<p>My husband has an evil twin…seriously. If no other human had ever been compared to the rectum of a donkey, the term would have been invented to apply to him. His wife isn’t much better. But somehow they managed to raise a delightful daughter. If I were you, I’d keep in touch with your niece through Facebook, send her a lighthearted message asking for her address, and leave her dad totally out of the picture.</p>
<p>Teri:</p>
<p>I remembered wrong. My apologies.</p>
<p>teriwitt - is there any chance he had a little help writing the email? How involved is his wife in this?</p>
<p>I agree with zoosermom to write it all out. Write it in a word processing program, though, so that you don’t inadvertently hit Send. Then print it, read it, and tear it up. As another poster suggested, once it’s in writing in an e-mail you no longer have any control about how it’s used, who it’s shown to or how it’s edited. It’s out there forever.</p>
<p>In writing to your brother, if you want to send anything, leave it at “I’m sorry you feel that way. I wish only the best for you and your family.” (And as a side benefit, nothing makes a bully more frustrated than a victim who refuses to engage!)</p>
<p>Get your niece’s address from your niece, or from another family member. Let her make her own choices, don’t bad-mouth her father, and take the high road with her. You may or may not end up with a relationship, but you will know that you’ve done the right thing.</p>
<p>teri, zooser, and others with difficult sibling relationships - so sorry for your unhappiness. teri, I agree that writing a letter will help to ease your heartache. I think you could write it over several weeks, put it away for a time, and then maybe even send it - once you’ve had a chance to get some perspective. I think your brother could benefit from learning that your recollections of past events are very different, and that your intentions were never to treat him or his family badly. (And that you certainly aren’t responsible for family dynamics when you were a child.)</p>
<p>This thread has me wondering about the expectations people have of sibling relationships. Shortly after we were married 30 years ago, my SIL (then 20-something) called me up and, in a long, tearful conversation, raged about how distant her brother was. I was flummoxed! It hadn’t occurred to me that she wanted, needed, or expected more from her brother than an occasional conversation. And it certainly had never occurred to him - he didn’t expect that from her. Who’s wrong? </p>
<p>I’m not “close” to my brothers in terms of seeing or talking to them often. We live several hours away from each other. My expectations aren’t that I’m supposed to make a certain number of trips or phone calls, or host a certain number of dinners - or that they are, either. But I love them, and their children, very much. It feels right to me that we have very separate lives; I don’t think it means we’re emotionally estranged, or that something’s wrong with our extended family. (My SILs may feel differently, though.)</p>
<p>Just musing, but maybe different ideas about the way family relationships “should” play out is responsible for part of your brother’s diatribe. Hope you’ll be feeling better soon.</p>
<p>I guess I think there should be some connection. Even just on holidays. My oldest brother lives about 2 hours away. I was invited to his home just once, ten years ago for a housewarming. Everyone was entertained on the deck, so I’ve never been inside. I kind of think that’s not too much to ask. Maybe a Christmas card? Our mother is very ill and the brother who lives with her and I could use a helping hand, but it wouldn’t be possible for me to call him and ask. Same with sister. She doesn’t work, has no kids at home and her husband not only passes my mother’s house on the way to work, but he works at the facility where my mother is treated. Not possible to ask her to sit with mom on occasion either. I have a ten-year old and he doesn’t remember my sister and would never recognize my more distant brother or his wife. Which I think is sad. I don’t think that’s how families should be.</p>
<p>Teri - thanks for the clarification. I just responded to the blanket stereotyping, I suppose.</p>
<p>Families are tough, no matter how you look at it. Hence, the adage, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your relatives.”</p>
<p>Generally, there’s two sides to every story, and your brother is seeing things through his own lens. There’s not much you can do to fix that at this point. I agree with ZM that there should be some connection, but that’s impossible if the other doesn’t want it.</p>
<p>I guess all we can really do is reach out to our nieces and nephews and hope to instill better values in our own children. It’s hard when they don’t see good role-modeling, but that’s clearly not always possible.</p>
<p>Oh, I agree there should be a connection! I guess I just don’t know how one quantifies that - what’s the right amount of contact to stay connected? What you’ve outlined in post 46 does seem quite extreme. I’d call those relationships estranged, certainly.</p>
<p>But I do think that there can be differing levels of need and expectation. This is probably getting OT, and I don’t mean to derail the conversation from teri’s situation. I know that my husband loves his sister, wishes her the best, has been generous to her and her children at holidays. But he doesn’t want - isn’t comfortable with - frequent contact. She wants more in their relationship - he finds those expectations draining. I don’t know how anyone can determine who’s right and who’s wrong in such a situation. I think that adults, though, can try to see the other person’s point of view. This doesn’t seem to have occurred to teri’s brother yet - hope it will.</p>
