Evening only invitation to brother’s wedding- AIBU to be a little hurt?

[Eveningonly]

I have one brother who is a fair few years younger than me and when I left home he was only around 10/11. Due to a difficult relationship with DM (it’s complicated), I rarely returned home for visits meaning I have seen little of DB since then but we always get on well when we do see one another. By the time DM and I reconciled somewhat and became more amicable, he had left home so we have only ever seen one another at family parties since. I also live a fair distance away so this is another reason why I don’t see family all that often.

He is getting married in a few months and he handed me an invitation to the wedding at a family party last night. I was pretty chuffed because they announced the date of the wedding almost a year ago so I thought I had been missed off the list. I think it may have been a last minute decision, perhaps to avoid awkwardness at the party with everyone discussing it.

I didn’t look at the invitation properly until I got home and I then realised it was an evening only invitation. AIBU to be a little hurt by this? I realise we’re not close but we are one another’s only sibling if that counts for anything? I’m also not a bad a person and we never had any ‘bad blood’ or conflict. It isn’t a small, intimate wedding from what I gather either. I always thought evening invitations were for colleagues, very distant relatives (I.e second cousins) and friends so it has bruised me somewhat. I feel excluded from the family fold really, am I just taking it too personally?

You have became the distant relative. Families drift apart all the time. Don’t take it too personally there are probably people who took priority over you.

That would make their relationship even more distant. People really do cut their nose off to spite their face and then wonder why they have nobody.

I think I agree with this.

I was a younger sib by only 5 years but it really felt like a loss when my sibling left home. It also meant I was left behind with our mother who was difficult at best and controlling and nasty at worst. My sibling had a poor relationship with our mother, so similar circumstances.

How were things with your DB after you moved out?

I make as much effort as he does in fairness, it’s surely a two-way thing. I have seen him at the same gatherings over the years and we have always got on well but neither of us have made a huge effort to meet outside of this. As I say, I did consider him important enough to invite to our wedding but I guess that isn’t reciprocated.

I also will see it as a wake up call of sorts, that we need to perhaps work on a relationship if he is interested in that. Thank you for the advice everyone.

You don’t sound like you have a sibling relationship, more like cousins who live far apart.

That’s understandable, given the age gap and the estrangement. You left, he was a kid, you weren’t part of his life for many of the significant years. That’s not anyone’s fault.

However, if you aren’t someone he rings, you don’t see each other for the pleasure of it, you don’t spend time together, then you aren’t going to be a priority for his wedding or other events.

If this hurts you, other than just your pride in not being invited, or shocks you at all, maybe that’s a good outcome?

You can see it as a wake up call that you haven’t really been a sister to him and you can try and build a relationship going forward. It may be too late, or it may be the prompt to become closer.

(Cross posted - we are both thinking about wake up calls!)

I'd be upset too. He lives a long way away so it's unkind or thoughtless at best to only give an evening invite.

He gets on well with my DM and sees her a lot. He never left my hometown like DM so they live close to one another. I left as soon as I got the chance and have always lived a distance away (it isn’t a great town!).

I would invite family regardless, but given the circumstances, It's understandable. I'd use the wedding as a new start and try to build the relationship it seems is missing with him and his new wife, invite them for a weekend, go and stay near them for a weekend and go out for dinner, I think deep down you want more of a relationship with him so don't let this push you further apart. Plus you may well need to sort out an aging mother in years to come so letting animosity build isn't a good thing in the longer term.

I suspect he sees it as - you did the leaving so it's more on you to try and keep in touch.

It kinda sounds like your focus was more on your mum than him

It seems to me that he's saying, 'we're not close. You made no effort to keep in touch.' (As the older sibling he probably feels that keeping in touch was up to you.)

Also you left home and he had to deal with Mum alone.....no criticism of you for leaving home, but surely, knowing how awful your Mum is, you'd have checked up on your sibling regularly? But you didn't

YOU considered him important enough to invite to your wedding, he doesn’t feel the same, you meet at family parties, how often is that? How close are you to the bride? Just exchange pleasantries? They may just have invited people they are really close to and doesn’t sound as if you are your brother are….

