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truly complex situation, in which primarily you cannot be the unbiased psychiatrist (howsoever you may want to be).
(personally, i am in similar but precursor situation as you. i found about my bro is gay/bi through my very close friend who found out about my bro from his friend circle. so my bro has not come out to me, since he doesn't need to. he has two girls also, and for social sake (my mother), bro and his wife are keeping it under wraps. overall, a very complicated social and personal situation. i can just be an observer without untangling the problem).
in short, be active supporter (not passive). engage a neutral therapist for him, which need not leak info to you even (patient-doctor confidentiality, which your bro can trust). and ask/nudge him to pursue wider social net.
Just a note that my brother saw your reply, and he thinks we could not have gotten better advice. Thank you again.
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Thank you. That is a very substantive and helpful reply, not that I would expect otherwise from you!
I am slightly shocked and surprised, but only in the sense that I am saddened that he didn't feel ready to tell me earlier, and because of the personal difficulties he's faced and will face without the opportunity for me to support him. We've talked about this, a lot, albeit far from enough. I think he's rather relieved that the two members of his family he opened up to did nothing but shower him with love and support. Of course, we will talk about this further, I just think I've finally had a much clearer picture of what's going on.
I am optimistic that it won't take months or years for me to process this. I did somewhat suspect, after all, and I can't see any change in how I treat him. I even cracked the usual jokes today, we're not walking on eggshells. His sexuality is nothing to me when compared to his health, happiness and career.
I am treating him as my little brother, and absolutely do not intend to become his psychiatrist or therapist. I don't think he needs one very strongly, he's more stoic and pragmatic (and functional, in some ways) than I've ever been. The biggest complaint I can make about him these days is that he doesn't study hard enough, and to be fair I did the bare minimum in med school. I asked if he was depressed, and barring rather reasonable episodes of sadness for understandable reasons, I didn't get that impression that all. He's more worried about my mental health than his own, and so am I in all honesty.
If I ever see any cause for concern, I will press on him strongly to see a neutral third party, that's a promise. Even if he doesn't need any medication, talking things through can only help and it already has. We are a close-knit and loving family that rarely keeps secrets form each other, and I am immensely grateful for that.
Regarding the end of his relationship:
While I like his "best friend" as a best friend, he hasn't been the perfect boyfriend for my brother. I won't go into too much detail here, but there are reasons beyond him being bi that would make me strongly advise my brother against seeing this a lifelong affair. Once again, not a bad person, and I am fond of him too, but residency and distance have killed many a heterosexual relationship already.
Right now, the BF is having second thoughts about breaking up. So is my brother. My dad is charmingly clueless, and wants them to move into an apartment together so they can either work or study full time (the BF is far better at academics, and he's optimistic it'll rub off, I suspect other things will be rubbed off too). Maybe they can stretch things out a year or two, it's not necessarily imminent.
I have strongly ordered him to let me know if and when the breakup happens, no matter where I am. I intend to be there for him, and I will call or at least text far more regularly than I already do. He is justifiably annoyed that I have the same character traits that make me withdraw and reduce contact when I'm not doing so hot myself.
Good ideas. There is a lot of practical benefit to him staying in India, both for financial reasons and to keep an eye on our increasingly elderly parents, but if that comes at the cost of his happiness, I'm booking the visa and flight for him.
I swear I had known about the single parent thing at some point, but it had slipped my mind. I'll have to double check if it's an issue for a married gay couple. Of course, legal channels are not the only option in this country, nor does he have to stick to this country forever.
Oh, I can see why this hit close to home. I'm not sorry for you, because I don't see much to be sorry about! I do hope your brother is bi and not gay, not for moral reasons, but because that is a kind of compromise that is far easier to make, even in the West. Good luck to the both of you, and I hope one day he finds the strength to open up to you about it. I'm sure you love him dearly and will treat him just the same. This is the kind of shit that brothers are for.
