To ask my brother to visit us from abroad and refuse to meet in London

[JIMER202]

I live in Australia and haven’t been home since 2022.

I’m planning a trip back to the UK next year and my children will be 6 and 2 by then. My youngest was born out here and so it will be his first time meeting most of my family (including my brother). My eldest was a toddler when we moved and so it will basically be his first time meeting anyone too.

My family live rurally and so my children and I will be flying Australia-London and then driving another 3-4 hours to my hometown. We have an 8hr drive to the Airport on the Aus side too, so it is a lot of travel and jet lag is going to be an issue also.

We are coming for 10 days which sounds bonkers as it’s such a long way to come, but my partner is able to come for 10 days or I fly alone with both children. My grandad has had strokes and it’s likely this will sadly be one of the last times we see him (hopefully not the last but I am bracing myself it may be).

As this trip is such a big deal and costing so much £££ already, we are actually going to be staying in a holiday cottage with my parents and grandparents, so they can really spend as much time with my children as possible and to limit the driving to see different people. Anyone that has lived away from your hometown and gone back to visit will know that everyone usually ends up saying oh come meet me here, come over to ours etc and we are trying to keep that to a minimum.

My brother also lives abroad (a 2hr flight away) and has no children. He flies back to the UK and then drives to our hometown 2-3 times a year. He will often drive all the way to our hometown and then all the way to see some of his wife’s family who are 2 hours away from there in a single weekend, which is of course a lot of travelling.

Here is my AIBU. We told my brother of the plan for the big family accommodation and that as we are paying he won’t have to pay anything, the place has enough space for him and his wife (a bedroom if they would like to stay) and he said to me why can’t I just fly to London and meet you there? Why can’t I just see you and the kids in central London? (He was suggesting meeting on a weekend before we fly back)

My husband has said it’s my family and up to me but he would prefer to not take them in to Central London on tubes etc at the ages they are and they are so young they aren’t interested in seeing Central London, they really just want to see the grandparents. I agree.

My brother has said he has no interest in coming to the holiday let. I sent him a message to let him know that as we are paying for the holiday let to minimize extra travel as my children would already have done so much and likely be jet lagged and due to their ages we won’t be doing central London. He has now asked if we can meet at Heathrow, but I can’t think of what we would do there? He made it clear he does want to see us and our children but ‘I don’t want to travel all the way back home again.’ I think he’s being rigid and I can’t understand why he’s willing to do it at other times and to see his wife’s family which is way more traveling then we are asking him to do. I mentioned he doesn’t have children as I don’t think he’s quite grasping that taking my children for several hours on the train to central London for basically a lunch is far from appealing. We get on well so I don’t understand why it feels like he’s holding this boundary with us over London or nothing when they travel to our hometown at other times?! It’s like they have agreed to stop doing it all the time but I don’t understand why they can’t make an exception for us. They are doing their same trip home twice before we even fly there next year!

I've lived abroad several times, it does generally mean that if you want to see everyone then you need to travel around a bit. I think one day in London would've been lively for the children, you could even spend one night there. Being in the holiday cottage for ten days straight may be a bit intense anyway. If you're planning on staying near Heathrow anyway couldn't the last full day be a day out in London with your brother?

Wow could be so much going on here.

I think if SIL is planning on trying to be working in London when you meet your brother, then that’s probably tells you everything you need to know. She doesn’t want to see you for whatever reason. He’s trying to stay in London too, as that’s where she will be, so they can travel/be together?

The driving thing is probably relevant.

Do you happen to know if you are your parent’s favourite? I adore my brother, but he is the lesser-seen sibling (!), and if I want to see him it’s often better to see him without my parents being there. Whenever he turns up at theirs I need to remember to bring the red carpet 🤣

But you go on to say you are staying there the night before…?

True! I’m going to leave the post up to garner responses but again my brother and his wife are not trying to conceive, happily child free! I don’t dislike my family for emigrating. I had a life changing injury that I needed major surgery for and they took me a good year to recover from and once recovered I had a high risk pregnancy and my baby came early. We have been waiting until he’s old enough to travel ok. Thank you for everyone that has been understanding about the challenges all of that brings and the jet lag that comes with flying long haul. I wish we could come for longer. 2 weeks is as long as my husband can take in his line of work.

I've read all of OP's posts and it seems pretty clear that he booked the flight initially to do the holiday let thing with OP's family. So he is coming back just for OP. I know OP has said he visits back home frequently but as he won't be visiting his hometown this time I feel like it's still largely an effort for OP.

She actually is going to come with him and go to central London for work if she can and the times work out.

That’s not what was said, she’s coming if it works out. He’s not coming because of her.

