Family relationship going south

[BWrose]

I was browsing around online and I came across something. It was from a woman and it really struck a chord with me.

It was a writing piece from a lady, pinned to her brother. Her younger brother.

Where she loved him growing up and got on well with him in early adulthood. Then, things changed.

I don't know if I can copy and paste from another website.

Anyways basically, the brother met a woman and he was slowly pulled away from the sister and the rest of the family. They very rarely see each other now and when they do, he is always picking fights. This is a quote from the piece:

Tonight I saw your partner exchange glances with you after I said something. The two of you talk about me like I am someone that you can’t stand. You have no interest in what’s going on in my life.

All of this struck a chord with me. I have a younger brother and over the past 18 months or so, our relationship had turned to nothing. He doesn't ask about me, I am restricted on Facebook, I was sick recently and fell down in front of him and he didn't even ask me how I was. There's so much more as well. My brother is overly critical where he never was before. He used to be a positive person. I bumped into my brother and the girlfriend coming around a corner and the pair of them laughed. What was so funny exactly.

Friday night there was a pressing family matter where me and our mother were talking. He came into the kitchen to get on board of what was happening and I was explaining the situation. The man appeared to be severely put out having to stay in the kitchen for more than a minute and to shock horror, talk. He couldn't even stand to be around me for that minute or two before he fled the room.

My brother is a completely different person.

Had this happened to anyone else. Where things went south for no reason.

Bump

He sounds very self absorbed.

Yes OP, sadly I have had a very similar experience with my younger brother and it hurts like hell. He's made the decision to no longer speak to my other sister and I. Doesn't take anything to do with us or his DNephews. I try to make sure I still get to see his kids when they are at my parents. The most hurtful thing about it all is that he hasn't even told us what we've done for him to basically try to delete us as family. We weren't even worth being given the opportunity to apologise or make amends for whatever we've done. It's changed me to be honest. It's made me realise I never knew him, and that love you thought you could depend on to be unconditional was maybe never there. Maybe they were always resentful and wanted to get rid. Who knows. It's made me question parts of my otherwise happy typical childhood. How much of an age gap is there between you and your younger brother? Mine is 7 years younger. Thinking of you OP, it's a horrible thing to happen xx

I think I'm the evil wife in this story.

I got on well with SIL for years but the family dynamic is so unhealthy that comments to DH like 'you're allowed to talk about this' and 'she can't send ranty emails then pretend she didn't' have led to a period of no contact.

Do you know the name of the writing piece? Wouldn't mind reading it. Can you link to it?

Sillypoppet,

Thanks for your reply. It's on another forum. There is a thread where users can write things. It's kinda like writing a letter to get your feelings on paper and not sending it.

I will attach a screenshot of the piece.

It really struck a chord with me. Over the past 18 months, things changed and it was slow process. He was quite, withdrawn, distant towards me. He would say hello in passing but that's about it. Conversation was little to nil. There's been plenty of times where there were opportunities to talk and likewise, I extended my hand in that direction trying to strike up a conversation for instance asking him about his weekend or his holiday away or whatever but there was no interest. A one word reply, the most I would get.

We have brothers abroad and my sister in law is great at keeping in touch with me and sending me pictures of our niece and many times I would mention, I some new pictures, I must show them to you. He would reply - cool, maybe later. Later would come around or a few days or a week or two would pass and no interest.

At first, when I noticed him being cold, I thought it would be work related stress or other stresses and maybe he's tired or whatever. It's far too long term for that to be a reason.

That’s really sad OP. There’s other threads about only wanting one child and so many responses talk about having special sibling relationships. Your experience is one that is rarely mentioned but is probably more common than acknowledged.

Have you tried a actually writing a letter to your DB? Might be a long shot but not sure if you’ve much to lose now and if nothing else, if his relationship changes in the future it will be remembered. My DF and his DB hardly had any contact in later years, until his DBs wife died and then regular contact resumed. It gave my DF a lot of pleasure for the last few years before my Uncle also passed away.

I think it can be very difficult to objectively look at your sibling relationships. I know that me and my sister can look at the same situation and have completely different feelings and reactions to it if it involves family. I think she has a strange relationship with my mum, I can’t really describe it , I think she relies on and is pandered to ridiculously, she thinks I can be a bit cold and can withdraw from situations too quickly.

