I (25M) have a brother. We have been pretty close when we are together but I have lived in a few different cities in my life and when we are not in the same place we don’t talk that often other than an occasional call now and again.
My brother got married a few years back and I think my SIL is pretty awesome too. But I have noticed an attitude change in my brother recently.
For context, I love my job. It’s something I started and built by myself during the pandemic, grinding away in my basement and it’s started to show some results recently and I am making a comfortable wage. My brother had a similar idea to start his own business but gave up on it since he wanted a stable income to support his new married life.
Recently, he has started making snarky comments about how "he would never turn his hobby into a job", how there is so much more to life than working, and how "it’s sad that I enjoy working so much." Sure, but my job makes me genuinely happy and it’s been a rough year with my personal life so I am thankful there is a job I can throw myself into to get through tough times. He has also never said things like that before so it feels strange to hear this now, I mean I have been dedicated to making work for the past few years and have never heard something from him about this. Also, this might not be relevant maybe, but we drink together often and I have been trying to cut down on my drinking and he also comments on "a few weeks of not drinking is not going to clean your slate and make you sober uk."
So at one conversation he stated another one of "one should never turn a hobby into a job" and it just went over the tipping point for me and I let him have it. I told him it’s not my fault if he couldn’t achieve his similar dreams because of his decision to get married and maybe he is holding onto some resentment because he feels stuck in his own marriage and is taking it out on me. His face just dropped and told me I had no right to comment on his marriage and how he was making these comments looking out for me as a brother and thinking I am making a mistake working so much. After a "how dare you" he left.
That does make me feel maybe he is right and he was just making comments out of concern but I cannot ignore the fact also that his snark felt so random and sudden. So reddit, AITA?
YTA for blaming your SIL for your brother’s unhappiness.
He could have pursued a different career if he wanted to do so. It’s not her fault that he made this choice.
I don’t see where OP has blamed his brother’s wife. OP talked about how his brother wanted a stable income to support his married life. OP also asserts that his brother feels stuck in his marriage.
It doesn’t automatically follow that the SIL as an individual is being personally blamed here. The context is that in deciding to get married the brother chose to give up his business dreams which would be unstable in terms of income while requiring a lot of time, work and dedication, and that was seen by the brother as undesirable when going into marriage.
OP may or may not be wrong that the brother is feeling “stuck” in his marriage. I think it would have been better to say that his brother should clearly make his choice and sincerely pay the opportunity costs either way. If he is happy to be married and in that marriage stability of income is important, then he should honestly let go of his business dreams and stop being jealous of OP and being all sour grapes about OP’s success. If the brother really wants to follow his business dreams then he should talk with his wife and work out whether she would be willing to work with him to achieve that. If his marriage is being strained by his unwillingness to let go of his business dreams or work out how to follow them in marriage, with him stuck in a frustrating limbo, then he needs to resolve this for his marriage’s sake.
YTA for turning the argument into an attack on his marriage.
You certainly aren’t the AH for defending yourself, though, nor for telling your bro to take a hard look as to why he is making those comments. Putting a boundary up saying you won’t tolerate being belittled anymore is completely fine and your brother should back off.
Why do wives get blamed for their husband’s life choices? Seriously OP, reflect on why you place blame on his marriage for his lack of ambition cause that shit is ugly.
ESH. you are both lifting yourselves up by insulting eachother. Ya’ll suck.
>His face just dropped and told me I had no right to comment on his marriage and how he was making these comments looking out for me as a brother and thinking I am making a mistake working so much.
ESH The mistake your brother is making is thinking that he has the right to comment on the fundamental choices in your life (with impure motives); the mistake you are making is thinking that as he has commented on yours commenting on his in the same way will somehow lead somewhere positive. In reality you have only hurt each other.
I think that with pure motives and not acting out of some emotion or frustration both of you may have been able to bring up genuine concerns with the other — but that would have to be done carefully and with sincerity to avoid a defensive reaction.
He does sound like he is talking out of some kind of underlying jealousy or denial he is in; but you must have known that his marriage would be a very touchy subject and that if he is having trouble the subject should be approached delicately and not as a way to push back in a disagreement (even if you are basically right).
Totally fair opinion. I am a person who tends to take punches for a while hoping it’ll stop until one day its just one punch too many. In retrospect, I should have addressed the comments by talking about my job instead of punching back.
YTA
Your brother was making passive-aggressive/snide remarks about what you do. Instead of addressing that, you attacked his marriage and his wife.
Totally fair, I see that. I should not have attacked him but instead talked about his attack.
ESH. He’s insulting your job as a hobby and slamming your choices to drink less, and you’re blaming his marriage for what you perceive to be his lack of motivation. You don’t know why he didn’t do something similar to what you’re doing, and blaming his marriage isn’t fair.
And both of you all should probably stop drinking entirely. It’s not turning either of you into nice men.
Do you all even like each other, or are you turning your dislike of yourselves on to each other?
Honestly this seems like a tough place to say YTA or NTA in my opinion. You both chose different life choices and that doesn’t mean he can’t make his own job now into a career that he enjoys especially if he has a supportive wife!! I’m the same age and have older siblings (who one isn’t as successful as I am for reasons, I am working through therapy to try and not feel bad about) but you can’t forget the hard work you put in. It sounds like you made the smart move to invest in your career (I might be biased as a career motivated girl) and you shouldn’t feel bad about that.
Is he in the same field as you? Could you maybe bring him in on the business?
I couldn’t get past should I tell my bro *how he feels.*
My guess is that your brother is the world’s leading authority on how he feels & has no need for any code cracking.
YTA, honestly a comment like that doesn’t come out of nowhere, you have been thinking it for a while and have been waiting to say it.
I hope you can both apologize and put this where it belongs, a bad day for both of you but ultimately not long-term important. Your brother said inappropriate things, you lashed back, and the whole thing escalated. You’ll need a heart-to-heart talk with your brother, to be sure that this was just an unfortunate thing that shouldn’t have gone so far. He shouldn’t have said what he did about your work. He was wrong. But I hope it wasn’t enough for your sibling relationship to go down in flames, and that you can go back to being close. Good luck. I’ll go with neither of you is the AH unless you find out that your brother is no longer interested in having a relationship with you. Then he’s TA, not you.
Yes, and cut down on your drinking.