<p>I do see a “gender thread” running through this. Obviously there will be exceptions, but it seems like women usually want more contact/closeness (which isn’t as important to many men), and men want women to take ownership of the logistics of making family events happen (which many women don’t really want to do, especially today with careers & families of our own & elderly parents to care for, etc.). One from Mars and one from Venus…</p>
<p>T, I would reiterate NOT to mention the announcement. Even if it was an honest mistake, it will breed resentment (guilty feelings because they may feel that they have committed a social error) if you bring it up at all. Like Grandma reminding you that you didn’t get her a thank you note for her last gift… If you had a great relationship it would be okay, but not productive in this particular situation.</p>
<p>Getting back to the wedding announcements, when they are sent they are usually to people who are not invited to the wedding, itself. Even though it was a last minute invitation, that was not the case, here. So I don’t think there’s any harm in bringing up the announcements if it’s from that perspective.</p>
<p>Just from reading this thread I hope everyone realizes that if you don’t have a close relationship with your sibling(s), you’re not alone.</p>
<p>In the practice of real estate law, I’ll encounter property that is owned jointly by siblings. One group sued our client. When we negotiated the settlement, one brother refused to be in the same room with his siblings…we had to negotiate separately with him.</p>
<p>On another occasion, I had to get something signed by the adult siblings in large family. I think there were 7 of them. No one sibling had contact information for all of the others…one would be in touch with two more, then one of those woud be in touch with others. When I was done calling them all, I was tempted to send them all an updated family address list.</p>
<p>teriwtt - I have read your post and many of the responses. Many of those who responded also have difficult family situations.</p>
<p>My recommendation - find a good therapist and talk about some of these issues. Yes, there are two sides to every story.</p>
<p>Since there are so many years between you and your siblings it’s almost like you are an only child. By the time you were 10 or so your parents were most likely more financially stable than when they had their older children. You may have had a different lifestyle than your siblings did as you grew up. </p>
<p>You can do small things to keep in touch with your nieces and nephews - sending them thoughtful cards on their birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. Writing them little notes about family stories, etc. For instance I always send St. Patrick’s Day cards with a little note about the family’s Irish ancestry.</p>
<p>And you can also send your siblings birthday and other holiday cards with a short note - you don’t have to do more than that. I once kept sending birthday cards to a sister in law who usually ignored me at family gatherings. It took several years, but one day I got a letter from her in which she told me how much she appreciated the cards and how I never gave up on our relationship - and all I sent was a birthday card once a year.</p>
<p>I do urge you to see a counselor - or perhaps your minister, if you are so inclined.</p>
<p>Good luck and take care.</p>
<p>I’m amazed at the number of people willing to end family relationships and/or discuss important, long-standing familial conflicts, by e-mail. E-mail. I cannot imagine not picking up the phone and talking directly to the person involved about these issues. So much of communication is non-verbal. You lose some of it even by having to discuss it via telephone because you cannot see their face, body language, etc. But there is no give and take, no instant feedback with e-mail, and I realize it’s quite convenient, especially when dealing with mundane, administrative details, but IMO it’s no substitute for person to person interaction of a serious, personal nature. </p>
<p>I realize that sometimes it really can be best to completely distance one’s self from a toxic, dysfunctional relationship, but I just have a hard time conceiving of handling it via e-mail. Especially when we are talking about a brother or sister. No disrespect intended.</p>
<p>Secondly, if my niece got married and I had regretfully had to decline the invitation, I would not be waiting for an announcement to come in the mail before sending a gift. I don’t get that at all-perhaps that’s a cultural and/or geographical difference we are talking about here. This was a young woman who had invited her aunt to her wedding, so I guess I’m just not getting why there would be an expectation that a formal announcement must be received before consideration is given to sending a gift. </p>
<p>Sounds like there are many complex, longstanding, heartwrenching issues going on here. It would seem to me to be a shame to shelve the relationship completely or even to let it die a quiet death over time without at least some effort at reconciliation with perhaps a third party participant such as a counselor or clergyman where each sibling could hash out their issues within the safe structure of professionally directed discourse. But of course, only those involved here can make that call.</p>
<p>I too am the baby by over a decade with three older sibs, but I was lucky, two of mine had kids about the same time I did which allowed us to forge the bonds of common experiences.</p>
<p>I do notice that I had a completely different set of parents than the rest- they were hippies in the full era of rebellion, graduating HS in the 60s, I graduated in the 80s, an entirely different era of experiences :D</p>
<p>I have not yet read the entire thread, but have a couple of emails on your communications:</p>
<pre><code> One rarely regrets taking the high road, contact your niece, take the onus of blame for the delay on yourself and send her a gift without mentioning her Dad
Do not write anything you would not want printed and shared.
