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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/beerbellybegone on 2025-01-29 07:46:35+00:00.

Original BORU here. New Updates marked with 🔴🔴🔴

Trigger warning: misogyny, fundamental religion, abuse, mention of suicide but no actual suicide

ORIGINAL by u/Novel_Tap1132 at r/relationships (February 13, 2023)

Hi, I (20F) am currently in my 4th semester of college. The fact that I am able to go to college is largely thanks to my brother Mike (27M). This resulted in us both being estranged from family, and the reason for this post is that I need to help him with his resulting depression and isolation.

Some backstory: We come from a patriarchal, conservative Christian background, although we didn’t really practice. But everything was always in the “obey your parents” vibe. My parents (both 43) are the oldest siblings in their families. My fathers family (parents, 2 brothers, 1 sister) all live within 20 minutes of my parents home. All aunts/uncles are married and I have 8 cousins on that side. My mothers family is originally from here as well but has all since left the area (grandparents moved to a retirement community in AZ several years ago, uncle is career military currently stationed idk where, aunt (K) moved to AZ after graduating college for her career) We are from a Midwest US state and are Caucasian.

This whole fiasco started when my older sister Lisa (22F) was in college back in spring of 2020. Right before COVID shut down her college that March, she got pregnant after a party (she didnt know until after she was back home). In fall 2020, my senior year of HS, I started my college application process while my pregnant sister lived at home. Mike had finished school several years prior and had started his career about 90 min away from our hometown. Lisa gave birth to twins a few days after Thanksgiving 2020. In Jan 2021 I received my early acceptance to my dream school - nothing like Harvard but a highly rated “Public Ivy” in my state. I had also gotten enough of a scholarship to cover the tuition (but not room/board). Obviously I was ecstatic! Unfortunately that was about to come crashing down.

In May 2021, my parents told me that I could not go to school and that I needed to stay home to raise my nieces while my sister went back to school since she needed to support her kids and thus needed a better education. Much screaming ensued, with my father eventually telling me that his decision was final and that was that. Well Mike learned what happened, called me and said “Yeah that’s not happening” and we made plans.

I would like to take a moment to give a shout out to the Reddit posts back in early 2021 that discussed the steps to take and things/docs to gather in order to successfully leave home for good. And that’s what we did. We had discussed plans a few times when he visited and took me out to lunch, and one day that July I had my essentials all packed, left a letter for our parents and after lunch we just went back to his apartment.

As you can imagine, the fallout was explosive. Starting with angry calls and texts and led to us both being disowned by the family for being “disloyal”. MIke had predicted this and we were both prepared for it so it wasn’t a surprise. Anyway that August he paid my remaining school balance and dropped me off at my dorm and I have been living and studying here since then. He has continued to pay my room/board and whatever else scholarships didn’t cover ever since. I cannot thank him enough for what he has done for me.

Since then, we have had pretty much no contact with our parents, sister and all aunts/uncles and grandparents on dads side. I am still in contact with 2 cousins (F19, F17) who support me and think we made the right decision. We do have contact with moms side, and have both flown out to AZ the last 2 holiday seasons to spend with them. This past holiday is when Aunt K first talked to me about her concerns for Mike that she noticed. They are very close (she is only 3 years older than him and we all grew up together in our grandparents house) so they are like siblings and I guess she picked up on some things that were off.

The issue I need help with: Aunt K and I have noticed him seemingly becoming more depressed and isolated and this is what I am hoping for some help in helping him. Mike is somewhat introverted and has always had a very small social circle and a lot of his social outlet was with our extended paternal family. There were family BBQs very often, especially during football season when it was pretty much weekly. Throw in holidays, birthdays etc there were probably 2 big family events a month minimum. Mike was able to attend most of those and he always tried to hang out with my dad and uncles even tho they always acted lukewarm to him. With that now gone for the past 18 months, he hasn’t really had that outlet. So please Reddit, any advice would be appreciated. He gave me my life back and I need to find a way to do the same for him. Thank you all.

