To ask your experiences of bad sibling relationships?

[Nearlyspringthankgod]

I'm currently considering cutting contact with a sister. We've just spent a few days at her house at a family gathering and I left in tears. I've spent years feeling extremely anxious before having to see her and it takes me days to recover afterwards because of the way she behaves -cold, rude, bored by any conversation that doesn't focus on her specialist interests, and only happy when she's pulling someone apart after they have just left the room. She is my older sister and I spent years believing the problem was with me and the rest of the family for not being quite good enough for her. It's hard to escape this pattern of thinking even when I now know logically that the problem lies with her.

Anyone else have siblings that they struggle with or have ended contact with? What were the problems and how do you either maintain the relationship or how did you cope with ending it?

I dont have any meaningful contact with my brother. In my teens he was a drug addict, he is now doing great but he can be just randomly over the top mean and angry at the slightest thing and tried to make elderly relative's death all about him so I dont miss him really. Im sad that I dont have a sibling that I have a fab relationship with, but I miss the theoretical possibility not the actual person.

I have no contact with my only sister. Were very different people. She has no qualms about living off our parents even though she's in her 40s. She's had them bale out her shite boyfriends in the past repeatedly etc etc. She doesn't work and nothing is ever her fault. We just are very different. It's very sad as I would love a sister I could go for a coffee and chat with and for my kids to have cousins to play with - she has no children . My relationship with my sister made me consider long and hard before I had a second child. From my point of view she's bought no positives to my life at all and in fact I've seen my parents suffer greatly through her antics. I really hope my 2 girls get on much better.

I cannot really bear to be around my brother. He was always a bit of a condescending snob. Then he got married to a woman where the family has some aristocratic link. Now he visibly sneers at my children, he's never acknowledged birthdays, returned calls etc since. I send cards and gift (because I enjoy the upper ground as I'm an arse).
It's horrid watching his eye rolls and general lack of warmth when talking to our entirely normal family.

I have low contact with my sister. It's complicated, but especially in my teen years she treated me appallingly. She destroyed my self esteem, with her aggressive rants at me and occasional violence. I still remember her dragging me across the road by my hair into some mud, because I didn't have id on me so she wasn't allowed to buy alcohol. Then picking me up and trying to be nice and calm me down when someone appeared further up the road. I realised in that moment that if a boyfriend treated me that way I'd call the police and I no longer wanted to be around her.

She's calmer now but still selfish and prone to aggressive outbursts. She manipulates our mother and has done some really unforgivable things via manipulating mum. But of course if I show any resistance to seeing her I'm the one that's difficult. It's just crap.

My sister and I are both in our 70s. We have absolutely nothing in common and that became apparent during our childhood. We send each other a birthday and Christmas card and have one shortish telephone conversation a year at Christmas.

I am currently NC with my brother after some appalling behaviour and accusations from him following him cheating on his wife and abusing her in the aftermath.

We never got on as children - we are completely different people. He seems to have nothing much more than total contempt for me and at any family gathering would try to put me down/humiliate me and generally speak to me like a piece of shit which no one seemed to care about.

I've just reached the end of the line with it all. He's behaved badly yet I'm the one being accused of this and that. I'm perfectly happy with my decision to cut contact which tells me it was the right thing to do.

My sister is 3 years older then me and we are chalk and cheese. She is utterly self centred and condescending. She is utterly contemptuous to our sick and elderly parents and although I do all the donkey work of caring as live local she fires off emails to instruct us all how we should be doing things and how much she knows about the care system. She really doesn’t

I see her maybe once or twice a year and wish her well but can’t tolerate her any more often then that. Some of my grown up children tolerate her and others dislike her intensely due to her utter rudeness to me. She called me thick and stupid once and unlucky for her dh heard her.

I have fantastic friends and a close relationship with my children, grandchildren and their partners.

Her lovely dh left her and she never wanted children. I think she’s just jealous really.

I think it's pretty common not to be close to a sibling tbh (or even to be completely NC). No idea why people always pressure others have enough child so the first one won't be lonely as having a sibling is no silver bullet against loneliness. Of course some siblings are mega close but there's never any guarantee they'll get on. Me and my DSis didn't speak for a while due to a family feud, we get on better now but I wouldn't say we are extremely close or anything and like with pp, we are very different people. It's amazing really how people with the same (ish) upbringing and parents can be so different.

I’m NC with my brother and as the years have past the guilt I’ve felt about going NC has disappeared. If anyone ever tries to do the ‘aww but he’s your brother’ thing I just shut them down because I don’t believe that just because you’re related to someone that you have to put up with all kinds of shit from them at the expense of your own mental health and in my case safety.

