I'm there with my brother. Tee, as I shall refer to him, has pushed me too far. I wont' beat him senseless because that would be wrong and I don't think that he has any sense left to beat out. I won't try to ruin his life; he's done well enough at that himself. There isn't anything that I want to do to hurt him, but I am going nuts and have to get some things off my chest; so I'll simply tell his story here as I know it.
Tee and I were born into a loving, blue collar family. Mom and Dad worked hard to make sure that we were raised with good family values. We never lacked, yet were not spoiled. There were expectations placed upon us without stripping anything from our childhoods. A large, close extended family, close friends, and safe community all made life pretty good for us.
Tee graduated high school and went off to college, just like I did. While away from home I learned a lot about my own lack of self control and ended up leaving school and moving back home to figure out what I was to do with the rest of my life. Tee experienced things differently. He began his life of duplicity almost immediately upon arriving at his first college.
While I found a job, enrolled into a technical school for night classes, paid my own way, and met the love of my life, Tee was beginning his life of living large. He continued to date his high school sweetheart by daily phone calls, love letters, and weekends together, all-the-while learning to play the field on the sly. I remember once visiting Tee and having to wait for him to put off two women and call his sweetheart before paying any attention to me. I laughed it off.
I moved forward in life by graduating from college, getting a job, moving into my first apartment by myself, and got engaged. While I was busy with my life changes, Tee was changing colleges and further expanding his psychosis. He moved into a closet of a fraternity house at his new school; which alone should have limited his extra-relational relations, but didn't. Tee actually expanded his line of ladies to include his long time high school sweetheart (still clueless), an on-campus girlfriend (didn't know a thing), and an off-campus girlfriend who could be visited or come and visit him whenever he could put the other two off. Tee also began to expand his ability to weave the truth from the ether while living in his closet.
I dealt with my immediate and extended family's "interventions" as they tried to convince me that marrying at such a young age was not in either mine or my fiance's best interests. While I was sticking to my guns and moving towards marriage, Tee left for Washington DC. He had taken a position with the House of Representatives Council on Substance Abuse and Prevention. His job was to make sure that whenever this group of politicians got together that they had notepads, cold water, and whatever else they might need. He also had some responsibility to respond via form letter to any letters written to the council.
He lived in DC with a cousin and partied quite hard. The entire time he was working, drinking, and sowing his oats, he was maintaining his long time relationship with his high school sweetheart (still clueless). I visited Tee twice while he was there. The first time was with my fiance and he actually showed us a good time. He got us access to parts of the Capitol building that the public doesn't get to see and took us to some fabulous eateries. The second visit was sans fiance and he had me at strip and dance clubs. He took things so far as to set me up with some floozy. I refused his gift and ended up fighting with him to the point that I left him and drove all the way back to Ohio. Bad timing on my part because the entire extended family was in Virginia for a wedding that I was supposed to attend with Tee. He showed up by catching a ride with a cousin, but I didn't because I was in Ohio. I still think I made the right decision and don't feel responsible for answering to anyone about that weekend except my wife, which I did.
Even after standing-up my family at a cousin's wedding, they all showed up for mine. Tee was my best man. All forgiven but obviously not forgotten as I write it all out today.
Mom died not long after I got married. It hurt all of us. To this day I believe that Tee was crushed at the loss of Mom, but his handling of it was, and is, unfathomable. Tee proceeded over a few years of Mom's passing to convince Dad to pay his tuition directly to him. Dad, also lost by our loss, did it. Just as we were getting suspicious, Tee announced his graduation and moved back home. None of us were invited to the ceremony and his diploma has yet to arrive in the mail. We have agreed as a family to never discuss this or to further confront Tee about it. Dad, surely embarrassed by his son and his naivety, demands it. (I do apologize here Dad)
There is no easy way for me to apologize for what happens next because I am not convinced that I handled things wrong. My wife and I had many discussions about what to tell Tee's sweetheart over the years. We agreed, through my urging, that he was just blowing off steam and would "settle down" once they got married. Tee wed his sweetheart as my wife and I became expectant parents. As I recall, I was not Tee's best man.