Sometimes you can have no idea of a family dynamic that is happening in your own family, how a sibling feels about parents as they get older, having your own kids I found completely changed how I felt about mine.

Your brother might be a right dick but relationships within a family change as people get older and form their own families with people they’ve chosen to spend time with. Oh and it’s so much easier to have a better, superficial relationship with siblings who live away. A quick email, a couple of photos and it’s done.

Happened to a friend who withdrew from his family but after he split with his wife all went back to normal.
Nothing lasts forever you were close as youngsters and nothing will change that.

It would be interesting to hear the other side.

My SIL would probably say I have made a wedge in between DH and his family. However the truth is she treated us and our children disgustingly and when we said no we were not putting up with it. All the family made excuses for her with 'Oh that's just what she's like' and because we didn't toe the line and accept being treated like shit the family pulled back from us. We haven't spoke to SIL for 6 years now, life is nicer without her in it. The rest of the family have fallen away, their choice but neither me or DH are bothered, they all showed their true colours.

It could be him, but it also could be you. It's very hard for older siblings to realise that their attitude towards the younger sibling needs to change, especially if there is a larger gap. Relations between my eldest DSis and i only sorted themselves out when i was in my 30s. She just couldn't drop the bossy boots attitude until i went LC. We get along well now, but only because she put an effort into changing her behaviour towards me, and i was willing to cautiously give her a second chance.

I was aware from early on that my younger brother was the golden child because he is male. My Mum wondered the other day why we don't see more of each other as we are now in the same European country. We didn't see much if each other when we lived in the same English county 20 minutes away from each other!

He changed when he married. Both Mum and I have tried calling sil over the years when db has been away etc, but it isn't reciprocated, at least with me, so I gave up.

Thanks for all the replies,

ImplantsandaDyson,

I read your reply and read it again. I understand what you are saying. Siblings are going to grow up and grow apart. Life with work, partners, setting up home, kids - all that is going to take over.

But to grow apart into nothing? This is the hardest part of the situation for me. There is nothing to our relationship any more. We say hello when we see each other but that's it.

Things are actually more solid between me and my siblings abroad than it is with the sibling at home. We might only talk a handful of times over the phone and send mail/packages at birthdays and Christmas but it's more solid.

Thanks for your reply OverTheHedgeHammy,

What you wrote also makes sense.

'it could be him, it could be you....older sibling dynamics....'

All that makes sense. I'm older by 8 years. When I was younger I enjoyed looking after him and all that.

I'm looking back over the time we had over the past few years and especially over the past 18 months to see what could have happened to have things change so much between us. I can safely say there has been no bossy attitude from me as an older sister. So that can't be that.

Are you sure? It was the constant little things that used to annoy the crap out of me. If we were all over at DM's for lunch, she would give everyone the jobs to do. If I planned something which she thought she knew something about, she just HAD to give me her tuppence worth. In a conversation including everyone she had the attitude that she was the 'in' person with our DM, even though she lived a long way away and we only saw her a couple of times a year. If I said or did something that she didn't approve of I'd get the raised eyebrow, as though what she thought should actually matter in my decision making process.

What was so stark was that my other older siblings were just so used to doing as she said that they automatically did it. But as she was 9 years older than me and had left home when I was 8, I had never been IN the habit of doing as she said. (All the others were closer in age.) I used to tell her to go and shove it whenever she gave me an instruction and we'd end up with a HUGE argument each and every time.

This is very interesting. I am the youngest by 7 years (with my sister) and 10 years (my brother) I recently fell out with my sister and although I still love her very much I feel that as I’ve grown older and had my own dc, I no longer feel I need to put up with being treated as the baby of the family.

I think my family were shocked when I started essentially saying what I really thought about things and I realised I never did that before. And probably never felt I could be my real self.

I think it’s hard to explain if you haven’t been the baby of the family how ingrained these family dynamics are.

I don’t know if that’s helped at all but thought I’d add my experience.

