Lack of resilience in brothers

It sounds like they have deep emotional issues. Do they have trouble expressing themselves? If so they could probably find life overwhelming because they ultimately don't have an outlet in this regard. It can be hard to be normal if you have heavy repressed feelings stuck inside. And Life is so full of distractions nowadays that we can forget how we feel day in day out.

Have you ever tried to connect with them on things that they like. Just a chat were you shoot the breeze were you allow them space to talk about whatever. Just listening to people can be among the greatest things you could actually do for them. Encouragement also.

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I have seen similar circumstances in a number of families over the years. In all the cases I have seen there was a pattern of 'eccentricity ' evident in the parents" families. Genetics in those instances imo.

Not sure what the answer is here pal, maybe its not about 'fixing them' and more about you accepting that things are the way they are, that you cant control it, and not letting it become an overbearing part of your life.

Sounds like underlying this that a big concern is for your parents and how they are to spend their twilight years.

Easy to suggest 'tough love' here but hard to push through with that when someone has attempted suicide.

I would distinguish though between someone who has no drive, no motivation etc on the one hand, and someone who is verbally abusive and financially exploitative on the other. There is a line…..

Also, specifically tough for your mother being in a house with four men, three of whom are as you described.

OP you didnt mention if you live at home.

It is hard to say - without knowing a hell of a lot more about them - what kind of intervention would work with them. If any.

And if anything works with one of them - you can probably assume safely enough the same thing will not work with the other two. Interventions very often fail and where they do actually succeed they are very individual and the same intervention won't work on the next person. Even if you think the people in question are very similar.

The problem with interventions - like with an alcoholic for example - is at some level the target has to want it. If they do not then nothing will likely help. Maybe even make it worse!

With alcoholics there is an approach which I think is called the Johnson method. Which I think involves all the people affected by the alcoholics' behaviour come together as a unit and tell the problem drinker how they are affected and basically that they are now going to cease ALL enabling behaviours that support the alcoholic in their alcoholism. But retaining behaviours that do not. For example, rescuing the alcoholic on a night out if they need a lift home is now never going to happen. Making the alcoholic lunch while they get ready to go out for a job interview is fine. And so on.

A similar approach might work in your situation. Certainly no more taking this grown up baby to McDonald's for a start. You want them to act like adults, then performing actions that infantilise them like that is going to do the exact opposite.

The parents should consider telling them it is time to leave the home for a second. But if they refuse to go THAT far then it is still their home, so they can refuse to have certain people or things in it. So they can ban Games Machines, friends visiting, or whatever else is enabling this layabout behaviour. In one case I am personally aware of the parents did not kick the kid entirely out of the house. They still had a place to dinner, sleep and breakfast. But from 8am until 7pm they were not welcome in the house.

On another note, resilience is a funny one. It is like a muscle. You can look at two people and think they are not resilient, in the same way you can look at two layabouts and think they are physically weak. But if you train the latter two people in a gym for 8 months, one comes out strong and the other still weak. You realise that they were both weak because they were never tested. Only after they stepped up to try did you figure out which one was physically/genetically a weak person and which not.

Resilience can be the same. There is a saying "The worst thing that has ever happened to you - is the worst thing that has ever happened to you". Basically meaning if your resilience has never been tested as you live a life of protracted comfort - then someone unfriending you on facebook might bring your entire world crashing down. It is literally the worst thing that has ever happened to you.

Assuming the adult babies do not have actual issues of medical depression (which I can't know either way) then you probably will not know how resilient they are (or are not) until they step up and have to actually be so. Unfortunately, like the intervention thing above there is no easy way to do this or force it on them. Short of them being kicked out of the home and forced to go about their life the hard way.

Another issue is they might actually be living their best lives. It hurts you to see them laying about not getting after it. It would hurt me too. But what if this is actually what they want from their lives? Read the posts on this forum from Potential Monke for example. When he described the life he lives now (Basically a MGTOW gamer and hermit smoking drugs) I was initially sad for him. But the more I read his posts the more I am convinced this might actually be what constitutes a happy life for him. I was sad because I was viewing his life through mine not his own.

