What is the age difference?

Everyone who cuts off family does so because of their own perceived hurts. In pretty much every case other family members think they are overreacting. The fact you think that you understand his childhood and the events that transpired better than he does isn't valid. He lived his own experiences. Everyone has their own perception and experience of what they went through. He may just be far more sensitive and therefore is easily hurt by their actions.

I have a brother who's also inclined to take an all or nothing approach to relationships, who doesn't hesitate to hold a grudge for years over an offense so minor that no one else who witnessed it has any idea it was a problem. Doesn't sound quite the same as your brother, but with mine, I find that I just have to not engage with his rage at all. He's personality has this underlying constant anger and frustration, but he also has a lot of good. I have conversations around the good, set up interactions that allow his positives to shine, and when he gets riled up about something some one did, I quietly listen for a minute or two but then try to move the conversation along to something else and don't take sides - he can get pretty scary when he's upset, so I try to cut the tirade off before he goes off the deep end. He may one day cut me off, or take a multiyear hiatus from speaking to me, but I already know there's nothing I can do to prevent that. It's how he operates and whether I'm the one he next feels has plotted against him is really out of my control. So, I try not to worry about it and I don't put a whole lot of stock in us being close. When we can enjoy each other's company, that's great, but when we can't, that's fine and he just needs the space.

I don't know if that's helpful OP, but my point is just that sometimes it's not about you and realizing that can help you detach emotionally from whatever the outcome may be.

OP, while I understand you are tense about this situation, what is starting to stand out is your fear that your brother will cut you off too. He sounds like he's maybe a little rigid, but at the same time your fear sounds outsized as does your feeling of walking on eggshells. It seems projected a bit onto him considering your multiple acknowledgments that he has actually been wronged and may not be ready to accept apologies and move on.

Is there some guilt on your part that you are not acknowledging. Sometimes when someone has an outsized fear of something occurring there is some feelings they are not acknowledging. Otherwise I don't see why you would fear so much that your brother would turn on you. Either it's rational that he would be angry, justifiably so, and just not ready to forgive, which you seem to admit, or he's out of bounds. If he's rational, what's going on with you?

Anonymous wrote:Take the high road. Regardless of what he does. Don't take sides.

How is not taking sides taking the high road? Is it taking the high road to allow others to hurt someone and not take sides against them -- as long as it's not you they're hurting, of course? Maybe OP should ask herself if her other sibs and parents will treat her as badly as they have the estranged brother someday. That's how it works, in my experience, which is why it makes sense to speak up and "take sides."

Take the high road. Regardless of what he does. Don't take sides.

I recently cut off my parents (april) and have spoken with my brother to make sure it's not putting pressure on him. I have no intention of cutting off my brother. I don't take it as a personal affront that he is still in touch with them.

Anonymous wrote:If you don't defend your brother from what you acknowledge is a powerful wrong done to him by other family members, whatever it is, then what good are you as a sibling? how would you feel if someone hurt you, and others just said, "eh, not my fight" and continued socializing with them? Maybe you could tell your brother that you know what happened was wrong, since you said it here a couple of times.

I have told him that I thought it was wrong. And, at the time, I told the family members to get their heads out of their asses and do better and apologize (although I said that in a nicer, more productive way), which they did. But, I didn't agree with him that cutting off ties was the right response. Nonetheless, I understood that was his decision, and while I still have a relationship with him, I don't discuss my parents with him any longer.

When my brother and I disagree about things in the present, they have nothing to do with the past with him and my parents. They have to do with our different views about, for example, my kids. It seems impossible to agree to disagree with him.

If you don't defend your brother from what you acknowledge is a powerful wrong done to him by other family members, whatever it is, then what good are you as a sibling? how would you feel if someone hurt you, and others just said, "eh, not my fight" and continued socializing with them? Maybe you could tell your brother that you know what happened was wrong, since you said it here a couple of times.

You might want to read up on unhealthy family relationships to try and see where your brother is coming from. It could be that he is way overreacting, or it could be that you are The Golden Child and he is The Scapegoat.

Anonymous wrote:So I am sort of in your brother's position, although there is abuse and mental illness in my family. My brother inherited alcoholism and substance abuse issues from my mother. My brother came very very close to dying 8 years ago and his use of alcohol and substance abuse is especially dangerous in his case. My mother condones it and my father very aggressively opposes the use of alcohol and drugs, so my brother talks to my mother but not my father.

My mother is a pretty toxic person. She was emotionally (and occasionally physically) abusive towards me and generally a mess. I don't talk to her and I only barely speak with my brother (though I do TRY, he is not very reliable..). Anyhow, my brother often tries to convince me to visit my mother/her family and says I will have to "go back eventually." Honestly, I was never planning on talking to them again, unless she seeks professional help.

