About the saying: "A son is a son until he gets a wife"

I understand and appreciate that once a son gets married, his top priorities clearly become his wife and kids. This, in part, means some reduced time with his parents and siblings and more with his wife and kids. Essentially, losing part of a son and part of sibling. The son's side of the family "takes the hit". This is a reality of life. I get that.

I also get that in many situations, when it's a daughter that gets married, her side of the family gains a son and he helps the in-laws out with their computers, cars, visits their home more often than their own parents', goes on more trips with the wife's side of the family, etc. It's a net plus for them. This too is a reality of life. I get that.

But how do the families on the sons' side deal with getting the short end of the stick, with getting marginalized and with feeling like their side of the family is less important, and that all of their memories and worth seem to matter less, as measured by the reduced time, reduced attention and lack of involvement by the son to his side of the family post-marriage?

My sibling is such a son. He was given an ultimatum leaving him little choice but to move out of state so his wife could be closer to her own parents, otherwise risk divorce and the impact that would have on him and their kids.

Aside from the ultimatum, even when they were living in state with our mother and I, even though we lived only 5 miles away or so, my brother made few visits to see our mother, would stay only briefly, and made few invites to include her on their family outtings. When flying in to visit our mother, he and his family would stay for maybe a week once or twice a year, but during our family outtings he's always following his wife and asking what she wants to do and where she wants to eat and places to take the kids, when given that our mother has cancer and our time with her is very finite, and given that she only gets to see them maybe 4% of the year now, her preferences should strongly be given primary consideration. They have all the rest of the year to be self-absorbed and pursue their self-interests. Some incidents that have been hurtful:

1) One Christmas time while they were still living nearby, we spent the day together and mentioned multiple times to each other we'd meet up later for dinner out, followed by watching the Christmas parade together. Come dinner time, no contact from them. I decide to take our mother to the restaurant and treat her to dinner anyway. 10 minutes after being seated, in comes my brother with his wife and kids. The kids see us and come over to hang out with us and snack on some of our food. My brother and his wife sit down at their table for some time and then my brother comes over and talks to us. Neither my brother nor his wife (still sitting at their table) seemed surprised to see us there or made mention of our earlier agreement to get together at the restaurant and eat together. After we're done eating and they finish eating at their table, we walk out together and head to the parade, where his wife had made arrangements to meet up with another couple who were friends/coworkers. My mother was hurt by their lack of mindfulness about getting together for dinner, and I was angry what they did and didn't do.

2. One time my mother and I were going to purchase some garage shelves (heavy). I asked my brother if he would come help me carry the boxes. He agreed and got into the car. After we were seated in car and about to go, with his wife and kid standing in front of their door, he thinks a moment and says that he doesn't think we need "all of these people" and gets out of the car and goes back to his house. In a bit of disbelief, we drive off and head to the store to get the shelves just the two of us. Essentially, he left me to get them myself, since my mother shouldn't be lifting heavy boxes. He couldn't even take an hour away from his wife and kid to help his family out, or simply just spend some time with them while making a run to take care of something.

3. On one occasion when my brother and his family flew in to spend a week with us, we had a family outting and my brother and I both liked the idea of riding a double-decker tour bus to take in the sights on a beautiful day. We felt our mother would enjoy it. His wife did not want to ride on the bus, complaining that it would be too long of a ride. My immediate thought was that it doesn't have to always be about her all the time. This is my mother's special time. I then suggested a trolley ride and his wife said the line was too long and didn't feel like standing in it. So we end up sitting in a quad area watching pidgeons, since she also didn't want to walk into any department stores or so anything but sit somewhere. After 15-30 minutes of that, she says something like "whatever you guys want to do", in an unengaged and dismissive way. Finally we at least decide to walk to the trolley wait area and see how long the line is.. it looks reasonable and we get in line and fortunately she goes along with it. We arrive at our destination, go sightseeing, their kids play in the sand near the waterfront, and we have a nice time. Then we catch a bus to the restaurant we're planning to have dinner. We arrive at the right intersection but don't find the restaurant and start looking up alternatives. We end up discovering a fabulous restaurant nearby and had a great experience. I find out at a future time that my brother wasn't happy about his wife's behavior that day when I mentioned we were lucky things managed to work out okay but she nearly ruined the whole day. He just didn't feel it was worth it to confront his wife about it. I felt that some things are worth it, and our mother certainly is.

4. They walk ahead together and leave our mother lagging behind them some distance, they dont' check to ask if she needs to use the restroom (which is a common need after her surgery), go off to buy ice cream together rather than get her situated first and have at least one person keep her company, and look over menus and decide on options for themselves without helping our mother out with selections (due to language barrier). Basically, there's a common thread of a general lack of consideration for her.

