To want to end relationship with my brother because I cba?

[MissChatterbox1]

Hello and thanks for reading.

Im going to sound awful for this post I know but I need to vent it and get impartial advice. I’m prepared for vipers.

Background: I have 5 half siblings. I grew up in the same house with 4 of them. We are all adults now with our own families and get on well but not close.
The fifth sibling was my dads son who is 15 years older than me and I did not grow up with and did not know or meet until after my dad died.

Met this sibling when I was 19 and they were 34. They have no other siblings.
He’s a nice man but due to the age gap and not being raised together we have 0 in common.
However due to him having no siblings he has tried really hard over the years to force a relationship.
He’s gone out of his way to make this happen. Travelling across the country to things like my graduation and the birth of my child. Sending presents and cards on birthdays and at Christmas. Always trying to ring me and arrange meet ups.
He has a wife and kids and they are also super enthusiastic to have a relationship.

Now this is where I feel an awful person. I do not reciprocate the feelings at all and find it smothering and a bit weird if I’m honest.
We have nothing in common other than sharing a dad neither of us really knew.
He makes more effort than me and my siblings do for eachother and is really over familiar. When he and his family come they insist on staying in my house when my own siblings get a hotel. I have a house with spare rooms so can’t really say no but it’s awkward.
They try and arrange joint family holidays which I make excuses not to do and send me drawings their kids have done in the post.

Because we weren’t raised together and there is a huge age gap it’s essentially a stranger trying to exert themselves into your life at every opportunity.
My other siblings I have little in common with but we have a shared history and familiarity so have our own banter and jokes and understand each others quirks and ways so I can spend a weekend with them and tell them to go away or whatever. When they’re being annoying. My nieces and nephews feel like ‘mine’ and it feels like family and not a weird chore i’m doing.

Since having my child my brother and his family have stepped it up a notch and constantly want to meet and be in contact as he’s an ‘uncle’ now.
Their kids ranging from 2 - 19 year old (massive age gaps) call me auntie and my DP uncle and it feels awkward as they are literal strangers.
My DB and his wife will try and give parenting tips on visits which comes across as rude as critical because there is no foundation of a relationship like our own siblings so it feels like a stranger/acquaintance saying it.

I have tried to distance myself over the years but they don’t get the hint. I don’t respond to calls and take days to reply to texts but they still persist. They will go through their calendar for that year until they find a date we are free for a visit even if it’s 6 months away. They send expensive and thoughtful presents for all our birthdays which makes me feel indebted to them to continue the relationship.
They've even tried to ‘book on’ to our family holidays when we’ve told them we’re going somewhere (saying they might come too and looking up tickets on their phone there and then, I’m not joking!).
They keep pestering to spend Christmas together which I’ve managed to bat off! We have loads of other very close family and now our own kids to be contending with, we don’t want to host strangers on top on Christmas Day and it’s weird they even want to spend such a day together.

I know it sounds selfish but I have loads of siblings already as does DP. Infact DP has 4 full siblings who also have families so between us we have loads of siblings, nieces and nephews which is difficult enough to keep up with. However my DB and his family demand more attention than all our siblings put together! Because they only have me as ‘family’ they put all their attention onto us.

I personally would be happy with just sending an annual Christmas card and seeing their updates via social media at most. I don’t have the time or interest.
But I don’t want to hurt them either. They are nice people. I understand they want extended family as they don’t have it, but I can’t provide it.

What do I do?

I’ve tried every kind of ‘drifting away’ method possible. I feel like the only way out is to have some kind of huge fall out and go no contact because they will go to such great lengths to maintain this relationship that there is no other way. Even if I up and moved to Australia I have 0 doubt they’d use their annual leave to visit annually. That’s how full on they are.

imagine a random person...

But it's not a random person. It's your brother. A blood relation. You say you have nothing in common, but if you allowed them into your life, you'd have shared experience in common - the kids could play with cousins and see them at Christmas.

But they also sound a bit pushy as though they have no respect for boundaries, so I can imagine how off-putting that is.