I can see how a 'bossy boots' dynamic would be annoying but our relationship when it was good wasn't like that. I wasn't ever dictating to him that he should to this and that and other thing and do something else differently.

The only thing I can think of what happened, in around the same time of him becoming withdrawn - he went out one evening on a Friday or a Saturday. I can't remember. The next morning he wasn't home. That was never unusual for him. The afternoon and evening came about and he wasn't home. My mother started to get worried thinking he was dead in a ditch somewhere or God knows. I tried to put her mind at ease and say, he's fine, he will be back when he will be back and my mother wanted me to text him because she doesn't text and I said no. Night time came about and he still wasn't home. To keep my mother quite, I sent him a text on the line of - mother wants to know where you are. Phone her and let her know when you will be back. Something on them lines. He responded on the lines of: 'fuck off and stop texting me'.

Maybe he feels smothered or fuck knows what.

My sister in law would say that I took her brother from her.

However, we think that what happened was her brother went from living in a rented flat to living in his own house that was being done up with a stepdaughter and three cats and a mortgage and grown up relationship and all the responsibilities that come with that.

We were unable to travel hundreds of miles once a month to spend a weekend boozing at his parents house (with her) and had things to do at our own house etc

She saw this as me taking him away but people grow and change all the time - we did carry on visiting regularly but it became more difficult.

I absolutely worship my own brother but I don't get to see him very much now and we only live about 10 miles apart - no fall out just that we both work full time and he has a daughter and grandson miles and miles away that he visits each weekend. Unless I make the effort to try and see him in the week I just don't get to see him.

Sometimes dynamics just change - especially as people get older.

Thanks for your message, lovemylot,

That makes a lot of sense. If my brother had/has an issue and spoke out, that would be ok but he's not speaking out and he's not doing so directly either.

He's being overly critical of not only me but also our mother and everything is getting a go and in the firing line for some smart aleck response for example me and my knitting hobby got a go lately. What he finds offensive about my hobby Is will never know.

He has a whole entire list of other things to dish out for our mother, none of it makes sense. One thing he complained about recently, and I don't know how I didn't deliver a smack in his mouth. Anyways about 10 years ago, I had some small savings. The kitchen at home was falling in. I talked to my two older brothers and said xxx sum is my figure. I don't know anything about diy but maybe you guys do considering you work in construction. Is it possible to rib out that kitchen and put in a new one. The lads thought it was a fantastic idea and we all worked together.

My younger brother was working at the time and he had some small savings too. There was no obligation or pressure on him to help but he offered up about 700/800 euro for appliances.

Very recently, he ended up complaining about the appliances he paid for. He got up out of bed, hungover looking for food and starting slamming the cupboard doors and said something sure I bought this fridge anyways or something like that.

It made no sense whatsoever.

Alittlequinnie,

Thanks for your reply. I will be the first to hold ym hands up and say you are absolutely correct and right in what you write.

Dynamics change and other things come into the equation too like you said financial commitments and it's not so easy to get up and leave responsibilities and commitments behind.

Things are different here in this case in that my brother lives at home with our mother and he has no financial commitments at all. No rent, no mortgage, no bills for him.

Hmm, well given your updates, I think your brother is just a selfish arse and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't WANT to be closer to him!

And given that he sounds like an arse, why are you surprised your relationship with him is going south? It would be completely different if he was a nice guy generally, but you and he were in conflict. But it sounds like he's like this with everyone in the family.

Something else that happened that I completely forgot about. Around about 2/3, maybe even four months ago. Me and my mother were out for a walk and she said that my brother talked to her and said 'X (being his girlfriend) thinks/said she (our mother) doesn't like her'.

I was shocked to hear what I heard. First of all, our brother kept the woman at arm's length from day one and there's been no real opportunity to get together and to try and get to know the woman. Unless if the two of them are expecting the red carpet to be rolled out into his bedroom.

I find it difficult to understand what exactly was meant by that. Until my brother and the girlfriend have a life like a home, marriage or kids set up and established together and my mother is in her life regularly and there's something more concrete from our mother like perhaps snide remarks on their home, I don't think what was said was very right. It appears to me as if, it was said to drive wedge in there between him and the family.

@BWrose, what's the name of the forum that's on? Would like to have a look.