Dear Therapist: I Explode When I'm Dealing With My Brother

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Dear Therapist,

My older brother and I are both in our 30s and have gone through periods of being close and periods with a lot of conflict. The general pattern is he says something mean or belittling to me, and in response, I get angry and scream, and my upset is always disproportionate to the situation.

I have struggled throughout my life to manage anger appropriately, and my family knows this. Thanks to therapy and an anger-management group, I no longer react this way with other people, and I am able to communicate my feelings and resolve conflict like a mature adult. But with my brother, I react automatically and rapidly, before I can think logically or process the situation.

Several months ago, my brother was visiting from out of town after our elderly great aunt died. The day after the funeral, we were at our parents’ house for a dinner with extended family, and before guests arrived, I was helping my mom put food and drinks out while my brother and dad sat on the couch watching TV. He told me it was too early to put the soda out and I said something like, “Knock it off, c’mon. Do it yourself if you want it done differently.” I wasn’t yelling, and we were both still calm at this point.

Then I turned to grab my coat and leave the house to pick up my cousin at the train station. My brother said, “Are you going to stomp out of the room and have a tantrum now like you always do?”

I lost it. I was livid that he would mock me for an issue he knows I’m working on. I proceeded to scream at him at the top of my lungs for 10 to 15 minutes. I can’t remember ever feeling angrier. Still, however insulted I was, I know my screaming was out of line and it really upset my parents too.

For the rest of the time he was in town, my brother refused to acknowledge me. He didn’t even look at me when I said, “Have a safe trip,” as he left for the airport. We still haven’t talked (normally we catch up on the phone maybe once a month and text now and again).

I know my behavior was wrong. I regret it immensely, and also appreciate that screaming so loudly for so long is abusive. But I also want him to understand how hurtful it is when he makes fun of me for something I really struggle with. His silent treatment feels more like a way to make me feel lousy than it does him setting a boundary. And no one in my family thinks he’s wrong, because after all, my reaction was so extreme.

How can I apologize for my behavior while also emphasizing that his insulting comments make me feel small and like he doesn’t respect me? I know my apology will be lost on him if I emphasize the latter too much.

Dear Reader,

I’m not surprised that you have trouble managing anger around your brother, because family—the people with whom we experience our earliest emotional wounds—can trigger those old wounds quickly and viscerally, making it hard to step back and reflect in the moment the way we might with friends or colleagues.

When triggered, a person has an out-of-proportion reaction to something that internally connects to their past (an unresolved hurt, for example), leading that person to say or do things they regret. But despite the regret, a common tendency is to blame the person who evoked this big reaction and to feel like the wronged party in the interaction.

Yet what’s interesting about triggers is that they can be part of a reciprocal process: One person behaves in a way that triggers the second person, and the second person then behaves in a way that triggers the first. It’s like a dance in which nobody changes their steps, performing it the same way every time, unless someone walks off the dance floor.

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Here’s how your dance went in the incident you described: Your brother made a comment about waiting to put out the drinks, which triggered feelings in you (of not being appreciated, or of being criticized). You responded with an abrasive reply, which triggered feelings in him (anger at being snapped at, when he feels that all he did was offer an innocuous suggestion). He reacted to his anger by lashing out at you with a provocative jab, triggering your shame. Then the dance came to its familiar ending: You screamed, he withdrew, and you’re both still furious with and hurt by each other. That’s the performance you’ve done together over the years.

If you want to repair your relationship and not just get past this one incident, it will take more than an apology: You’ll need to lead your brother in a new dance. And for that, you’ll have to learn some new steps.

This might be easier if you begin by asking yourself this question: What unresolved hurt from my past am I reminded of by this current situation? You say you’ve had a lifelong struggle with anger, and in children, anger can be a sign of feeling helpless or powerless. I noticed in your letter that when your brother made the provocative put-down that led to your screaming, your father witnessed it but didn’t say anything to your brother—in other words, he didn’t protect you. And now, although your parents are understandably upset by your screaming, they don’t seem to be upset with your brother for provoking you.

Perhaps this was a pattern growing up—you feeling injured with nobody to protect you—and that would certainly help explain why these sorts of incidents set you off so easily. But I want you to consider another dynamic possibly also at play here: that your brother might have felt just as powerless as a child, and in order to make himself feel more powerful, maybe he sought to play on your insecurities and shame you. You then felt powerless (nobody was there to tell your brother to treat you with respect), so you would scream in order to defend yourself (and take back the power). If this is the case, the answer to the question of your unresolved hurt is that the people who were supposed to protect you didn’t, and as a child, you sometimes didn’t feel safe and cared for.

I don’t know the particulars of your childhood, and you may find a different answer to that question, but once you find it, you can begin to make a shift. Instead of expecting what you didn’t get from your family as a child (and feeling enraged in those moments), you can start learning how to provide it for yourself as an adult. I think of this as going inside of yourself when triggered, instead of letting your anger erupt on the outside. That—the going-inside instead of out—is your new dance step. With the help of your therapist, practice the new step (noticing that you’re being activated, breathing, asking yourself what you can do to comfort yourself in the moment, such as imagining enveloping your injured younger self in your loving adult arms) until you have the choreography down.

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As the cliché goes, it takes two to tango, and when you refuse to do the old dance with your brother, eventually he’ll realize that he’s dancing alone, get bored, and stop. That’s the beauty of learning a new dance. Your freedom comes not from controlling his steps, but from leading with yours.

Do you need to apologize for what happened before you get back on the dance floor? Yes, but you might frame it less as an explanation for your behavior and more as an invitation to create something new that will help him feel safe around you. You could write him a letter like this:

Dear Brother,

I’m very sorry for yelling at you when you were in town. It must have been tremendously upsetting to be on the receiving end of that, and I completely understand why you might need some space. I really care about our relationship, and my hope is that when you feel comfortable, we can have a fresh start. I’ve spent these months thinking about our relationship, and a therapist said something that resonates with me: Family members often do a dance—one person triggers something old in the other person, that person responds in a predictable way, the other person responds in an equally predictable way, and nothing changes until someone realizes this is an old dance from childhood and decides to change their steps. I want you to know that I’m going to change mine, and I’m inviting you to try this new sibling dance with me. I know you might be skeptical at first—after all, we’ve done this same dance for decades—but I hope you’ll take me up on the offer soon and see that we can be different together as the adults we are now.

Love,

Sister

Then you sit back and, no matter how (or if) he responds, you keep practicing your new steps, because that’s how you give yourself what you truly need.

Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental-health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it—in part or in full—and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.