Constantly disrespected by this person. Am I wrong? *screenshots*

So I am almost 19 weeks pregnant and definitely a more emotional version of myself, but even if I weren’t, this treatment would hurt and be unacceptable to me.

My husband and I moved down to Florida for a job and are saving for our own house to buy in just a couple months. But it’s been six months now that we’ve had to live with my dad and brother. They are both type A males and tend to be narcissistic and arrogant and it’s exhausting to avoid triggering those behaviors. I grew up with it, and as a result learned to maintain very strict boundaries of respect for myself as self protection. Of course to them, especially my brother, these boundaries cause him to even further try to insult me by saying I don’t care about anyone but myself and show a constant disregard for others.

This post will get way too long if I’m not careful. But for example, my brother needed to spray pesticides at the house last month. I’d asked him ahead of time to let me know when he’s be doing that so I could plan for my two year old and myself to be gone for a few hours. I’m in the living room playing with my daughter and he comes in already spraying it, no windows or anything open and no warning. I asked him to stop and wait to let me leave, or finish later, and he escalated to belittling and raising his voice right away. It escalated further when I started crying out of frustration and being talked to like that, which then led to him calling me unstable and insane and trying to use tears to get my way. That is one of many very similar situations. My M.O. is to be the level headed one and try as much as possible to state facts and be reasonable, but I’ve found that this goes in one ear and out the other or even gets twisted by my brother.

Last night we visited my mom and unexpectedly stayed the night. It’s an hour long drive to visit her and both my pregnant self and my two year old fell asleep really early and my husband decided it’s okay, we will just sleep here. Well yesterday we somehow left the back door connected to our bedroom and the outside unlocked AND ajar. I had just woken up when I saw the text and tried to think but could not remember if we’d opened or used that door in days. My next text was going to be to say “that sucks, I’m sorry! We need to establish some fail sages or habits to. Prevent that” when his next text comes in “Dont even make excuses kayley. This is beyond fucked up.. how low functioning do you have to be to do something like this?” ...... I immediately deleted what I’d typed out. I didn’t want it to go this way. But I also have to have boundaries. Once disrespect enters the equation, I have to step back. So I was going to text my dad and send him my apology instead, but my brother got to him first. Except not only does he tell me it was not cool (true and fair) but has to also get upset about us staying with my mom. He feels like I lied to him because I didn’t say we would be starting overnight. Which I shouldn’t have to, but even then it was an unplanned thing that just happened and I am 26!! I t was a nasty divorce and he still can’t wrap his head around the fact that my relationship with my mom didn’t end too. Y’all, I’m 26. I can’t believe I’m still living like this or that I’m living in a situation where we can’t be respectful adults. I know if the situation were reversed I never would insulted them or put them down. I would’ve trusted that surely they felt bad and would try to do better and that would be enough for me. Maybe I’d initiate a convo about how we could all avoid repeated that mistake.

There are so many more examples I’d want to give to complete the picture but this is already long. If you read this thank you. I haven’t made many friends down here yet, much less ones who know my family history. I needed to vent and honestly just hear it validated that it’s not okay to be disrespected. Recovering from my narcissistic abuse filled childhood means constantly having to check myself for my own narcissism and being paranoid that the insults being hurled are true somehow. It’s really hurtful. Especially being pregnant. And y’all, I had preeclampsia last pregnancy and so all this stress definitely isn’t helpful avoiding it this time. We are going to have to move out ASAP and just accept that that’s a few thousand less we will have saved up for a house 🤷🏻‍♀️ my mental and physical health has to come first.

On the verge of sounding too hippie, why can’t everyone just be nice and respectful and kind? We accidentally did something that was negligent and something bad could’ve happened but didn’t.