Some families are really tight-knit throughout life, with sibling bonds beginning in childhood and lasting throughout adulthood.

Other families, though, have less closeness – and whether that’s through differences in character or interests, less-than-ideal parenting, or other circumstances, these siblings often end up less tight in the long-run.

It was no secret to the girl in this story that she didn’t have the best relationship with her older brother, but she still wanted to work hard to make his birthday special.

Read on to find out how he sabotaged it, then turned the blame round on her.

AITA for “ruining” my brother’s birthday?

I (seventeen, female) and my brother (twenty, male) were never really that close.

I don’t know why, that’s just how we grew up.

It was his 20th birthday yesterday, and we always celebrate with just the immediate family a couple days before.

Since he is in college, he usually goes out and does something with his friends for his actual birthday.

But this year, he had new expectations for his special day.

This time, for some reason, he wanted me to bake him a cake.

But not just a normal cake; it was a three-layer, really complicated thing with fillings, toppings, etc.

This is just really out of character and weird for him to ask because no one in our family has ever been much of a baker. We can all cook pretty well, but he knows I especially am not very talented at baking and have never baked a cake before.

So I reminded him that I have like no experience baking pretty much, and he was like, “I know, I just wanted you to try.”

So she went right ahead and baked him a cake.

I was like, “ok, whatever, sure.”

I baked a cake, and it was an ok cake. It was a little wobbly and didn’t look very nice, but it was edible. It took me like four hours to do because I wanted to make it turn out good.

His birthday rolled around, and it had been in one of those plastic cake dishes with the cover in the fridge overnight because that’s the best way to store it, according to Google.

On his birthday, we were all just hanging out, and he was opening his gifts and whatever. Then our parents came out with the cake for him, and we sang.

Let’s see how the cake turned out.

Fast forward, and they’re trying the cake. I didn’t have any because I’m vegan – don’t hate on me, I have a lot of allergies.

I was not partaking in this cake eating, but my brother took a bite and immediately spit it out and said, “Are you trying to poison me?”

My dad had just put some in his mouth, but he didn’t spit it out. I was like, “What? Is it bad?” My dad said it was fine, just a bit overcooked.

My mom didn’t even try it. She just started yelling at me and saying how I should have put more effort into it, and that I could have done this one nice thing.

Yikes! And that wasn’t the end of the drama.

I just feel bad because I kind of think that my brother like set me up or something. I’m not oblivious to what goes into a cake, and there was nothing in it that should have warranted that reaction from him.

Fast forward to this morning, and I wake up and go downstairs. What do I see but my brother down there eating a slice of the cake that he said was so disgusting last night?

I didn’t say anything, I just ignored him.

But then this evening, my mom pulled me aside and said that she knew that I did it on purpose to upset him, and that I ruined his party, and that she was sad because he was graduating college soon and moving out of state, and it was my fault.

Uh-oh. Let’s see how she’s feeling now.

I feel like I didn’t really do anything to deserve the way my mom and brother have been treating me.

Now I’m wondering if I should apologize or keep trying to defend myself?

AITA?

There is absolutely no way that any of this is her fault – in fact, she is the victim of this entire situation.

It’s pretty unfair to ask a vegan to make you a cake with a non-vegan recipe anyway, but for her to then be outright blamed that it didn’t turn out perfect is totally unfair – especially since this is the first cake she’s ever made.

But her mom’s outright guilt tripping is completely out of order.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.

This person agreed that the brother and the mom were the issue here.

While others thought she should be praised for trying to do something nice for her brother.

Meanwhile, this Redditor passed on some baking tips.

The way this poor girl has been treated by her family is completely unfair.

Not only was she guilted into making an elaborate cake, having never made one before, she was then verbally and emotionally abused in the aftermath – and in part by her mom, who didn’t even try the cake.

The fact that her brother was eating it the next morning really does show him for who she is.

He’s disgusting.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.