If you do write something, think first about your purpose- sympathy or solution? Are you doing this to be heard for your feelings? Or would you be saying it to reach some end result? Write whatever works for your goal. If your goal is sympathy (or in this case to be heard by your brother on his mis-statements) do you think that can really happen? Can he hear you? Do you just want to vomit back feelings onto him or do you think you could reach a meeting of minds.
If you only want to refute his comments, I am not sure i would bother with any more than that we had different memories of the occasions.
</code></pre>
<p>My in-laws are pretty outrageous, but I have always struggled to know whether I was being a stereotypical bratty DIL in my thoughts or if I was 100% right and they were wrong. A few years ago I had occasion to spend a multi month time period in their town and attended several functions with them involving people they have known since the 60s. I now know it really is them, not me. I was amazed at the things people told me, I guess being married nearly 30 years, it was now safe to make these basically snide, but true, remarks.</p>
<p>I feel better as a person and wish some one had acknowledged this craziness in them sooner so I spent fewer years efforting to please them.</p>
<p>I am not telling them off, I am not in need of that, as it makes me feel enough better to know it is them not me. They will not change anyway, so why waste my energy, I just choose to give them no power over me-easier said than done, but very freeing.</p>
<p>Do you have any one who knows you both and is impartial who can help you determine if it is really him or both of you??</p>
<p>cartera
</p>
<p>I really don’t think she’d get involved, although she’s pulled some pretty hurtful things herself. The year we lived in the same town (when D2 was born), we were (as usual) terribly broke. I was now up to five nieces and nephews that I was buying presents for, for every birthday and every Christmas. This particular Christmas, I decided the only way I could manage anything decent, was to make presents, so I spent 2-3 months, leading up to Christmas making personalized cross-stitch sweatshirts for each child. A week or so before Christmas (three days before we left town) I received a letter in the mail from her (we LIVE in the same town, but she sent me mail), saying that they feel their kids are being spoiled by so many relatives, and asked that we not give their kids gifts for Christmas… this is after I’ve spent days upon days making their gifts, which were personalized, and a written letter, not a phone call. Needless to say, I had H drop the gifts off at their house (what was I going to do with them?) anyway. While we were away, she tried to drop off a present for our D1, but we were gone, so she left it with a neighbor and we got it when we returned. So, yes, she does have some quirky ideas about communicating and family relationships. After that year, I stopped sending presents. But I don’t think she would go this far as to write this email, or even suggest it. </p>
<p>For those who have suggested, I do try to keep in touch by sending Christmas cards. In fact, I don’t ever remember receiving one Christmas card from any of my brothers. So I’m not one of those people who only sends cards to those who send them to me. One of my nieces (from another brother) sends us a card every year. This year we had a lovely card designed from some family portraits we had done last summer at the beach; one of my nieces even commented on my facebook how much she liked it. But most of the ‘greeting card’ sending has fallen on my side of the track. </p>
<p>chevda
Ha ha… don’t you know that the first thing I was tempted to do was to forward the email to my other brothers. Of course I didn’t, and won’t, as I’ve become very stringent with who I sent what to, in emails. I was also tempted to post the email on here, but again, knew it would be out there for anyone to do what they want with it. Nah, don’t need to go there!</p>
<p>frazzled
</p>
<p>Not at all; these are the things I need to hear, because it affirms what missypie says here:
</p>
<p>inparent:
<br>
I’m agreeing with you, at least from this small sample of posters on CC.</p>
<p>missypie: I guess part of the reason I keep kicking myself over this, is that I see this stuff all the time in my work, too. I’ve seen every extreme of familial discords that are out there. I didn’t want this, and so I have tried to keep my disappointments to myself when left out of the loop, etc. Again, we’re the ones who chose to move away, so I can’t expect the kind of relationships that would be more possible if we lived closer (although I do know that this brother and his wife often travel to see her siblings and their significant others, and they have much closer relationships). I guess I had thought I was taking the right steps to avoid estrangement.</p>
