Faintly Falling wrote:

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Hi everyone. You welcomed me warmly around six months ago - thank you for that. I had explained that my younger sister died from cancer last summer. She has three children aged 20 (she has just finished 2nd year in university), 15 (he is doing state exams currently) and a two year old toddler. Her husband and father of all three works away two days of the week and there have been a variety of caring arrangements put in place and I provide a lot of back up as I live close by. I would love your wisdom/advice on dealing with my brother-in-law. Since my sister and he met, over twenty years ago, he has always been disorganised, unreliable, undependable, late for everything etc. He is a creative writer and, to be honest, they both led this chaotic artsy lifestyle, were loved by all and were known to be a bit all over the place. I was always able to keep a healthy distance from my brother-in-law as I could always make babysitting arrangements through my sister etc. But now that she is gone I have to deal with him directly. And it has just dawned on me that I do not really know what I'm dealing with.

My niece was unwell yesterday morning and she was supposed to care for the toddler. My brother-in-law rang me from his work to ask if I could check in on her. The upshot was that I collected the toddler to give her some space and his Dad was to collect him from me at 9pm last night. He arrived at my house just after 11pm after I had completely lost it with my own two children and the toddler. I was actually hyerventilating against the wall and I recognised that dealing with my brother-in-law's vagueness (again) led to this meltdown. So I am determined to address my issues with him. I am starting to realise that he is lying about certain arrangements 'Oh, I sent you that text - did you not get it', and 'such and such said they would collect the baby, did they not tell you' (I would find out that this was not correct). I'm not comfortable dealing with him face to face. I have recently started to notice that when you meet him everything is cordial and friendly. He will launch into a rosy monologue of how he is on top of everything but then I will slowly find out that this is not the case.

For example, one day he sat down and said that he was addressing his daughters eye problem and 'we brought her to the optician'. I started to laugh and told him that it was actually me who brought his daughter to the optician! He seems to talk up everything e.g. he will explain how he has organised for his son to get extra maths lessons then the next week he will ring me and ask me if I know of anyone who can give maths lessons. Until now I have never really challenged him on any of this. But I'm starting to get the real picture I think. For years my sister dealt with him and now I have to deal with him. To be frank, he is full of talk and is an expert on distracting you (my partner last night said 'there's a lot bullshit going on'. He seems to lunge from one poblematic situation to another and I can now see my 20-year-old niece starting to mimick his actions and words. Finally, his unreliability and deceptive behaviour has led me to lash out at my own children and his toddler. That can't happen again.

I do not like to deal with him face-to-face. If I point out any of this stuff he will gently slip in a new piece of information to throw me off the scent. He has even talked to me in a sarcastic manner when I try to clear things up. So now it has finally dawned on me that he shares many of the personality traits of an alcoholic (his dad has been a total irresponsible bar fly all his life). My brother in law has done very well in his life compared to where he came from. He now has a good job in a tv station and everyone thinks he's fantastic and coping brilliantly etc. I am very happy to support him and my niece and nephews.

I feel I need a clearer handle on what I'm dealing with. He is not an alcoholic, he seems to give too much to work but I don't know if he's a 'workaholic'. He gets through life patching one problem up after another and then adding white lies whenever he is trying to make everything seem ok from the outside. If you have read this far thank you very much. I continue to go to Friday morning meetings which is very good for me. One of the other ladies there knows my brother in law - I feel she herself is a bit dysfunctional so I am not comfortable to share exactly this issue there even though I know steps and traditions etc. I want to address him face-to-face but feel I will get quickly outwitted!

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Got it. Sounds easy to me. Some people are just simply "unhealthy" -- for others to deal with -- simply because of: who they are, how they live their life, their decision making, their way of dealing with life, their demeanor, their attributes, irresponsibility, lack of maturity, and so many other things. It could be one or all of these types of things. I sponsor a young man who has this with his dad. How his dad lives his life, deals with his son, behaves, etc. -- has a very negative, unhealthy impact on his son. I don't know why the dad is like this, neither does the son -- and neither of us care. It is not our job to analyze and figure out why. That's part of our problem -- the analysis addiction. The more you try and figure this out, the more you will drive yourself crazy. His dad and how he lives his life creates anxiety for my friend. His dad just stops by his house unannounced, stays overnight without being invited, leaves things/stores things over his house, shows up without any notice and wants to have lunch or dinner, wants my friend to help him with work, and so on. It creates stress and anxiety for my friend, and more. So it's unhealthy. I also have this with the mother of my daughter. Simply the way she lives her life, interacts with her other children, makes decisions, does things, etc. -- is very unhealthy for me. She creates a great deal of drama, makes poor parenting and life decisions, poor decisions in relationships with men, and while that is none of my business, when my daughter was growing up, that could have had a major impact on her. Regardless, the mother of my daughter is simple an unhealthy person. She is not an alcoholic. She is just an unhealthy person -- and is unhealthy for me, LOL. So it becomes my job to focus on me and how I had to deal with her -- and that ended up being at a minimum (little co-parenting). So, I focused on me and the solutions came.

