Hi Sasha, I am in a pickle. My boyfriend's brother is horrible to be around. He is a very arrogant, high flying accountant who spends a lot of his spare time with his 'business bros'. Every time he is over for dinner, he winds up going on either a) a racist rant, b) a homophobic rampage, or c) a sexist tirade. It gets worse if he is drinking, but when he's sober he's pretty bad. My boyfriend, the younger, more mild mannered brother, says that his brother has learnt these attitudes from his work environment and that he doesn't really believe the things he says. My boyfriend and I have been together for 7 years, since we were in high school. His brother has more or less been the same for as long as I've known him. I get very deeply offended by some of the things he says. I really resent having such hateful words being said in my house. My boyfriend has never once asked his brother to stop speaking like this in front of me, which disappoints me (and makes me irrationally fear that secretly he harbours these nasty feelings too).
Am I being too demanding in wanting my boyfriend to say something? Am I within my rights to ask him to leave my house the next time this happens? Is there any good way to deal with a person who is so aggressively rude?
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God, this isn’t just rude this is straight-out hateful sh-t and there’s no way I would ever tolerate it in my house so D, in my opinion, you have every right to feel the way you do.
You know, this isn’t about demonizing someone who just has opposing views, this is about someone who is an ignorant f-ck. So the real issue here is: how to do deal with it without destroying everything around you?
Well the first line of defense starts with you. The next time he says something you need to firmly and calmly (that’s the key) call him out, explain to him why it’s offensive to you and that moving forward you won’t tolerate that kind of hateful speech around you or in your house. The end. The hope here is that he either does some self-reflecting or at the very least keeps his mouth zipped around you.
However, if this keeps on happening then your boyfriend needs to step in. You absolutely need to have the support from your man and the fact he hasn’t stepped in yet is, frankly, a bit of worry for me. I would’ve hoped that this situation would’ve caused a knee jerk reaction for him to say something. I mean, I get that he might not want to stir up family drama, but sh-t, I need my homie to have integrity, principle and some f-cking balls. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who’d just passively eat that kind of sh-t and buckle when a difficult subject arises.
Before I really dog your man out though, it is only fair to give your boyfriend the benefit of the doubt and have this discussion with him. It’s important that you guys are a united front not only when it comes to his brother, but generally when sharing these kinds of social values. So D, let’s see how that goes first and then we can go from there – I’m looking forward to an update.
Thanks for writing in and keep your questions coming to [email protected].
