My siblings and I had a rough childhood. I'm the youngest of 4, and I'm younger by quite a way - my siblings are 7, 8 and 9 years older. I was (as my father regularly said) the accident.
Siblings had a decent life to start with, but then my parents became alcoholics, then drug addicts. I had a shit start, but was 7 when we were removed by our grandparents when they discovered how bad it had become. Although my father regularly harassed us it was a relatively safe life from then.
We've all dealt with things very differently. I had therapy during my first pregnancy as I realised how difficult it was. My elder brother, unfortunately, followed my parents path and I cut contact with him 8 years ago after he assaulted me on my doorstep for housing his wife and children after he got drunk and assaulted them. Various other things have happened over the years to cement my decision.
My other two siblings were told by the eldest there was a choice - him or me. They both chose him and I've had no contact with them at all for over 5 years now as there have been no family occasions to cross paths.
Yesterday I attended a family funeral and my other brother was there. It turns out he has been NC with our violent brother for 3 years after a nasty incident.
He apologised for not being any back up at all when it kicked off. I accepted his apology and wished him well.
However he, and his wife, are seemingly quite miffed that I don't want a relationship with them. I'm just not interested. I don't beat them any ill will, but I have zero faith they won't reconcile with eldest brother and I have zero intention of risking him being around again.
Apparently I shouldn't have accepted the apology if I wasn't going to accept it "fully" - why do people think accepting an apology means everything is instantly hunky dory and there's zero impact? So bizarre imo