Anyway, that said, dealing with him is a problem, it is unhealthy for you. It has a negative impact on you. So, it's a problem, it's unhealthy for you and has a negative impact on you...if you let it. Focus on you. Apply this to the steps. Step one -- you are powerless. There is nothing you can do about him and what he does. Surrender to it. Stop trying to fix it. Acceptance. Then, step two, realize that something, someone, other than you, can help you and make you better. Then, step three, let it go, to that something or someone else. I don't mean to oversimplify this, but that's the beginning.

Also, the "fix" for you -- for YOU -- is to set boundaries. That is an intense, in-depth topic in and of itself, and many people think they get it but really don't, so learn the proper, healthy way, to establish, set, implement and enforce boundaries. Remember, you want to get better -- then focus on you, make changes with and in you. If you are not the solution...then there is no problem. Keep coming back.

Faintly Falling wrote:

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Thank you Enigmatic, a4l and Bo. I'm so grateful for your replies. I feel very heard and supported. I would like to reply further when I'm back on the laptop. Two things I'd like to share - you might be able to offer further insights. The first is that I am agnostic. My higher power, as such, lies within the voices and stories of alanon members. I am working to find a way of making sense of this but am very happy to listen and read and take strength and wisdom from you alll. Secondly, Bo - so how did you deal with watching your daughter growing up with her mum? Is it a case of just lead by your best example or did you ever actually say that 'mum may not have the healthiest of approaches sometimes'.

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Thanks for the reply and the questions. As far as being agnostic -- no problem. This does not have to be a higher power, vis a vis God. You may hear people say "my higher power, who I choose to call God" or something along those lines. That is optional. I suggest you view your higher power as something or someone other than YOU. For a period of time, I viewed my higher power as the group, the meeting, the people in the rooms of the meetings I went to. I was receiving and benefiting from a great deal of experience, wisdom, advice, guidance, and more. Some people view the program as their higher power. You can eliminate the religious aspect and element of the program and recovery. This is not a religious program...it is a spiritual one. 

As far as my daughter and watching her grow up with her mother -- in that house, amongst all the drama, chaos, turmoil, a sick, unhealthy mother, who made poor parenting decisions, poor decisions regarding men, had men come and go, move in and live with them, was overall simply not a healthy mother, role model, etc., and a brother who suffers from some mental issues, anxiety, OCD, potential Asperger's, but is a very nice young man, and lastly another brother who is a heroin addict, in and out of jail, runs with unhealthy, criminal people, steals from his entire family, is completely dysfunctional, and is just very unhealthy to be around -- so with all that, jump ahead to today. My daughter is now 21 years old. She just graduated from a premier university in NYC. She graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0, has been accepted to a premier graduate school, and is an absolutely incredible, amazing young woman. So, that being said, I will answer your pointed questions in detail as soon as I get out of my next meeting, but this is also a discussion for another time/thread. However, I will say this -- how she turned out the way she did, with that upbringing, that house, etc. -- is nothing short of a miracle, but also very much her doing. It speaks to who she is as a person. And, I say this with elimination of all ego, vanity and anything of the like, I am not bragging, but I did a great deal of work, I committed a portion of my lifetime to getting better, getting healthy, recovering from where I was, at my rock bottom, ready to give up, and so on...and I did it all for her, and me...and if you don't think I didn't have a hand in how things played out, you couldn't be more wrong  -- and, I couldn't be more proud of myself, and even more her. More to follow.

Hi Iamhere. Thank you for your kind words and suggestions. I have had some space from my brother in law and some time to think and calm down. Moving forward I would like to work on boundaries as suggested by some friends here. I need to give this some consideration and have not yet done any reading up. But I've given some thought as to what I want (to not have a toddler after 9pm) and how to set those boundaries (I think I just need to state that fact clearly). I may have to have a general chat with him but each time I think of that I shirk away from the idea. There are times when he is most reasonable and understanding then there are other times when he goes all passive-agressive so I guess the unpredictability of that is something I do not like. I should be getting back to a meeting in the morning having been away for a few weeks so I am looking forward to that. In the meantime, thank you for sharing. It sounds like you have worked hard at keeping things on the level in your own life with regard to your family. I take much comfort from your words so thank you again. X