I am sorry that this turned out to be so lengthy. I imagined I could tell the whole thing in a couple of paragraphs but somehow it just kept growing.
It's turned into a combination of getting my thoughts straight, getting this hurt off my chest, and asking a WWYD and an AIBU? at the end. Please don't feel obliged to read it if you don't have time!
I am 65 and have a half-brother 15 years older than me. He is the son of mum's first marriage and we did not grow up in the same house. I only met him now and again from my age 5 to 11, when he moved in with me, our mum and my dad for about 6 months when he was 25. After he moved out we went back to meeting only now and again for short periods of time.
I have no other siblings and both my parents are dead, so he is now the elder and I suppose "head" of the "family" and also, legally, he is my next of kin. Actually he is my ONLY kin as I am not married and have no children.
We are not like brother and sister; his place in my life has been more like that of a distant uncle, partly I suppose because he's nearly old enough to be my dad. We've never fallen out, but never been close, either.
He's an extremely gregarious man who over the years had hosted many dinner and house parties; he thinks nothing of inviting 20 or 30 people to his house for the day. He used to invite me to every one of his gatherings, house parties, wedding anniversaries and birthday parties but after Mum died 15 yrs ago he just stopped inviting me without saying why and I was too hurt or too shy to ask why.
Over the 50 years of his marriage he and his wife have been away for hundreds of weekends or holidays with other couples or other family members. For 30 years they owned a holiday home abroad and everyone they know seems to have been invited to stay there either with them, or when they were not using it. However, he has never once invited me to stay at his house or his holiday place or to go on holiday or a weekend away.
He invited me to spend the day at his house (along with about 10+ other guests) every Boxing Day for over 20 years; however, he never once invited me for Xmas Day, as that was reserved for his real family (i.e. his kids, our mum, his MIL, etc).
He and my SIL raised two children whom I very rarely met during their childhood, and I have not seen them or had contact with them since the last time I was there for Boxing Day in 2008. They grew up, left home, married and had kids of their own, whom I have never met. None have ever made contact with me, even though I am easily findable on Facebook or through their mother. So they, also, want nothing to do with me.
Three years after Mum died, without explanation he ceased inviting me to his yearly Boxing Day gatherings. Birthday and Christmas cards began to be signed only by his wife. If I ring them they never answer the phone and they don't have an answerphone. He used to phone me 3 or 4 times a year, but that has devolved into his wife ringing me once a year. (I've known his wife since they started dating 50 years ago.) When she rings she always "can't chat for long" as she's "about to go out" or has "some potatoes on the hob" or expecting a guest any minute. I get the feeling that she only rings out of some kind of "duty" or obligation and if that is the case, I would rather she not bother. I don't want to be a chore to anyone. However, I am polite and chirpy and friendly and she will cheerily tell me about the gatherings and holidays and outings they've had in the last few months. If I ask to speak to my brother he's "at work". (He's in the entertainment industry and, though he's pushing 80, is still working, albeit part time.)
At the end of these phone calls my SIL always says they "must come to visit me soon" and I agree, and sometimes I suggest a date based on what's coming up, like one of our birthdays, or Easter. She then says she will liaise with him about when would be the best time to come, and will ring me back, but she never does. Nowadays, we live only 40 miles apart, and although I am now disabled and I do not drive so cannot visit them, he still drives and is fit and well, driving to work 2 to 3 days a week. And yet he has not been to visit me for seven years.
Seven years!
During that time, as his wife knows, as I have told her, that I've suffered from clinical depression, developed an anxiety disorder, had a breakdown through being relentlessly bullied by a group of people, lost my partner to cancer, and become physically disabled, losing my mobility, which has been very traumatic, and yet none of these life events have prompted him to want to even speak to me on the phone, let alone actually visit me, and yet he is only 45 minutes away by car.
He is, clearly, willing to go to his grave without EVER seeing me again. And I have no idea why.
At this point I ought to say, in case anyone is wondering, that to my knowledge I have never done anything to deserve being dropped and excluded from their life. I've never got drunk or caused an argument or committed a faux pas. We've never had an argument or any strife between us. Believe me, I have wracked my brain on many occasions trying to remember anything I may have said or done to make him dislike me, which he clearly does, and I am at a complete loss. He kept me on the margins of his life until Mum died, and it seems to be her death that prompted him to push me even off the margin and out of his life altogether.
What has prompted me to post this today is that I received the usual Xmas card, written as usual by her, not him, signed "All our love" and "See you soon!" And yet it's crystal clear that they do not "love" me at all and have zero intention of seeing me "soon", nor indeed at all for the rest of our lives.
I hate fakery, and these yearly birthday and Xmas cards, and yearly, breezy, brief phone calls, are fakery, aren't they? I did not bother sending them a card this year as I am sick and tired of engaging with the fakery of sending "all my love" to them and going along with the fiction that we will see each other "soon".
I have thought about writing to them and telling them how hurt I am by their actions in gradually cutting contact with me without giving me any reason or explanation. Should I? Or will this simply make things worse?
Because of his unbrotherly treatment of me, I have made sure that he, though he is my next of kin, gets nothing in my will and that means his kids or grandkids will not inherit from me. (I don't have much money but I do own a large house that is worth a small fortune). Am I wrong to do this? Is that just being spiteful in retaliation, or the right thing to do under the circumstances?