Estranged family

[ThinkingOutLoudAboutEverything]

We haven’t had any contact with my brother for about 12 years. He isn’t a nice person, everything came to a head after years, he made threats and we’ve had no contact since then.

My mum had a big birthday last week. Every year she says what she’d really like is for us all to be talking again and every year I say that’s not going to happen. We see her for her birthday and she does something with my brother separately. I’ve never insisted on seeing her on the day because I know she may want to see my brother so I just let her say when she’s free and fit in with that. Sometimes it’s on her actual birthday and sometimes it’s a week before.

This year she said she’d like to go for a meal on her actual birthday. We offered to book somewhere but she said she would. When we went into the restaurant I could see my brother was there with his wife and children with my mum. They hadn’t seen us so we just left. I text my mum to say I had seen she was there with my brother and that we were going home. She tried to call but I ignored it.

My brother has messaged me to say it’s time we got over it and mum wants us to get on. My mum has tried calling multiple times a day. I’ve ignored the calls because I know I’m really angry and don’t want to be angry and end up shouting when I speak to her. At the moment I feel like just cutting my mum off. She knows I don’t want to see my brother.

I feel like I can’t trust my mum anymore. It’s been over a week and if anything I feel more angry than I did on the day it happened and I don’t know what to do.

Anyone would be angry and hurt in your shoes. Don't act in haste with cutting your mum off over this, though, give yourself some space.

Tricking you into not only a meeting with your brother but also a family meal was totally unacceptable. Assuming your relationship with her is otherwise OK, this is something you need to have out with her instead of being relationship ending (I would hope!).

You must be so shocked and shaken after finding out it was planned!

Has she messaged to apologise? She’s behaved appallingly, you must be so shocked and upset, I’m really sorry.

What’s so bad about him? What might he say about you? How has he treated your parents? Do you think they should take sides?

I understand this as I was in a similar situation. My mum once let herself in to my house to show my brother it despite knowing I didn’t want him knowing where Iived; - he had form for turning up my mum’s at will and forcing entry if she was out.

I was furious and she never had a key to my houses again.

I’d message her to say that just as you respect her choices around her relationship with your brother, she needs to respect yours and that you are too angry with her to speak to her at the moment as you don’t want to say things you will regret. I’d tell her that if she tries similar again she will get the same result but that she is really risking her relationship with you and she has already lost your trust.

That's irrelevant.

The OP made her choice not to have contact with her brother and has made that clear to her parents.

Her boundaries should be respected.

No one should be forced to have contacts with someone who displayed threatening behaviour towards them simply because they happen to be a relative.

Stay strong OP.

I had this once. My FIL invited my brother in law and I to his house on the same day to try and bounce us into a relationship again.

We both endured it for his sake tbh, so I suppose I would have gone into the restaurant and sat through the meal. It was horrible though. I’m sure I had a face like death, he certainly did.

I see why my FIL desperately wanted us to get on, it is miserable and destructive having these breaches in the family. Since that day I had one perfectly fine conversation with my brother in law in my MIL’s nursing home, again really for my FIL’s sake, but otherwise nothing. We won’t speak again. To me the damage is too great to ignore and what my BIL did is too much.

Id have a conversation with your mum face to face when you feel ready. She may not try again, you can hope for that.

Your mum has behaved badly and I can see why you’re furious .

My parents were like your mother when I told them that my brother had abused me as a young child.

They were selfish, cold hearted and manipulative and I went along with it for years after until one day I couldn’t go along with it anymore.

Some people are just incredibly self centred and have persistent narcissistic traits and can only see their own wants and needs and see the people around them in their family as having the role of fulfilling those needs.

You can only learn from this experience and from mine that it literally does but matter how serious the situation is for people with strong narcissistic tendencies, to them only themselves and their feelings matter. You need very strong boundaries with your mother now too and you need some space to recover from what she did.