I have one sibling, an older brother. On some level, I've always felt that my parents preferred him to me because he was the well-adjusted, outgoing one whereas I struggled with a lot of things when I was younger. However, since then I've developed a closer relationship with my parents but still feel that my mother in particular has this infatuation with him. I feel that nothing I do for her can compare with even the smallest gesture from him. This could be my imagination or insecurity though.

He's married with two kids whereas I'm single. At the start of covid, I suggested we have some kind of family zoom on a regular basis. We started and kept it up for over a year, almost every week. These zooms were uncomfortable. My sister in law would rarely say anything other than hello to my parents and me, often not even that. My mother was pretty focused on the kids and if she did say anything to me, like asking how I was or if I'd read anything good recently, she would always interrupt me when I started answering to ask someone else something. I think she's starting to have hearing issues maybe. So I got tired of being interrupted and got even more quiet at these zooms. Often it would devolve into us just watching my brother eat dinner with his family, with no attempts from them to engage us or encourage their kids to talk to us.

Nevertheless, I attended most of the zooms and just stayed quiet. I'm in a different time zone and sometimes had to attend from the office, but I always showed my face and stayed for as long as I could. But recently, my brother decided that the zooms weren't working and that we were no longer engaging with one another, so he canceled them. Maybe he was right. I suggested (we were texting) that we try some non-dinner time to zoom. He he ignored me. I then suggested he and I chat sometime that day or weekend, which he also ignored.

So--I'm really sick of my brother. It recently occurred to me that we really have nothing in common. I hate that he decided to end the family zooms without any kind of discussion from the rest of us, like he's some sort of king. I feel that his kids are this precious "resource" that he controls so we all have to tiptoe around him. But I actually care more about my relationship with him than his kids. I could confront him and share my feelings, but I'm not sure what I want out of it. We've never really been friends. Years ago, I gave up on initiating contact with him because he would always cancel on me or not respond. So now we only talk when he reaches out, which a) is very rare and b) he's always extremely distracted. He called me for my birthday over the summer; I interrupted a meeting with my boss to take his call, but when he asked me how I was and I started telling him about things, I could just hear him talking with his wife on the other side of the line.

I'm really unclear on what I want. He's not going to change. I don't see us having a closer relationship. Do I just want to guilt him? At some point, who knows when, I know he'll reach out saying he wants to talk. I don't want to tell him anything about my life anymore, because of all the times I tried to tell him what was going on with me only to realize that he was just making "uh-huh" noises while doing something else. At the same time, I'm not necessarily ready to ignore his calls or tell him to F-off. Also, let's say I confront him and he actually tries to change. I'm not sure we have much to talk about. I'm thinking what I'll do is just accept his overtures when he reaches out, make 5 minutes of small talk telling him I'm fine and asking how he is, and say goodbye. But I still have a lot of anger about his behavior and sometimes I go in circles thinking about it. Advice? Do I sound narcissistic or like I have some martyr issue? I know I need to have sympathy for my brother and his wife who are parents during covid, but I'm soooo sick of them.

Sorry this was long...