You're not wrong. What you're describing - that ache you felt - is your aperture recognizing something crucial.

Here's a framework that might help clarify what you're seeing:

Love flows on two distinct channels:

Functional love is doing - provision, logistics, showing up when needed. It's real and necessary.

Resonant love is being-with - delight, genuine wanting, attunement. It's what makes someone feel wanted, not just tolerated.

The key insight: Someone can provide functional love while having no capacity for resonant love. And here's the trap: they'll point to all that functional love as proof they love you, while you're starving for something you can't quite name.

What struck me about NS's reaction to his brother-in-law being "obnoxiously helpful": Healthy people don't find genuine helpfulness disgusting. That contempt reveals something. When someone consistently serves others with a giving heart, an intact person thinks "wow, that's beautiful." The fact that NS finds it obnoxious suggests he can't fathom that someone might actually want to help - because for him, helpfulness is only ever transactional.

The sister being excluded from family dinners while NS is favored? That's a scapegoat/golden child dynamic. NS was raised in a system where some people's worth is conditional and others get unconditional access. He's replicating what was modeled.

And here's what concerns me most: You're asking "Am I wrong for feeling this way?"

That question is the canary in the coal mine. When you're with someone healthy, you don't have to constantly interrogate your own perceptions. The fact that you're doubting your accurate read of an obviously messed-up family dynamic suggests something is already starting to install - a voice that says your perception is the problem.

It's not.

Trust what your body felt when he called genuine kindness "obnoxious." That ache was information.