Am I(f20) being unreasonable, asking my brother(M19) to make more of an effort?
I f20 and my brother M19 are having a fundamental moral disagreement about what we should expect out of each other as siblings, and I’m having a hard time, figuring out whether I’m being reasonable.
I went through a really hard time a couple months ago and after what happened he knows that I’ve been struggling really bad mentally. I personally feel that if you love someone you would want to make the effort to do something nice for them to see if you could make them feel better especially if I see that my loved one is doing bad mentally. I would like to add this isn’t because I feel obligated or expect anything in return but rather because I would just like to do something nice for them.
My brother’s perspective is basically the opposite. My brother believes that any relationship whether that be friendship or in this case a sibling ship, he’s not obligated to do anything for me ever, or for anyone else for that matter unless he genuinely wants to, which is almost never.
With our different respective, you can see how it was really hurtful to hear that because he never makes an effort or does anything that’s inconvenient for him. He insist that it isn’t personal towards me, but that he wouldn’t do that for anybody simply because he doesn’t want to.
To me any sort of relationship isn’t about what you’re morally obligated to do, and I don’t believe just because I do nice things for someone else they’re obligated to do nice things for me. I do nice things for people because I want to. But I do believe a relationship with any human means that you do have to consider other people and their needs even when it might be inconvenient towards you.
I’m the type of person who does this naturally, and I understand my brother is someone who doesn’t. But after having a conversation with him a while ago, he repeatedly said that he would work on it and make more of an effort to Make me feel loved and appreciated. He never came through on that.
During our argument today, I understand that you shouldn’t completely neglect yourself for others or constantly sacrifice my own well-being, but I don’t understand how I relationship with anyone can work if my mindset is “I don’t know anyone anything, especially if something is inconvenient for me”. But at the same time, I understand that my brother feels pressured by my expectation and believes I’m asking too much of him my brother says that normal sibling relationship, friendships, etc. don’t require this much effort and I should leave it be.
I would like to add that during this really difficult time in my life the only thing you would do is listen to me and I think that’s about you and that I wouldn’t get a hug or really any word of comfort.
My brother argues that is not obligated to make more than a bare minimum effort of doing literally nothing but having a conversation.
My question goes out to audience, what should we expect for our siblings? Am I being unreasonable by asking him to do more than the bare minimum because I feel like we have different bare minimum?
Feel free to ask any questions down below, I’ll make sure to answer everything to the best of my ability! 😊