It has ALWAYS been this way and I never realised how bad it was until I was settled with OH in our own place. I thought my friend's relationship with her Dad was weird since they were/are so close and then my OH relationship with his parents was too close until one day I realised it was MY relationshop with my parents that was really odd.
Anyway, cut a long story short my parents never really showed us any love. Everything was very Victorian - children should be seen not heard, getting the belt out if we were "naughty", verbal threats all that stuff. We were never physically abused or anything like that. Just really strict parenting. More towards me than my brother. I was a "surprise" baby that they never expected to have tho my mum always said she wanted a girl.
Sorry-getting side tracked. Thing is, I had kind of come to terms with the fact that they both (especially my father) idolised my older brother. My father has told me in the past what a disappointment I am to him. My mum died suddenly a few years back and since then any time I am with both my brother (who I love but he doesn't like me either and has told me as much) and father on the odd occassion like big birthdays/family occassions, my father does this thing where he will reminisce(sp?) about old times. He generally smiles and talks with my brother about things from brother's childhood. If he brings up things that I did in my childhood he will say it was my brother who did it eg Remember that time X did this hilarious thing bla bla telling the story laughing and I can't help but say "No... that was me" and they will BOTH say it was brother... I usually try not to notice as I suppose they are doing it to wind me up but sometimes I can't help saying "Oh, that was me actually" then they say I am being childish but it is heart breaking sometimes and I feel so left out. It feels like my family fell apart when my Mum died so this just kind of rubs my face in it by making me feel even more left out.
By the way, I just read this LONG post back and I do sound childish but I'm not being petty about it, I am just wondering why they do this? My brother has also asked me in the past "What happened to you that you turned out so.... pathetic?" as a rhetorical question really cos he said it, smirked and turned away. I never really see them and when I do it really tears me apart because I really want to have a nice, loving family relationship where we all pull together and look after each other especially after what has happened to our family. It is not to be but I can't seem to accept it.
Sorry this is so long.