A.I.T.A. blackish edition.

Okay, this is one of those threads where I’ve got to ask a simple question: Am I the asshole? I’ll admit at the beginning that yes, I may have been the asshole, because maybe I should have found a different solution to my problem in this scenario.

It was a Saturday night, rainy and super cold, and I had just gotten off work. My mom and aunt had a few things they wanted to give me that they’d gotten great deals on at the grocery store. Since I was running errands anyway, the houses are only five minutes apart, and I was in the area, I decided to make a trip to both houses. I got to Mom’s house first for a simple pickup – say “hi,” social distance, no contact, it’s COVID time, “I love you.” Then off to my aunt’s house.

My aunt is a couponer and she’s amazing at it. She found a deal on lunch meat; I’m thinking she’s planning to give me maybe four or five to put in the freezer and save for later. She’s gotten much more than I anticipated and handed me a bunch of bags, probably about 16, each with four or five containers of lunchmeat. Definitely not enough room in my freezer.

I call up my brother and I’m like “Dude, I need some help. Our aunt bought a lot of lunch meat. Can I please give you some?” He says “You know I don’t like lunch meat.” First time I had heard that from him, but okay. So I’m like, “Well can you see if your roommates will take it?” There are four people in his apartment, all broke men, so I figured someone would have taken some and thrown it in the freezer like I was going to do or give some out to friends and neighbors (like I also was going to do). He tells me to try and call them. I don’t have their numbers but tell him I’ll try catching them on Facebook. I don’t get any responses, so I tell Brother I’m heading over, I’ll let him know when I get there.

Ten minutes later I pull up at my brother’s house. His boyfriend pulls up beside me and I’m telling him about my mother and aunt going overboard and why I’m trying to get some to my brother. I hand my brother’s boyfriend about six bags of meat (keeping the majority) and tell him “That’s for you guys and the roommates. The Lord already said he didn’t want any so it’s up for grabs for the roommates and whoever you want.” He says “Okay, cool” and I take my leave.

Then I get the text. The text in our group chat with some family and friends, where I realize he is irate. He goes off about how there is too much meat, and he’s pissed that I overstepped my boundaries by dropping some by the apartments for the roommates who, it turns out, did not want any. I respond that I’m sorry, didn’t meant to upset anyone, and I can come by and pick it back up.

He tells us he already threw all the meat away. I’m like, already? That was quick. It’s a bit upsetting because that food could have gone to someone else, friends, a neighbor, food bank, the homeless, something. I took responsibility for the meat being wasted because I dropped it off to people I found out didn’t want it, and apologized again.

Someone else (who will remain unnamed) in the group chat chimed in that she believed I was being abusive because I laid a burden of mine onto him. I responded with “What are you talking about? I did it with good intention, not to just lay a burden on him, but if I have upset him with my apologies that was not my intention. It’s just I had all this meat and I didn’t want it to go to waste so I was also thinking of him when I gave it to him.” My brother adds that now I am gaslighting about the situation, even though I tried to fix it right away and apologized and didn’t lay any blame on him.

After I take some more of this, my brother and I move to a one-on-one conversation. He tells me he doesn’t want to speak to me for a while because I’ve upset him and overstepped his boundaries. I don’t understand it, but I hear him and I give him space for a while. I give it a full week before I check in with him and try to work toward some reconciliation. When I try, he tells me he’s decided he’s better off without me, “I’m cool on you, I’m chilling on you.” He says I add too much stress on him. He’s done with the relationship.

I’ve done the best I can as a brother. I would understand if I was just a complete a****** all the time asking for 50 million things from him. I don’t. Not to judge, but I don’t understand how I add on so much stress to someone who’s been unemployed for a year and has his needs provided for by his boyfriend. It’s not like I’m pressing for all of his time or energy. He keeps the house cleaned up and takes care of the animals. The most I’ve asked is for him to come to lunch with me once a week so I can make sure he’s okay and to get him out of the house so he’s not always trapped in a depressive funk.

I care about him and think of him not only as a blood brother but as one of my best friends. I know our relationship was never like that in his eyes. It’s distressing to accept that after we have been through so much together, and I’ve made sure to support him and be there for him in so many ways, this is all it took to break the relationship. I really wish this was all a joke. It has left me devastated and heartbroken.

Yesterday I was picked up by an ambulance and taken to the hospital because I couldn’t breathe. There are some complicating health factors. I’ve been here since 3 o’clock, so I called my mom to let her know I’m in the hospital. She knows about the situation between my brother and I, and told him what’s going on. I think to myself that I’m going to give it a shot to call him and see if we can try and make amends. If something happens and I go out of this world, I don’t want to leave our relationship like this.

I’m regretting making that call. All I did was get more pain. I heard, “I’m glad you’re all right but you’re still cancelled.” Cancelled? That hurt. It hurt enough that I told said, “you know what, if you can look over the relationship like that, if I die don’t come to my funeral.” I hung up when he nonchalantly said “Okay.”

What I said came out of anger and hurt but to be honest, it was also partially serious. Because now I am furious. I am feeling like you might as well just take my heart out and shatter it into a million pieces. I’m sitting here in this hospital bed writing, looking for some clarity, because none of this s*** makes sense.

I told my mom what happened and told her I really shot myself in the foot by calling them, even though their relationship is not any better. He only calls her when he needs something from her. At this point, it would be easy to hate him, but I know I can’t. He’s still my brother. What’s up, really? Am I the bad guy in this situation for real? Because none of it makes any sense. - Anthem