My brother, sister and I are not close

[Anonymous]

I haven’t talked to my sister in over a year, but it’s for much stronger reasons than OP. (Two years ago she shoved me into a bookcase, she often screams at me about why she shoved me into the bookcase, and she probably has borderline personality disorder but I’m not her therapist.) I’m fine with not having her in my life.

Could my parents have done something different? I think my mom promoted sibling rivalry, intentionally or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oldest of 5 and my siblings are super close. We had a very erratic/abusive upbringing with borderline personality disorder mother, which surviving that home life has bonded us more than siblings growing up with stable parents. I also have noticed that if you're from a big family and really overall loved, its probably because your sibling bond. Makes me sad if I ever had kids it will be 2 or 3 due to age and fertility issues, but recognize that the circumstances that brought my siblings and I closer also were incredibly damaging.

Sure there are many big families who didn't have unstable/abusive environment who also have closer siblings. Its probably that you can't really get away from each other when they're so many of you.

Don’t flatter yourself. I am also from a family with extremely abusive and erratic parents, including a narcissistic personality disorder mother, and surviving that home life meant today I am estranged from my siblings due to their ultimately complicit adult roles in triangulation by our mom, who played us against each other as a means of control and manipulation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's important to maintain relationships with family. It's grounding. It's the people that knew you since you were born, and who will know you when you are old. Friends will often come in and out of your life, siblings will always be there. In fact, since my parents will probably die decades before me, and since my wife and I did not meet until our 20s, my sister will know me the longest of anyone on earth.

I love my sister but we are not super besties. We usually text once every two weeks or so. We do quick Alexa video calls every month or two. We see each other twice a year or so. (She lives two hours away, so it's not that hard. Would be more except she is unfortunately estranged with our parents, long story, so I split holidays.)

So I mean yeah we have our own lives most of the time, and then connect when we can and make it a priority to do so. But polite indifference? That's just so... sad. What a bleak way to go through life.

It's funny. I had a coworker like you who said "family is everything" and she was so upset her kids weren't into their cousins. Her kids had very strong friendships some since childhood. Meanwhile this woman had a sister going through chemo who hit hard times and as close as they supposedly were, she barely visited. As well off as this woman was (her income was to buy fancy things-her husband was a big earner) she refused to give her sister a dime. So um family is everything? I visited my friends having chemo and if a friend hit financial hard times I would help.

Cool story. Good thing I am not your friend. Sorry you have such a bad relationship with your siblings
No need to project that onto me.

[Anonymous]

I think sharing a room helps. My parents basically siloed us so I'm not close with my sister. They did nothing to foster our relationship. Just separated us when we fought without teaching us to compromise or apologize. Didn't help that I felt resentment from my sister and mother my whole life. It's hard feeling rejected from your family who will dutifully sign you up for activities and come to your games/performances but never would ask you a heartfelt "how was your day?" with space for you to answer.

I don't know the answer, but I try to point out to my kids how much their sibling loves them and point out good things about them. I also reflect like "you guys had so much fun doing X." so they remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same. My brother and I are 22 months apart and have little in common. He's an arborist; I'm a corporate lawyer. I like cities; he likes the outdoors. He's non-confrontational; I'm happy to argue. He lives on the west coast; I live on the east coast. We're polite and reasonably friendly, but we both hate talking on the phone and we see each other once a year (pre-COVID). I am not sure what my parents could have done to resolve the fundamental issue, which is that we don't share interests.

Happy to argue?
You must be a joy to live with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m as close to my sister as I can be given the political climate and misinformation. One of us is a liberal Democrat and the other a Trump Republican; one of us volunteers with gun control groups and the other belongs to a gun range and belongs to the NRA.

We’re very good about never, ever discussing issues but it’s very limiting. We don’t ever like to read the same type of books or watch the same shows/movies.

It’s kind of amazing we came from the same house and parents!

And in response to a PP from above - we did share a bedroom all our lives and our parents were great about helping us find solutions to our little squabbles. We were extremely close until college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's important to maintain relationships with family. It's grounding. It's the people that knew you since you were born, and who will know you when you are old. Friends will often come in and out of your life, siblings will always be there. In fact, since my parents will probably die decades before me, and since my wife and I did not meet until our 20s, my sister will know me the longest of anyone on earth.

