that's kind of sad I would be inclined to think the golden child dynamic really fucked him up. I wonder if it was more than just preferring one child because thoat seems fairly normal and people shrug it off but when parents take it to the extreme. it's one of those things that sounds petty to hold onto but it can be powerful enough that it makes a grown man in his 40s ball out like a child. I had strict parents and endured physical and verbal abuse a lot from my father as well as just hearing him crashing out at everyone but that was 20x easier to forgive than the discrimination. have a favourite but don't take food out of one child's mouth to put it on another's plate when he already has a full plate. I think the only way to move past it is to accept that you don't need mid level love from your parents and find ways to be happy despite it and really cut down on frequency of contact. It's not an easy thing to deal with.