Sibling resentment after years abroad – how do you deal with it?

[Fandyman]

Hi all,
I’ve lived in the UK for 18 years and moved to a new area 3 years ago with my wife. Soon after moving, my wife became pregnant and we now have a beautiful 2.5-year-old daughter.
For the past year I’ve had no real contact with my mum or my brother, and I’m struggling to process it.
The immediate conflict started about a year ago, but from my brother’s perspective it goes back 15 years. His final message to me was that I had been “absent for 15 years” while he was the one dealing with the operational/logistical side of things for our mum - organising, helping and supporting her when she refused to properly look after herself. She was never diagnosed with depression or anything clinical, but she leaned heavily on him.
He has his own children. When he was divorced, my mum helped him a lot with childcare. He now has a new partner and another baby, and my mum was also very involved in caring for that child. However, once his daughter was about 4-5 years old, he began limiting contact with our mum.
During those years I was frequently visiting my mum in the area where she and my brother lived (separately). I tried to support her emotionally as well - suggesting local support groups and encouraging her to build independence - but she always refused. She insisted she was fine, yet at the same time she would complain about my brother and speak badly about him behind his back.
This created a lot of internal tension for me. I didn’t want to interfere because it felt like it wasn’t my place, but I also felt angry about how my brother seemed to distance himself from her once she was no longer as “needed.”
What makes it more complicated is that he told me he was moving from the UK to Portugal. I later found out he stayed in the UK and never told me. I don’t know whether he changed his mind or simply didn’t want contact, but it added to the sense of distance and lack of honesty.
I wanted closure. I suggested meeting and talking it through face to face, but he shut it down and essentially cut contact.
Now I feel stuck between anger, guilt and emptiness. I built my own life abroad, but I’m labelled as the one who was “absent.” I don’t know how much of that is fair and how much is unresolved resentment on his side.
Has anyone navigated sibling resentment that builds over many years like this?
And how do you deal with guilt when you’re the one who left the country?

This is all quite odd and I cant really get clarity on the background but ultimately - you don’t get on with your brother and haven’t for many many years. So just move on

I would ask yourself what you are hoping to achieve and what sort of relationship do you want with your family and why. I would get this down on paper first (just for yourself to sort your thoughts out). However, you need to accept that maybe your sibling is a bit jealous of the life you have led and for whatever reason he hasn’t achieved it. It’s easy for someone who remains in the place where they were born to think that living abroad is easy and he thinks you’ve had it all. It may not be easy to resolve.

I don't quite follow the logistics but I have a comment about:

"our mum - organising, helping and supporting her when she refused to properly look after herself. She was never diagnosed with depression or anything clinical, but she leaned heavily on him... yet at the same time she would complain about my brother and speak badly about him behind his back. This created a lot of internal tension for me. I didn’t want to interfere because it felt like it wasn’t my place, but I also felt angry about how my brother seemed to distance himself from her once she was no longer as “needed.”"

Your mother is the problem here. She's not only overly dependent on her children, she's manipulative and likes to sow conflict. She has likely bitched endlessly about you to your brother as well, thereby creating all this tension between you and him.

I suggest you read "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward

Why haven’t to had contact with your mum for the past year though? If it is your brother that has the issue with you, and it sounds like he doesn’t see her that much either.

This, the way you describe your mum she is toxic, selfish and has no doubt created and nurtured the destruction of your and brothers relationship.
why does she lean so heavily if all ok?

@Fandyman can you clarify where your Mum and brother live/lived?

You state
"I’ve lived in the UK for 18 years and moved to a new area 3 years ago with my wife."

but also "I built my own life abroad, but I’m labelled as the one who was “absent.”"

I realised after posting that I may have unintentionally framed this as "I was the one who left the country." That’s not actually the case.
Both my brother and I have lived in the UK for many years (he arrived a few years before me and we both stayed). My mum also lived in the UK for many years (around the same time as myself) and moved away only about a year ago.
So the issue isn’t really about emigration or physical distance. It’s more about how the past is being interpreted differently - my brother feels he carried the responsibility for 15 years, whereas I don’t recognise myself as having been "absent."
I just wanted to clarify that point as I think I may have oversimplified it in my original post.

You definitely didn’t “oversimplify” anything
The opposite in fact

So the issue isn’t really about emigration or physical distance.

and yet the thread title and OP is entirely about that

I came to say this as well, with a small addition that many older parents act like this without being deliberately malicious. I don't claim to understand exactly how it happens, but assume it's got something to do with difficulty in accepting the role reversal between carer and cared-for. Many, many parents are quite nasty about the child who does more of the caring, but level the field somewhat by complaining about the other for not doing as much!

