I’ll try keep this short.
Myself, brother and dad moved away from our hometown 15 years ago. We all lived together until 10 years ago where brother left for hometown and I left to be where I am now (40 minutes away from my dad, 2hr 20 away from hometown).
I’ll add at this point that during the initial stages of us all living far apart I used to get the train to see my brother and his now wife but felt like I was overstaying my welcome after a few nights, when they then had their DC it just kinda became not an option for me to get the train down and stay. However, upon issues with my husband myself and my then 18 month old daughter did go and stay for 2 nights upon me having some issues with her father (my brother collected us from home and drove us there). Everything was great! I was pregnant with my second child at this point.
I want to add also that neither of my children have been great travelers and both have created so much in the car they’ve eventually made themselves sick, my husband also didn’t have weekends off until 3 months ago when he changed jobs.
2 years ago my brother got married, my children were 2 and 6 months and the journey there and back was just awful, hysterical crying all the way on the journey home from my 6 month old, causing my 2 year old to feel like as horrified and we had 2 lots of sick to clean up from them on the way home (we pushed it and didn’t stop as we just thought it would prolong the agony).
Anyway, I haven’t seen brother since then.
This weekend they are visiting somewhere with their child and coming to see my dad and my family is only a 30 minute additional drive on top of a 4 hour one, but would split their journey up and of course, they’d see everyone.
When my dad asked my brother he didn’t reply, so I asked and the answers were really frosty. I knew deep down that he didn’t want to see us and was expecting a mundane excuse as to why and this happened yesterday. I was told they didn’t want to come as their 7yo was tired after 2 days of (fun activity).
I felt really upset by this, and told him so. I asked him not to use child tiredness as an excuse not to spend an additional 30-40 minutes in the car and split his journey up.
He spat back that the reason he doesn’t want to make the effort is because nobody makes it for him.
They both drive, I don’t. They have a 7 year old, I have a 2 and 4 year old who have never travelled well until recently where we have been pushing journey times. As soon as my husbands job changed the first thing I did was express to my brother that we will visit for a day out soon, I send cards for birthdays yet never receive them here, I send presents (at Xmas I bought and wrapped them for his DC, my children received amazon parcels) whenever we talk it’s always me opening the conversation.
He’s snapped that I only see him when in crisis (I’ve been a few times when having issues with my partner).
We weren’t included in his wedding, we felt like an afterthought. I’ve leant him money before he got with his partner and never expected it or fussed about it being given back. I’ve never treated him differently because we’ve not seen each other, we’re both guilty of needing to make more effort and I’ve never held him to account for having more tools to do this (car and driving ability).
I’m really hurt, it has been clear that his partner doesn’t like us, and that’s fine. We’re civil enough, she doesn’t have to like us. But this? I dunno. It just doesn’t seem like my brother at all.
Am I being unreasonable? Or is he?
Thanks for reading so far if you have....