To give background my brother has become increasingly distant since meeting his fiance and can be rude, not communicate and be very defensive. He was always a bit awkward with social relationships but we used to be quite a close family as children and he has distinctly drifted off recently.
His fiance is quite argumentative, moany and negative by nature. He seems besotted with her despite this. I have always gone along the 'if he's happy...' lines and not meddled.
Him and my mum have become particularly distant and he is very tricky with her. My DF is not around. Brother's fiance never really bonded with my mum and quickly was very vocal that she thought my mum didn't like her and critical of my mum at times. She has mixed relationships with her own family and seems to be quite immature and insecure. My mum has always been polite and friendly to her, not really rising to any of the unkind comments.
My DH gets on well with my mum and I am very close to her. I think we are viewed by my brother and his fiance as 'the favourites'. I don't really know what I can do about this. I naturally phone her a lot and have a very close relationship with her, invite her over lots etc.
I am fed up of the constant negativity, brother ignoring/'forgetting' my birthday, his fiance openly being unpleasant about my mother at family events to wider relatives and them generally being rude. His fiance encourages him to not respond to our messages and I think just would rather not have us around at all.
I want to broach it by not being confrontational but reaching out, saying I think it is time to remember we are all family (and family are never perfect, always annoy each other etc) and at the end of the day we are on the same team. I want to encourage him to stand up for his mum and sister and not let this negativity take over and ruin things. Remind him we are here for him and completely respect his choice to be more distant but explain that moving on would be lovely to hear from him more or for him to make an effort with key events. Basically remind him how we used to be and that I miss the old him who was quite thoughtful and much more open-minded polite and easy going about things.