He’s 29, just recently got fired from his job, and didn’t go to college or graduate high school. He got his GED, works in blue collar line of work (no shame in that), has company hopped quite a bit over the last couple years and has been fired twice. From 18-25 he worked odd jobs and lived at home, paying my parents a small amount to cover his food and utilities.
Since he was fired, he decided he’s gonna go live with his friend about 7 hours away who agreed to give him a temp job. From there, he wants to get back into his line of work. However, his friend’s family is gang affiliated and do a lot of illegal stuff like dealing, illegal gambling, robbing, and credit card/identity fraud. To him this is super normal, and he glamorizes this lifestyle saying they make thousands a week. Our family is like this, and my parents moved away and did everything “right” so we wouldn’t end up this way.
I am extremely disappointed in him and I don’t believe him when he says he won’t be involved in any illegal activity there. He also wants to make just enough to retire in 10-15 years, buy a van, and life a nomadic life. He has been reliant on our parents his whole life (he doesn’t think so) and at this rate will continue to be. I try not to get upset because my parents enable him and obviously choose to help him. But at the same time it’s sad to see my brother not amount to his true potential and my parents to never get the opportunity to travel where they want and renovate their home.
I did kind of blow up on him by saying he needs to be self sufficient and not rely on our parents as a backup plan. I said that he hasn’t worked hard and we could always be working harder which was definitely over the line. But am I justified for feeling this way?
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He’s 29, just recently got fired from his job, and didn’t go to college or graduate high school. He got his GED, works in blue collar line of work (no shame in that), has company hopped quite a bit over the last couple years and has been fired twice. From 18-25 he worked odd jobs and lived at home, paying my parents a small amount to cover his food and utilities.
Since he was fired, he decided he’s gonna go live with his friend about 7 hours away who agreed to give him a temp job. From there, he wants to get back into his line of work. However, his friend’s family is gang affiliated and do a lot of illegal stuff like dealing, illegal gambling, robbing, and credit card/identity fraud. To him this is super normal, and he glamorizes this lifestyle saying they make thousands a week. Our family is like this, and my parents moved away and did everything “right” so we wouldn’t end up this way.
I am extremely disappointed in him and I don’t believe him when he says he won’t be involved in any illegal activity there. He also wants to make just enough to retire in 10-15 years, buy a van, and life a nomadic life. He has been reliant on our parents his whole life (he doesn’t think so) and at this rate will continue to be. I try not to get upset because my parents enable him and obviously choose to help him. But at the same time it’s sad to see my brother not amount to his true potential and my parents to never get the opportunity to travel where they want and renovate their home.
I did kind of blow up on him by saying he needs to be self sufficient and not rely on our parents as a backup plan. I said that he hasn’t worked hard and we could always be working harder which was definitely over the line. But am I justified for feeling this way?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) I told my brother he has never worked hard and 2) I might be the asshole because this might not be justified, but also maybe it’s tough love he needs? Or was it just mean because I feel some type of way about it?
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
This sounds so familiar to my brother! I have learned over the years that it’s easier to simply let it go. Let your parents enable him, let your brother make the mistakes. Let him live his life and you live yours. The moment I stopped trying to control everyone, I felt free. It sucks, and I don’t want to go to their house anymore for holidays because he is there…but that’s life. Put all the energy you use on trying to control his situation, sland use it to better yourself. Have boundaries for yourself…with your brother and within yourself. Good luck! Unfortunately this story sounds all too familiar.
Fireman can get burnt, cops can get shot, people who think they’re untouchable get killed or go to jail. Either way, you have to step back and let the rest of the move play. Ask him if he knows anyone who hasn’t done time or had a friend get killed. Then ask him which one he wants to be like.👍 NTA
You are absolutely justified in being concerned for him, but he’s an adult and can dig his own grave (possibly literally in this case). He’s 100% going to be doing illegal things, will not be able to quit in 10-15 years and this will be who he is. It is most likely already who he is – he has no work ethic and wants the good life without working for it. But you can’t force him to make good choices – he already has family members he can look at as cautionary tales, but he’s choosing to glamorize crime. Your parents are also making their own choices that you can’t change. Love them all, distance yourself from their financial choices and pray for all of them.
YTA for saying someone who has been working blue collar jobs for a decade hasn’t worked hard.
Since that was your question that’s my answer. If you wanna debate whether your brother should do crime to survive, that’s not really the question, nor is it less likely to happen with you showering him in disapproval and pretending nothing he’s done was hard. Seems like everything he’s done is hard. Not finishing school sets one up for a hard life.
Edited for typos.
It probably shouldn’t have been shouted at him when you were frustrated, but I do agree with telling him to be more thoughtful and practical about how he wants to live his life. Your family are the people you trust to tell you the hard truth when no one else will speak up. It might be helpful to talk to him again though in a calmer way and explain that you’re worried bc you love him and want him to be safe. Also that if he gets mixed up with the gang, he can’t expect you or your parents to risk yourselves if things go wrong, bc it’d be dangerous for all of you. I think the thing about your parents enabling him is partly something the three of them need to work on but also partly something you need to work on, in an emotional sense. It’s really frustrating to be the one who works hard and then your parents do all these favors for your sibling. That’s on them for protecting him from the consequences of his actions instead of encouraging him to be independent, but it’s not really something YOU can control. It’s just going to make you feel angry and hurt if you blame him for how your parents treat him. The decisions your parents make are about them, not about you or what you deserve. You could try telling your parents that you think he needs encouragement to be more independent, and you could try explaining to him how it’s not fair to your parents that they can’t enjoy their money in their old age bc they’re supporting him. But in the end, I think the only things that are going to bring YOU peace are to remember that your parents and brothers are making their own choices, the choices in their relationships have nothing to do with how much they value or love you, and the only thing you can do is offer what advice you can while keeping yourself secure. (I find this very hard to do as an older sister who has always been very involved in my siblings’ lives, but I’m getting better and better at it as I accept what I can’t change and understand that no one is trying to treat me poorly, they’re just afraid.)
