My BPD Mother has turned my younger brother against me. What do I do?

[Depression = 72% of members]

My 18 year old brother has turned on my fiance and I because of the influence of my BPD mom. My brother and I have always been very close but since pulling away from my mom, my brother has turned on my more and more. I have not talked to him since February when he cursed me off for ruining everything. He reached out in April when he was at a sporting event close to my home to see if my fiance and I were there. I decided not to answer since he had not responded to several calls and texts.

Recently, he reached out again with a very nasty message. Back story: this past summer and fall, my brother did some work for my fiances company. Unfortunately, the client never paid their company and my brother has yet to be paid but that is outside of my fiance's control. Now that my mom is trying to turn everyone in my family against my fiance and I, she is pulling up issues that should not be. The message my brother sent me stated "I'm missing something that I think you have. Dad claims he mentioned it to you, but its been far too long. Have you not been paid or are you financing your luxurious vacations off of welfare?" 

My finance and I were shocked that my younger brother had the nerve to talk with me with such disrespect and to pull me into a situation that I have nothing to do with. Despite my brother not being paid the $1000 dollars because of the client not paying. over the last year and a half, my fiance and I have taken my brother to several concerts, flew him to the NCAA national championship, let him spend weekends with us and treated him to dinner. My finance also helped draw and make his prom poster last year and helped him write several college essays. Never providing a thank you or offering to pay. We never expected him to pay as he is still in high school and it was our treat but I think it is lost on him all that we have done for him.

I simply responded to my brother's text by saying "This has nothing to do with me as I am do not work for my fiances company and he is not in a management role to just cut a check for you but feel free to reach out to him to further discuss".

I am at a loss to see someone I was so close with turn on me and say such nasty things because of my mother. It breaks my heart but at the end of the day it is out of my control and only he can make that decision.

Do my finance and I cut off all communication with my family?

[Bumblebee27]

My 18 year old brother has turned on my fiance and I because of the influence of my BPD mom. My brother and I have always been very close but since pulling away from my mom, my brother has turned on my more and more. I have not talked to him since February when he cursed me off for ruining everything. He reached out in April when he was at a sporting event close to my home to see if my fiance and I were there. I decided not to answer since he had not responded to several calls and texts.

Recently, he reached out again with a very nasty message. Back story: this past summer and fall, my brother did some work for my fiances company. Unfortunately, the client never paid their company and my brother has yet to be paid but that is outside of my fiance's control. Now that my mom is trying to turn everyone in my family against my fiance and I, she is pulling up issues that should not be. The message my brother sent me stated "I'm missing something that I think you have. Dad claims he mentioned it to you, but its been far too long. Have you not been paid or are you financing your luxurious vacations off of welfare?" 

My finance and I were shocked that my younger brother had the nerve to talk with me with such disrespect and to pull me into a situation that I have nothing to do with. Despite my brother not being paid the $1000 dollars because of the client not paying. over the last year and a half, my fiance and I have taken my brother to several concerts, flew him to the NCAA national championship, let him spend weekends with us and treated him to dinner. My finance also helped draw and make his prom poster last year and helped him write several college essays. Never providing a thank you or offering to pay. We never expected him to pay as he is still in high school and it was our treat but I think it is lost on him all that we have done for him.

I simply responded to my brother's text by saying "This has nothing to do with me as I am do not work for my fiances company and he is not in a management role to just cut a check for you but feel free to reach out to him to further discuss".

I am at a loss to see someone I was so close with turn on me and say such nasty things because of my mother. It breaks my heart but at the end of the day it is out of my control and only he can make that decision.

Do my finance and I cut off all communication with my family?

