What to do about my brother not staying in touch...

mountainofdebt

anrutpea wrote: »

Like i said we all get the same so it's not jealousy over money it's the fact that i show gratitude to my parents. They won't accept money from me so to show my gratitude for taking me on holiday i invite my parents for a meal, or bake them cakes etc, buy a plant etc. My brother can't even send a message to show appreciation.

I don't smother my folks we can go a fortnight with no contact then we will call for a catch up or pop round for a meal.

But it sounds as if this your parents 'fight' rather than yours.

If your brother is the ungrateful git you've said he is, then its up to your parents to tell him so.

There's things that my sister has done which has annoyed me but unless my mother has asked (or hinted) that she wants me to say something to her then I keep out of it;that doesn't mean that I like my sister for it though.

fin7

I've got the opposite problem, my brother is forever turning up at my house to borrow money and off load all his woes on me!

Fin

Errata

The blunt truth is that the parents have brough the brother up to be a knob.

*Louise*

Unfortunately it takes both people to make the relationship work, not much you can do if the other doesn't bother. You just need to let it go and be pleasant when you do see each other.


I have always been close to my sister's, but my brother.....well, right now I don't even know his phone number or address. Thanks to Facebook I know he is alive and I could get him on there if there was a emergency. We have seen him once since our dad died two years ago, he has been no support to anyone so we all just leave him to get on with his life. Sometime in the future he will show up at my mum's for something like he was never away. If that's how he wants to live his life, so be it.

DKLS

Leave him be, he is a bloke and as sad as it is for the op, he is probably just not that interested/ busy with his own life and possibly perceives that you don't need him in your life.


I have a handful of family members I see regularly, others I see at family funerals and that's it.


I have seen my cousin twice in 30 years and her daughter once and she only lives 10 miles away, I am simply not that interested in her.

Mr_Toad

This is a person we're talking about, not a family pet that's escaped!

He might simply be sick to death of 'family' life, especially if he's expected to show gratitude for every crumb of anything dispensed in his direction.

It seems to me that your parents are trying to buy his affection with money and holidays and as you are finding out, it doesn't work.

There must be some reason he keeps to himself and we'll never get to hear his side of the story, and there's bound to be one.

You can't force someone to keep in touch and it may well be a case of 'You can choose your friends but not your relatives'.

trinity_enigma

My brother is very similar to yours- but with even less contact!! He just drops off the face of the earth for a while but when we do see him it's like no time has passed and everything is as it was.

Sometimes we don't hear from him for years at a time- we saw him a couple of years ago for Christmas (we weren't sure he was actually going to turn up but he did!). That was the first time my OH had met him and we'd been together for at least 2 years. We didn't see him again for another 2 1/2 years when he came to our wedding. Before this he hadn't responded to texts telling him we were engaged or asking if he was coming to the wedding (although he had told my sister he was coming in a chance encounter of being on facebook at the same time which he uses about once a year). I rang him about a month before the wedding and he actually answered and seemed quite hurt that I thought he might not come tothe wedding. He told me that he might not make it to Christmas or general visits but he will always make time for the big stuff.

Having said all that I've text him to let him know he will be an uncle months ago and still haven't heard anything and I worry our child will grow up having no idea who his uncle is.

onlyroz

Just because he's your brother doesn't necessarily mean that he wants to be your friend. It's nothing to do with "gratitude", and doesn't mean that anything is particularly wrong with your relationship, just that he's not that interested. It doesn't make him a "knob" or whatever else other people have referred to him as, just that he doesn't particularly see the need to keep in touch with people he has little in common with.

My husband rarely sees his sister and his mother. When growing up neither of them had any time for him, or took any particular interest in what he was up to. Therefore, he doesn't see why he should now feel obligated to go along to family gatherings just because they're related.

paulineb_2

I see my brother now and then (more so now as I see him at his work, hes a gym instructor at the gym I go to most often, we have a quick chat when he has spare time). We'll text, maybe see one another away from his work a few times a year for birthday meals and Christmas, he goes up to see my mum at her home once a week. Even though we dont live in one anothers pockets, we are close.

Id say why would you want to spend money on holidays for a son that cant really be bothered with you any other time?

It does go two ways, hes making his position very clear, theres nothing wrong with keeping the lines of communication open, but he obviously doesnt see a problem with accepting expensive holidays and then not bothering to keep in touch, therefore I would say parents have a choice as to whether they need to keep spending.

anrutpea

Wow - some really nice, helpful comments and a few extreme, harsh and totally uncalled for comments.

The first thing you read on these forums is 'be nice to your fellow moneysavers' so please for the minority of nasty people on here please bear this in mind.

I did have a feeling as soon as i posted for advice that i was going to be accused over bitter/financial issues but this really isn't the case. My parents have always been mindful that we both get the same as far as money is concerned. I don't expect 'gratitude for every crumb' but can you really call £10k a crumb? this is a life changing amount of money and an act of kindness that i think my brother could at least have invited them down to stay- but like a lot of you say that's their business.

I was asking whether i should say something - i wasn't going to go in like a ton of bricks shouting and being abusive. I was merely thinking of saying it's really difficult to plan a surprise event for my parent's wedding anniversary, book table numbers etc if an important member of the family (for my parents) is not responding.

It's totally fine if he gets in touch to say no it's too far to come for one evening - fine. but i do not get a response. This is the point i was making.

Anyway you all speak a lot of sense when you say it is his life and he can live it as he chooses.

I don't think i deserved the character assassination in the process of asking for simple advice.

The majority of you have been kind though so thank you.

My main worry that i didn't want to share with you but feel like i should now because of the nasty comments. His girlfriend once emailed me out of the blue many years ago now to say he had been suffering from a bad bout of depression and she had only found out the evening before he was to submit his final dissertation at uni and hadn't done it. she stayed up all night with him to get something typed up and submitted so that he didn't flunk uni and he ended up getting a 1st.

Our family had no idea of this until his girlfriend emailed me then i raised it discreetly with my parents and they went to visit him and got him help that he required.

I worry if his lack of contact is down to more bouts of depression or whether indeed he does just wish to live his life in peace and without family contact. We will never know this.

I accept now that he has chosen his path and i will always be here for him if he needs anything but will not bother him with texts that will go unanswered.

As for my parent's surprise meal i will just assume he is not attending unless I hear otherwise.

Thanks again peeps and to those nasty people remember karma always comes back to bite you on the @ss!

Good day peeps - I have a wedding to finish planning with my lovely fiance and sister is my bridesmaid :-). We have just booked our honeymoon today too. So excited.