Do I accept my brother hates me and move on?

[littlepieces]

My brother is 7 years younger than me. I'm mid 30s he's in his 20s. We dont have a relationship at all which I think is quite sad. We are quite different people, but I dont think this should be a problem.

We grew up in a dysfunctional household - angry, emotionally abusive father, and a very anxious, stressed, depressed mother. Lots of arguments.

I always doted on my brother, my mum struggled with her mental health when we were kids and I almost took on a maternal instinct for him. However, my brother, for some reason, took a real disliking to me from the age of about 8/9 and would ruin my things or get me into trouble, which really hurt me. I know this might be typical younger sibling behaviour but I have a feeling my dad might have something to do with this too. I thought he might grow out of this as he got older. But since I left home for uni about 15 years ago, brother has essentially ignored my existence. He lived at home until quite recently, and used to avoid the house if I was round, if we did come into contact he would completely blank me most of the time. He never contacts me. If I message him, he rarely replies. He has never been the instigator of any contact between us. I lived abroad for five years and he never spoke to me the whole time I was away. When I visited home (once a year or less), he would go and stay with friends or his girlfriend's until I was gone.

My grandfather just died and he's not replied to my message asking if he's OK, and hasn't asked me if I'm OK (I was very close to him). To be fair he didn't have a relationship with my grandfather either, so maybe he doesn't care. I'm starting to come to the conclusion he just doesn't care about people very much in general.

He can be a bit lax with messaging/communicating with my parents, but otherwise has a good relationship with them. Pre lockdown he regularly played golf with my dad and they watched football together. He used to pop round for dinner/coffee with our parents once a week or so with his gf.

I think it could partly be resentment, or him thinking I'm not his kind of person. I was academically a high achiever, have lived and travelled around the world and have a successful professional career. He's not academic, but great at more practical stuff. He's quite happy living in the town he grew up in and settling down with his gf which is fine by me. I think he suffers from low confidence.

Do I try and salvage something or accept it and move on? I don't expect we'll ever be BFFs but seems really sad to carry on like this forever. How should I go about either approach?

I would send him a message and tell him that you love him , that you wish your relationship was better and you will always be there if he needs you but you are stepping away for now as you are finding it difficult to maintain the relationship when it’s so one sided.

Sounds like he's your father's little protege and there is absolutely nothing you can do to undo the years of that negative influence, OP. You poor soul. Your mother enabled your father's abuse, unfortunately. She did not protect you and your brother from its toxicity and it sounds like because he was 'the son', your dad swept your brother under his almighty and influential wing. You can't change the unchangeable. It's a behemoth that is not yours to fight. You can hope that one day, your brother's lightbulb moment will happen (maybe when he marries, has kids, your father dies... and maybe it will never happen). All you can do is live your life and try to heal from this damage. I'll throw the cliche out there and suggest therapy, trauma therapy, if you haven't had therapy already. I am reluctant to ask but what is your mother's point of view now? What's her awareness of this situation like?

You have to learn somehow to live your life without your brother in it. The ball is in his court. But I wouldn't waste my time waiting for it to be thrown back. A cathartic experience may involve writing him a letter, with the acceptance that he may never bother reading it or, if he does, he may never reply. But for you, it may help fill in the cracks.
Best of luck to you. The teeth marks from a dysfunctional past are painful ones. Work on getting rid of them and loving yourself, OP.

I have an older child who doesn’t speak to their sibling. The older was jealous from the moment the younger was born, and seized a silly teenage mistake to take the excuse to never speak again.
I hate it as I’ll be gone one day and I want them to have a relationship.
Many people will say I should tell the older one that it’s not acceptable, but now as an adult there’s nothing I can do, and I don’t want to spoil my relationship with either, so we see them separately ☹️

"We grew up in a dysfunctional household - angry, emotionally abusive father, and a very anxious, stressed, depressed mother. Lots of arguments".

That comment explains why your brother and you have no relationship to speak of now. Your parents are primarily to blame as to why your brother and you have no relationship now. You as his sister were made to take on a parental role by your mother. Both of you have been emotionally harmed here by your parents.

It appears that your mum and dad are still together in their own destructive codependency. They get what they want out of that relationship with each other.

How is your own relationship with your parents these days?. Is there one?.

Thanks for your replies, really helpful. I was afraid the post was a little long and complicated after I posted it!

I know my mum sadly is an enabler. She's very much a fence sitter. She has had issues to contend with - she had terrible PND for a couple of years after my brother was born, and suffers from severe panic attacks, not helped by my dad. I think she feels trapped in the relationship. I've always, maybe foolishly, felt sorry for her and have felt it's been my role to support her. However, she's a good person and did do a good job of raising us in general, despite everything.

