Am I the asshole for not fixing the relationship with my brother?
Long post so I’m sorry in advance.
Some background you need to know: my(30 F) brother Dave(35 M) spent 10 years after college happily single and more interested in pursuing his dreams of getting a masters degree and being a history and government teacher. He was adamant that he never wanted kids, and having nieces and nephews was as close as he ever wanted to be because he was just not one that had that drive to have kids.
In 2023, he met May and within 2 month of meeting, they got married. No surprise baby, no shotgun wedding, just a secret wedding in my mom’s back yard with our youngest brother officiating. He didn’t even tell me it was happening until I was already at work the day it happened. Even said he didn’t want me to come but he wanted me to know it was happening because Mom told him he had to tell me and our oldest brother. They didn’t tell her family anything. In fact we were told not to post it and to keep it a secret because her family wouldn’t react well.
That summer he was apologizing to her in front of us (me, my husband, and our oldest brother and his wife) for her not being pregnant yet. We were SHOCKED. We asked if he was kidding and he hesitantly said yeah. I asked if he had changed his mind about wanting kids and all he said was “May wants to be a mom” and that’s it.
This woman became more unhinged as time went by.
-She claims to have had a miscarriage even though she never got a blood test to confirm a pregnancy but was pregnant again within 6 weeks.
-we were pregnant at the same time and she would draw attention back to her any time someone else said anything in the family group chat, including me updating on my pregnancy with my daughter that was so risky they put me on bed rest half way through.
-convinced my brother to move to the other side of the country
- wanted 3 baby showers, one from her new job, one in the town they moved to, and one back home in the state most of the rest of our family lives.
So now for the recent issue. They recently got pregnant with kid #2 (after swearing they were ending at one because it was so hard to have a normal pregnancy) and decided that if it was a girl they had a name picked out. The issue? It’s almost exactly my daughter’s name. Think like boys named Stephen and Steven. Not the same but damn near. My brother told me over text and I pointed it out. We had already had a weird overlap with our oldest. My son (5) was named after our dad before dad passed. I used dad’s first name that he didn’t really use. Dave named his son after dad too. His middle name that everyone called him. Said it was to honor dad’s memory. So my son has to share his namesake and now my daughter was getting her unique name infringed upon? My blood boiled. I pointed out the perceived slight and ended the conversation because I was getting too mad. Dave swore May had the name picked out before they ever even had a kid.
I took time and talked to my therapist about it and formulated a reply with her. Essentially, I said if he doubled down on the name, I would back out of his life because I couldn’t watch my kids get their individuality stepped on. It happened to me all the time when I was a kid at Dave’s hands! Anything I was interested in, he had to do first. Or bigger. He couldn’t handle others getting attention.
He never replied to the message. Even when they found out baby #2 is a boy, nothing.
My mom thinks I should be reaching out to fix the relationship and apologize to Dave for being “sensitive”. I don’t think I have anything to apologize for. I left things open for Dave to make the decision whether or not he wanted me in his life. He is the one who ghosted me. Thoughts?
Edit for clarity: I was named something very common so I gave my daughter a unique name for the specific purpose of saving her from being one of a million with the same name. So him knowing that and choosing a similar name anyway is what triggered me.