Aibu to not take sides

[cakedup]

My cousin and I have been very close since childhood. Recently she had fallen out with her family (her mum, brother and sister) and confiding me for a year about these family issues. She is now talking to her mum and sister but not her brother who had sent her some angry aggressive text msgs.

Meanwhile, her brother contacts me about a project I was involved in, volunteering his services. My cousin finds out and is very upset by this. However when she realises he contacted me and not the other way round, she is consoled.

However, would I have been unreasonable if I was the one who had initiated contact? According to her, I would and she would view that as being disloyal. He is my cousin too and although I have been supporting her with her family issues, I don't otherwise want to be involved in their fallout or take sides.

An opportunity has come up at work which would benefit both her brother and my workplace but feel that I'm now not allowed to contact him. I had already mentioned her brother at work before she had this talk with me.

Aibu to think contacting him does not mean I am disloyal to her??

FFS, your cousin is being totally unreasonable and ridiculous. She had no right to dictate which family members you can communicate with. The problems with her family are HER problems, not yours. Do not allow her to hold you as an emotional hostage to her insecurities and pettiness.

These family feuds are an absolute nightmare (I'm currently the only person still talking to all three of the members of my family who have fallen out and I have to keep remembering what X told me not to tell Y and whether or not Z knows about X's news - it's insane), so I really feel for you. But yes, you've had no falling out with your male cousin and female cousin isn't being fair on you. Just try and explain that you're there for her but you're not taking sides. She can take it or leave it, but my experience is that she'll take it.

I thought as much. Her argument is my relationship with her is like best friends whereas I'm nowhere as close with her brother.

I normally never get involved in family feuds Hassled it's such a pain isn't it. I've also been 'liking' photos her brother puts on instagram of his kids, I'm now wondering if she'd have a problem with that too.

I do like to think of myself as a loyal friend but that doesn't mean she makes up the rules of what counts as loyalty and I have to follow them.

It does depend a little bit on why she fell out with them. If it's something really bad like her brother punched her in the face or said something absolutely beyond the pale then I can understand her point. If it's just a more regular falling out over feeling insulted then (even if she is justified in falling out with them herself) she can't reasonably expect you to cut them of too.

And it would depend on how angry and aggressive the text messages were. If they were very aggressive then, personally, I might not want the brother too closely involved in my life regardless of loyalty to the sister...

The text was pretty ragey. Like drop dead, you're dead to me anyway, I wouldn't give a shit if I never saw you again etc. However my female cousin had sent a text to her sister previously calling her an interfering bitch. And told her mum she thinks that when she dies, she'll be able to have better relationships with her siblings. The brother was responding to that in particular.

His text is worse than hers, although agree they are all bad... maybe this is awfully judgemental of me though, but I am not sure I would want someone who sent such a rage text working with me if I had a choice. That is slightly different to cutting them out of your lives completely though...

Well she needn't know about the work thing necessarily? Plus, she may think it was arranged through your previous conversation. It would benefit work too, so that makes it a professional decision, not a personal one imo.

She would know about it, news spreads like wildfire in my family! And I wouldn't want to try and conceal it.

flop he is fine usually, decent, likeable bloke and not had fallout with anyone else in his family. They just rub each other up the wrong way and he is very protective over his mother. Not saying it's right though, I agree he was out of order. I wouldn't be working with him directly at work, more of an introduction.

She's your cousin, not your wife. You are not obliged to take sides.

Ttbb she would argue that we've always been very close and our relationship can't be compared to me and her brother. But actually on that note...her partner has supported her through this bit to the point of bad mouthing her family which I don't actually think is very conducive.