He also made our parents life a misery. I would’ve been so much happier as an only. I’ve always had friends and am sociable, I didn’t need him, he reduced my quality of life. I’ve got sisterly like bonds with two of my friends.

I'm NC with my younger sister. I have another younger sister and we get on well.
NC sis lived with my parents into her 40s until my mother died. She only ever worked part time and fleeced them financially. Shes a violent bully and held us all to ransom as she was "sensitive" she reckoned. My mum supported her against us and she was incredibly entitled. She physically attacked me many times growing up which got a lot worse as we hit our teens and early twenties, I made her do it apparently by daring to disagree with her.
When mum died she lived with my dad still for a bit but realised the cash was drying up so went through a succession of men she met on dating sites in an effort to find one to replace my parents money. The final straw was when my elderly and frail father became too ill to live at home and chose to move into a care home. She flew into a rage that he dared to sell his house and was extremely nasty to him. He bravely stuck to his guns and I reported her to social services for elder abuse. I also passed her new address and phone number on to her debtters as they were hassling my dad. When mum was alive they'd always baled her out. Consequently she became very very abusive and nasty to me. We all went NC with her at this point. My father never got over it all and it clouded his last few years.
It was such a relief to be free of her. No more treading on egg shells around her and watching her treat my dad so badly. I realised how bad it had actually been for the first time, when I was in the middle of it all it was impossible to deal with. Thank god it's over now.

I have no contact with my only sibling (a younger brother) I’ve been NC with him for 4 years and very LC for 3 years before that (I’m also NC with my mother by my choice and my father by his own choice) He is the most selfish, nasty piece of work, next to my mother, that I have ever had the displeasure to meet. If I didn’t tow the line, even as a married adult with DC then I was called names, threatened and ostracised when it suited them but I had to just as soon as they said to.

Going full NC was the best thing I did, especially for my mental health. I won’t lie and say it was easy because it wasn’t but once I was able to see through the F.O.G I could see it was the best decision to make.

Just because someone is ‘family’ it doesn’t mean that you have to stick around and put up with crap, you are allowed to walk away, you are allowed to put yourself first, you matter as much as the next person does.

I feel like I'm making a fuss over nothing after reading some of these.
I very much identify with that feeling of wishing I could have had a close relationship with my sister, getting coffee and having a chat.

My brother is a racist sexist homophobic women hating bigot and quite possibly a narc but growing up I worshipped him. I was also quite frightened of him to be honest as he was great fun and looked after me - as long as I did what he wanted and fitted into his idea of a “girl”
I should have have broken contact a long time ago but I went NC with my father 14 years ago and couldn’t cope with losing the bit f family I had left. I was also concerned about losing contact with his children.
Luckily for me he actually broke contact with me. He said he was going to do something and I very mildly suggested that he needed to follow a certain procedure to do it legally and he flew into a narc rage and cut me off. I was quite upset because of Sil and the children but Sil got in touch to say she didn’t care what my brother did we would still see her and the dc. We see them a few times a year and that’s fine and swap Christmas and Birthday pressies etc.
My over whelming feeling is relief ( tinged with a bit of sadness) but I needed to break away as it was a very very unequal relationship and although DH put up with it he didn’t think it was fair and avoided meeting them. I haven’t seen him for about 6 years and I don’t miss him in the slightest. I do feel sorry for my Mum as she can’t have family get togethers but as the dc are all teenagers now ( as is my oldest) it wouldn’t have happened often anyway
I honestly don’t know if I would have been brave enough to go NC with my brother but I’m very very glad he chucked his toys out of the pram and made the decision for me!

You’re not making a fuss though OP.

Your feelings are just as valid as anyone else’s. If being around your sister affect’s your mental and emotional health then that’s no small thing to deal with.

I'm Nc with my sister it's the 3rd time I regrettably gave in and renewed contact previously due to pressure from mum. But this time she did things that were truly unforgivable (yes even worse than assault, bullying, SM harassment, running up debt on my address...) and I was very clear with my parents this time that nothing they could say or do would change my mind. With advice taken from another site I've made it clear I don't want to hear about her and I don't want her being told about my life.

The peace it has brought me is immense.

Meanwhile my mum still tiptoes on eggshells around her (for fear of being cut off from sisters children) bails her out when she runs up yet more debt because she has never lived within her means, runs round daft after her and her DC because she doesn't even try to be organised or think of others (not even the DC - a frequent almost daily issue is sis running late/forgetting one of the DC's activities, late collecting youngest from childcare).

I no longer even tolerate mum moaning about this because she's enabled it my sisters entire life. There's NEVER any consequences.

