So noone in my family has spoken to my little bro for four weeks now

[RosaLuxembourg]

Since he emailed us with a lovely picture of my niece's christening, which took place in his wife's home town, with his wife's family in attendance 'on the spur of the moment' or so his rather short and flippant email claimed.
She was wearing a rather fancy christening gown for a 'spur of the moment' christening.
Some background: he and my other brother live in the same city, they are close and had been camping together the previous weekend - nothing was said.
My mum, sis and I live far away (think transatlantic) but my mum and sis had been to stay with them for a two-week holiday just six weeks previously - again nothing was said.
My brother has not contacted one of us since that email apart from his regular weekly phone call to my mum. My mum has not raised the subject with him and he has not mentioned it either. My other brother is so hurt he doesn't want to speak to him for fear he will say things he will regret and make the situatin worse and sis and I feel the same way.
Brother has a way of getting really angry if he feels he is being criticised in any way and we feel that he is waiting for one of us to raise the subject so he can get into 'self-justification mode' and turn it round on us.
But we can't let this non-speaking thing go on for ever.
Sorry this is really long, I've been stewing for weeks. We are a really close family and everyone is feeling hurt and rejected as there has been nothing we can think of to make him want to exclude us like this.

TELL HIM you are all hurt. He knows anyway but talk to him about it. It sounds like his dw was complicit in organising it and it may have been out of his hands to a certain extent (I'm not excusing him btw). but it is a very hurtful thing to do and you need to talk to him about it. can you do it without falling out?

Is it the fact of the event of the christening that is the problem?

Or is it a bigger thing about the separation of his married life from his original family (siblings') life?

Do any of you know his wife? (That feels like the odd bit to me - I'm one of four, too, and though I'd generally speak to my sister/brothers first, I'd very nearly equally speak to the respective spouse.)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=7&threadid=313831#6327193

This was my thread that I started about not being invited to my brother's wedding. I had some really fantastic insightful posts on it from other mumsnetters and just wanted to send it to you in case there is anything on my thread that resonates in your situation.

Much sympathy - I found it very hard to deal with.

Think your brother must have had his reasons for excluding you all, but what the hell they could have been beats me! How cruel. How selfish and how bloody mean to then send you a picture of the impromptu event. How childish for your brother to throw his toys out of the pram when questioned about things.

He should have embraced you all as you all so obviously care about him. (could he have been pressured by your SIL, not to invite your family, are there family politics ?)

Even so, and you can tell him this from me, I don't have a brother, he was killed in a car crash, 18 years ago, he was 18, I would do anything to still have him here. So grow up, appreciate and love one another and DO NOT shut your family out. They are all you will ever have.

SO THERE !

Now you've made me rant with you.......

I think you just have to tell him exactly what you said in your thread that you are all feling hurt and rejected. Even if the transatlantic family members could not have made it, there was no harm in asking was there?

It's the combination of
a - Not telling us until afterwards
b - Telling us via a very flippant mass email
c- Inviting all his DW's family but not us.

He would be very angry if we 'went over his head' as he would see it and spoke to his wife. His defence will be that it was 'spur of the moment'. He honestly is not empathetic enough to understand what it means to my mum not be invited to her own granddaughter's christening.
I feel like we are banging our head against a brick wall - if he doesn't understand what he has done, we can't make him understand. Also I have been on the receiving end of his rages before and don't want to risk it again.

Things like this are so difficult and make you feel pretty rejected, I know. But I always think you can't MAKE people want to include you. I'm sorry if that sounds bald. But if he had wanted you there, he would have got you there.

For whatever reason, it didn't matter to him as much as it matters to you. And you can't MAKE it matter to him.

But if it would make you feel better to let him know that this makes you feel bad, I think you should tell him; you can't control his response, he might get defensive, but you still have the right to tell him how he made you feel. My point is I don't think anything can be gained from it, other than letting him know, which may be enough for you?

Maybe your mum could approach it totally positively; as in "we were really gutted not to be at her Christening, so next time you visit, why don't we have a family celebration with her in her gown" etc etc.

(Dino, I was thinking of referring back to your thread, glad you did it yourself. RL, I second dino's suggestion, that thread is full of wisdom.)

RL - has your brother always been like this? Because, if so, I think I don't agree with HG - I don't think there'd be anything to be gained by stating how you feel, and possibly something to be lost (if your brother took that as opening the way to an argument). I think the only thing to do is for all the siblings each to send a consciously light "what a gorgeous picture" card or email, with nothing whatsoever about how you feel or what you thought. Then, if he was trying to pick a fight, his battleground is lost.

Dino - thanks for the link to your thread. It was very helpful. I recognised some of the observations about older sister - younger brother dynamics.
Actually, it wasn't so much about me not going - it was really about my other brother, his big brother who has always been there for him, who helped him get on his feet when he moved to the city they both live in, whose sons look up to him as their favourite uncle - who could easily have got to the christening. It's like a kick in the teeth for him, particularly as he is in remission from a serious brush with cancer - up to a year ago, we really thought we were going to lose him.
I guess I would just like him to explain a bit more about why he did it so that we could understand. It couldn't have been that spur of the moment - they had a gown and they had time to alert all of his DW's rather extensive family (who were all looking rather smartly turned out in the photo).

to be honest, i think it may not be your db after all, my db was married and we were basically outcast from everything that happened and it was all down to db dw saying shesisnt want us there! They are now divorced and we dont even get to see my nephew the twice yearly we did before

thinking about its made me mad!!! thank god hes divorced her

oh yeah and they lived on the same road as my mum and still only saw nephew twice a year!

I agree with Bink's suggestion.

FWIW, DB and his DW and my lovely nephew came to stay with us in the summer - we had a wonderful time, everyone got on very well and I was very glad indeed that I hadn't made a big thing of it to DB (just ranted on mn but he's not to know that).

Dino, what a lovely end to your story

All the best to you Rosa - it does sound like it's your lovely kind big(ger) bro who needs a hug.

Dino - great to hear that it hasn't affected your relationship with your brother. That's the great thing about MN, you can vent on here, get some perspective and stop yourself doing anything silly.
Thanks for your good wishes Bink - I do feel quite mother-tigerish about my other bro, he is not as appreciated as he should be by some people.