@AttilaTheMeerkat I get on well with my mum but on quite a superficial level. Me and dad got on until I was a teenager. Then I don't think he knew how to relate to me and he had this weird resentment about my 'easy life' compared to his upbringing. Eg. he was furious that I stayed on for sixth form and didn't go and get a job/leave home at 16 I had part time jobs all weekend from the age of 13 to pay for things I wanted. I certainly wasn't a lazy, spoilt brat or anything. Nowdays he doesn't really have much to say to me and doesn't make any effort. But in his case, that's fine with me. He's not a nice man.

"However, she's a good person and did do a good job of raising us in general, despite everything".

That is nice of you but is that really the whole truth here?. It seems not.

You may well have been given material things but your parents have left you and your brother likely feeling emotionally bereft. You're both hurting as a result of what they did and did not do here. They remain together for their own reasons and you two as their now adult children were caught in their crossfire. Now as adults the harm remains in that you are both blundering about in your respective fears, obligations and guilt. Your mother has always had a choice here and she ultimately chose him. She has continued to enable her DH for her own reasons, you two as her now adult children were never considered. She failed to protect you both from her abuser of a H. They have both failed you as people.

I'd take the hint and stop bothering with him.
He's been clear and consistent. It feels awful for you I know, but he obviously doesn't want a relationship with you and you can only accept that.

I had a similar upbringing to you. I don't know why people have posted disparaging your mother rather than your father.

As an adult your brother is absolutely allowed to choose who he wants to have a relationship with. I know it's sad but he can choose to not have a relationship with you and that's his choice even if you haven't done anything to warrant it. I think you should respect it. The relationship will probably always be superficial. I don't think it's that abnormal for adult brother/sister to have a superficial relationship in fact probably the opposite, it's probably quite typical.

Enablers can be the loveliest people in the world. My mum is one. And she's a nice person. She also put an abuser before her other children and her own husband, my father. The abuser, in our case, was and remains my drug-addicted brother.
It's not about loving or loathing, forgiving or resenting the enabler. It's not so black and white. I think you have a healthy picture of your own mum. You recognise her goodness. You recognise that she tried her best. But it wasn't enough and it never is with enablers. She let you down. She didn't mean to. She allowed your dad to let you down. She allowed his domination to rule above all else. It's hard to exercise good coping skills when we're under the thumb of an abuser. And we always hope that our parents, because they are adults, will have the wherewithal to cope and be strong. But this often doesn't happen. Your mum wanted to 'keep the peace'. Well-intended as that was, it was also the weaker option, the one that fuelled the toxicity in the home and failed you. And there's not a whole lot to be done about it now. But as I said in my previous post, you can work on self-love, self-respect, and ensuring that your own life is a happy and stable one by understanding your past and how that family dynamic has shaped you. It's a bit of a batshit soup, but we can't help what life hands us sometimes. Good luck in finding your own separate peace. It is possible to do so and you'll feel much freer in your own life once you find that peace.

I don't know why people have posted disparaging your mother rather than your father.

Very obviously, the father is the source of the problem. But the mother is also part of the problem, giving the father tacit approval to carry out his abuse. Her role can't be ignored. And if OP were to get therapy for this, I daresay her mother's part in the toxicity would be thoroughly analysed. OP is part of the problem. Her brother is part of the problem. His behaviour towards his sister is absolute proof that he is living out the patterns they have both learned from their parents. Break the pattern, OP. Not his. Yours. You will have your own.

Yes. Accept he hates you and move on.
It is not a reflection of you.
I have accepted my brother hates me and have moved on.
He is an unpleasant person and now I don't have to be a bystander while he is abusive to another wife.
There was never any relationship to feel a loss over.
I feel numb to his existence.

I have a similar situation and would say, don't write a letter or Have A Talk. It's easier to come back from an estrangement if people can just brush over the period where they weren't getting on. "Least said, soonest mended" is a saying that arose for a reason!

I would suggest stick with a civil, distant relationship, leave him to his own devices and don't try to help him, advise him, involve yourself in his relationship with your parents - basically treat him with the neutral respect you would a colleague at work who has very different views and skills from your own.

He's still in his 20s and people can still do a lot of growing up in heir 20s and 30s, particularly if their original family was disfunctional but they marry into a happy one.

Ultimately you can't do a huge amount if someone doesn't like you - I think, if he turns into someone worth spending time with them he might end up being more interested in a closer relationship, but if he continues not to be interested, well, most likely he's still the sort of person you wouldn't like either!

@ChicoryInACoffeeJar Thank you, this is kind of where my head is at currently. I suspect he wouldn't respond to a letter or a chat, or at least wouldn't respond well. I do think he still has a lot of growing up to do, whereas I've always been overly mature for my age (which equally has its own problems).

@Purplethrow

I would send him a message and tell him that you love him , that you wish your relationship was better and you will always be there if he needs you but you are stepping away for now as you are finding it difficult to maintain the relationship when it’s so one sided.

Yeah, this is good advise