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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My older brother and I have never been close. Never gotten along at all, really. He's about 5 years older. We don't have common friends or interests. He's actually really a pain in the butt. He's antagonistic, argumentative and an alcoholic. We are not estranged, but only see each other at family gatherings and exchange cursory Christmas and Birthday gifts. Pretty standard not-close sibling interactions.

However, we come from a pretty problematic and abusive family and he is having (has been having) a very hard time dealing with that. Somehow over the course of the last few years, he has decided that I should be his emotional support when he is having negative episodes. He calls me every few months and keeps me on the phone for hours talking about how awful he is, how he can never get better, etc. I try to be supportive by always answering the phone and making suggestions on how he can try to improve his situation, but he really just wants to argue with me and tell me how hopeless he is and how much of a jerk i am for suggesting otherwise. It's not a productive conversation, but it generally ends after a few hours. He never interacts with me outside of these calls other than standard family get togethers as mentioned above. Recently I didn't answer the phone when he called and rather than keeping me on the phone for a few hours as usual, he proceeded to send viciously mean text messages to me over the course of the following few hours. As a result, the next day I emailed to inform him that I will not take his calls and I will not respond to any texts and have requested that he not contact me by phone. He has not respected that request and has made a few attempts to text/call me over the last few months. I have not responded, but have re-sent the email with my request noting that I will not be communicating with him via phone/text and that he should stop contacting me using those methods. He replied with a letter "apologizing" for his behavior by explaining that he is the victim of his childhood trauma and that he is upset with me because I am not giving him the support that he thinks I should be giving him. Basically blaming everyone else for his terrible behavior and not actually doing anything to change it. It does not make me want to talk to him, but I also don't want to cut him off completely as that would just be awkward for the whole family. I just want to be a standard, not-close sibling.

My question is... what is my responsibility here? For some reason he has decided that I am responsible for being his emotional support even though we certainly do NOT have that sort of relationship and I have exactly zero interest in being in that position. How do I get him to understand that his mental health needs are not my responsibility without destroying the entire sibling relationship?[/quote]

My brother is similar but we did end up cutting contact when he got involved in an abusive relationship and started neglecting his kids.   To the point I considered calling CPS on him and his new girlfriend (but I didn't).  He ended up losing custody of the kids, although he didn't lose visitation.

Anyway, he got arrested for domestic violence and I sent an e-mail encouraging him to take advantage of a program in his county for domestic abuse, to help the abuser (but it's put in gentler terms than this).  I was nonjudgmental and told him the family supported him getting to a calmer, less-stressful situation.   He called me, screaming, and I hung up on him.  He texted back that he just wanted to explain what happened (no need to explain, a police officer saw him hit his gf).   I told him no.

It's putting up boundaries and you have every right to protect yourself.    If your brother hadn't sent vicious texts I would have said take the calls, within very defined limits.   20 minutes, you just listen, don't try to solve, etc.   And encourage him to get a therapist.    But you have no obligation to be his crutch.       I don't take abuse, verbal or otherwise, and won't take it even from troubled loved ones.    It sounds to me like you've done something similar.  [/quote]

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