I (28m) have a twin brother. Growing up, we were inseparable and until recently I thought we were still very close. I was always more of a shy nerd, and he was an extrovert that played sports throughout our childhood and high school, but we spent almost all of our time together, by choice.We went our separate ways when college came. He stayed local in Arizona and I went to college in Portland. When I graduated, I stayed there because I fell in love with the city, my friends are here, my professional networks from internships were here, etc. But I always flew back home for holidays, events, birthdays, etc.

My brother announced on Instagram that he and his girlfriend of 3 years got engaged. I was incredibly happy for him and texted him congrats. He mentioned they were planning to have an engagement party in 6–8 weeks, and I told him to let me know so I can book a flight to come celebrate.I was never told a date. If I brought it up with him or anyone in my family, they’d change the subject or say it’s still being planned and confirmed.

After a few weeks, I texted my brother to ask about the date because it must be getting close, and I don’t want to pay for a last minute flight. No response. I asked my mom for details, and she said, “It’s not really an engagement party, just a small dinner with family. There’s no need to come down for it.”I eventually found out that it was, in fact, a big party. They rented out an entire restaurant for 4 hours and there were about 80 guests: family, friends, cousins, everyone. Everyone was told I couldn’t make it.My aunt, who was like a second mother to me, texted me that she was very disappointed I couldn’t make time to join, and I replied that I would have happily come, but I was not invited. Word spread quickly about my snub, and my parents and brother tried to say it was just a misunderstanding.

That was almost over a year ago. Since then, I’ve tried to get to the bottom of why I wasn’t invited. Over the course of months it went from, “It was just meant to be a small gathering,” to “I don’t know what happened, there must have been a miscommunication,” to “It’s just a party. It’s no big deal.”I asked my brother if he was mad at me, I thought maybe his fiancée didn’t like me. Even if she or he didn’t want me there, why were my parents okay with this? This really wasn’t like them