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?

Then he will also remember what a massive change there was to this relationship at 11. You disappeared off to live your adult life and he had to start living as an only child.

I hate weddings so I would be v happy with just an evening invite

I can see why you're hurt though

Just an evening invite shows how he views your relationship. It's more of a distant relation than a sister

Your brother didn’t attend your wedding, how was that for you?

I would assume your mother has pushed for you to be invited, and he is doing this for her. Not for you. He compromised with an evening invitation.

I would decline if you have no independent relationship with him at all. I don’t agree the onus is on you to do all of the work in the relationship, he has been an adult for many years and could have at least tried to maintain contact with you as well. It was rude of him to decline your wedding.

I would be too insulted to attend, and embarrassed. I don’t think he wants you there but doesn’t want to make a point. A lot of thought has gone into what to do about this.

Either throw yourself into fixing things with him properly and attend in whatever form or decline altogether. Don’t continue as you are and show up and make it awkward.

I am also aware there is a back story and you should take care of yourself in this situation. He was always going to take your mother’s side regardless of what she did 💐

Aw that's sad then, that you never got to maintain the relationship. Fingers crossed you can rebuild it now you're both older 🙂

Just another perspective.

We personally only invited close friends and family to our ceremony. It didn’t matter if we were related by blood, if we hardly spoke or only met at events then you got an evening invite. The people most involved in our life were there the whole day.

It sounds like despite being blood related siblings you have become distant relatives, due to circumstances. It happens. It’s not nice to hear but he doesn’t see you as a close family member and he doesn’t want you to be at the ceremony for that reason.

I understand being hurt but with the costs of weddings these days we just wanted those who actually knew us at the ceremony, distant relatives, friends and colleagues were invited to the evening.

I know weddings are usually every family member invited to the ceremony but times have changed and that’s not what everyone does now. It seems like people don’t make much effort with you (or vise versa) but expect the full day invite becuase you share the same blood.

What are you going to do/say @Eveningonly ?

I’m guessing that he felt you left him to bear the brunt of your mother’s abuse and never returned. Afterwards, you never thought of him.

It’s possible that he always felt like an afterthought too.

YANBU I would be very hurt by this. I guess it highlights how he views your relationship akin to a distant relative/ cousin, not a sibling which is very sad. Maybe you can try and address that and build a better relationship going forward if that's what you want.

Do you get on with his partner?

he’s never even hinted at any bad blood between us

@Eveningonly - I don’t think there is any bad blood necessarily.

His ‘normal’ is a distant relationship with his older sibling. You had a different perception of how significant you were to one another. This has received a bit of a dent by being relegated to an evening-only guest.

You can be happy with things as they stand or you can try and build a more robust relationship. Either one is perfectly reasonable.

I didn’t hold it against him or anyone else who didn’t attend because there are associated costs with the travel and we were married closer to where we live which is a fair distance from my hometown. Never took it personally, I just figured he decided it was too far to attend.

I do feel insulted and hurt but equally don’t want to worsen things and feel if I don’t attend, I may do just this. I have now started to wonder whether him mentioning the fact it was child free again and again may have been his attempt to deter me from attending though which has hurt me more. That and the fact the invitation happened only a few months before the event has made me feel he was forced by someone to give me the evening only invite at least. Potentially my DM, I don’t know.

I have no idea what my DM did or didn’t say about me after I left. As I say, he has never been ‘off’ with me at all so I have never considered us to have any ill feeling.

You say you met at family gatherings over the years, what were these?
You also have children, so he is their Uncle. Do they see each other? When they were born did you send a message and let him know? Was there opportunity for him to come and visit, has he felt welcome?
All these things add to a sibling relationship. It doesn't just exist because of circumstance.

I think that’s too harsh. OP is trying to mend things not permanently destroy them. Ego shouldn’t be driving OP’s decisions.

I always refuse evening invites for reasons you have pointed out - very much B list.
But left as soon as I got the chance and have always lived a distance away (it isn’t a great town!) this attitude you have may have been picked up by him. If I felt my sibling looked down on my life choices I wouldn't feel particularly 'close'.
The age gap is irrelevant in my view, my DSis is 12 years older than me, left home when I was 6 and has always maintained a close relationship with me that continues to this day.

I mentioned before but don’t think she ever mistreated him, she certainly never did when I was at home. He was always her favourite child and it was incredibly obvious. He got the special treatment and anything that went wrong (even when it was clearly his fault) became my fault. I highly doubt she turned the abuse on him, she doted on him from day one.

Ignore those saying “decline” if you want to improve your relationship with your brother.

