My brother has often been someone who i can go to for advice and to help me with relationship problems. He is very wise and has been a mediator for me with many things in relationships. Recently he got burnt out because he felt like he had become my “fixer” and that I wasn’t respecting him in needing his help. We’ve had some time apart and it has been healthy for me to learn how to deal with my own problems. Now, my brother and mom are in a heated argument where I am actually mainly on my brother’s side. My mom came to me today urgenty asking for my advice, and said that my brother asked me to mediate for them. This makes me feel really uncomfortable coming from her because I feel like this is putting me in a “parentified” role for her, whereas with my brother I would like to be there to support him. I basically feel like if I mediate for them, I will do a poor job and lose one of them, and this also feels like crossing my boundary with my mom. I actually expressed this to her and she said that she gives me advice all the time and I should do the same for her. It makes me feel weird.
I told my mom I was unsure about mediating and she TOLD MY BROTHER THIS and now HE is disapointed in me for not being there for him. This pisses me off because I feel like she did this on purpose to shift the focus onto me not helping them enough so that he woiuld be angry with me instead of her.
What should I do?
tl;dr: Mom and brother want me to mediate their fight, I feel obligated to help my supportive brother but uncomfortable with all of it.
Comments
I wouldn’t do it, but as you said it seems like a risk of damaging both relationships if you don’t help. It’s also hard to say without knowing the actual argument.
No, no no. They need a neutral party and that’s not you. I’d recommend family therapy. This is not working for anyone.
Tell them to toss a coin, because a coin would probably care more about their fight than you do. Piss them both off.