Adult sibling relationships?

[Anonymous]

I have an older sister and older brother. My brother, I suspect, has BPD. He has trouble regulating his emotions and is triggered into an angry tailspin at merely the thought of something remotely critical or perception of being excluded.

My sister and I get along fine. We're not besties, but we get along, hang out alone sometimes, or with kids sometimes. We're not sisters that talk on the phone ever, but we text and are on good terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My brother is three years younger, and we are not at all close (we live on different coasts, and he lives near my parents). I'm not really surprised, since we have really different personalities and weren't especially close growing up.

Honestly, I don't really like him. He's needy, oversensitive, rude, always plays the victim, and treats my parents like crap despite all they do to support him (seriously, he'd be homeless without them). He keeps cutting them off whenever they do anything that upsets him, which usually consists of refusing to give him money. When we see him (we visit my parents once or twice a year), he complains, pitches fits, pouts about stuff, and otherwise sits around like a bump on a log.

For a while, I felt bad, but it is what it is--we are very different people, I don't enjoy his company at all, and I fully expect that once my parents are gone I will have almost nothing to do with him. I can feel sorry for him, but I can't really like him.

I've tried many times over the years to talk to him, to try to help him, but the only thing he wants is to be told what he wants to hear or to have you give him stuff. And he isn't even minimally polite (like, last time he opened his gifts and did not once say that he liked something, let alone thank anyone). Maybe he'll have an epiphany and decide to get his life together, but it's up to him--there's clearly nothing that anyone else can do.

This is so so so so very much like my relationship with my brother, right down to "I've tried many times over the years to talk to him, to try to help him, but the only thing he wants is to be told what he wants to hear or to have you give him stuff." His ex-wife once told me he had a raging case of Peter Pan syndrome (and our mother was the prime enabler of that). I did take it one step further after a spectacularly egregious display of Grade A A$$holery to cut off contact entirely. Every so often he attempts to contact me, but I don't like him, don't respect him, and my life is better off not having him in it.

[Anonymous]

I have a 5 year younger brother. We get along ok...now. We aren’t close, but aren’t hostile. We didn’t get along as kids. I spent a lot of time minding him when we were kids, daily Afterschool from the time I was 10 and at least one weekend night from 12 on. It was too much to be in charge of him so much and didn’t do wonders for our dynamic. He lives near my parents so I only see him once a year when we visit up there. My kids think he’s great because he’s basically not ever grown up much himself....

[Anonymous]

One sister, two years younger. We go through closer phases, but have a massive falling out every few years and take a several month long break from each other. We are very different people, and there were some bad dynamics in our childhood that never got fully resolved. She was an absolute terrorist when she didn’t get her way, and my parents gave in to that a lot, and my way of holding her accountable was to be pretty mean to her. That tends to be what flares up even now in our 30s.

I married an only child, and she married someone super close with his siblings. It’s been interesting- I’ve gotten to see what it’s like without all of the downsides of a challenging sibling, and she’s gotten to see all of the upsides of a close one. Most of the time, it feels like we have all of the downsides and none of the upsides of having a sibling. Based on our experiences, my husband and I are one and done.

It makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me, that we can’t seem to figure out how to be closer without having these massive fights.

[Anonymous]

Two elder brothers. I am the only sister and the youngest so they were very protective and loving. All three have each others back. We take all decisions after discussing with each other. We take responsibility for our parents and each other.

[Anonymous]

I have two sisters, one has mental health issues so we are not very close despite living near each other. The other is a self-centered terrible person. We weren’t close growing up and are not close now. I know when my parents are no longer here that we will probably hardly see each other.

I have tried to reach out and create a relationship, but it is never reciprocated. She has no interest in me or my family. It’s sad.

[Anonymous]

I am not at all close to either my brother or sister. We love each other but have nothing but our childhoods in common. After our last parent died, we occasionally exchange texts but nothing more.

[Anonymous]

This thread makes me sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me sad.

Me too.

[Anonymous]

This thread also surprises me. I have 2 sisters that I’m very close to. My husband has a brother that he isn’t close to (not completely sure why) and a sister he’s close to. I didn’t realize how common strife is.

[Anonymous]

I have two siblings and we all have great relationships as adults!

I think one of the key factors in us remaining close is that we all married awesome spouses. All the spouses like each other too, which makes it fun to get together and hang out. We've even done a sibling trip with the 6 of us and no kids. It was awesome!

We really did have to forge new relationships once we were adults. My brother went to college (and never lived at home again) when I was only 12 years old. So the next 10 years or so I would not call our strongest years. BUT he was totally excited to become adults friends once I was in college too, and it got better and better as I got older (I'm the youngest of three).

[Anonymous]

One brother, with whom I have nothing in common and don't live near. He was a spoiled brat as a child and grew up to be a tyrant because my parents provided him with a job in a family business. He never had to learn to get along with colleagues or supervisors; he became an instant "boss" who immediately got to order people around. Now he's a divorced opioid addict with an arrest record whose nearly grown children want nothing to do with him. There are many other qualities that make him hard to take, but I'll leave it at that. Unfortunately my mother still coddles him, and that has increased tensions between us.

And yes, this thread is sad because I'd love to have a sibling or two to be close to, but not the toxic one I've got. My mother is prone to saying things like "family is everything" which means I'm supposed to bury my head in the sand as she has.

[Anonymous]

Sibling have to few each other as equals, as peers. Older/Younger is unimportant as adults. No one has more power/say-so than anyone else. It can take years to for everyone to adjust to this new normal. Often sibling relationships can be re-adjusted, in a good way, after the passing of the parents. The passing is a critical time - a need for fairness and understanding for each other.

[Anonymous]

meant "view", not few.

[Anonymous]

My siblings live all over the world, so we aren't as close as I'd like to be. My sister and I are a year apart and used to be best friends and super close, but now that we live so far apart, we've also grown apart, which makes me sad. We all do care about each other and the familial bond, but are closer with our friends than each other.