You and I can not judge him or your brothers by our own standards and goals and targets. By trying to get them into a job and off the games, you may be forcing on them a life they simply do not want. So be cognizant of that as you proceed. Your role in all this therefore COULD be as simple as loving them as they are and accepting them for it. Which you can do without enabling it too.

In my life I was moved personally, or by others, to intervene in the lives of a small number of others. And I did so - but only as I knew them really well and learned as much as I could before I worked out how to intervene. In the majority of cases though I would not intervene and all you can do is represent "the path" as best you can yourself. Quietly, without bragging or shoving it in their faces. But actively and consistently with humility and magnanimity mixed with pride and enjoyment and happiness. And hope that they reach a point where they are looking at you thinking "I want that". At which point they will either better themselves or reach out and ask you for help/advice.

All that said - it does sound like with at least one of them a few Jokko Willink podcasts or books might not go astray. Especially the "its all everyones fault but my own" guy. Some "extreme ownership" would not go astray with that one I suspect. Maybe get him a subscription to the Jokko Underground podcast for his next birthday or something :-) It's cheap and it's like a man's man agony aunt question and answer podcast with a lot of quality stuff in it.

This kind of thing is a lot more common than youd think, i know of 3 brothers who sound pretty similar albeit slightly higher functioning with jobs but all in their 40s and living at home reliant on their mother for everything, as others have said not much you can do to fix it despite how frustrating and upsetting it is, sorry for your troubles!

Make sure that you don't end up as skivvy carer for these men when your parents are gone.

Your parents may well leave the house to them as they have so enabled them this far.

Make your plans to not be around for caring duties if your parents need it.

You would very quickly end up doing it for the whole house.

Protect yourself and your future.

This, OP. I've seen this dynamic in families a number of times over the years, where the male offspring are catered to, mollycoddled and completely enabled while the solo (usually) daughter is treated more or less like an indentured servant, while being held to a completely different set of standards to her brothers.

My advice to you is to get the hell out of dodge and leave them all to it. I know that's easier said than done in the current housing climate, but I also think, based on some of your previous threads, that there's quite an amount of enmeshed behaviour going on between you and the rest of your family too. You talk the talk, but there's always a reason why you can't actually just go ahead and cut the apron strings. I'm genuinely sorry if that sounds harsh, I don't mean it to be. Perhaps some counselling might be helpful for you.

Either way, your brothers (and your parents) are simply not going to wake up one morning and unlearn decades of behaviour and attitudes, so I'd park any hopes of things improving there and focus only on the things you can control.

Its interesting that you say 'I dont want to sound uncaring' - its easy to fall into a mindset of 'what will people think of me'.

You are in a **** position, this affects your life too. You didnt ask for this.

Also, you've touched on something with the 'my mother has tried to control me' - I am sure she is part of that, when you are wondering 'what will people think of me'.

I really think you need to live your best life, to excuse a well worn cliche.

Nobody else in the house is putting you first.

I didn't realize you were living at home with them. Forget your brothers for the moment. Did you return home to save, like for a deposit? Or just couldn't afford to rent?

I would say you need to really look after yourself first here. Things are unlikely to change majorly so for your own sanity you need to plan getting out of the home. Whatever means you have to save up a few months etc and set a date to go. That's your light. Talk to your BF and try make a plan.

I know what you're up against with this type of dynamic. I have 3 sisters that my father would do absolutely anything for (they're not lay abouts now) but he'd barely give me anything. Very frustrating, until I realized that he couldn't help it. Life really isn't fair. But if I was to pick one of you's lives to have lived it would be yours. Honestly I know the situation is nuts at the moment but if you plan it out long enough you'll find it will give you peace of mind and something to work towards.