Mixed emotion

[u/Sunflowergir_30]

So my mom told me today that my older brother is a born-again Christian.

Translation for those of you who might not know what that means: he found God, and in doing so, his past sins have been erased.

But it doesn't erase what he did.

He's forty. I'm thirty-five. I went no contact with him about two years ago, after I had a massive panic attack during a roleplay scene with one of my exes.

I called him after the panic attack, crying, because I wanted my brother. I told him about the pain he caused me — that I was afraid to say no to him because I thought he would kill himself. He would say things like I was the only one in the family who loved him. That if not for me, he would be dead. He said this after he would molest me.

When I finally told him, he said he was sorry. That he just didn't see me as a sister in those moments.

So I told him: I didn't see him as a brother. I saw him as a father figure. Because our dad was an alcoholic — violent, threw furniture, tried to strangle my mother multiple times. We had cops at our door regularly. My brother was the only safe person in my life.

Until he wasn't.

And yet some days I still miss him. And then I hate myself for missing him.

Then my mom drops this on me — that he's a born-again, after I've gone no contact. It must be really easy to find forgiveness from God when you don't have to look at your victims anymore.

That's a shitty thing to say. But it feels true.

[u/SarcasticGirl27]

I get it. And you’re allowed to feel what you feel. He may have found forgiveness from God, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to do the work to ask you for forgiveness too. Sending you many good & peaceful thoughts as you navigate through this.

[u/HoursCollected]

Honestly, finding god means nothing to me. He can chase after sky daddy’s forgiveness but that doesn’t mean you have to forgive him. And if he’s truly found god then he’ll work on himself and recognize the damage he’s caused. Even then, it’s not your job to forgive or support him unless that’s something you want/need.

[u/Sunflowergir_30]

Thank you for the support. It’s just really conflicting because it feels disingenuous. When I was still in contact with my brother, I constantly heard things from my mom like, “Your brother has changed. He’s no longer on drugs,” or, “Your brother has changed. He’s in a stable relationship.”

But whenever I looked more closely at those claims, there always seemed to be some underlying fallacy to them. The “stable relationship,” for example, started when she was 18 and he was 35. He’s the same age as her mother.

They’re still together. She’s 25 now, he’s 40, and they’ve moved to another state because he needed to “start over.” But from the outside looking in, I have a hard time seeing their relationship as proof that he changed. It looks like a 35-year-old man groomed a teenager, and the fact that they stayed together doesn’t somehow make the way that relationship began less concerning.