<p>and finally, singersmom:
oh, believe me, when I got that e-mail and couldn’t reach any of my friends, my therapist was the first one I contacted. I have someone I’ve seen for many years, and am committed to seeing as long as I’m doing the kind of work I do - many times in my work, I’ve come across situations where I feel like I’m responding to something because it reminds me of my family of origin. Luckily, I’ve worked very hard at becoming aware of my ‘stuff’, and when I am aware, I work through it with a therapist. There’s nothing more unethical to me than a chaplain that needs to play out her issues from the past with a patient and their family. I am keenly aware of my issues when I’m working, but this direct confrontation just threw me for a loop. Anyway, one of the first things I said to him was, “Why didn’t you ever tell me I was such a self-centered brat? You’re not doing your job.” He reassured me that the things I was being accused of were absolutely totally not me. And it was great to hear that, but I have to do the internal work of erasing messages. In the meantime, my poor niece is hanging out there, probably wondering why we’re the only family who didn’t send something.</p>
<p>Btw… I don’t have an email for her, but thanks to the person who suggested getting it off of her facebook. I forget you can do that. </p>
<p>I’ve always kind of prided myself on getting unique gifts for people, things other people wouldn’t think of, or buy for themselves. So I do enjoy the shopping. And I can be sneaky, too, in trying to find out information I need for a particular gift. But I particularly like to give to those, who I know are walking in shoes I’ve walked in, and who have really had to wonder if all this time and money invested in post-bachelor’s education is worth it.</p>
<p>
somemom - actually, that is another possibility I’ve given consideration to. I have a couple of female cousins who are more my brother’s ages (I’m the second to youngest of over 25 first cousins on my mom’s side), who came to visit me this summer. We had an awesome time! They have a sister my age, and a brother a year younger than me (he’s the youngest of the 25), so they know what it’s like to have sibs with such age differences. It occured to me when they were here, that they have memories and perspectives of my family’s life during a time that I was too young to remember. I do feel like I was picked on by my cousins of the same age, and a lot of it was probably deserved. But as an adult, I think my cousins have done a better job of getting to know me and appreciating me for who I am, than my brother. So I thought about running this past one of them (or both), because I think they would be honest with me. But their brother just got married this weekend (finally!), and I’m sure they’ve been busy traveling, etc. I don’t want to intrude on this time they’re all having. But it is something I’m contemplating.</p>
<p>
From my sister, I would say I’m estranged. But the brother went to college when I was four and never again lived in the area. We aren’t estranged, but we are strangers. He is an admirable man, but we’ve never been at the same place in our lives. His daughter, my niece, is my contemporary, though, and we are close.</p>
<p>Teri, I think you should speak to your cousins. They can probably fill in gaps you don’t even know exist.</p>
<p>zmom - yes, I am exactly halfway in age between my brother and my niece. He is 16 years older than me, and I, 16 years older than her. I often gravitate toward her at family functions, and of my three nieces, she is the one I communicate more with on facebook. We kind of had a running joke going on a couple of weeks ago, that we were the anomalies in the families, as both our political persuasions are out of the norm for our family. She told me she thought that, after all her work on her, her sister was ‘coming around’.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that you are estranged from your brothers. As you can tell from the responses, you are not the only one. Lots of family issues everywhere.</p>
<p>Give it a little time. Keep in touch without being pushy about it. I would send a gift to your niece without involving your brother. I know you were expecting an announcement, but many folks don’t send them anymore. Things seem to be much more relaxed these days, but it does make it more difficult to figure out what is happening.</p>
<p>My brother married with two weeks notice and my H, some of my sons and my other brother’s wife and family could not attend. Everyone who did not make it to the wedding sent lavish notes, cards, e-mails, phone calls, etc. Except for my mother who did not even acknowledge the wedding as she does not do second marriages. Sigh. What does one do with family?</p>