Yes I think the fact you invited him and his partner to your wedding makes it even more hurtful.
It's put you in a really difficult position as to how to react to it as well.
Personally I would decline the invitation. And I think I would stop making any effort to have a relationship with him because he obviously doesn't have much in the way of family feeling for you.
But it depends how much you value your reconciled relationship with your DM.
In my family I was always the " black sheep" in that no matter how badly my family treated me it was always me that was seen to be the one to blame. I could see that if you turn down the invitation and let it be known you are hurt then somehow your DM and DB and possibly others in the family will turn this into being you being to blame.
But personally I wouldn't accept the invitation despite the potential family ripples.

I make as much effort as he does in fairness, it’s surely a two-way thing

No, it isn’t. You’re his big sister, significantly older, and you left him when he was little with barely any contact.

So he grew up without you.

You’re the one who needs to build the bridges. His “normal” was a distant older sibling who buggered off (quite rightly, I did so myself). To all intents and purposes he grew up without you except as a theoretical relative.

That was because of your choices, not his. If you’d like to be his sister rather than ”that relative who seems quite nice,” you have a lot of groundwork to make up for.

Thank god I’m past the age of endless weddings! For mine, the evening invitations were only for a couple of local colleagues. I don’t think I’d go, personally, particularly as it’s a good distance.

I'd be hurt, but I'd go and try to make this the beginning of a better relationship.
There'll be other days, maybe they'll have kids, and other times for you to be involved with him.
If you don't go, you really are assigning yourself to the role of distant relative.

NB - it’s perfectly reasonable to decide things are fine as they are, too much time has passed.

But if you don’t like being a distant relative, it’s for you to address, not your brother. He’s never known any differently.

I get it OP. Circumstances meant you and your brother aren’t as close as you probably would have liked. Now you feel blamed and rejected in some way.

It is upsetting x

Of course it would. But that's the statement he's made and I'd be ok with that.

Is your DM going for whole day?
Do you message/call him?

I can understand that you are hurt, but you spend little time together by the sound of it. You might be blood relatives, but you barely figure in each other's lives. He obviously wants the daytime with people who are closer to him.

I left home when my youngest sister was about 9 and I hardly know her to be honest. We have very little in common and although I see her at 'family' gatherings that's about it. I'd be fairly indifferent about being invited to something by her, and she would be the same.

I think you should take it as a sign that if you want a relatiohsip with him you have to heal the one you have.

Its not quite a two way street. You were an adult, he was a child. You chose to essentially abandon him. He couldn't come visit you when he was 10. He couldn't call you. He had no control over the relationship for years and you just fucked off and forgot about him. He grew up as a single child.

You're his sister by blood only. If you want to change that then do.

It also depends on the size of wedding, increasingly some couples have a tiny legal wedding followed by small dinner than a larger evening party because registry offices vary prices by numbers and formal wedding receptions are £££

If they are having 50+ to the actual ceremony and sit down meal I would feel slated but if it's smaller then fair enough

My younger brother was 9 when I left home to go to university. We were close and remain so, even though I've mostly lived a fair old distance from him. We speak and message regularly even now (I'm 66 and he's 57), I'm close to his wife and both his daughters and I've been financially supporting both the girls through university.

It takes effort to sustain a relationship from a distance - but it's really worth doing. We're not on the earth for long and we don't know what the future holds. OP - reach out and develop your relationship.

Look at from how he potentially does. You left home when he was 10. You barely saw him after that, so he spent a good chunk of his childhood as an only child.
“Getting on well” and sharing dna doesn’t make you family, or close. It makes you related, sure, but it doesn’t dictate a familial relationship.
It doesn’t sound like much effort was made to be a big sister to him, you have no idea what his childhood was like after you left, it could have been awful for all you know.
Maybe it’s time you talked? Properly? Many of these responses on here don’t seem to give any consideration to how he might feel. He probably feels very disconnected from you, and possibly “abandoned”
You're both adults now. You built bridges with your DM, now build some bridges with your DB too