You know your brother is an asshole when:

My brother and I do not get along with each other.  I do not know why he does not like me, but I know why I do not want to be in the same room with him, to the point that I have vowed that the only way that we will be in such a situation is if I am dead.

The last time that I talked to him was a very heated argument about my niece's (his daughter) college future.  He did his typical self-righteous, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou trope, as the AA playbook calls for, and I unloaded on him the one thing that I had on him, the fact that I was in a relationship that lasted longer than the marriage that he threw away (epic burn).  Granted, I was drunk, but in the morning, I was sober and still right.

That was a few years ago.  Tonight, I spoke with my mother, who has been dealing with him living with her, in the past month, in a house that has no room for him.  I also spoke with my niece, his daughter.

In the past, my mother's uncle (who has since passed) had told me that he did not like my brother because my brother did not say "good morning".  The circumstances surrounding this are simple.  My mother and I were vacationing in California, my mother's aunt and uncle joined us from Puerto Rico, and my brother and niece joined us from Texas.  Every morning, we woke up in a different hotel, went to a different restaurant for breakfast, and enjoyed a different tourist attraction.  The one constant was the people that we were with, people that we do not see on a regular basis.  When my mother's uncle (for all intents and purposes, I call him my uncle) told me that he didn't like my brother because he doesn't say "good morning", I was taken aback.  My first instinct was, regardless of my feelings, that is my brother, and how could he say that.  My next thought was, "What the fuck is wrong with my brother, that he can't say good morning to his own relative?"

That brings me to today.  I already told my mother and my niece that the last time that I talked to my brother was the last time that I would talk to my brother.  Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have listened to my mother complain about my brother living with her.  It is not that he is living with her that is the problem.  It is the fact that he shows no appreciation for her allowing him to live with her.  He doesn't say "good morning" to her.  I have done one thing to my mother that I am ashamed of, for which I have apologized, but that was a very strenuous time for the both of us, and I was 17 at the time.  Since then, I have appreciated any and every thing that my mother has done for me.  Have I raised my voice?  Yes.  We constantly argue about my cup of coffee (she doesn't like the amount of sugar I put into MY coffee), but that lasts as long as we are in the same room.  My relationship with my mother may not be perfect, but I don't think that she has as many complaints about me as she does about him.  But what gets me is that I doubt she complains about me to him.  I cannot say that she doesn't complain about him to me, because she does, and what she complains about are the little things that a son should do, like say "good morning".  What's worse is that for all of the restraint that I showed in my conversation with my niece, she was more critical of her father that I was.  I was holding back, but she wasn't.

Getting back to the subject of this post, you know your brother is an asshole when you are the least critical of him when compared to his daughter and his mother.

Personally, I couldn't care less about my brother. but for the sake of my mother and my niece, I wish my brother wasn't an asshole, but he is.  All I can do is help my mother and niece deal with it.