Accept the invite. Go. Do not complain or comment on the evening invite. Other family who have been there all day / the brides family might ask why you weren’t there in the day, “I wasn’t invited.” No further comment - if pushed why “I don’t know but I’m really happy for them, they make a lovely couple etc” no negatives.

smile in photos, tell the bride she looks gorgeous.

make an effort to regularly invite them to you, even if they decline, make the effort to ask.

You haven’t given the details but you imply you had valid reasons for leaving home when you did, why your reasons were separate from your brother and that he wasn’t in any danger by staying.

Ok.

But you were the older sibling and you weren’t really there when he was growing up (you left before puberty, teen angst
and first exams). It doesn’t matter how valid your reasons for leaving were: that was all about a better life for you, not for him.

He was left behind. And many men don’t feel as connected to their blood relatives even when they haven’t been left behind. See all the threads about mothers being hurt that when their sons marry, they make no effort to stay in touch and it’s their daughters-in-law trying to maintain a relationship.

It’s upsetting because it’s a reality check. You were so focused on improving your own life that you didn’t consider the impact on your relationship with your brother. If blood really was thicker than water, you would have had a normal relationship with your mum. You already know DNA isn’t everything.

I’m not sure it matters whether or not you go to this wedding. But I would give him a decent present and perhaps a celebration dinner, so you can have some time together. Something to be aware of is that you’ve considered him your brother for far longer than he’s ever thought of you as a sister, and he may not particularly care about building a close relationship with you.

You may never be more than the nice distant cousin and I would try to come to terms with that.

But you did get out, you built a career, you became a mother - leaving all those years ago put you on this road. And whatever happens with your brother, it sounds like you don’t need to regret that choice. That’s worth an awful lot.

Sorry OP, there's probably more going on here than you think.
My siblings are much younger than me and I also left home due to difficult relationship with their parent. We get on absolutely fine, but they are much closer to each other than they are to me which is quite hard to deal with- and similarly, a lack of effort. I also feel like I'm not in the family fold.

It's come out quite recently that they feel I completely abandoned them when I moved out (no abuse, just difficult to live with). No amount of explanation is going to undo the hurt I caused them.

I'm sorry that you've been hurt OP and I well understand your feelings here- but it's not too late to put the hours in and rebuild x

My door has always been open to him, I have never wilfully cast him aside. The distance has always deterred him from visiting us which I don’t mind but this has meant he sees my DC when he sees me, which is at family gatherings generally. I don’t or didn’t think too deeply about this, we’re all busy people and have our own lives. Now obviously rethinking this.

As I say, he has never been ‘off’ with me at all so I have never considered us to have any ill feeling
There doesn't have to be ill feeling. I think you're just failing to see how different his life was to yours as siblings. The age at which you gained a sibling was the age he affectively lost his. You defined how things went after that and he has got on with life. Maybe he felt hurt and rejected or maybe he was just pragmatic and accepted how you wanted the relationship to be. But I think you really need to think about how different your experiences were because of your ages.

I tend to be very hard-headed about these things, but I wonder if there isn’t an opportunity for you and he to reset your relationship.

If you think it’s worth trying, meet up with him somewhere neutral and talk to him about the whole gamut. Listen if/when he talks about his feelings, and accept them - even if your mother damaged things from your perspective (and likely from an outsider’s also), accept your part in the distancing, if he feels you have one. No excuses, no defensiveness. Be honest with him about your feelings, particularly the positive ones of wanting to be closer.

If you do that, and it goes well, you could perhaps broach the wedding, maybe even venture that you’d like to be there for the ceremony, if it’s possible. No pressure, no expressions of hurt, just a simple wish to see him on what should be one of the best days of his life.

It sounds like you and he had very different home lives with your mother, which he might or might not realise. If you’ve made things better with her, perhaps it’s worth putting in the effort to make things better with him.

BTW - is it possible that while he was the favoured child while you were there to take her issues out on, when you weren’t there anymore, there wasn’t someone else to blame so his life got harder at the point you left?

Sure, it’s a two-way thing, but if you want a closer relationship, you’re going to have to start contacting him outside of family occasions where you happen to meet, and sound him out about whether he’d like to grow the relationship. Absolutely, he could do it, but he hasn’t, yet. It’s possible he’s fine with the status quo. I mean, it doesn’t seem to have bothered you unduly till you got this invitation suggesting he sees you as akin a distant relative who isn’t close enough to merit a day invitation — does the lack of closeness bother you? If he’d invited you to the whole wedding, would you just have been content to coast along as you are?

I don’t think it has anything to do with ‘seeing you as a terrible person’, more that you just don’t compute for him as someone close enough to be invited.

Excellent reply! This, OP.

Even if you don't see each other much, it IS weird to not invite your sibling to everything. Many people don't see each other much.