Someone told me that it doesn't really matter much if my brother's memories and perspective of my mom are more favorable than mine, because I remember abuse. I felt abuse.

The idea of reconnecting with my mother makes me very fearful and uncomfortable. Please consider that your brother's actions came out of a place of self-preservation, that his feelings are quite real for him, even if they are not very "real" for you.

I get that my brother's feelings are real to him. I'm not pretending that what my parents and brother did was crappy and hurtful. This is why, very early on after fairly minimal discussion of the break, I have dropped it. I do not try to convince him to repair the relationship. The only thing I do is to pass on invitations to larger family events -- ones that are not given by my parents but to which my parents might also be invited. I do not wish to be in the position of including or excluding him, those are his choices to make.

I'm really more concerned with the relationship now between the two of us. I feel like I am often walking on eggshells with him, and that makes our relationship less "real," which saddens me.

So I am sort of in your brother's position, although there is abuse and mental illness in my family. My brother inherited alcoholism and substance abuse issues from my mother. My brother came very very close to dying 8 years ago and his use of alcohol and substance abuse is especially dangerous in his case. My mother condones it and my father very aggressively opposes the use of alcohol and drugs, so my brother talks to my mother but not my father.

My mother is a pretty toxic person. She was emotionally (and occasionally physically) abusive towards me and generally a mess. I don't talk to her and I only barely speak with my brother (though I do TRY, he is not very reliable..). Anyhow, my brother often tries to convince me to visit my mother/her family and says I will have to "go back eventually." Honestly, I was never planning on talking to them again, unless she seeks professional help.

Someone told me that it doesn't really matter much if my brother's memories and perspective of my mom are more favorable than mine, because I remember abuse. I felt abuse.

The idea of reconnecting with my mother makes me very fearful and uncomfortable. Please consider that your brother's actions came out of a place of self-preservation, that his feelings are quite real for him, even if they are not very "real" for you.

This situation shows that his rejection has hurt every member of his family, even you, whom he did no reject outright, because you live in fear that he might...

My husband also sees things very much in black and white. Sometimes we have giant quarrels about what I perceive to be his extreme view of the world. He has Asperger's tendencies, and Asperger's syndrome run in his family.

So the things that do not affect our life together, I generally let go, and focus on the children, our careers and parenting strategies. We still fight about certain things. What helps is that I stay very cool and analytical, and present arguments like a lawyer. That way he can focus on the content of my argument instead of on our emotions.

Don't know if that helps. Last point: accept that he won't change, and might indeed get worse as he ages! Just do the best you can, and if he rejects you, so be it.

I think you try to accept him the way he is, as a hurt and imperfect person, without picking sides. And of course you have different memories and experiences within your family than he does, all siblings so. That doesn't make him wrong about the fight. His experience within the family was his experience as was yours and both were valid and neither of you have the correct version of the past. So to the extent you think he's some sort of loose cannon, I don't see that as productive.

If you fear he is going to reject you too why not tell him?

So, long story short, my brother cut off my parents and my other brother, several years ago. There was a precipitating incident, to which I felt like he was overreacting. This was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back from his perspective. IMO, his perception of the underlying contributing factors wasn't accurate (I am older and have memories of his childhood and things my parents did or didn't do that he does not) and he interpreted mal-intent on my parent's part that I don't believe was there. My parents and my other brother tried to apologize, but he wouldn't accept it. We talked about it a little bit when he cut them off, but it was clear that he felt very strongly that he was right and any different view on my part was, in effect, perpetuating their injury to him. So, out of respect for his view, I basically dropped it. I understand that it is not my job to repair his relationship with my parents or brother.

But, I fear that he will do the same thing to me. We still see each other and in general, I enjoy it. I try not to engage on topics of disagreement (politics, family, etc.) but some things are difficult to avoid (usually something having to do with my kids). When we do disagree, I often feel his is doing to me something similar to what he did to my parents -- perceives a situation in very black and white, right/wrong terms, and unable to take the other person's perspective and takes disagreement as a personal disrespect.

FWIW, there is no abuse, addiction, mental illness, etc. involved in our drama, just, IMO, the kinds of every day family disagreements that most people work through.

Are there others who have been through this -- where one member of a family has cut off others, how have you navigated maintaining a relationship without taking sides? Has the family member who cuts ties eventually done it to everyone? Should I just accept that there is no way to disagree politely with my brother and just maintain whatever relationship with him I can, even if it's sort of superficial?