Could you meet up once or twice a year on neutral territory? Suggest a day at a wildlife or amusement park. Or a day at London museums with dinner and a show.

That way they are not so intrusive but you get to maintain a relationship.

You sound like you're lacking in emotional intelligence op. You're interpreting his behaviour as over familiar...it's pretty obvious he's trying to make a connection. Its a very sad thread. You appear to be quite selfish, you're ok as you have family so sod him. The more time you spend together the more you will genuinely get to know each other and build a real familiarity.

He’s not a stranger if he’s been in your life for over 12 years!
and by the ages you’ve given you’ve known some of his kids since birth, and he’s known yours since birth….so they definitely aren’t strangers!

Honestly I don't get it at all. I have a half sister who is 24, I'm 45. She loves in another country so I don't see her very often and tbh we don't really speak very often either. BUT when we do see each other we are SISTERS. There's no half about it. We don't really have too much shared history because we've never lived in the same country and our shared parent is dead. But I love her as much as I love my "full" sister. The 3 of us would do anything for each other.
I think you're being weird and mean.

I don't think many of us feel the need to make clear to siblings that they shouldn't surprise us by showing up on our holiday abroad.

Still reading replies.

very mixed bag of responses which kind of reflects how I feel.

I’ve maintained the relationship for over a decade reluctantly in order to ‘be kind’ and not ‘awful’ or ‘selfish’ like other posters have put it. But do I have to do this now for the rest of my life? Every year I have to host a family I don’t want to really see to make them happy? I have to answer phone calls, attend all their events and celebrate all their milestones until the day I die?

As my life moves on with a growing family, babies, work, partner, parents etc I have such little bandwidth left that I am finding it exceedingly difficult to continue with an intense relationship I have little interest in.

If I do have a very rare free weekend with resources to host or travel, I want to use that to maintain relationships I genuinely care about but have little time for these, like friends I’ve had since school or elderly aunts who don’t have long left but live a distance. Selfish as it seems but I spend weeks on the build up to these ‘meet ups’ filled with anxiety and dreading it. Then when they’re here or I’m there I’m counting down the hours until it’s over. The entire time is filled with small talk or they want to get into debates due to their strong opinions about various topics (veganism or something). We are just such different people.

I have tried to find common ground of course I have, I don’t just sit there silent. But there is little there. We were raised completely differently, with different outlooks and interests.

I wish I’d been stronger at 19 and stopped all contact after the first meet tbh.

So now I’m at a crossroads and this thread hasn’t really changed anything, if anything I’m more confused.

You got some posters who get how I feel and say it’s okay to walk away, but then there are even louder comments saying it’s a horrible thing to do and I should be grateful. So what do I do? Just accept this is it now and mentally prepare myself for however many decades of unwanted hosting, phone calls and family holidays?

But if I don’t accept it I am a bad person?

ahhhhh!!

What @underneaththeash says. Exactly this. Please look again, and think again.

How are you different OP?

Are you just polar opposites on everything?

I think it sounds like he is better off without you.

Sorry if you've said and I've missed it but exactly how long has this "stranger" been in your life?

I can't believe how many people are telling you you should carry on as you are, OP.

This is an unequal relationship that seems to be entirely on his terms, not yours. The fact that he's older than you (which was the case when you first met, and set the pattern for your relationship) and the fact that he's a man might contribute to the way he's not taking your feelings into account. But whatever the cause, it's not OK. The relationship you describe with your other siblings sounds much more equal and therefore much more healthy.

Is there a middle ground between doing everything on his terms and cutting him off altogether? As other posters have said, I would be polite but honest with him and set some boundaries. You're not comfortable hosting him and his family overnight. You need phone calls to be less frequent. These are completely reasonable boundaries to set.

His feelings may be hurt, but that's the consequence of him disregarding your feelings for so long. If he really cares about you and wants to preserve a relationship, he will change his behaviour and listen to what you say about your own needs and desires. If it turns out that he wants all or nothing, then that would be a good reason to cut him off entirely. But I would try honesty first.

It also sounds like he's trying to buy your love and loyalty through money and gifts, like the sibling equivalent of a Disney dad. That's not healthy either as it puts you under an obligation to be grateful.

