Not all families are close, and while that is unfortunate, it often happens for serious reasons.

What would you do if you weren’t that close to your brother, so your daughter didn’t want him invited to her birthday party?

That is what was happening to the man in this story, so he didn’t invite his brother, but now there is awkwardness to deal with.

AITA for not inviting my brother to my daughter’s birthday party

I (37m) have PTSD from a rough childhood that involves my older sister.

Childhood trauma can be devastating.

I opened up about it roughly 1.5 years ago and have been dealing with the fallout since. I’ve had a lot of therapy and am doing a bit better, I just still have a long way to go.

But as a result, I have trust issues, and I’ve never really felt connected to anyone except for my wife and daughter.

It is unfortunate when a family is not supportive.

When I opened up, my parents and brother were in panic mode, and understandably so. However, my family has completely failed to support me.

My parents have trivialized the trauma and basically don’t want to know anything about it. They have made zero effort of supporting me. They are completely closed about everything and prefer to stick their heads in the sand.

I’m wondering what exactly happened.

My brother had a ton of questions in the first few weeks, but it always felt like he was mostly questioning me (“I believe you, but..”). We haven’t talked about it since.

As a matter of fact, we’ve barely had any contact.

This isn’t healthy.

I have seen him a total of 2 times this entire year, while we literally live 2 minutes away from each other.

He asked me how I was once when I accidentally ran into him, but other than that, no messages asking how I’m doing, if there’s anything he can do, nothing.

Ok, so this isn’t exactly abnormal.

He was never really that involved much with the family to begin with, we’d only see each other on birthdays, holidays and family trips.

But since my sister is still a happy/normal part of the family, I just distance myself from them.

His daughter can clearly see that there is conflict.

My daughter’s 7th birthday is coming up, and when I asked whether she wanted to invite my brother and his family, she said no.

I asked her why, she didn’t really have any reasons, she just didn’t want to invite them. I’ve asked multiple times, but she stuck with her decision.

Kids want to be around people they know and love.

I’m not surprised, because she hardly ever sees them and barely even knows them. We respect her decision, it’s her day, it should be up to her.

We’ve invited my wife’s side of the family, a friend of us, and my parents. My brother is the only one that’s not invited.

Sometimes honesty is more hurtful than needed.

Just yesterday I got a text from my brother asking whether we were celebrating her birthday. I told him yes, and not wanting to lie, I explained that she didn’t want to invite them despite asking her multiple times.

I haven’t heard from him since. And despite standing behind the decision, I still feel like a jerk.

AITA?

This is a tough decision with tons of background information that we don’t have, but it seems fine that the brother isn’t invited to the party.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This person thinks he is wrong for how he is handling it.

This whole family is being weird.

Putting your child first is important.

I can see what this commenter is saying.

This is kind of weird.

Everyone needs to work through the trauma.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.