Toxic relationship with family ( Mom & brother)

[PJM]

Hello,

 

I am Indian ( south Indian) , my brother was born after me . He is 1 yr younger. Since he was born I always felt that I had to work hard for approval from my parents especially mom. I had a very traumatic memories of my childhood relationship with her. She would hint that I was not beautiful, would emotionally neglected me if i did not listen to her. I have always been a rebel and would do things I wanted to do like keeping hair in certain way , dressing I was not allowed to wear skirts..which she never liked. Bottom line she wanted complete control , emotionally neglected & always made me feel I was worthless. I never remember when my mom told me " I love you" to the extent that I worked very hard in every field to get approval & love and ended up getting in medicine. The opposite has been with my brother, he would get away with any thing. My mom enabled any action he did. He has been never apposed . He would spend lot of time with his friends never studied, never was with family even for a movie but my mom would not say a thing. My dad was very neutral and always stayed out to earn money for the family. When it was time my brother was sent to private college with lot of money so he could be an engineer , I slogged by teenager time to get into medicine and got into a Govt college. Whenever I would come home from stress of medical college, They both would make fun of me ( brother & mother) you cant handle medicine why did you get into that? Long story short, I ended up marrying a very abusive husband ( in my first marriage) ( who was like my mom i guess) I was in US at that time and had a girl child. Very proud of myself getting out of the abusive relationship.Life really shook me very hard as a single parent and for the first time in my life I worked on myself, my confidence, having deeper connection to my inner self and loving myself. Took me 5 yrs after my divorce to reach that connection. During all these years my brother totally refused to help me as he was scared I would be a burden to him. To be honest these were my best years as I was free from my mother & brothers interference in my life and had a blast as a single mom. I grew personally emotionally & spiritually and became a very strong and unshakable person.

 

I was proud of myself. I attracted a nice man in my life our relationship became deeper and we decided to tie a knot this after 6 yrs after my divorce. I was happy woman. Me & my husband had some little issues but had fun and for the first time felt like I was living my life I deserved. I started focusing on my medical studies and got selected into a very competitive PA program. During my first year I had a baby , I needed help first my mother-in-law came & helped me for sometime & then my parents came for 6 months. I wanted to forget about all the incidents I had in child hood with my mom and give our relationship a second chance. My parents came to live with me. I knew there would be some conflict when my brother and mom unite ( as my brother lives 1 hr far from me ) I thought I can handle any complication with with compassion. There were some issues then but I did not give them much energy and focused on my studies. Handled it for 6 months and then there was a situation where I could not find a nanny ( most of them were very expensive), my MIL was very sick and I had an option of taking break from PA school or to send my baby to India for 6 months . I did not want to send her but my husband suggested, to take the help and finish school. So I heart broken sent my baby with my parents mom & dad. I am very grateful for them to help me out and my mom to take care of my baby. Now my parents are here back with my daughter, I am into last lap of finishing PA school and since last six months my husband is in New York for a good contract and comes every 2 weeks for the weekend. We had a long discussion about his working situation but he said he is doing for the family & is very temporary and should be done by the time your parents leave .

 

My mom & dad don't get along well they literally resent each other. My mom some times cant stand my dads presence. Every weekend when my husband comes, he would ask if any thing is needed for the house and my mom would give him a big list of things, & would start talking a lot to him giving him lists and sometimes doing more for by daughter in front of him. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful that she helped me but her this behavior with my husband is irritating me. My husband respects her a lot as she did lot for our child when I was at school and some times even when I am there she will start taking acre of my daughter giving him the impression that I don't do any thing and she is the only one that does a lot for our child. This kind of subtle things is bringing lot of tension in already along distance relationship with my husband. Once I got some courage and talked to her very diplomatically, which was taken very personnel& told to my brother behind my back. My brother called me and started trashing me that I disrespecting them bla bla . I felt very hurt that my mother would go behind my back and complain about me to my brother. I am getting sick of this behavior. Last week some thing like this again happened with and I lost it with my mom, Came from a night shift and ended up saying " You don t want us to stay together as a family" which she blew out of proportion and next thing I know is I get a call from my brother saying that I have used her for my baby and now I am not treating her nicely. I should be grateful and worship her. My mom said to me well I have done so much for the baby you should surrender yourself " which really shocked me and I tried to understand that all the time she helped was to gain control so I could surrender my life to her? At this point my relationship with my mom & brother sounds very toxic to me. Its time for them to go back to India and my dad likes it here and wants an extension & I said no. I said its very high time that I take care of my daughter , my brother came to talk to me to convince for the stay and there was an argument and suddenly he started bursting and attacking me that " how dare you say mom is creating problems in your relationship" She did so much for your baby you are a selfish arrogant woman and there abuse went on and on... at one point he came so close to hit me. Do I really need this abusive toxic relationship with my brother? Do I need a relationship with a mom who just wants attention from every one including my husband and does not care if her behavior tears us apart? I am I being very arrogant and unreasonable here to say no to this negativity ? Any input is highly appreciated. Thank you.

[melancholy123]

Please break that wall of text into a few paragraphs if you want people to read it.

[PJM]

Thank you.