Tee and his wife didn't have an easy start, but they worked hard together to build successful careers and a family. Over their 10 or so years of marriage they had 4 children, built their dream home, bought the nicest stuff, had a boat at the lake, and big plans. Tee killed it all.
Tee worked for various companies and experienced a lot of things before deciding to get into construction. He found that he was good at it and his attractive personality helped him to go so far as to purchase an established company and start his own business. I was also in the construction business and was attracted to Tee's business success. At one point I even talked with Tee about going into business with him. He told me that I could go to work for him sweeping floors and such until I proved myself. It took awhile, but again I forgave him for underestimating and undervaluing me (constants in our relationship from birth to today). To us, his extended family, Tee seemed to be doing very well. We should have guessed differently when he started treating Dad with incredible disdain. At one point, when the ship was sinking even though nobody knew it except Tee, Dad was told to keep his mouth shut and don't talk to anybody about Tee's business...after all, that's your name on the side of the truck too!
Tee's business went down hard. When the earth stopped shaking, he was divorced, bankrupt, sued multiple times, and foreclosed on. Gone was the picture perfect wife, dream home, and truck with our name on the side of it. Kinda glad I didn't get in on that ride so I should thank him for being so cold hearted and mean. While all of this was going on I learned even more about Tee's character when he ran up credit cards right before his bankruptcy, stripped the house of cabinets, doors, hardware, and more right before foreclosure, and convinced Dad to let him live in our childhood home for a while (Dad had since remarried and moved, but still owned the home).
Tee began to take on construction supervision positions as an independent contractor for larger companies. According to the different people that he's done this work for, he is very good at it. Tee took on a project out-of-town and moved away. When he moved he took some of Dad's stuff from the house with him.
Tee started living large again. He was free of the bonds of marriage and found that the singles scene was good for him. He juggled multiple girlfriends and began to party again. We kept in touch by phone conversations in which he would tell me how great life was for him and tell me what a loser I was. My wife and I began to refer to him as Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll wasn't around much.
As the world experienced an economic downturn, so did Tee's life. He thought that his ex-wife deserved nothing from him so he did not paid the court ordered child support for his 4 children. His income disappeared so he took refuge with one of his girlfriends. His car was repossessed.
To us, Tee was in a bleak situation, but not to him. The rules for the rest of us just did not apply to him. He drove without insurance which led to driving without a license. He refused to address past and current lawsuits which led to an incredible outstanding balance to creditors. Most of his belongings that were kept in storage were sold to pay his debts to the storage company, these included his construction tools, family photos, and those things of Dad's that he took. He continued to refuse to pay child support and was convicted of doing (or not doing) just that. His relationship with his girlfriend fell apart.
Life was beating me and my family around pretty good over this time period too, but I got no help from Tee, just further headaches. He might have been too busy exacting revenge on all those who wronged him. Tee took it upon himself to make public some very private things that he had shared with his girlfriend. Upset by his actions, she reported him to the police. The jury found him guilty of all charges after about 30 minutes of deliberations. There was no mercy by the judge at sentencing and Tee lost 6 months of his freedom.
He had no place to live, no income except what he could get from the government (including an amazing 20+ months or so of unemployment from a job that he only held for 7 months), and no current girlfriends. I felt sorry for him and asked my family if he could move in with us for a while. They said yes.
My living situation is different. Being family first oriented, leading decisions with my heart, and believing that responsibilities only have a literal meaning, has come to mean that there are a lot of people living together. Tee moved into the back storage room in the basement. He brought his dog, two vehicles, and a lot of clothes with him.
My mother-in-law, 4 children, and now my brother all live together on a quiet residential street. Our neighbors straight across are Tee's ex-in-laws. His ex-wife and her new husband live about 5 houses down with their 7 children, and Dad lives less than a mile away.
I don't know how it goes for reading this, or even if any of it makes sense, but I am now very tired. The Truth of Tee will have more at another writing.
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