Reader Dilemma: 'My brother-in-law gave my brother a horrible lecture for not joining in with karaoke at a party'

Advice: 'For some reason, your brother-in-law felt that your brother not joining in the karaoke was a personal insult'

'My brother is furious and says he’s been humiliated by our brother-in-law and he’ll never speak to him again' (Getty Images)

Dear Virginia

At a party last week given by my sister, my brother – who has no singing voice at all – refused to join in the karaoke singing at the end. Everyone else had a go except him. None of us minded because, even though he’s 40, he’s rather shy and lives on his own. But my brother-in-law gave him a horrible lecture afterwards and said it was bad manners not to join in. My brother is furious and says he’s been humiliated by our brother-in-law and he’ll never speak to him again. How can I help them to get over this stupid incident?

Yours sincerely, Olivia

Virginia says...

Is it really just a “stupid incident”? Your brother feels as if he’s been belittled – as, indeed, he has. And none of us likes feeling as if our feelings have been stamped on.

But you must explain to your brother that your brother-in-law is only trying to make him feel exactly as he feels himself when a suggestion he makes is rejected. It’s an interesting syndrome, this, actually. Whenever you feel deeply hurt by someone else, your feelings are probably exactly the same as those that prompted the outburst in the other person in the first place.

For some reason, your brother-in-law felt that your brother not joining in the karaoke was a personal insult. He might have felt a little bit worried about initiating it in the first place, wondering if was appropriate. Then he imagined that your brother was implying, by refusing to take part: “God, how naff! Karaoke! How can you be so loutish and common! I’m going to have nothing to do with your pathetic and vulgar forms of entertainment.” No doubt he’s been harbouring an inferiority complex about your brother for a long time – and very shy people like your brother can often seem aloof and superior.

In other words, you’ve got two very insecure people, each waiting like panthers to leap on any kind of perceived insult from the other. Tell your brother to pity his brother-in-law, not condemn him. Tell him your brother-in-law is a tragic, unconfident wretch who suffers from dreadfully low self-esteem. As a result he’s a control freak who goes wild, rather like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, if anyone steps out of his line.

A friend of mine, staying with a very prickly host a while ago, put another log on the fire while the host was out of the room. When he discovered this, the host ordered him out of the house with the words: “No guest puts a log on another man’s fire!” For some reason, this act had touched a deep-seated feeling of anxiety and insecurity. And yes, my friend, baffled, was obliged to leave.

Tell your brother that it takes two to make an injury. One to wield the knife and the other to bleed. Your brother has a choice whether to bleed or not. If he can, he should laugh it off and thank God that he would never get upset about such a minor incident. If he can bring himself to rustle up an apology, or even explain the truth in a way that your brother-in-law would understand – that he’s desperately shy and terrified of performing in public – that might help.

And if, perhaps, you could explain to your brother-in-law that your brother wasn’t being snobbish but rather, felt absolutely awful about both being asked to sing in public and having to turn down the request because of his crippling shyness, so much the better.

Readers say...

Stand up to this bulllying

You don’t mention whether your brother-in-law has a habit of picking on people he sees as vulnerable, but it sounds like that is what is going on. Why on earth would an otherwise reasonable person want to humiliate someone who is shy of stepping into the limelight? Karaoke can be a tool to challenge people in the same way that drinking games can be used. By declining to get involved, your brother has unwittingly challenged the playground bully in your brother-in-law.

Sometimes we have to risk family turmoil to assert fairness, and you are the ally your brother needs, as it may be too much to ask of your sister, who will be inclined to protect herself from a potential backlash from her husband. If his offensive behaviour was challenged more often he might think twice next time.

Keith

by email

He needs a lesson in manners

Easy! Tell that thug of a brother-in-law to pull his neck in and stop his high-school type bullying. It probably took quite a lot of guts for her brother to attend the party, given that he is a shy person, let alone get up and sing in front of everyone. Why does the brother-in-law think he has any say in what other people do? I will bet that the brother is a bit retiring in his manner and not a “physical person”, otherwise this idiot would not have attacked him as he did. He needs a lesson in manners himself .

Gene

by email

Shyness can be crippling

I feel very sorry for your poor brother. Unfortunately, the reluctance to perform, caused by chronic shyness, is often mistaken as deliberate obtuseness or just downright rudeness. I am extremely shy and still haunted by an event 25 years ago when a so-called friend engineered that I should sing on stage at a comedy gig. She failed to see the acute distress this caused me and brushed off the incident with the complaint that I would have let the side down had I refused. Someone should explain to your brother-in-law that he is very lucky to have the skill and confidence to perform at such an event, but it is not for him to chastise those who do not.

Sophie

name and address supplied

Why did no-one challenge him?

This is much too important to be dismissed as a “stupid incident.” In fact, it’s a rather sinister example of what happens when one bullying relative is allowed far too much power within a family. It’s bad enough that this chap has appointed himself as the Fun Police, pressurising the shy and introverted into activities they find uncomfortable. But the fact that he humiliated and lectured your brother is simply abominable, especially if the rest of you failed to challenge his behaviour.

Don’t be tempted to treat the incident as if it were “six of one and half a dozen of the other”; your brother is the innocent victim here, with your brother-in-law 100 per cent in the wrong. Is it perhaps time to think long and hard about your family’s attitude to these two men? Why is the brother-in-law’s bullying tolerated by the rest of you? You speak strangely patronisingly about your brother: “None of us minded, because, even though he’s 40, he’s shy and lives on his own.” What on earth does his relationship status have to do with anything? Single or married, timid or confident, he’s perfectly entitled to sit out a karaoke session without requiring anyone else’s blessing. It’s not the brother-in-law’s place to force him into it.But nor, incidentally, is it your place to assess his mitigating circumstances and magnanimously grant him exemption. It’s his choice, plain and simple.

Cath Hughes

Maidstone

Next week's dilemma

I’m a happily married gay woman and both of us are longing to start a family. We have begun to investigate donor sperm and are really excited. But my best friend recently told me that she thinks it’s cruel to bring up a child without a father. She was adopted (and subsequently formed a bond with her birth father as an adult). I feel that we can offer so much love to a child that they would never feel there was something missing from their lives, and we have plenty of male relatives and friends around. But I confess she has made me doubt. What do you think?

Yours sincerely,

Wendy