To wonder how common it is for siblings not to like it other

[thedaywewillremeber]

My older two really don’t get on and have said they dislike each other. I spoke to the lady who lives next door who mentioned her children also don’t like each other. My two are young adults as are hers. I would have thought my two were in the minority.

Think personalities are tricky too. Feel we all lead our own lives so dont meet as much. Families are a pain. Husbands side are close

I think that sometimes siblings relationships are affected my the parents.

Agree with this! When my sister and I were younger adults, my mother would play us off against each other! It took a couple of years and a couple of arguments before we realised what she was doing.

I get on ok with all of my siblings but hardly ever see them.

Sadly, I have two different female friends who were incredibly close to their only siblings (older sisters in both cases) but those relationships have completely broken down, seemingly out of the blue, after the deaths of one of the parents. It's so sad. I can't imagine being more or less best friends with someone for over 40 years and going from that to a feeling of complete intolerance.

I just think to be really close to your sibling you probably need to have something more in common than your parents . One of my sisters is also my best friend but we are close in age and have very similar interests .

I cut all contact with my brother a few years ago and have no regrets at all. In fact if he died tomorrow I'd celebrate.
He is an abusive wee shite and his aggressive, violent behaviour was never challenged as he's autistic (not that all autistic people are like that by any means but that was the excuse to not slap some sense into him). He's fully aware of what he does to others, just doesn't care.

Having said that I do have other siblings who I love and they are taking steps to cut the abuser out of their lives too. Living with that behaviour for so long really does a number on your mental health.

For those of you who don't get on with / are NC with their siblings as adults, how do your parents feel about / respond to that?

(Asking purely because I'm an only and family dynamics fascinate me)

Our parents understood that you can’t force people to be friends and that a ten year difference was not going to help. They did appreciate that we tried for big family occasions. It helped that our respective parents obviously had their favourite child which was good as we had our favourite parent! Once dad died I really tried to look after our mum, but mum really wanted my sister so after several years I walked away. Sadly, my sister was not so fond of her favourite parent once she realised what elderly care actually entailed. By that time it was to late for my mental health to walk back in a pick up the pieces.
Dh parents point blank refused to acknowledge that things were not all rosy between their children - even when police had to be called in due to harassment.

I am a counsellor - I can promise you that many siblings do not get along with each other. I see a lot of seething resentment toward siblings, that is often bound up in a belief that their parents treated them differently

@ladybee28

For those of you who don't get on with / are NC with their siblings as adults, how do your parents feel about / respond to that?

(Asking purely because I'm an only and family dynamics fascinate me)

I think they are sad about it, but it is minimised. I think they don't really want to acknowledge the animosity there, which I think is part of the reason why me and sibling never developed a good relationship when we were younger. Because our differences/poor treatment wasn't really addressed!

In terms of day to day practicalities me and my sibling both live away from parents and visits to them (e.g. Christmas) is like ships passing in the night.

@ladybee28

For those of you who don't get on with / are NC with their siblings as adults, how do your parents feel about / respond to that?

(Asking purely because I'm an only and family dynamics fascinate me)

It's a mixed bag. They partly believe that all of his bad behaviour should be excused due to autism and that he should be continually forgiven. When I point out that my first responsibility is to myself they can be angry/guilt tripping. I think part of it is fear that when they die, it's likely the family will have fuck all to do with him and where he ends up.

Over time they've come to accept me disentangling myself from the situation though - not that they have a choice - and they've come to be more accepting of the abuse he's put others through. It's a long process and there's a whole load of emotion wrapped up in it for them.

I've had people jump on me on these threads before for somehow implying all autistic people are abusive so before that happens, let me say I'm not doing that. At all. In fact I'm sure many are more vulnerable to abuse than the NT community.

@ladybee28

For those of you who don't get on with / are NC with their siblings as adults, how do your parents feel about / respond to that?

(Asking purely because I'm an only and family dynamics fascinate me)

My dm is a large part of the childhood basis of dsis and I not getting on. She between publically and dramatically moaning we don't get on and then torpedoing it every time we tried to resolve things.

