Issue with Brother

[EqualinHim]

Hey,

So some of you guys have seen my previous posts regarding my strained relationship with my brother and my parents. So, my brother was coming into town with his girlfriend for labor day weekend. His girlfriend is like a dance nut, and I love contra dancing. I invited both of them to come to a contra dance that was taking place saturday night at 7:30. He said maybe. Well, 7:45 saturday night rolls around and still no word from them on whether they’ll be attending. I text my brother and he cancels on me last minute. I honestly shouldn’t be shocked that he didn’t want to do this particular activity because he dislikes dancing. But I am disappointed and saddened by the way that he treated me. I really feel like he blew me off and disrespected me by not even bothering to text me a yes or no. One of my love languages is quality time and it hurts so much when people bail on me last minute or don’t want to spend time with me by doing the things I love.

I also mentioned to my mother that I had invited my brother and his girlfriend to contra and they protested, saying “what about us? when will we get to spend time with him?” when there was still plenty of time leftover in the weekend that they could’ve spent with him. I had previously been accused of not wanting to spend enough time with my brother and not making enough of an effort to bond with him. It’s like I cannot win.

 

[Viki63]

Wise souls recommend that we always assume the best of the other person.
You could have texted him half an hour earlier, to find out if they wanted to come. Some people are just really bad at texting back.

I would suggest you try not to be so thin-skinned, Assume the best – he forgot, he was busy helping a stranded motorist change a tire, he dropped his phone in the toilet – anything could have interfered.
If he did disrespect you, you’re in good company, Jesus was disrespected a lot.
You can offer it up for your brother’s salvation.

God bless.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

So you asked him to go to a dance and he didn’t want to. So what? You didn’t have to even tell your parents that you asked him. Be an adult and let things go. Don’t harbor anger and resentments.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I honestly shouldn’t be shocked that he didn’t want to do this particular activity because he dislikes dancing. But I am disappointed and saddened by the way that he treated me. I really feel like he blew me off and disrespected me by not even bothering to text me a yes or no. One of my love languages is quality time and it hurts so much when people bail on me last minute or don’t want to spend time with me by doing the things I love.

I also mentioned to my mother that I had invited my brother and his girlfriend to contra and they protested, saying “what about us? when will we get to spend time with him?” when there was still plenty of time leftover in the weekend that they could’ve spent with him. I had previously been accused of not wanting to spend enough time with my brother and not making enough of an effort to bond with him. It’s like I cannot win.

Let’s break this down. You’re supposed to be making an effort to bond with your brother, so you invite him to an activity that you like, but he doesn’t. If you really wanted to bond with your brother, why not ask him what he would like to do and plan to join him, rather than invite him to do something you love, but he dislikes?

Furthermore, your mom objects to the dance activity because it’s going to cut into whatever family visit time/ activity she has planned. So even if your brother was going to set aside his dislikes and go with you to the dance, he runs the risk of upsetting mom. So why did you not plan some bonding activity that maybe would involve your parents as well, like all get together at their house?

Side note: I realize moms can be very unreasonable about time that their kids spend away from them on a family visit as I went through this every year for years when I would come from out of state for such a visit. I could be planning to stay five days but if I planned a few activities with my friends, Mom would complain that I wasn’t spending enough time with her. She just basically wanted me sitting around the house for five straight days so she could talk to me and look at me. It’s a Mom thing. Try to humor her as much as you can.

Given all of the above, your brother decides he doesn’t want to go, which makes total sense from a logical perspective.

Then he doesn’t text you about not wanting to go, which also makes sense as (a) he may be bad at texting, (b) he knew you would be upset that he didn’t want to go and often in that situation people don’t want to be be the “bearer of bad news” and (c) he may very well have been frustrated - here he is for a family visit and you’re asking him to do something he doesn’t enjoy and mom is being bothered that he won’t have enough time to spend with the parents.

You yourself, instead of texting him or calling him earlier to talk about plans, wait around to hear back from him because to you it’s some big test of love whether he texts back to you. To him, it very well may be “just a text” and a frustrating one at that. When he doesn’t text, you take it personally.

Do you see how you yourself contributed to the misunderstanding in this situation?

How about next time you plan on just joining in on something your brother likes and wants to do, maybe with your parents included (or maybe not, if your brother prefers seeing you one on one)? And stop expecting the text back or message back. Your brother has shown that he’s bad at it. He is not going to live up to your expectations in this regard so you can either change your expectations or keep being disappointed and upset forever every time he fails to get back to you. Part of love is accepting the minor limitations of people, and you cannot control your brother’s behavior, only your own reaction to it.

 

[Allegra]

Then he doesn’t text you about not wanting to go, which also makes sense as (a) he may be bad at texting, (b) he knew you would be upset that he didn’t want to go and often in that situation people don’t want to be be the “bearer of bad news” and (c) he may very well have been frustrated - here he is for a family visit and you’re asking him to do something he doesn’t enjoy and mom is being bothered that he won’t have enough time to spend with the parents.

You yourself, instead of texting him or calling him earlier to talk about plans, wait around to hear back from him because to you it’s some big test of love whether he texts back to you. To him, it very well may be “just a text” and a frustrating one at that. When he doesn’t text, you take it personally.

Do you see how you yourself contributed to the misunderstanding in this situation?

I agree with everything this poster wrote except for this part. It does not “make sense” and it is not reasonable when people avoid responding to invites and questions about planning because being the bearer of bad news makes them uncomfortable. There really is no excuse for that kind of mentality. It’s can be very destructive when people behave that way and responding by text is about the most impersonal way of communicating imaginable, so “it makes me uncomfortable” is not a logical excuse, even if was ever a morally excusable one. Think about it. You can’t respond to an inquiry about plans that may effect multiple people because you don’t want to disappoint them, because waiting until the last minute to **** them off is always the better option. Meanwhile, the other party has no time to make alternative plans. If someone gets an invite and they know they don’t want to go or can’t go, they should respond immediately so the other party isn’t waiting on them. Period.

That being said, the OP should not take it personally that his brother doesn’t want to do the thing he knew his brother didn’t want to do in the first place. Offer a choice your brother will like. I recommend eating out. Almost everyone eats.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I agree that it was rude for your brother to not text back. Unfortunately, people who don’t respond are clueless to how rude their behaviour is. Personally, I would just not bother texting someone who has a habit of not responding.

Also, why do you have to spend more time with your brother? He can’t text back nor can he initiate or propose an activity wth you. Sounds like he doesn’t want to spend more time with you and IMO the logical thing would be to back off

Angie