To ask if you're not close to your DN..

[SipTheCocaCola]

Why?

My DB has a little girl (my DN obv) who I have an amazingly close bond with. I absolutely adore her and couldn't imagine not being close to any future DNie or nephews in he future. Most people I know in my city have the same kind of relationships with DN's, they're treated almost as like our own.

But on here, people don't seem to have the same closeness to their siblings children. Obviously this isn't everyone! And I understand if you don't live close to your siblings children but if you don't have a close relationship can I ask why?

my aunt is like a second mother to me and she lives in a different country. I don't get on with my brother and rarely see him and his children are clingy and annoying, although when they can be prised from their mother's legs they do play nicely with my DC.

I have a very close relationship with nieces and nephew's on both sides. I am closer to my own siblings DC as we all live close by. But love them all on both sides very much.

We were kind of close with some our cousin's, Mam's sisters though rarely ever see them now.

I don't have a relationship with my aunt, uncle, brother, sister or their children because I come from a genetic pool of mental cases. And I say that as someone with mental health issues.

We live in another continent but I adore the bones of my 7mo niece, having seen how my mum has managed to keep a relationship close with my DC I know I have to make a big effort to have the same with DN and will start v regular Skype calls with her next year. We’re paying for DB, SIL, and DN to visit us in the spring and I want to try to get home even for a weekend to see her before the end of the year

Most on DH's side are in another country. One set are an hour away. On average we see them every couple of months. They're a similar age to our DCs.

On my side, DN was born just before I went to university, so I was away for most of her early years. Our family was always second rate to her maternal family in the eyes of her mother, so she'd have to leave early from trivial events like family weddings to be back in time for the weekly Sunday tea with her precious maternal DGPs.
Nice kid/ young lady, but distance and family circumstances meant we haven't had much chance to develop a meaningful rapport. DB and I have an odd age gap too.

I wonder if the most likely candidates for close relationships are sisters where both sides have a maternal relationship. Particularly if the age gap is close so they tend to be around the same family stage. (It applies to a closer branch of my family anyway)

I'm not close to my siblings, and even if I was we'd at most see each other 4-5 times a year.

I have friends who are much more like family than my own family, and I'm close to their children.

My sister doesn't have that relationship with my son. He wasn't invited to her wedding so we didn't go (he was a 1 year old and still breastfed)

She will text wishing him happy birthday every year but that's about it.

She has a son who is 3 years younger than my son.

My sister doesn't have children. DH has about 25 nieces and nephews (he has loads of siblings) but doesn't really see them much. His family just aren't that close. His nieces and nephews are mostly adults (some are older than me!) with children of their own. Some even are grandparents. It's a huge spread out family. I sometimes think it's a shame that DS has cousins he doesn't really know that well.