Now she would like us to get on but I refuse to discuss it with her. She knows I will simply not attend or leave if my sister is there. It sounds more dramatic than it is. We are not a close family really and I see them maybe once a year if that so it doesn't come up as such. Effectively now I have a relationship with my DP and so does dsis and basically we all rarely refer to the other half of the family.

I always got on extremely well with dbro. When he died I found it impossibly hard (harder than when I lost my dad) because he was the only person who shared my childhood. I am lucky this was mostly very happy and we had living supportive family.

The family dynamic is interesting. Both my parents came from close families. Things weren't perfect but were pretty good. Therefore falling out with family just wasn't something we experienced (generally a fairly even tempered moderate bunch of people)

Dhs family was full of falling outs and feuds, especially fils side. Dealt with by ignoring it until some family event, usually a funeral, resulted in some emotional rapprochement like a crappy version of eastenders. MIL is shite at making any kind of effort with anyone so she just lets relationships drift. As a result, dh is nc with his brother because basically that can't be arsed with each other despite being very close at one time. We see his sister a few times a year which is nice but again not close anymore. He's in lose touch with his other sister who is nc with all the rest of the family.

Honestly I've totally given up with it as I find it exhausting and honestly I get a bit resentful having lost my sibling that they don't cherish what they have - but that's my issue not theirs!

My dds are thick as thieves then hate each other. I hope they stay close.

For those of you who don't get on with / are NC with their siblings as adults, how do your parents feel about / respond to that
My parents are dead, mum when I was 12, I was 18ish when my father died. He made me NC with him and my brother.

My MIL, don't like that dp and eldest son don't speak, she does try force it from time to time, ends in an argument. Annoys the shit out of me, they will never get along.

The thing is some people are really, really horrible & they just happen to have siblings.

You’d have to have a masochistic streak a mile wide to stay in their lives.

I have 2 sisters. They’ve never added anything to my life and as the eldest I was used as an unpaid babysitter. We aren’t NC but we aren’t close either. My parents are sad about it and remember our childhood in a very rose tinted way. I feel my parents had too many children and my DD is an only child, I feel have given her the gift of not burdening her with siblings.

Families complex. Always felt the middle one was the favourite but you cant change things. I ignore alot of it now. My mother can goad very easily so ignore it

Not as uncommon as you might think op, a lot of the time people simply don't advertise the fact.

I am nc with my sister and have been for several years because she's a narcissistic, cf, abusive bloody nightmare! But very few people know the whole story, most just know we're "not close"

I'm barely in contact with bro, no major issues just not much in common and don't live near each other.

My ex hasn't spoken with his eldest brother for many years even I don't know the full story

My dad and his siblings are CONSTANTLY falling out over various things, he barely speaks to any of them these days as there was a major fallout over an inheritance issue a few years back. But they've always been like this to the point that for my wedding I put each sibling on a different table!

My mum and hers mostly get on but they have their moments too and 1 in particular the other 5 don't tell em anything sensitive cos they either blurt it out to wrong person or use it against them!

My ex in-laws each have one sibling they and other siblings don't speak to both from large families.

Out of my friends there are several who just play it "not close" but I suspect estranged and a few I know are completely estranged/nc.

As a contrast I also know a family where the 3 sisters are frankly imo too close and I wonder why! They make a huge deal that they're each other's "best friends" but they're not at all close to anyone outside of the family and I know for a fact it's caused issues in their relationships inc one marriage breakdown as he just had enough of everything being told to the sisters, them knowing EVERY intimate detail about his marriage and his family not even being on a list of prioritised people.

Extremes in both directions

I don't know anyone in RL who doesn't get along with their sibling

I would suspect either you don't know many people or the people you do know who don't get along with siblings simply haven't told you. I have quite a few friends/acquaintances who have no idea that I'm nc with my sister, it's none of their business and I tend not to tell people because I've already experienced supposed friends who do get along with their siblings being horrified and judgmental about the situation when they didn't even know the whole story.

