To be Really annoyed with my brother & his girlfriend....

[anythingwithagiraffeonit]

This Christmas was my DD's first Christmas, so to me, it seemed extra special and I was extremely excited about it.

My birthday is a couple of weeks before Christmas, then my DH's is Christmas eve, and we have a tradition of going out to eat with all our friends and family for it, and then spending Christmas day and boxing day with my parents.

I booked a table for 25 people for Xmas eve... Including my brother, his gf and 2 ds's. (and paid a deposit per person!)

My birthday came around and they 'forgot' to turn up. That's fine.

My DH's birthday came around and I text and called my brother and his girlfriend loads in the lead up to it and got no response... They had previously said they would come and to book for them. I finally got through half hour before and was told they weren't coming, they were all too ill.

I said that I wishes they'd told me sooner (deposit etc being wasted) and I heard my brother tell her to put the phone down on me. She did.

Christmas being the next day, I didn't want to fight, so I called back to sort things out. My brother said 'it's not special, I can't be bothered with you" and put the phone down again.

They didn't turn up for Christmas, or boxing day. Yesterday my parents took all thier presents from everyone round to them but apparantly they had no room due to being ill and having crap everywhere... Kids toys, yesterdays dinner... (ugh... Seriously!!)

So the presents returned to my parents house unopened.

No one recieved anything from them, not even a card or a phonecall.

I really feel like Christmas was completely spoilt by them, I was looking forward to it so much and it's left me really down.

AIBU to be so annoyed? X

Could one of them have any violence or mental health problems or serious illness? Am just trying to think as it seems very unusual behaviour.

Tbh I don't think so. I just think they are quite self absorbed. I think it's quite easy to say that something must be fundamentally wrong, but essentially, couldn't they just have behaved badly for no other reason than being completely selfish and rude?

Surely a massive problem in thier lives would have been seen when we all went out for the day for my brothers birthday?

Not if they're hiding it - my direct family were the only ones who knew of my health close to my first diagnosis -- we battened down the hatches and avoided parents and siblings under pretext of illness to be able to get to grips with it

If it's out of character for them to be behaving badly, then there is probably another reason why they are appearing to be selfish and rude.

Yes, they should have let you know that they weren't coming so as not to waste your money, but if they do have soemthing major going on then it wouldn't have been top of their list of priorities.

I think you are being a bit selfish actually by being more worried about birthdays then you are about their health or mental well being.

It sounds to me like they are having major relationship problems, and want to be left alone to sort it out.
It may not have been seen before if one of them had just found out about an affair, or a huge arguement erupted from nowhere and had serious consequenses.

Or it could be something like activate describes. But that's ok, you carry on being upset about your birthdays and presents and your dd not being centre of everyones world.

Its not about my DD being the centre of everyones world... But thanks! :p

Although I do think I'm entitled to expect a bit of fuss over my 11 week old baby on her first Christmas, especially when they expected nothing less for both DS's which we were all more than happy to give.

It's more about saying you will do something, and not even telling someone when you let them down.

And it's not so much about birthdays, I was actually trying to give some background on a family tradition.

And I'm not concerned about presents for my DD... That part was more about thier behaviour upsetting my parents, and the kids missing out.

Good to see you paid attention though, lol.

Sounds like something is very wrong - I think posters who suggested mc or ttc could be exactly right.if that were my brother I would let him know that if there was anything he needed to talk about I'd be there.

I have. I tried to talk to him on Christmas eve in the spirit of making sure there was no awkwardness... But he put the phone down on me.

I don't think there are any problems ttc... Both boys are quite young and they have quite a clear plan on more babies.