My younger brother enlisted for his National Service two months ago and he comes home over the weekends. Since I was young, my brother has always been my Mum’s favorite child and she has always been very caring towards him. He also got together with his girlfriend three months ago.

Every time my brother comes home, he will spend all his time with his girlfriend. They went out for dates and they would come home and his girlfriend would stay and accompany him, sometimes till the wee hours of the morning. I found this very normal as I have done this in the past when I was in National Service and my Mum was fine with it. However, she has become emotional lately and refused to talk to my brother or his girlfriend whenever they were in the house. Her silence was a strong nonverbal cue that she was unhappy. This carried on for two weeks.

Finally, my brother broke the cold war and talked to my Mum. She voiced out that she was jealous that she did his laundry, cooked his meals and took care of his every need over the weekend, yet he spent all his time with his girlfriend and did not bother to communicate with her. At this point in time, my brother got angry too and told my Mum that his girlfriend too had not seen him for the whole week and wanted to spend time with him. By maintaining her silence, she was sending signals of disdain for his girlfriend, which he found very rude. He emphasized the point that they had just got together and they needed to communicate more to build a stronger relationship. Since the incident, my brother’s girlfriend has felt awkward and in a dilemma. This is especially so for someone her age, since parents are more senior and thus it is hard to broach the topic.

Till this day, the cold war continues. As an observer in this situation, I empathize and agree with all of them. If you were in my shoes, how would you intervene to alleviate the current problem?