My brother has cut me out of his life because his girlfriend doesn’t like me

DEAR DEIDRE: MY brother has stopped talking to me because his girlfriend doesn’t like me.

I am 38 and he is 40. As little boys we were inseparable. Even as adults we spoke most days and met every weekend.

He was my best friend as well as my family.

But in the two years since he met his partner, who is 42, he has grown more and more distant.

At the beginning I told him I didn’t think she was right for him.

He must have told her, because she has always been rude and dismissive of me.

I have done everything I can to be welcoming – invited them round for Sunday lunch, offered to babysit her kids, asked if she wanted to come on holiday with us – and nothing works.

It ended up with me and my brother having a huge row over her influence, and since then he has stopped returning my calls.

Now she has been offered a job abroad and has asked my brother to go with her.

I worry I will never see him and won’t have any relationship at all.

He can’t see how controlling she is.

She has split up my family and I hate her for it.

DEIDRE SAYS: It is likely your brother’s girlfriend is jealous of your close relationship and feels threatened by it, so she has instigated a rift.

Her behaviour is manipulative and suggests she is insecure.

She should see there is room in your brother’s life for both her and you, and that your relationship with him isn’t a threat to her own.

But until your brother realises all this for himself, there is little you can do other than to keep the doors of communication open, so he knows you are there for him.

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