It's probably wisest to maintain low-key, cordial contact with everyone until/unless one of them shows more interest in you and your family or issues an unmistakeable cease & desist.

When you feel you're getting emotional about it all, remind yourself there's nowt as quare as folks!

Sorry but I agree with the others. This isn't a sibling rivalry issue, it's a toxic parent issue.

However, once his daughter was about 4-5 years old, he began limiting contact with our mum.

sensible

I can see why it reads that way from the title - that’s on me.
Just to clarify - we’ve both lived in the UK for many years. The accusation that I was “absent for 15 years” feels more about how he interprets the past and the roles we each played.
To add some context: over the years I offered my mum help many times to take over from my brother - but she consistently refused. She would say it was my brother’s responsibility because she had looked after his children for years, and there was (in her view) an unspoken understanding that he would look after her in return.
When I mentioned this to my brother, he reacted strongly and said there was never any such agreement.
For context, my mum wasn’t just an occasional grandmother - she was effectively a full-time employed nanny for many years. She also took the children on weekends and, according to her, found it exhausting at times. She helped with his house and garden too, largely on her own initiative. My brother, on the other hand, handled things like hospital visits and organising medical appointments, but otherwise she was largely self-sufficient.
I think part of the difficulty is that we each saw a different side of the same dynamic, and perhaps my mum contributed to that by speaking differently to each of us.

So many words….

"For context, my mum wasn’t just an occasional grandmother 0 she was effectively a full-time employed nanny for many years. She also took the children on weekends and, according to her, found it exhausting at times. She helped with his house and garden too, largely on her own initiative. "

Those efforts were her choice.

"My brother, on the other hand, handled things like hospital visits and organising medical appointments, but otherwise she was largely self-sufficient."

So your woman, who was physically and mentally fit enough to take on extensive nanny duries with young children, couldn't make her own medical appointments? Don't you find that strange?

One of the key things about toxic parents is that they install FOG buttons in their children. FOG = Fear Obligation Guilt. Your mother has made your brother feel obligated and guilty. That's why he reacted strongly when you suggested he's not doing the right thing with your mother.

Also, your mother clearly has a very transactional attitude towards her children: "She would say it was my brother’s responsibility because she had looked after his children for years, and there was (in her view) an unspoken understanding that he would look after her in return."

The FOG is thick here.

I daresay also that you are the Golden Child and your brother is the Scapegoat. This assignment of roles to children is also a classical hallmark of toxic family systems. The golden child is the favored child who is idealized and praised, while the scapegoat is unfairly blamed and criticized and burdend with care duties (while never being thanked).

These roles are not about the children’s actual worth or behavior, they are simply assigned because it serves the emotional needs of narcissistic or emotionally immature parents.

Both the GC and SG suffer from this role assignment, albeit in different ways. It's extremely harmful, and it creates competition between the siblings, meaning they are deprived of a harmonious sibling bond in adulthood. Worse, the favouritiism of the narcissistic parent often passes down to the children of the adult children. Which is likely why your brother doesn't want your mother too much around his daughter now.

OP, you and your brother don't get on. It happens. It's not unusual. So just forget about him, and concentrate on your own life, family, and friends. That's it, because it's really very simple.

I wouldn't give a toss, look after your mental health, enjoy life and don't worry about family.

as a foreign woman, I got nothing clear from your post: can you start again, describing where you all were born, who married who and when and who moved where and when, including your mother

@ChineseKeravan the problem is not because you are foreign, it's because @Fandyman is deliberately obfuscating the whole situation/dynamic

eta; imo

I’m quite confused about the logistics. And it’s all open to interpretation and you each have your own perspectives.

but, as others have said, what it boils first is that you and your brother aren’t close, resent each other, have differing recollections of the past and nothing other than a manipulative mother in common.

move on, don’t dwell on something that won’t change.

You had a perfect right to live abroad and do not need to justify it to your mother, your brother, or anyone else.

🤣🤣🤣

@Fandyman God chooses our relatives, thank God we can choose our friends. Sounds like the only person giving this headspace is you. I’d let it go if I were you.

I think the two posts in a row by @LouiseMadetheBestBroccoliPasta are probably the most helpful, @Fandyman . Hopefully you'll read them.

Good luck - I hope you can find some freedom from the emotional pain this situation is causing you. And maybe even have a good relationship with your brother again, if you can look at what has happened with understanding and compassion for him.

Please can you rewrite your post in a clearer way? If you don’t want to out yourself just change the details slightly, ie if you moved to France, say instead you moved to Spain.