I come from a very small family. My parents moved to the UK and had my sister, my brother and me. My sister died young so it is just the 4 of us here.
I did not particularly get along with my parents well. My dad is a functioning alcoholic and was not very nice to me/uninterested in me growing up and I think my mum resented him. My older brother however got on with them really well and
really was the favourite! He could do no wrong whereas I always felt judged for my choices (eg he got engaged and never started planning a wedding but had a baby, I got engaged 3 years later and booked my wedding venue and date after 3 months- he decided he wanted to get married that month/year too so my parents told me to change the date. I didn’t)
I was despite this quite close to him between the ages of 16-24 and did lots with him, his now wife and my now ex husband. We did days out, nights out, lunches, parties together. But then something changed. His wife kept making comments on how poor our family is (my parents were immigrants we were poor in comparison to many) but how well my brother is doing - little does she know my brother is up to his eyeballs in credit card debt and my dad bails him out now and again and I’m talking thousands! She then stopped speaking to me, started making rude comments to my parents and then my brother stopped speaking to me. I still sent birthday and Christmas cards to them and their children and asked to meet up etc with no response. The final straw was when I reached out to them for some support when my marriage fell apart when I was 8 months pregnant with my second child. I was in pieces and really struggling to function. I heard nothing from him. My parents also not particularly helpful.
Fast forward 8ish years and I am remarried with a new baby and happy. I have also let go of having a relationship with my brother and his family. My dad had cancer and is in remission but is like a new man and has wanted to spend time with me. I have welcomed this and often invite him to family days out theme parks, galas, kids sporting activities so he can spend time with us. However he hides having a relationship with me from my brother because he makes remarks like with her again? She only wants you to babysit. She only does it so you’ll pay. It annoys me because he’s still an alcoholic so I don’t leave my children with him and I wouldn’t dream of asking him to pay for me to do something.
My dad (I think with his renewed faith in life) has asked me to start trying to build bridges with my brother. I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse. I find the thought of him toxic, he puts people down, he’s genuinely disinterested in anyone but himself. We’ve already missed out on having our children have a close relationship (they’re about the same age and we live less than 30 min away). I understand that once my parents die he is all the family I have left but I just don’t like him and I was done many years ago trying to keep a relationship. I know this upsets my dad but I spent a long time wondering what I’d done wrong and now I’m done. I may regret it in the future but I don’t want to bring this negativity back.
I realised by writing this I’ve vented a lot so apologies for the long post!