My husband and I are immigrated (states to the uk) and we have the only grandchildren so I understand some of the challenges here. It’s a shame you already booked the tickets as I would have first suggested you stay much longer as this is going to be a marathon and you are all going to be exhausted. But too late for that (or is it? It would be the ideal resolution)

Anyway - for a one week trip with two kids with jet lag, eating unfamiliar food and sleeping in unfamiliar beds I wouldn’t plan on seeing anyone except your parents and grandparents. Your brother knows where you’ll be if he can make it work, but there shouldn’t be any judgement or pressure on him if he can’t. You need to be really focussed when you have visits with toddlers as there will be windows of opportunity for good experiences and you want to be sure you’re using them for the most important things.

we go back to the states every couple years for 3-4 weeks. We used to drive ourselves crazy bouncing around trying to see everyone and experience everything but it was so hard. Now we go no more than one place a week and focus on seeing our parents. People are welcome to come see us and sometimes we manage to fit in a day trip or similar, but it really don’t make anyone happy to drag our children around in circles. They got overwhelmed and tired and it just wasn’t fun and certainly didn’t make memories etc.

To be perfectly honest your children won’t remember meeting your brother for a few hours anyway so I wouldn’t actually try to make a day trip to Heathrow work. You don’t know why he can’t come to you and he doesn’t have to tell you - you both presented what works for you and there’s no overlap so it just doesn’t work this time.

maybe you could go see your brother one day on your own if you want to?

it’s absolutely the hardest thing about immigrating - my kids don’t have a relationship with extended family. Unless you go back regularly, it’s impossible to maintain and children forget quickly. You might be better off working on creating an online relationship now that your children are a bit older. My parents and inlaws read stories to our kids on FaceTime every single week and have for years now. Would he be up for a tradition like this maybe?

I'd assume that your brother's wife is 'driving' the visits to see her family, and your brother is going along with it. Rather than your brother enthusiastically making plans to visit his in laws while being awkward about your visit.

It may be that if he was single, or married to someone from his current home country, he would not be visiting England so often.

It's a shame he doesn't want to go to the holiday cottage but I think a day in London with your DC sounds nice! I'd definitely need a break from my parents etc at some point and London is great for kids. Your DC can nap on the journey there/back if they are still jet lagged?

If it's a deal breaker for you though, all you can do is talk to him about it again. If he won't budge then it's up to you whether you want to make the extra effort or just not see him.

You've carefully avoided my question OP.

Have you ever visited your brother in his now home country?
Or do you always just come back and base yourselves in your hometown?

Would it fit in with your flight home? ie. is your flight in the evening, so leaving a couple of hours early, having lunch near Heathrow and then going for your flight would work, or is your flight at a time when it couldn't work anyway?

Heathrow - although I hate it as an airport because it's so big - does have restaurants that aren't air-side, or, theres obviously hotels and towns just outside that are perfectly nice.

if it fitted in with my existing plans - ie. as I said above, leaving in the morning rather than at lunchtime, then I'd do it (although it's a bit weird of him to only want to fly in/out too TBH), but if it doesn't then I wouldn't.

Why would I be joking, find out in plenty of time when they are next home and then do all your planning around that? If he’s wanting to fly in and out there is obviously a reason he can’t stay wether that be work or just life but he’s going to fly in and out to see you so he obviously wants to see you but your attitude is all me me me and what works best for you

Our trip is next year. We have flights and accommodation booked. We haven’t booked our hotel for Heathrow yet but have been looking tonight at staying at the Sheraton or the Hilton at Heathrow. Our flight out is morning and so with dropping our hire car off and getting there etc it does make sense to be there the night before. The hotels all have check in times of 4pm however. We would then need to get a taxi to meet my brother and hope his flight times can line up ok too. If he won’t meet us elsewhere it will be his job to find flights that can work with meeting us at Heathrow. We may also do another posters suggestion of meeting at the outdoor play place they suggested.

If the flight time for him is 2 hours you can add on likely 3 hours of hanging around at airports, plus whatever travelling time he has. If we guess 7 hours altogether of travelling/waiting time all to see someone for a meal - and some people are saying that he is a lazy dick!!!

Seriously, that is a huge commitment of time and effort on his part, all just for the chance of seeing someone briefly! His (much easier) alternative would be to find an excuse and say he just can’t make it.

Laziness is not a valid accusation here - that is a massive effort!

Flight is the morning so we are likely going to have to stay the night before so would have to try and meet him then. I was hoping to leave for Heathrow that day as late as possible because it will be my last time I get with my elderly Grandparents one of whom is in poor health. I know it’s going to be a tough goodbye regardless tho.

