Well that went exceptionally well. NOT!

So after a suitable disclaimer, and careful wording so as to not get anyone's panties in a bunch, my last comment was rewarded with five pages of shall we say some interesting comments.  Comments I'm NOT go publish to protect the author from her own madness and my own attempts to keep from making things worse as she's doing more than a good enough job of that herself periodically ranting on her own blog.  If anyone is refusing to leave things in the past and move on, it would have to be her, because I refuse to be baited.

That said, for those poor souls who have somehow connected all the dots together, please keep in mind that ever story has two sides, and it takes two to tango.  There are also times and places when it's impossible to find the truth because it's a subjective thing.  Some people consider verbal abuse just part of living and don't really consider it "real" abuse.  These are often the same people who accuse rape victims of "asking for it" by how they look, act, or simply for being alive.  Reality check here, verbal abuse IS, IN FACT, ABUSE.  Period, end of subject.  It's violence, and when within a relationship, it's domestic violence.  Period.

Often these people are in a world of their own and their own self important ends, justify the means.

My brother is a perfect example.

He uses people.  It's been his whole life.  He's a violent, self important little shell of a person who twists everything to convince himself he's right.  I fell into the trap of that kind of abuse for year, and all allowed him to take from me without ever even trying to contribute anything while making everything about him.  At a point in his life when he had once again fallen out of a relationship because of his own mental health issues and abusive tendencies I gave him a place to live, feed him, in fact wound up fully supporting him because he wasn't even trying.  At all.  He had this self important view of the universe where everything was about him, how people owed him, how it was my responsibility at the time to provide for all his needs even at the expense of my own.  He had to have everything I did, everything was about keeping score for him.  Mind you I was in fact supporting him completely, and his wants and needs were more important than my own, even if it meant rent on the apartment, car insurance, or whatever.  He'd get a notion, I'd have to drop what I was doing, give him what he wanted and needed whether I could afford it or not, just so that he'd stop abusing me verbally.  It was no way to live, and a mistake I went on to make again with my late husband.  Suggest that either of them pull their own weight, or even contribute to make life a bit easier?  That only brought more abuse.  My brother was (and is to this day) chronically unwilling and incapable of supporting himself or even getting a simple job so as not to be a complete drain on my life.

Me, over the years I was more than willing to work in grocery stores or fast food joints if I had to, because they will hire anyone.  He had a mountain of excuses why he couldn't.  Not one of them was a real, viable concern, but he'd decided that he couldn't get a job there.  He came up with plenty of things he demanded I get him that he really didn't need, but he had to have them.  Rent and the utilities were supposed to magically pay themselves and it didn't matter if giving him what he wanted meant I wouldn't have enough for the bills, that was after all MY problem, not his.  Like cigarettes for example.  He smoked, I didn't, but spending the last 20 dollars before payday on a carton of cigarettes was more important than putting gas in my car to get to work, or keep groceries in the house or whatever it was.

And the keeping score thing drove me crazy.  I'd put new tires on my car and he'd have to have new tires on his truck.  Didn't matter that one tire for his truck was the price of all four tires on my car.  He had to have what he wanted.  Whatever I got for myself he had to have better and more.  Even if it meant I had to suffer, after all, I OWED him.  Get a job to contribute to the household?  Hell no.  His ex-wife had the same problem with him after I finally had more than enough and moved.   The whole reason I wound up supporting him is because he'd broken up with his girlfriend at the time because she got tired of supporting him and his sense of entitlement and abuse.

Moving away and sharing a place with a friend where my brother wasn't welcome was the only way I could escape.  That's when he found someone else to leach from and married that poor woman.  She and I became friends, and no big shock when she started trying to get him to get a job and help support the household, all the excuses came back.

And Earl, well I've talked about him before.  His answer to everything was running back to his parents and making ME look like I was crazy and not working hard enough.  I was at the time handling all his medical care, working a full time six figure job, being a housewife, and staying up to date on the latest research that could help make his life easier.  Him get a job?  Heavens no, better to run back to Mommy and make ME look like I was the lazy good for nothing leach.

I don't understand people that think the world, or someone else, owes them a living.  I never have, and never will.  That goes equally for people who twist reality to fit their views and blame someone else for things that happen to them.   I assure you that if my brother were to read this, he'd send me pages of excuses why I'm work, and claim that I was wrong, or twisting things.  So I'm not even going to try and but a disclaimer in here, should someone take offense to what I've written, keep in mind I'm keeping things deliberately vague, and other than my brother, not mentioning anyone specifically.

I'm suddenly reminded of my divorce.  Earl accused me of costing him friends, because people we'd know, or that he'd known, wanted nothing to do with him when they found out his true colors so to speak.  He'd even insisted that some of our mutual friends choose him or me.  I on the other hand refused to stoop to that level of nonsense.  So the friends he forced to choose said, well She's (me) not forcing us to choose, but you are, so we'll choose her, goodbye if you're going to be that way.  Yeah that went exceptionally well.  NOT!