I love my sister but we are not super besties. We usually text once every two weeks or so. We do quick Alexa video calls every month or two. We see each other twice a year or so. (She lives two hours away, so it's not that hard. Would be more except she is unfortunately estranged with our parents, long story, so I split holidays.)

So I mean yeah we have our own lives most of the time, and then connect when we can and make it a priority to do so. But polite indifference? That's just so... sad. What a bleak way to go through life.

It's funny. I had a coworker like you who said "family is everything" and she was so upset her kids weren't into their cousins. Her kids had very strong friendships some since childhood. Meanwhile this woman had a sister going through chemo who hit hard times and as close as they supposedly were, she barely visited. As well off as this woman was (her income was to buy fancy things-her husband was a big earner) she refused to give her sister a dime. So um family is everything? I visited my friends having chemo and if a friend hit financial hard times I would help.

Cool story. Good thing I am not your friend. Sorry you have such a bad relationship with your siblings
No need to project that onto me.

Oh my. Is someone triggered?

[Anonymous]

You love each other and have great memories of your childhood and parents. Maybe that’s enough.

[Anonymous]

I adore my siblings in adulthood!!! I realize it's not that way for everyone and I don't think there is one "normal" way to live all of our lives. But I certainly value our relationships immensely and make them a priority.

I'm going to see my brother Saturday after almost a year of not seeing him. I am so excited! We have a sister too. We are all different, have some similarities, but we see life the same way and value the same things on a global level, so the exact details about we live don't have to be the same.

My parents helped our adult relationships by occasionally bowing out of the equation so we could bond and form memories as a sibling set. Mainly: my mom was really good about not throwing a temper tantrum if she wasn't invited to a gathering of just the siblings. Sometimes on family vacations, she'd send us out on our own while she stayed back. She recognized having The Mom around changed the dynamic and would just occasionally step back to allow us all to hang out. This was especially true once we all got married.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's important to maintain relationships with family. It's grounding. It's the people that knew you since you were born, and who will know you when you are old. Friends will often come in and out of your life, siblings will always be there. In fact, since my parents will probably die decades before me, and since my wife and I did not meet until our 20s, my sister will know me the longest of anyone on earth.

I agree that people should maintain relationships with siblings. But siblings are not our only family. Parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, children, nieces, grandparents, nephews, good friends and in-laws are family as well. It doesn't matter who has known you the longest. You don't have to throw other family relationships under the bus just to boost sibling relationships. Some people don't have siblings or they have deceased siblings? Please, don't make them feel that the family that they have is less than if they don't have a sibling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's important to maintain relationships with family. It's grounding. It's the people that knew you since you were born, and who will know you when you are old. Friends will often come in and out of your life, siblings will always be there. In fact, since my parents will probably die decades before me, and since my wife and I did not meet until our 20s, my sister will know me the longest of anyone on earth.

Also, it might not be someone's choice if their siblings don't want to interact with them. So, why make them feel like other family (without a sibling) is less than?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I love my sister but we are not super besties. We usually text once every two weeks or so. We do quick Alexa video calls every month or two. We see each other twice a year or so. (She lives two hours away, so it's not that hard. Would be more except she is unfortunately estranged with our parents, long story, so I split holidays.)

So I mean yeah we have our own lives most of the time, and then connect when we can and make it a priority to do so. But polite indifference? That's just so... sad. What a bleak way to go through life.

It's also sad and a bleak way to go through life if you are indifferent to cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents etc. All family is important.

[Anonymous]

I think what OP describes is more normal than the super close/love hanging out siblings that love to overshare on facebook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We love each other and wish the best for each other but really have nothing to do with each other! We haven’t seen each other since our parents funeral four years ago. We’re just so different. We rarely talk but text information and occasional well wishes.

Do you think my parents did something wrong? We were each individually very close to our parents and had happy childhoods. Our parents and our childhoods are all we have to talk about.

I have no siblings but my husband and his sister talk several times a week and they have absolutely nothing in common. I mean it when I say nothing. They have differing views on religion and politics and everything you can imagine- my husband is extremely active and likes to exercise and socialize and my SIL does not. They appear to have barely spent time together as kids too. But they manage to talk very frequently and I hope my kids are like that. They just make the effort despite not particularly even liking each other I think. They were fighting like cats the last time we were all together. That’s familial love I guess?

[Anonymous]

Neither of us are close to our siblings so I have worried about our child's relationships with their cousins. We are also trending towards one and done so I wonder if the lack of closeness makes us more comfortable with that decision.