[zachira]

You are wondering whether to go no contact with your family. This is really a decision only you can make which will depend on your unique relationships with your family members. There are many people who post on this site who are in similar situations to yours and have decided to go no contact or low contact with their family, which can be either permanent or temporary. Usually it takes time to figure out what kind of contact you will decide to have with your family.
It is likely that your brother is being influenced by you BPD mom who feels threatened by your pulling away and is doing what she can to manipulate your brother so he never has the strength to pull away, "to abandon her". You may want to sit down with your brother and discuss how you feel about some of his distortions before he convinces himself forever that what he is saying and thinking are irrefutable facts.
Do keep us posted on how you are doing and let us know how we can be the most helpful.

[Notwendy]

I understand how frustrating this is. My BPD mother has also turned several of her family members "against" me.

My own response to them is to behave cordially and ethically with them. I don't feel I can "tell my side" to them without looking bad, as then it would be my word or my mother's word and that puts them in a difficult positions. Rather, I stay off that triangle with them as much as I can.

I think it would help to take a long term perspective. Your brother is 18, and that's very young to even begin to get a grasp on the complexity of the family dynamics or how a business is run. He also still has a lot of maturity ahead of him. You do have the option of going NC- but do you want to make a long term and possibly irreparable decision between the two of you on the basis of teen age behavior? Yes, he should have been more appreciative towards you and your fiance, and he said something rude, but teens can be like that. Does the "crime" of what he has said or done merit cutting off your relationship with him? Or would you rather continue the relationship while he has some growing up to do?

I don't know how your fiance's business is run, but in the ones I know of, if a client doesn't pay, the employee still gets paid for their work while the business attempts to recover the money from the client, or decides to write it off as a business loss. Otherwise, it is very hard for a business to keep employees. They would be unhappy if they didn't get paid for their work. I would consider paying your brother for his work. This is clearly causing him hard feelings and resentment. $1000 is not a small amount of money but considering a lifetime with your bother, I think it would be best to clear this issue up  between the two of you. Money issues between family members can affect relationships- often it is best to avoid them.

[Bumblebee27]

Thank you for your insight. I understand my brother is in a tough position and also very young but he also does not feel his actions are rude or disrespectful. I have brought this to his attention before we stopped speaking earlier this year and he cursed me off for even bringing my concern for his disrespect to his attention.

As for paying my brother, he was contracted by the law firm my fiance works for. Because he was considered a contract worker it makes it rather difficult to just pay the money when the client has yet to pay. I totally understand where you are coming from but my fiance cannot just make the higher-ups in his company pay my brother when they are still waiting to be paid. In fact, I tried explaining to my brother that my fiance is out $15,000 in expenses since last year. If my fiance cannot get paid back money he is ultimately putting out for work travel which is billable to a client as well and not being paid back, my brother should have some understanding of the difficult position my fiance is in. To be honest, I believe the issue with my brother stemmed from my mom when I asked for my bonds from when I was a child. And rather saying they could not be found, etc, I was told that my brother was still owed money and then within 24 hours I received that text from my brother. We would personally pay my brother the money but right now we cannot afford to do that since we are personally paying for our wedding in a month and buying a home. I guess I should I have never asked for the bonds as this issue would have never come up.

Being the oldest child in my family and the one who always took care of all the problems and did everything for everyone has made me the scapegoat once I finally pulled away. I want to help my brother but like you said in your post it will only cause more issues and put my brother in a tough situation to pick between my story and my mothers. I feel as long as my brother is still under my mom's wrath I cannot have a relationship with him.

[Notwendy]

If you feel NC is best for you, then do it.
An alternative is low contact- being polite when around him, but not emotionally close or involved. I chose this because I felt I could manage it and also because it is difficult to cut off an entire family. Since I still wanted contact with some people , I knew I would eventually see others at family get togethers.

I agree your brother isn't behaving respectfully. He is 18, but that is still young. One alternative is to manage the behavior- if he speaks disrespectfully, don't respond. If he isn't appreciative of things you do for him, don't do them. He has some growing up to do, so you can keep an emotional distance. If he remained a disrespectful adult to you ,then I would consider not being in contact. However, it's hard to know what he's going to be like in a few more years.