I just alerted my brother I will no longer talk to him.

[SWBTATTReg]

25. You know, we all have challenges enough in life to have to worry about our own family ...

not being in our corner. Believe me, I know this. I'm the same way in not dealing w/ some of my siblings and mother, but my situation is not due to rump (in could in one situation) but to too much drinking on their part constantly. And I tried to get them help, but if they don't want to persist and use the help, then so be it. I'm tried too many times, had too many late night horror phone calls, emails, and the like that I pretty well disappeared from my immediate family and don't want to deal w/ them. My own family and life now is far more important to me.

Life is way too short to really waste time on trying to talk w/ people who won't not just talk, but listen, which is the most critical thing. I know because I have a 95% hearing loss, and listening is the most important thing of all to me, it's not the talking (believe me, everybody seems to want to talk all of the time!), it's the listening that is far more important (in my case it's the lip reading).

I find in most gatherings that by far, talking comprises by far the bulk of the communications, while listening is a very minor part of it. It's kind of like 'me me me me me ME me me me ME me me etc.' mentality and one does get pretty tired of it.