Unfortunately my sister and I look very alike albeit different colouring but enough people who have met us both can see that we're sisters and we live in a very insular location, so I've frequently had people assuming we are close and passing comment about the other. To the point where it's been people in certain positions/professions where this has been the case I have uncomfortably felt the need to tell them so that they don't tell her stuff I don't want her knowing! It's a right PITA!

@DorotheaHomeAlone you contradicted yourself by saying you know of a couple of cases plus as I said many people simply don't advertise the fact

I remember years ago I was friends with someone and didn't even know they had a sibling until they lost a parent - I'd even met the parents that's how good friends we were - and they then explained the situation and why it was making them so anxious about the funeral. They had good reason to be the sibling behaved appallingly at this time inc at the funeral.

@Witchend ALL the things you advise - my parents did the exact opposite!

I tried to get along with my sister but over the years she's got worse and worse and it reached a point neither I nor Dd were safe near her to be honest it was that bad!

Hadn't rtft before posting as it is quite long I will catch up at some point

But I wanted to address this

For those of you who don't get on with / are NC with their siblings as adults, how do your parents feel about / respond to that

My parents tried to force us to stay in touch, to get along, while still constantly undermining and not supporting me when she did really shitty things!

I'd been nc with her before this time and been persuaded to change my mind and try again. Each time she'd make an effort to behave better initially but it wouldn't last long. The difference this time was

1 my mum witnessed her attacking me my sister didn't realise she was was being seen she is usually clever enough to do so when no witnesses

2 I was VERY clear I was done and didn't even want to hear about her any more, which they have mostly stuck to.

3 sis really crossed a line with the final straw this time around

It was very similar I feel to being in an abusive relationship - gaslighting, manipulation, theft, assault, lying about me to others to cast doubt on anything I may say about her to them...

I think it's a massively under recognised form of abuse and it's incredibly hard to get people who haven't had the experience to understand and accept that just because someone is a sibling doesn't mean they treat you well or fairly.

There's a HELL of a lot of pressure to stay in contact with siblings especially when parents get elderly/frail and not just FROM parents but all sorts of people

I've had it from parents siblings. Doctors, nurses...

And I suspect as many things this is even more the case for women who choose to go nc as women are expected to forgive, to put up with shoddy treatment.

And quite frankly my parents are at least half responsible for how we are anyway as there was loads of dysfunction and sis was very coddled.

2 siblings. Adore one of them & am very close. Can’t stand the other one but am civil if we are in the same place/family events. For a lot of years our lack of relationship upset me but as I’ve got my own family & they have taken advantage of parents & friends too many times I’ve drawn the line & don’t want anything to do with them.
Re the question about how my parents feel, they understand it. They still have a good relationship with them but completely know what they are like & have never made me feel bad about my decision not to try to maintain a relationship.

@Johnbowlby interesting username given the subject of the thread! But yes I'm sure many counsellors and therapists are more aware than most of this being more common than some know

However I've also had counsellors and therapists who've tried to pressure me into resuming contact - even when they KNOW the whole story which inc several assaults and thefts.

Very normal IME.

DSis and I didn't get on at all as DC. As adults we make a great deal of effort to find common ground and spend time together, but we are very different people with very different lives and it's not always easy.

DH and his DSis are the same - fought like cat and dog as DC and have little in common as adults - but they make an effort to find common ground and spend time together when possible (they live in different countries).

Older sibling is simply horrid. Needless to say we don't speak. We've never been close so I can't say I miss them.

DH doesn't have much to do with his sister's, we talk occasionally but not much affection there. I love my DB but we have nothing in common apart from my parents so whilst I'm happy to see him a few times a year and always hope he is well and happy I don't have a huge amount to do with him.

Was very close to my siblings until one of them got with a controlling abuser and cut us all out, It hurt us and I deeply worry for my nieces and nephews. Fortunately I’m extremely close to my other siblings.