5. When it was time for her to decide on her surgery and chemo, my brother didn't know what to ask or what to do. He was fairly passive. I did some research online just to educate myself and ask some informed questions to our mother's surgeon and oncologist and asked the vast majority of the questions. I do the follow-up appointments and the day-to-day care of her, as she lives with me. But the thing that gets me is that I can't imagine my brother not doing any research or not being somewhat pro-active in asking informed questions of doctors if it were his wife or kids that had a major health crisis. I think he would have approached that differently.

6. They've offered on two occasions to help with some of my costs in supporting our mother and
having her live with me. I replied each time that I should be okay financially and my main concern is for our mother's well being and feeling like I have at least somewhat equal stakeholders in her well-being and care. I told them that what would be really helpful is if they would include our mother in more of their family outtings and give her some of their premium time, not the odds and ends. In each instance, I never received a reply. Silence.

7. Since I purchased my first home close to my brother's primarily so there would be ample opportunity for my mother to see him and his family, over the 5 years I lived there, there were only a handful of times when they came by to see her or when they did come by to drop something off, they didn't invite her on their outtings. After determining that by moving closer to work we wouldn't lose much in terms of the amount of times they would see my mother, I decided to move closer to work. My brother told me when he heard we were moving, that he was heartbroken. I don't say anything about how they didn't take full advantage of us being in close proximity to them so I decided to think about myself and my commute to work in my decision to move instead.
What's comical is that within 12-18 months of that, he announces they're moving out of state so his wife can be closer to her parents. I just wanted to laugh and say, if he was heartbroken hearing we were moving less than 30 miles away, how much more heartbroken does he think *we* are that he's moving nearly 3000 miles away. But this is just illustrative of how self-absorbed they can be sometimes.

8. On at least two occasions, my brother's wife had offered buy some supplement that could help my mother after being diagnosed with cancer and when she had a cold. In both cases, she asked my mother if she buys some if my mother would take it. Then she never followed through. Even if there was no clarity on whether my mother would take it, due to language barrier, she could have pro-actively purchased them and followed through. She did end up buying a supplement for her own father instead, as I later learned.

My mother's a widow, was a housewife most of her life, late stage cancer, no career and only 1 other son (me). She's older than my brother's wife's parents, both of whom are retired, younger, healthy, have 2 other children in the area, lots of family and friends in the area and they lead an active lifestyle. In other words, they have plenty of support, health and "wealth", whereas my mother is the one in greater need and would see the greatest benefit from my brother, his wife, and their children (her grandkids) staying in state and in town. But as in the financial world, the "rich" keep getting richer.

My brother has visited and spent more time with his wife's parents and side of the family in 1 year than he's probably spent over 5 years with out mother.

Having grown up together, benefited from the sacrifices, love and care of our parents, and having had a shared family history, I had hoped that he would fight for a fair share of time and attention to his side of the family and especially to our mom, confronting his wife about the inequity because our mother is worth it. But instead, my mother continues to get the short end of the stick, even as she is the one person who would benefit the most and should be given the most because she needs it the most.

I am slowly coming to terms with accepting that "it is what it is", but I still have moments where I find it hard to accept. Whenever I think about the inequity, I wonder why he doesn't show more care and concern and stand up for more equitable distribution of their time to his side of the family.

If anyone else has felt hurt by similar situations and experiences, I'd love to hear about your own experiences and thoughts about them.

you can't live your brother's life for him. it's his choice how he behave. all you can do is live yours how you want. if he doesn't step put, he'll have to live with that. perhaps he just doesn't really care. just do what you believe to be right and accept that you can't do more than that.

i've been here. i cared for my parents for 1.5 years. my brother was more interested in telling me what to do than doing anything himself. my sister interfered much less but didn't actually do that much either. i just got on with doing what needed to be done.

it strikes me that children no longer feel any obligation to their parents. i think that's a sad reflection on society. those that do are the exception rather than the rule.

I can relate. For the last year when my father was dying, my middle sister didn't bother to help or come visit him, not even once. Before his funeral, she declared that she wanted to view his body before the service. My parents had both requested closed casket, and even she couldn't respect that this was her parents' wish. Ofc, the rest of the family said no way, Jose. So she threw a conniption fit that could be heard throughout the neighborhood.

Did she even have a conscience? That's what my BIL asked, and I replied, "It's on her and what she can live with, it's not for any of us to judge her..." but you can guess what went thru our minds.