Note: I do plan on sharing this post with him when he visits me next weekend (my school is a 2 hr or so drive from where he lives so he meets me for lunch 2-3x per month). I want to be able to sit down and read this through with him and talk with him about everything so thank you again.

Tl:dr: My brother helped me escape life as a forced nanny and go to college, we both got disowned by family and he is becoming depressed, I am looking for ways to help him.

ETA: I saw a few comments below regarding our extended family so I thought I would add a couple notes:

My mom’s side totally supports what Mike and I have done. We both talk to our grandparents and aunt regularly. We have even visited them a few times in the past year in AZ.

From what I can gather on my dads side from talking with my cousins, some of the family dont think we are wrong and are just following my dads lead since he is the oldest sibling. My uncles (dads brothers) are still very much supporting my dads point of view.

According to my aunt, my mom and sister both want to put this all behind us and move forward but my dad is being stubborn and wont let it go and they dont want to go behind his back.

The craziest thing to me is that my sister didn’t even want to go back to her school! My dad was going to force her to go back. It boggles my mind still how they thought it would work out.

Growing up, our parents had always encouraged all 3 of us to pursue some kind of higher education after HS, either a traditional college or trade school. So there wasn’t really the gender dynamic of “dad works, mom raises the kids” in the extended family. None of my aunts (or grandmothers for that matter) are traditional SAHMs.

I would also like to thank everyone who has commented so far. I have shared this post with both my aunt K and some friends here who are aware of my situation. Mike is still planning on coming down here on Saturday so I am hoping to update this after.

Commentators suggest that OOP help her brother out by encouraging therapy for himself and to plan some game nights or outdoorsy activities or other hobbies he might enjoy. They also suggest open communication to help her brother open up more about his feelings and troubles. Some even think that the brother might have suicidal or drug issues.

UPDATE (February 21, 2023)

Hi, I just wanted to post a quick update to what I posted last week. I say quick but it’s probably going to be long so apologies in advance just trying to get everything out of my head.

Mike came down here on Saturday as planned. I had spoken to my aunt K before this and she thinks if I gently asked direct questions and probed that he would answer. So that was my plan. My roommates knew the situation and what I was planning to do and they were understanding and agreed to give us the apt to ourselves for the afternoon.

After he arrived and we ate, I just straight up said to him that Aunt K and I had noticed some changes to his behavior and that he seemed really down. He looked at me for a bit and then slowly nodded and agreed. I took this as a good sign that he would be open and honest with me. I said that I wanted to help him and to please be open and talk to me and that I wouldn’t judge him for anything. He said OK. Then I pulled out my laptop and mentioned that I had made a post to reddit about him and he gave me a very confused look. I sat down next to him and asked him to just read it and we can talk about it. Well….he basically broke down with his head in his hands after reading the title. So yeah, I guess it was pretty accurate. I just held him and said that we would talk whenever he was ready.

After a few minutes he was able to collect himself and we went through the whole post together. Then we started reading the comments one at a time and talking about each one. He took all of the comments and suggestions to heart and we talked about how he can go about putting himself out there more, both dating and trying to make new friends. In typical nerd fashion, he even broke all of the ideas down in categories (outdoor, indoor, online) and is wi…

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  • Spacehooks@reddthat.comMEnglish
    0·
    12 hours ago

    We ended up talking a lot longer than I realized and my roommates came back around 7 and asked if we wanted to get some dinner. I asked Mike if he wanted to stay and keep talking and he said yes. We ordered some pizza and the 6 of us (us plus my 3 roommates and 1 bf) sat in our living room to eat. I could tell this was probably Mikes worst case scenario of being in a group of friends but not really knowing anyone other than me. His body language showed he was uncomfortable and guarded (body tense, head down, shoulders hunched forward) but my friend Nikki made sure to keep him engaged in the convo and after 10-15 min Mike visibly relaxed. He sat back and looked relaxed and was much more forthcoming. I was so happy for him and thought that maybe he is just someone who needs a little more time to really become comfortable enough before opening up and talking freely with new people.

