Brother hasn’t spoken to me in 10 years and I don’t know why!
\*\*TL;DR;
**I’m a 35-year-old woman, the youngest of four siblings, and I’ve been estranged from my eldest brother for 10 years — with no real explanation.**
Two of my siblings are from my dad’s first marriage (the eldest I’m talking about who’s about 10 plus years older than me, and my sister who’s about 8 years older). The youngest brother (also about 8 years older than me) is from my mum’s first marriage. Despite technically being “half” siblings, I never saw them that way growing up. I absolutely adored them all, especially my eldest brother. I looked up to him completely as a child.
My family isn’t perfect. One of my brothers has struggled with crime, prison, and mental health issues for years, but even with him, there’s still contact and understanding. He’s at arms length and right now I can’t find him to contact him. He’s a hard one to pin down, but when my son was born I still sent him pictures and he was pleased. His son and ex partner are close to my family, and are utterly adored.
My sister and I are closer. There’s love there. She is a busy woman but her and her daughter are wonderful. My children worship them!
But with my eldest brother, everything changed around my wedding 10 years ago.
Back story: my parents met when both their partners were having affairs, and actually had an affair with one another! So my parents met due to “investigating” their own partners!
There has been jealousy from my siblings, as I was spoilt. In truth they too were very spoiled (I hate that word, more like treated really well) by my parents to make up for their lived being turned upside down. Motor bikes, horses, you name it. I have no issues with this, it was lovely. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and at the time I had a lot less. I made up for it when they all grew up and I was the baby being spoilt. I get it!
So the wedding…
Leading up to it, there were constant excuses and issues from him and his wife — problems with the hotel, the suit fitting, money, work, whether they could stay overnight, etc. Every issue was solved calmly by me or my parents because we knew it was coming. He and his wife always pushed back to try and make drama… we never let it get that far and smiled through it all.
We paid for things where needed and rearranged appointments to make it easier for them.
Then, around 3–4 weeks before the wedding, my brother called me and said he wasn’t coming.
I was devastated and completely confused. He said he’d “fallen out” with our dad and couldn’t be around him. To this day, nobody knows what that argument supposedly even was — including my dad.
I begged him to come. I cried down the phone explaining that this was my wedding, not my father’s, and that I needed my big brother there. I said I was his little sister and I loved him so much. I told him I’d never forgive him if he missed it.
He still refused and hung up on me.
Since then: nothing.
No apology. No explanation. No attempt to fix it.
A month later, he casually turned up at my dad’s house borrowing tools as though nothing had happened.
My mother was livid, she refused him into the house until he apologised to me. He never did.
He goes and talks to my dad in the garage now. My dad is a lovely man, he was really angry but over the years he wants to talk to his son, so I get it.
He blocked me on everything. His wife blocked me too. They eventually split up, but still nothing changed. He moved in with my sister for a while and was still speaking to other family members, including my dad eventually — just not me.
My sister did apparently have a go at him about it, but nothing happened and still no explanation from anyone. My mother is clueless why this happened too.
My children are now 8 and 5, and he has never met them. I haven’t seen his son in a decade either.
That’s the part that breaks me the most. I grew up idolising my big brother, and now I genuinely don’t understand why I was the one completely cut out.
Lately it’s been weighing heavily on me again, and I don’t know what to do.
Do I reach out after 10 years, despite being the one who was hurt? Or do I finally accept that sometimes people choose estrangement without explanation, and closure might never come?
I genuinely have no idea what I did. There is no dark secrets, I was pretty easy going and idolised him!
I do live an hour away so I wasn’t expecting to be besties but zero contact at all?
I do want my apology, I want my explanation. But I worry I’ll open up a very painful can of worms and end up more upset.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of one-sided family cutoff?