How to stop wanting to save your family

[Avocadolady]

I have gone through a rough path to be at this point, where i am feeling tired of caring and helping my family, especially my brother. 
he has a bad temper that caused my mom great frustration, he is a complainer, and a person who does not take responsibility but to care about himself. 
he is going to be a father soon, so i am getting more worried about our family. Here i am 26 years old and have spent most of my life worrying about them, that i sometimes forget about living my life. 
I wonder if they ever care how hard i work and how i live my life as i do for them. 
is it bad if i stop caring so much and trying to save them? 
because its such a burden and I want to start my own family one day without carrying such worry into it. I want to have happiness of my own also. 
is it selfish? 

[Sophie_M]

Hi Avocadolady,

Just dropping by to say a hi and to welcome you to our wonderful online forum family!

It sounds as though you have some thinking to do around what you want for yourself and for your family. It's very possible that you may benefit from some education and personal growth on how to recognise and enforce loving, healthy boundaries between yourself and your loved ones in order to start your own family one day and have a happiness of your own. 

We're not sure if there's any special family needs that mean your extra support and care is needed (so that these needs can be taken into consideration for when our community members might start responding to your share), so please feel free to let us know if this is the case...

Don't forget you can call us on 1300 22 4636, or perhaps even chat online with one of our amazing counsellors at any time - we're here for you 24/7.

Kind regards, 

Sophie M

[ecomama]

Hi Avocadolady, cute name! Welcome to the forums. I'm glad you're here. 

Sophie_M is so sweet lol. 

You ask "is it selfish?". 
My response is a resounding NO, it's sensible! 

You've realised that your brother is irresponsible, notwithstanding he has anger issues ughhh, but you have your OWN life to live and you're about to start doing the things you want to do more and more.

SNAP with what Sophie_M said, exactly what I was thinking - boundaries. 

By the sounds of things, you are quite enmeshed with the "extended family", saying it this way because your brother is about to become a father, creating his OWN family. Which he is responsible for. 

Extricating ourselves from a family we're enmeshed with can be quite a difficult thing to do. 
NOT impossible.
May take some learning about HOW to enforce boundaries, which ones are important to you, what to do when "they" push back against the boundaries and, very importantly, how to "do you" without these people sucking the life force out of you. 

I bought a great book about Boundaries. It covers the basics really well and goes into more advanced concepts about boundaries. Worth a read! If you'd like the title I can provide this? 

I believe you will need support to do this over time. Having a Counsellor will help a LOT. 
Hope you pop back in and let us know how you're doing. 

Take care!
EM

[Duesentrieb]

Hi, welcome here. 
From what I read you are not selfish. Everybody has to look for himself to a certain degree. You have to stay healthy, energetic, etc. because life will through things at you at times, too. So yes you have to look after yourself.

Your brother is a complainer and that seems to be his pattern. I assume to a certain degree you helped him a lot which kept both of you possibly in a kind of cycle.

Maybe it’s time to let him grow up and take responsibility for his own life and decisions.

In addition there is plenty of material (YouTube, podcasts, etc.) out there to be less of a people pleaser.

All the best 

[Avocadolady]

Hi Ecomama, thank you for your response.

I have applied some boundaries lately, and it has caused some changes which i can tell by a lack of communication between us for the last couple of days. 
we are distant and giving each other some space. 

well I have left my people pleaser self a while ago and im so glad, even though not everyone can accept it. 

[Avocadolady]

Hello, dear! 
thanks for your contribution! 
yes, that is a huge part of my family pattern, complaining, it seems to me we want our life to be easy, as how it used to be. But i mean, we are all grown up now and I have removed my complain self aside. And i’d love them to do the same, just to toss the negativity away! 

in another way, i don’t want my family to end up in a negative environment, i would like to see them change. But i dont want to always be the person who encourages it. 

regards,

avocadolady xx

[geoff]

Hello Avocadolady, with all your concern for your family, especially your brother, you may not have any effect on them, and all this is doing is creating problems for yourself which you are only going to worry about when you aren't with them, and even when you are, you spend all your energy trying to convince them/him what should be happening, in other words, you aren't looking after yourself.

If he says to you that he's going to do what you suggest, will please you, but how do you know whether or not he carries them out.

If you have spent half your life helping him, then you will need help to move away from doing this, nd to answer your question, no I don't think they care about you, just the attention they are attracting.

Now that you want to start your own family, then that's exactly what you have to concentrate on, your own life, and that's very important.

Geoff.

Life Member.

[Avocadolady]

Good morning Geoff, really appreciate what you had to say to me there. Sounds very sensible to me. 
And you are 100%, i was away from family almost 3 years because of covid, i was still so worried about them. I think the problem here I have to know that my only responsible is for my mom, not for him. 

Thank you and i hope you have a lovely day. 

[geoff]

Hello Avocadolady, you have mentioned a really good point, thanks.

Geoff.

Life Member.

[Petal22]

Hi Avocadolady,

Im sorry you are feeling this way.

I think that we will always care about our family but sometimes we need to realise that we can’t control what others do even your Mum or brother.

Your Mum is always going to be your brothers mum no matter how old he is or what he does.

Your mum will always have that motherly instinct to protect your brother no matter how he treats her.

No matter how much you worry you won’t be able to change the situation, the only people who can do that is your brother and mum.

You really can have happiness of your own … happiness is to give to expect nothing in return.

Please start looking after yourself the only control you have over what’s happening is your reaction to it.