But he’s likely coming with the expectation of joining his wife. Then go on to her in laws.

I doubt he’s planning a flight just to see OP at airport.

You don't need to check in at 4pm. You can usually leave your luggage much earlier and check in later when you're ready.

I think the dynamics in your relationship have probably changed due to distance. But you are going to be flying into that area so maybe he saw it as easier for you and him. I took my children into London at that age and they loved it as there is so much to do. He hasn’t got children so won’t understand the tiredness struggle with a toddler but if he doesn’t want to drive to the cottage a few hours away that’s fair enough I think.

The brother travels to the family 2-3 x a year so it’s not like it’s a big deal to him. And yes; it is absolutely reasonable that people travel the little bit to meet them. You seem to think that people who emigrated are somehow bad for wanting to minimise the amount of internal travelling they do as if they are the only ones who benefit from meeting up. Travelling globally is hard; and expensive. If they make 90% of the effort and you can’t even make 10% then that would tell me all I need to know. I moved and you don’t care about me anymore. I’m not worth the effort.

if you can’t be arsed doing a short rip to meet up after they have travelled half way around the world then you don’t really want to meet up with them. So why would they bother? It’s not like the meet ups are for their benefit only.

I think it’s poor of him. He could actually catch u with every one and it’s not like this is a regular occurrence. But I’d offer Heathrow on the day you head back as a compromise

Also OP, absolutely not a pile on, I get that your brother's behaviour and silence is baffling, but from your posts I get strong vibes that the needs of children must always take precedence over the childfree.

Like there's repeated endless paragraphs & paragraphs about your circumstances like your kids and surgery, but when someone posits something could be going on on your brother's side, you immediately dismiss it with airy handwaves and definitive statements. The contrast is VERY apparent.

It's like you constantly write them off as having a perfect, easy lifestyle, even with their work & her being physically unable to conceive as you say (I know lots of people are 100% happily childfree but as you say you're not even close to her, are you sure you have the full story) and everything.

As you say, your brother and wife are older and of course any couples, especially older couples, could be facing their own issues whether physical, mental, relationships, ageing, etc. Or even just have their own strong preferences every now and then. They are human after all...

As a matter of common sense ofc, I think kids' needs > childfree... but I can understand why those without children might get irritated, especially after a long while of this. I wonder if there is any history you can consider about your past catch-ups – have they always gone your way? – or if not, if you could make some space for the thought that they too may be facing constraints and factors now even without children.

You seem to know an awful lot of detail, that’s not there!

It’s almost like you’re making bits up to add to your own narrative, to make him in the wrong.

“it’s likely” like you know.

I’ve already put it all on the thread. I have not been home since we moved to Australia because I had a life changing injury and was in the ICU, surgery and then rehab recovering for a long time. I also had a premature baby in Australia. This is our first visit back in several years. My brother moved abroad whilst we have been in Australia. He has not visited us in Australia, but is always welcome. Visiting his country would be an extra flight from London and we don’t have the time or want to put our children who are going to be very jet lagged through even more travel whilst they are toddlers. It would be a full day of travel with the being at the airport etc. We also have invited them to Australia but they haven’t been able to come which we totally understand. We haven’t been invited to stay with them. Paying for the flights, travel and hotel to stay there is too much on top of what is going to be an expensive UK trip. Maybe when my children are older we can. If we lived in England we would absolutely go to visit them.

I’m an easy-going brother myself who gets on well with his sister, and your “comply or explain” approach would be seriously grating on me at this point.

It’s not just “comply or explain”. His explanation has to be good enough for you, or you are going to call to tell him he’s being a clueless dick. You have said many times how well get on, but you seem to think that’s only reason for him to accommodate you and no reason for you to accommodate him.

At that point, you’d be told you are more than welcome to come and visit in Berlin.

Not bad, but don’t expect my families lives to suit what their family is doing.

if I can go, want to go and it suits my family I will.

But no, not everything can be planned around 10 days of a visit. Life goes on.

Maybe the trips to see his wife's family are out of his control and he'd actually rather not do them. So this time he's decided it's on his terms. Or maybe his wife is refusing to make the trip. Or they don't have enough annual leave. It could be any number of reasons.
You've invited him, he's declined the holiday let option and offered a couple of alternatives, you've declined those. It seems like you won't see eachother this time unfortunately.
In my experience, though admittedly not travelling the distance you are, it is generally expected that the ones who moved away should make the effort to visit those they want to see when they return. It's a pain, but that's how it is. Your solution of the holiday let is ideal, but you can't force people to join you, it might just not work for them this time