No one has the right to be an intimate part of your life, not even a sibling, unless YOU want them to. As a therapist once said to me, take control. And don't feel guilty. Good luck!

I think he (they) sound intense!

She met him at 19, a stranger.

They have never connected.

Sad but life.

We have siblings we love and care about that but we still only attend the really big moments in each others lives, like weddings and funerals, certainly not graduations, religious ceremonies and the like, occasionally big birthday gatherings.
There is no way any of us feel so compelled, although we all care about each other.

OP, you sound like you are a huge people pleaser that is deeply resentful.

Personally I couldn't, nor wouldn't be prepared to spend so much time with someone that I felt so disinterested and indifferent towards.

So what if you share DNA, that certainly doesn't mean you will have anything in common with each, particularly as you met so late in life, relatively speaking.

So many posts are of the be kind suck it up position.

It's sad and tedious, because men never seem to have this constant pressure to be kind and ignore their own preferences.

I get where you're coming from, personally I would never have bothered with him in the first place after your dad died, but now you've sort of started whatever relationship this is and it will hurt him more to be rejected now.

Obels, just because she fell in with whatever he wanted at age 19 doesn't mean she has a lifetime's obligation to keep doing the same!

See, I don't understand this at all, so I guess we are all different.

I have "half" siblings but I grew up with them so I have always just views them as siblings, no half about it. But eben a "full" sibling who lived in a different country and I barely ever saw as a kid, I wouldn't have any sense of attachment to at all.

Imagine a random person

But he's not a random person he's your brother. He sounds lovely and you sound awful.

Id actually feel pretty sad if my siblings that I grew up with felt like they were equally attached to a sibling they never saw who lived in a different county, over the sibling who they actually grew up with and have shared childhoods with.

And my father is my father but he hasn't been around since I was born, so of he turned up when I was 20 years old... He's just a stranger, a random man, there's no bond or sense of family or love.

“My DB however bought me a load of brand new house appliances costing a small fortune”

I think you’re taking the piss there. You’d rather he acted more “normally” like your other siblings with a bottle… but you accepted all that anyway?

By all means pull away - a bit, or entirely if you like. But don’t complain about his presents after taking them.

I didn't say she did, I get her point of view and would feel the same, but it definitely would have been better all around for both of them to just kever have got sucked in anyway!

Right, so trying to insert yourself into someone's private life, inviting yourself on their holidays and so on, is 'lovely'. And wanting to preserve your own spare time and energy for the people you feel closest to is 'awful'.

This view is badly skewed.

Thia could be seen as gift giving with strings attached, conferring an obligation on OP to maintain an intensity of relationship that she does not want. She may have felt uncomfortable at accepting such expensive gifts but fearful of causing offence if she said no to them, she may have been so surprised and overwhelmed she didn't know what to say. Giving extravagant gifts does not in itself make someone lovely and accepting them does not necessarily make a person grabby especially if there is a power imbalance in the relationship, which there seems to be here with everything on the brother's terms.

I was watching an episode of Long Lost Family the other day. They featured two people, both of whom discovered they had siblings and their birth parents had died. In one case they saw each other a lot and in the other they said they would, but hadn't (although we weren't told how much time had passed). In the case where they did meet up, they all lived near to each other and I thought that would be much easier to spend an hour in the pub together every now and then. In the other case there was a 200 mile distance, which meant any visits would be longer. I think that can be just too much when you have an established life.

There's a happy medium here somewhere, and you may need to invest a bit to find it.

You have a lot of blood relatives. Has he lost his mum? If so, you may well be the only person apart from his children that he shares that connection to.

For whatever reason he feels very strongly about being connected to you. He may feel he owes you something on behalf of his dad- did his dad fail to support you?

In an ideal world you'd explore it together and find that happy medium where you both are comfortable.

The intensity could be coming from his attempts to find a connection and common ground- which you feel is never going to be there.

Why don't you try and schedule an annual visit- we'll come to you in this year, then we'll host next year.

Write off a weekend a year, and stop thinking about it.