I have always been an impressionable person, especially around my older brother.
- I deferred to his judgment a lot in life, so much so that it hampered my ability to think for myself.
Often it feels like I lack the necessary tools and skill to attack tough lessons and problems in life. Worse yet, my brother gives me advice to this day and it’s getting increasingly unreliable as time goes on. He wasn’t the best husband to his first wife and the marriage imploded soon thereafter. But it simply got worse with his second marriage, and now I wonder if he really respects women the way our father always taught us to. He said that we need to treat the women in our lives like they are our queens, and then everything will follow from that position. My brother doesn’t just give me unsolicited relationship advice, but also suggestions for kitchen and laundry appliances. He somehow convinced me to install a gas line last year and switch to gas appliances. He had done that exact thing in the previous 12 months and was trying to rope me into having the same setup in my home as he does in his home. I like the gas furnace for winter heating, but I’m not a fan of the olg gas clothes dryer that I purchased in used condition from an appliance depot. I don’t mind that it wasn’t new, I just couldn’t get over the propane smell that it would impart on my clothing. I never noticed a weird smell emanating from my furnace vents.