Op you don't have to put up with this. I've had birthdays and Christmases and mothers days etc ruined by sisters words and actions, left me in tears questioning if my own mum even gives a shit. Nobody deserves that.

There's an ongoing thread on here referred to as "stately homes" and also outofthefog.website and others which are very informative and helpful

I'm NC with my older sister, C, and keep my younger sister and SIL at arms length. I will do this, I suspect, for the rest of my life. I don't trust them, not one bit.

C behaved appallingly over our Mother's death last year, focusing all her anger directly onto me (I was Mum's carer) and accusing me of everything from mental instability, lying, theft, abuse and god knows what else. I had to involve a solicitor, eventually, to get her to stop the onslaught of abuse. The only truly fortunate thing is that C lives overseas and can therefore be completely out of my life without any problems. I don't expect she'll ever attempt to contact me, but if she does, she'll get told to fuck right off.

The others....my younger sister and sister in law - well, they just wanted an easy life and so turned their heads away so they wouldn't have to take "sides". I was left exposed to the hostility and hatred, with only my husband and friends giving me any support.

I don't trust them. They said one thing to my face, how sorry they were that C was being so awful to me, then went right back to C and had a jolly lovely "family time all together". Excluding me.

So I've moved on. I focus on my lovely husband, who supported me without making it worse. I concentrate on my amazing, patient and loving friends, who came to the funeral with me and surrounded me with love, strength and a wall of arms wrapped around me, keeping C as far away from me as possible. I suspect even a tank couldn't have got through them.

I survived the suicidal moments. I close my heart to those who hurt me, who tried to damage and destroy me, and I choose to live and love those who showed me, just when I really needed it, how much love they had for me.

They're my TRUE family. The others....that's just genetics.

I feel the same way about one of my siblings. I would very much like to go NC, but have been unable to do so to date because I'm regularly pressured by my parents to attend big family events. They are wonderful parents otherwise, so I oblige them, but I do so with a heavy heart - any time spent in this sibling's company leaves me feeling physically drained and angry.

It's literally as though they are 'toxic'

It is hard when you see sisters so close though and you know you can’t have that but it’s life and you just focus on friends.

My kids all get on very well so that comforts me.,

I can't be anywhere near my brother. He's got serious MH issues and for years I felt it was my duty to be a good sister to him, my DM taught me well. But he was so difficult to have around, so defensive, one of life's perennial victims. The three of us (I have a DSis I'm close to) suffered SA as children and he abused my DSis and me. I know he was abused too, but it makes it impossible for me to be around him.

He's jealous that DSis and I have eked out reasonable lives for ourselves, have our families, but he's his own worst enemy. I saw that he scared our DDs, shouting at them to get out of the way of the TV, and bumping into them, blaming them for getting in the way.

It's very sad, as obviously he's in a bad place, but I need to put my DDs and myself first now.

I'm low contact with DSis2 (and my DF & stepmum) because I find it too hard to be around her. She has anxiety and literally everything in the world is all about appeasing her. Any slightly wrong word and accusations of "you're setting off my anxiety" surface. I know I sound like a bitch because she can't help having anxiety but she has never been medically diagnosed nor sought any treatment. I do understand how difficult life with anxiety can be as I have had years of treatment for mine.

I finally gave up trying with them last year when DF suggested DSis1 should put on a brave face after finally leaving her abusive ex because "you're sadness is causing DSis2 to get upset". DSis1 and I both realised that there is no possible situation where DF, stepmum or DSis2 will be willing or able to put anyone else first. NC seemed a bit dramatic so we both just went low contact and are both much happier for it.

growing up I worshipped him. I was also quite frightened of him to be honest as he was great fun and looked after me - as long as I did what he wanted

Yes, I think this is a large part of the issue for me. On one level she is still my older, cleverer (there was quite an age gap) sister whom I revered and always sought approval from. As a child I'd try to ingratiate myself with her by bitching along with her about other family members -who I did actually like but she didn't. In the last ten years the scales have fallen from my eyes, but she must still hold some degree of power over me or I wouldn't be so anxious around her.

Thanks, LittleRedWagon and Graphista. I will check out those threads.

Caperberries, I agree, they feel toxic. I purposely avoided using that word because it seems to have become clichéd, but it sums the situation up so well.

I haven't seen my sister for over 4 1/2 years, and if I never see her again it will be too soon. She has narc tendencies and is a bully to boot. She can't have a conversation with you, she has to interrogate, then prove she can outdo you on everything you have said.

She's also damaged my relationship with my mother, as my mum is scared of her and can't stand up to her. My sister will get upset if she thinks she hasn't been told something, so I can't talk to my mother about problems I have as she'll have to tell her as she's my sister, even if I beg her not to. So I tell my mother nothing.