Edited for clarity
YTA! You need to stop judging whether he has worked hard or not and support him so he can work harder.
Ignorance is not bliss, as men sometimes we must rip the band aid off and let other bros know they’re slacking. It’s all about the delivery and not the message. Instead of judging the situation, I suggest goal planning to help out.
Set a bunch of small goals to knock out one by one until you think he starts to get it. Become interested in the things he likes in order to persuade him more. Irresponsibility is like a cancer, a year of bad choices can impact his entire life.
Understandably, you have your own life as well so you can only do so much. Love your brother forever, but try your best not to hate him for not locking in. Everyone isn’t meant to make it to the top.
Are you going to visit him in jail?
ESH.
Your feelings are valid, but you overstepped. Ultimately it’s up to your parents to decide what they want to do with their time and their money, and your brother to decide what he wants to do with his life and his “potential.” I agree that he’s on a bad path, but the fact of the matter is, you’re not going to argue him off of it.
NTA. If he’s not lazy why is he living with your parents. Needs to live on his own and be a man.
NTA – Your feelings are understandable, but at 29 your brother is an adult and needs to figure this out on his own. When we see someone we love going down the wrong path, we have to say something in the hopes it makes them re-think their direction. Sometimes some people listen. But often others do not and at some point, you have to let it go and allow them to make their own choices and suffer the consequences if they are bad choices. During this time, shaming them will not work and drive them away. You have to encourage and keep giving good advice without sounding judgmental and without shaming and without enabling. I give my opinion what is the best course of action and then let go and say the other person is the best person to decide what they think is best for themselves. With this approach, friends and even my adult kids keep coming to me for advice, because I am not trying to control anybody.
YTA. And judgey.
NTA – you feel what you feel. However, you can’t control what he does, and you can’t make your parents go ‘tough love’ on him. The best you can do is wish him luck, and then if he does, as you fear, get involved in illegal activities, then just make sure you do what you need to do to stay out of it, and let him be responsible for the consequences of his choices.
He’s got a rough life planned out for himself – he just doesn’t realize how rough it’s likely to be.
YTA
In what way was this supposed to be tough love? How was this supposed to help your brother? I’m not trying to be funny, I genuinely don’t get it.
It’s AH behaviour to tell another person they’ve never worked hard. That’s like you saying you know your brothers lived experiences better than he does. There’s no lesson to be learnt there, you were just being an AH.
Now you’ve made some very worrisome claims about your brother, and his intentions. I understand why you’re concerned. I just think you’ve let your judgemental personality shine through, and it’s made things worse.
Being charitable, I’ll interpret your words as not looking down on blue collar workers. I have to acknowledge that you worded your thoughts poorly, and left it to up to interpretation. That true potential stuff is also kinda icky.
You need to accept that your parents can choose to help him if they want to. That’s got nothing to do with you. You also need to acknowledge that just because you think something, doesn’t automatically make it true.
I get your worried, but I really think you handled this incredibly poorly.
ESH this was just about the worst way to phrase it seeing as this doesn’t seem to actually be the problem… but he also seems like he’s going the wrong way so i understand why you’re lashing out
YTA
You’re angry that your brother hasn’t worked hard because you believe he will break the law because he’s around others that do so?
The fact that your objections can’t form a non-run on sentence should tell you whether your objections are a coherent, valid thing.
How are you impacted by your brother’s choices that you’d make differently? You’re valid to get angry at how you’ve been affected … but it really sounds like you’re just angry that he’s not making the choices you would. You’re not angry that he’s hurting you, just that he’s following a different path than you think is good.
The word you’re looking for is disappointed. And there’s a real limit to how much your disappointment in your bother should affect your life.
NTA. Sound like brother is lazy and is no going to try his luck in a trade that could have him wind up in prison.
My advice is to steer clear of him until he decides this is a very bad idea
NTA everyone here saying “if he’s blue collar ofc he’s a hard worker” that’s bullshit. I’m blue collar and ik plenty of people that don’t do shit, get fired from every place they try to work due to incompetence or poor work ethic. Hard workers don’t get fired multiple times. Any time I hear someone complaining about their boss and that’s why they got fired its 95% of the time not the boss’s fault. I’ve seen these “employer blamers” all my life. I’ve now got my own business and employed a friend like this recently after he had been fired from 2 places during a “bad economy” and said he didn’t like the bosses at both those places but when working with me took shortcuts, made multiple mistakes and just didn’t give a damn about my companies reputation and my livelihood. I had to let him go after 3 months to save my business and it honest did more harm in that 3 months than anything else since the start of my company’s inception. Everyone here is giving your brother the benefit of the doubt but in this circumstances you’re probably right. He hasn’t worked hard or at least not hard enough. But in order to get through to him you can’t just attack him. If I was you I’d try have a private conversation with him and explain that if you go down this path with illegal activity you will get caught and you will go to jail. I used to dabble in illegal activities when I was younger and nearly went to prison at 19 years old. Also that he needs to take responsibility and accountability for his actions and circumstances. You should speak to your parents too about allowing this behaviour. It starts with your parents and ends with your brother. He needs a support system that challenges him to become independent if all he has is parents who coddle and allow him to be a bum he’s gonna stay a bum.