I will do all of this right away, except possibly the therapy -(unless I see a clearer indication). Thank you again, this is precisely the kind of advice I had hoped to receive after mustering up the courage to share this, even pseudonymously.
regarding my own situation, ngl, sometimes i do feel (when i read post like this) to just blast off my bro - why the hell are you not telling me this and should have told me a long time back (whenever you understood that yourself). and i have come to know about it through a third person (although, that third person is more brotherly than him, tbh). etc.
his wife is the one who has the most difficult situation, from my POV. so for her sake, things remaining unknown to most is a reasonable solution. but it still is an emotional issue.
regarding the stoic nature of your bro. sometimes, it is just an outer shell (speaking from my own experience) while there is lot of internal emotional turmoil. personally, you should just be there for him, if and when he wants to have your support. that's all.
I don't know how I'd have reacted if I had found out through a third party and had to wait ages for my brother to come clean. Can't blame you for feeling some bitterness about it either; if I had to guess, I'd probably get impatient and seriously confront him, albeit with good intent. In a way, the fact that I have multiple (often turbulent) trysts with women has annoyed/exhausted my parents to the point that probably felt relieved with a son who didn't let women get to his head. I need to ask him to buy me a drink for running cover, even if it's accidental haha.
My brother genuinely is more emotionally resilient than I am. God knows that the dysthymia and depressive tendencies came to me from my mom, and he mostly lucked out. Still, I'll keep a close eye, and my mom is perceptive and will manage any concerns once I'm back to the UK!
Hmm. That really is a tricky situation. For her sake, I hope your brother is simply bi, and suppressing his desire to have sex with men while in a relationship, in the same way most men suppress their desire to sleep with other women while married. I do not want to judge him for misleading someone by feigning interest in women while purely gay, but then again, I don't think I could get hard enough to penetrate a man in the first place if that was asked of me. Presumably, with two kids, the attraction is non-negligible. I can only hope his marriage is stable despite the difficulties, and at this point it's a non-trivial problem with no easy answers. You seem like a caring brother, so I do hope he at least acknowledges it at some point. I agree that it's not worth poking at too hard unless someone is clearly suffering.
i make myself understand that there is nothing i can do about it. both of them have to manage as best as they can. i can only support both of them, as best as i can, and when needed (if there is). he is prolly not a bi. so, it is technically a problem. but other things are bigger issues. they are a happy family from social point of view.
i feel, it will become a very self-regarding move to relieve my own emotional itch, rather than something which he feels the need for. this is also why i feel that whatever be your bro's relative resilience as compared to yours, since he has come to you at this point (at the juncture of possible LTR breakup, there is a deeper need for you to be there for him actively. in any case, life is always interesting and worth (even in the worst of situations, there is always something to look for).
i watched "It's a Wonderful Life" few days back. and it is a must watch. it is a fairly common recommendation for US/UK people, but not for us (in general).
I wouldn't be quite that harsh on yourself. Some aspects of a person they're set on keeping to themselves might well be your business: say a friend or family member doing dangerous drugs, and you find out through an oblique route. It's a bit tenuous to connect that to sexuality as an analogy, but I hope you get my drift. You have every right to feel some level of dissatisfaction, and I wouldn't hold it against you if you did ask him outright. Just being gay, is as far as I'm concerned, totally fine. A marriage of convenience (potentially one-sided convenience) changes the calculus somewhat. I can't blame you if you intervened on behalf of his wife and kids, though I'm not sure there's even a reason to intervene, and what you really want is to have him just tell you the truth and explain why he kept it from your his entire life.
If his wife is okay, and the kids are happy, then it does make sense to not rock the boat. Then again, she might be deeply embarrassed and unwilling to speak out because she fears the social and personal consequences. She wouldn't be the first person to stick around in an unhappy/lukewarm marriage for pragmatic reasons. (I am absolutely not bold enough to claim this is the case, I don't know any of the people involved!)
On the other hand, simply politely telling him you found out and you're disappointed by the charade is not, as far as I can gauge, a bad thing to do. And I suspect that is all you consider doing.
I'm lucky that even during my worst bouts of depression, it never went from passive/intrusive thoughts to active suicidal ideation or planning. But if it had, you bet that I would have fought hard to remind myself that I would be sorely missed by my family and other loved ones. I hope nobody in the stories we've shared has reached that point.
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