Reply to Sibling rivalry between people in their 50s ???

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, it is normal.

Not only does time not magically solve childhood wounds, but it's very common for this stuff to drop beneath the surface for years, even decades, and then to resurface at midlife. VERY common. One major trigger is that people's kids reach the age they were when they experienced something as a child and it brings up these waves of memories and hurt feelings that they didn't even realize they still carried around. Another thing that happens is that as the parent approaches death, family members will retreat to childhood memories and patterns to try and deal with their grief.

This is super, super common.

Support your DH in staying out of it and dealing with any issues he has that are coming up. The best way to deal with people who are being emotionally immature is to detach and stay as non-reactive as possible. Physical distance is also useful, when you can get it.[/quote]

OP here. Thanks for your thoughts.

My husband and I try to stay out of it as much as possible and we have the advantage of physical distance. His sisters live between 1.5 and 2 hours away. They live closer to MIL than we do.

I remember several Christmases ago, we were at MIL's house on Christmas Day. MIL was a widow by then. We started opening the presents under the Christmas tree in random order. MIL was visibly pleased with our gift to her. My husband's sister got annoyed that MIL had opened our present before hers and she said 'but Mom, you haven't opened OUR Christmas present to you yet ...!'
SIL was mid 40s!
I thought it sounded quite childish.[/quote]
How did your MIL respond?  My guess is that she likes the attention and is the driver of the behavior and rivalry (or if she's too senile to drive it now, she did for many years). That's why SIL immediately appealed to her.[/quote]

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