AIO for leaving my apartment out of anger
Hello Reddit,
I (25F) left my apartment today out of anger after an argument with my brother, and now I feel a bit guilty about it. (Text translated via AI).
At the moment, I live with my parents and my brother (23M). Normally, things are pretty harmonious - I get along really well with my parents - but lately, my brother and I keep clashing. The main topics we argue about are household responsibilities, politics, and feminism.
My brother often defends a far-right political party that is currently gaining a lot of attention here. I honestly don’t understand it. Like the rest of us, he’s frustrated with the current political situation and believes that many problems are caused by immigrants. The thing is, we aren’t originally from this country ourselves - he was just born here. I keep telling him that you can’t generalize entire groups of people, and that the real problem lies more with the government and legal system than with immigrants themselves.
Today, he showed me a video about a local election where apparently only one party’s candidate was listed on the ballot because the far-right party’s candidate had been removed or crossed out. People could only vote yes, no, abstain, or suggest another candidate. He argued that this proves democracy is being destroyed. In theory, I understand why that could seem problematic, but I also don’t know whether that party may have violated formal rules or regulations beforehand. His only point was that the other parties are obviously trying to stop the far-right party from gaining more votes.
What frustrates me is that he constantly brings up examples where this party is supposedly being sabotaged, while completely ignoring the fact that the same party supports ideas that many people see as harmful to human rights.
After that, the conversation somehow shifted to the gender pay gap and feminism. He argued that women nowadays supposedly have no right to complain anymore and that men actually have it worse because they’re constantly being attacked by women. I won’t repeat the entire discussion, but it went back and forth until we eventually agreed that, yes, women are often paid less - but then he basically said, “What am I supposed to do about it?”
The argument had almost ended when my father came in, asked why we were fighting, and told us both to stop. But then my brother started putting words into my mouth and bringing up an old argument from months ago. He claimed that I once told him he should “go out and protest for women.” That’s not what I said at all.
Back then, he had said something like, “We men can’t constantly fight for women’s issues - some people have jobs and their own problems.” And honestly, I agreed with him. Most people don’t always have the time or energy for activism. I’ve never even been to a protest myself. My point was simply that acknowledging the problem and thinking about it seriously already matters. But he completely twisted my words.
When I tried to correct him, he kept interrupting me - something he does a lot - and then suddenly walked away, saying he had to help our dad with something. He literally just turned around and left while I was still speaking.
At that point, I snapped. I said I really needed to move out because I couldn’t live with him anymore. My dad, frustrated because we had been yelling for so long, said, “Then go.”
So I packed my things and left. I told them I was staying with a friend and that I didn’t know when I’d come back.
I’m not angry at my dad because I know he didn’t truly mean it, and honestly, I feel guilty because I’m sure he feels bad too. But in that moment, I just needed to get away.
As for my brother: lately, we’ve been fighting more and more, especially about household chores and his views. He barely does anything around the house unless someone asks him to, and even then he often complains. To be fair, after all our arguments, things have improved slightly , sometimes he walks the dogs without being asked or empties the dishwasher. But I think all the built-up frustration has made me much quicker to explode emotionally. I’ve also noticed over the past few days that I didn’t even feel like talking to him anymore.
I’m not perfect either. I know I need to work on how I communicate. I raise my voice a lot and get angry quickly, and because of that I sometimes say things impulsively that I should think through more carefully. Leaving today was also very impulsive.
There’s probably much more I could say, but this post is already long enough and I think you get the general picture. I love my family, and I’m scared that I hurt them by leaving like this. But it happened.
Now I keep wondering: maybe I’m actually the problem. I genuinely believe I have good intentions and values, which is why I argue so passionately, but at the same time, I don’t know whether I even have the right to be this angry.