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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Should I make more effort with my brother for the sake of our kids?

3 replies

CaramelThighs · 12/01/2020 16:24

DB is 2 years older and my only sibling. We have never got on - very different personalities. He has always been the "cool" one and looked down on me for being quite homely/boring, and spent a lot of my childhood sneering at me and putting me down. After leaving home we no longer fought but just got on with our separate lives really. We now live about an hour away from each other and each have children of a similar age (4-8).

We are now on civil but distant terms - e.g. text every couple of months, usually around kids' birthdays to ask what they want, but only see each other 2-3 times a year. I usually come away feeling a bit crap - although he's polite, it's clear that he doesn't think much of me and DH and has little interest in spending time with us. His wife is a bit nicer but spends most of any visits on her phone.

Things have fizzled further and I haven't seen him for 6 months now. I don't think this will change unless I instigate something e.g. invite them for lunch.

I've accepted that we are never going to be more than polite acquaintances at best, but I feel bad that I'm not getting to know my nieces as they grow up, or that my son won't get to know his cousins better.

Should I make more effort? Or just leave things be? Just wondered if I am alone or whether anyone else is / has been in this situation.

OP posts:
Aquamarine1029 · 12/01/2020 16:29

Unless both of you are willing to put in equal effort, and I seriously doubt he is, you are wasting your time. The efforts of just one person can not sustain a relationship. Some siblings simply can't and don't have meaningful relationships, sadly, you have to accept this reality.

CaramelThighs · 12/01/2020 16:47

Thanks Aquamarine. I agree that with you and have completely accepted that we are never going to have a meaningful relationship. To be honest I could happily live the rest of my life not seeing him again and not be bothered by it. But my DD is an only child and they are her only cousins on my side (she has one on DH's side), and I worry that I am being selfish by not providing opportunities for her to get to know her uncle/aunt/cousins, as well as not getting to know my nieces. I don't know how much this matters.

OP posts:
millymoo1202 · 12/01/2020 16:52

My children have 10 cousins between both sides and never see any of them from one year to the next and makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to their lives, as long as they have plenty friends I don’t see the problem.

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