Selfish adult children

[Lexirose01]

This is a little long winded but it’s really upsetting me.
a little background.. My eldest son moved away 6 years ago which was hard for me as we are so close. We remained very close but I was proud of his life. Fast forward to now and my youngest son has been given the opportunity to move to the same place as his brother. There is 6 years between them. My eldest isn’t happy with this and is trying his best to stop the move. He’s also made it clear that he’s too busy to help out with the move even though we all had to travel 5 hours to help him move in to his new place. We are now travelling back and fourth to arrange this move with no offer of help or even to stay at his place overnight. He also doesn’t want to store anything for his brother until his brothers house is ready.
I know that this will fester and inevitably will cause a rift between us.
any advise on how to move forward would be appreciated x

What is DS2s opportunity to move there? Will he be living a self sufficient life or is it that DS1 is worried he will be reliant on him?

DS1 sounds like a selfish shit to be honest but it’s hard to see what his problem is

ironically post matches username...

Does ds1 live with other people or have other people stay?

It is weird that he wouldn't want to help his brother when you keep saying how close you all are.

How often would your ds normally see each other?

Unless they are going to living in a small village or working at the same place how much will younger son impinge on his brother?

I live in a small to medium sized town, exDIL lives two miles away and I think the last time I bumped into her was as I left the supermarket on Christmas Eve.

He will be living and working self sufficiently.

It’s in a city but will be seeing each other every week within the sport they play. I don’t think they will see each other out and about much though as they will both be working full time

He will be living in a professional house share and eldest has his own place. They don’t see each other much but a few times a year they would spend a weekend in each others city and catch up for some beers.

Ok, is big brother worried about little brother being better than him?

It is hard to know if DS1 is just being a but selfish or actually is genuinely upset / frustrated by this development.

He has moved to his own place only to be followed by a sibling. He may have moved there partially because it WAS far away and he wanted to be independent/ re-imagine his life.

Now he had a brother following him and it isn't just storing stuff. You said just storing stuff and then when he said if he did that he would have to help and ruin his own plans (which, based on your "it's only 10mins away" is exactly what would have happened).

This is potentially the start of a lot of "small ways" he may be called on to help his brother. Each of them resulting in accusations of selfishness if he doesn't comply. So, perhaps much better to establish firm boundaries now.

You also say they will now meet every other week due to a combined sport? unless they would have done this when 5 hours apart, this would potentially be another upsetting infringement on his new life / friendships / hobbies.

I would give him the benefit of the doubt.

Who is better at the sport?

If im being honest with myself this is probably spot on.

Hard to say. different positions and levels of experience

It doesn't have to be that. Sometimes we like stuff to just be for us, and that's ok

It’s a bit much to not want your brother to even live in the same city as yourself though.

We all ended up following each other to the same part of the country, we saw it as a good thing 🤷‍♀️

Agree, but he's not you and I'm assuming there's more to it.

Did you ask him to store younger sons things or did you tell him your plan to store younger ds's things at his home?

Don't have that much stuff? You reckon? Amazon and Amazon vouchers for birthday and christmas presents means it's too easy for them to accumulate crap they don't need. Rice cooker, air fryer, cocktail shaker.....

Leave them to it. They are adults.

I'd have been utterly pissed off having moved 5 hours from home (I moved further) if my younger sister had announced she was moving to the same city, but that's mostly because we don't get on.

However, I can understand that your eldest son having made a new life for himself doesn't want a sibling arriving and hanging around - and certainly doesn't want to offer him a room or take him under his wing, even temporarily.

Your expectations are quite high.

He sounds mean to his younger brother. But I wouldn't keep on at him.

Eldest was given the opportunity 5 years ago to move to this city to play sport and now the youngest has been offered the same opportunity. He should be proud of younger brother and understand that he has to take this opportunity.
youngest is self sufficient and won’t need to lean on him at all. Like I mentioned, they will only see each other through the sport, training and games. Refusing any help with storing or even offering his spare room for one weekend though is a piss take in my books.

The youngest us clearly not self sufficient 😆

Self-sufficient is packing a few bags and getting on a train.

So he is doing the same sport in the same city as older brother, I can imagine that might feel suffocating

I think you just need to let them establish their own relationship and keep out of it. It's understandable you want them to be close and the older one to support the younger one, but your older DS clearly doesn't feel like that.

I don't intervene in my 20's children's relationships with each other really.

It's not a piss take. He's not obliged to help out.

“He should be proud of younger brother”

Why should he? It’s for parents to be proud of their DC, not siblings! I would be pretty fed up if I had moved five hours away for something particular, and then lo and behold, younger DB not only follows in my footsteps but expects to encroach upon my space, store his stuff, expects me to give up time to transport it thither and yon, and generally expects a handhold when I’ve established my own independent life. Would not be overcome, either at having to “see each other through the sport, training and games”. Your elder DS has ploughed his own furrow: I can quite see why he is less than thrilled to have his younger brother breathing down his neck.

Have you reminded ds1 that all of you travelled far to help him with his move? Or did you say nothing to preserve the “closeness”? If you were truly close, you’d be able to tell him that he was being a dick not to return the favour and help his brother. If he announced that he was moving tomorrow and expected help would you call out ds1?

On the other hand, Ds1 isn’t unreasonable to be annoyed that ds2 has moved 10 mins away. Presumably they live in a city like London where there’s more than one place to play this mystery sport so I can see why ds1 isn’t over the moon. Moving to a city involves moving away from his old life and with seeing ds2 regularly, it could be like a regression and not the proper independence that he enjoyed for the past few years.

Didn’t ds2 consider selling the old furniture and buying in the new city (second hand wouldn’t be loads)? That would make the move much simpler and mean that you wouldn’t have to be so involved.