    He ended up crashing on our couch that night. Sunday morning he took me to breakfast to talk some more before he dropped me off at work. We had a loooooong hug and he thanked me for recognizing that he needed help and that reading the comments and talking about how he felt and coming up with some ideas and plans made him feel better than he had in a long time. I told him that I love him and I am there for him always and reminded him that we are a team in this. After work I called aunt K and we talked about everything. She was happy that I was able to get him to open up and understood that it was probably hard for him to ask for help. She is also going to keep nudging him to be more open and to put himself out there more.

    So this is where we are now. He has some “homework” to do in finding some new things to try out and just get out and meet people. I also told him that he has to have at least 2 dating accounts opened before we meet up again and I would help him set up a good profile =) I am glad that he doesn’t really have many regrets about what we did (I know I don’t) and is really focused on moving forward. I know this will be a long and probably sometimes painful process for him but I told him I would be there for him every step of the way. I have also reached out to some of his friends on SM to see if they are willing to talk with me about him. I also want to talk with their SOs, since they know him and I would like a female friend perspective rather than just a sister perspective.

    Oh, and to the commenter/DM who said I should have sex with him to help him, ummmm not sure what to say other than he’s not my type? We arent THAT close? Smh Idk…

    I guess this counts as my 1 update for this. If anything else happens I can either put it in the comments or my personal page if the post is locked. I would like to sincerely thank everyone who responded for the kind words, love, advice, ideas and insight into things we hadn’t realized or considered. It really meant a lot to both of us. Much love for the hive mind!

    Tl:dr: we talked a lot, it was very emotional for us both and have a least an idea of how to move forward

    Edit to the Update

    I wanted to respond to a few comments that were made before the post was locked/removed:

    1: I am definitely going to talk to the financial aid office about my situation and see if I can be considered an independent student for aid purposes. Thanks for the info on that, I did not know this was a thing.

    2: I know he has everyone on blocked except for our mom and sister. I know it hurts him that our nieces are likely going to grow up in that environment.

    3: The uber-controlling part of my father didnt really come out until our grandparents (moms parents) permanently moved to AZ. I think since we were all living in their house, it was grandpa that was the “man of the house”. Mike was already in college when that happened so he didnt get the full extent of it. This also coincided with my sister “discovering” boys in 8th grade so it could be a combination of both. My male cousins (15 and 16) are already going down the path of my uncles in how they treat their older sisters and it makes me sad that thought process is continuing.

    4: He was always a great brother to both my sister and me. He doted on us when we were younger and made time to be with us. When he got a job and then when he came home to visit from college/work, he would take us both out individually for ice cream or something just to talk. This is something mom also did for all 3 of us. Even when we didnt have a lot of money, she took us out once a week to talk about whatever, even if we were just getting $1 McD’s drinks and fries to share.

    5: I think the dinner/hang out with my friends was the first time I had seen him interact in a casual social way with people he did not know. It really helped me to see how he first acted, stoic and robotic, and then saw him slowly ease into the conversation after a while. My friends made a point to keep him involved. The bf, Rob, even got to talk a little about school stuff since Rob goes to the college that Mike did (they both went to my schools biggest “rival”). It was like as soon as he was able to relax and feel like a part of the room he changed and was able to engage naturally.

    6: He agrees he needs to treat his mental, emotional and social health with the same priority and focus that he uses to help those he cares about and work on building new relationships. It will likely be a long and sometimes painful process for him but he knows he has support.

    7: He is working on setting up an appt with a therapist through his employers EAP to help him work through some of the issues I brought up in the update. I promised him I wouldnt judge him, but some of the things he said really scared me and broke my heart that he kept so much pain inside.

    8: I hadnt seen the family texts he showed me before. They are all from when we first left he just never deleted them. I think everyone is right that my mom is suffering from emotional abuse =( I am worried for her, my sister and nieces in that regard.

    9: I plan on, and have already started, doing more facetime/phone calls with him instead of just texts to try and make a more personal connection with him.