To ask if you have a good relationship with your siblings

[Coldnights]

How does it work with family stuff if you don’t?

I'm one of 5. I adore my three sisters, we are all very different but we are very close. My brother - not so much, even though we are the closest in age.

I live in different countries to my two sisters. I get on fine with the eldest, we have similar views but she's quite like DM and a bit patronising.
The middle one (I'm the youngest) and I get on very well. We have differing views on parenting but we are very close.
All three of us would do anything for the others. You usually find that out when the shit hits the fan which it did twice in our case

My sister is my best friend.

I am very close to my brother. My dcs have nothing to do with each other...they are early 20s.

Yes, reasonably. We don't see each other all that often but WhatsApp most weeks and can rely on each other for support when the chips are down.

Have a younger brother and sister. All get on well. We have a WhatsApp group for the 3 of us.

Probably a bit closer to my sister as we have a fair bit in common, we speak in some form or other on most days. We also only live about a 15-20 min drive from each other. My brother lives 90 mins-2 hours away. He is quite a different person to me, I love him and we have a laugh but I’m not sure we’d be mates if we weren’t siblings. He’s quite flash, into fancy dinners, expensive booze and big holidays etc but my sister and I are fine with a plate of chips in a cheap pub.

We tend to all meet up every other month or so. My mum has gatherings at her house (obviously not really the case in lockdown). And we all work in London as well as my dad (well, pre covid!) so we go for drinks together uptown with him sometimes. But I also might meet my sister sporadically for dinner etc because of living nearby.

We all have partners and get on well as a group of six. Overall feel quite lucky to have them.

I do, and it's lovely.
DW doesn't, her sister is, quite frankly, a toxic cow which means there's tolerance just about, and a lot of alcohol at family get togethers to get everyone through it. The DSis lives close to the parents so definitely affects DWs relationship with them as it's a slow drip, drip of poison into the parents ear about DW. All unfounded. It's all based on childhood rivalry when DW was a high performer in a subject and the parents focus was all on the award winning DW and the Dsis was left to trail in the wake.
Sort of feel sorry for her. Can't have been easy being the sibling of someone famous and not your own person.

One sister and yes, we get on ok. Not super duper close, but fine. We had a weird upbringing and that definitely binds us together. We fought a lot as children and were quite different - definitely get on better as adults.

Yes. Twin sister lives in a different country and we are very close albeit not geographical, we speak most days and aside from this year we/they visit very often as we have a place very close to where they live. Older brother, absolutely adore, he is also in the same country as sister though different location, we also speak almost everyday. We have always been very close.

My sister is 4 years older than me. She's a really good person and I love her, but we don't really have anything in common, and she is immensely irritating! She'd be there for me in a second if I needed her though, and I would for her.

My brother is 3 years older than me. We used to be best friends. We'd chat random nonsense on Skype, he'd help me with my tech, we'd hang out when we had the chance. Then he got married and utterly dropped me. He's morphed into a completely different person over the last couple of years. It makes me feel desperately sad.

My sister's a narc who is slowly damaging the relationship I have with my mother, so no. If I never see her again it'll be too soon.

Very close to my sister. But my husband doesn't have any relationship with his sister. Which I am glad about because she is a stuck up cow.

One sister, we speak once a year at Christmas.

Yes. I absolutely adore my little sister

My youngest sister is one of my best friends- our social group overlaps and we do a lot together. We make each other laugh until tears stream down our faces! We became incredibly close after our middle sister passed away.

My late sister, who I was not close to, was a very complex character, she could be very difficult and caused many family arguments, when she suddenly passed away the complex emotions were incredible. I feel tremendous guilt that I did not try hard enough with her, and that rather than try to get on with her I went low contact. We found out after her death that she had done things that were ethically very questionable & I will never get closure on this or be able to put them right.

I have two sisters and a brother, all close in age. Went through an awful time recently and of all my family I could only speak to my older sister (who lives in another country many time zones away) about it. We don't speak as much as we should but during a crisis we need and help each other. My brother was a godsend when my dad passed away as kept my mum intact. My younger sister and my mum I see all the time as they live together and we are now moving house to be closer to them. They dote on my child and although we certainly have our differences, i cannot wait to see them regularly. My other sister and my brother's partners are awesome - don't see them extremely often but we all get on well.

I grew up with a big family and loads of cousins and aunties uncles grandparents etc so feel sad my DD is an only (by choice though so a contradiction here) with zero cousins in the same country (she has 5 in two other countries). She will know her extended family on my side well though. I am bugging my engaged brother and future SIL to hurry up and get going with some local cousins luckily my brother is late 30s and broody so we shouldn't be waiting long!

Big sister has always hated me. Tormented me. We are in our 30s now. On and off contact since I was a teenager. Completely not speaking again for the last 5 years...I see my niece and nephew when she comes to my parents house but we do not speak or look at one another. We just pass each other by.

Yes too much at times they all live near.
Youngest Dsis is very judgemental rarely happy she has everything great job, property investments, rich DH her negativity with 10 daily phone calls to me. 3-4 visits per week.

Older Dsis is great she is very soft with 3 teenagers she loves across the road. 3 - 4 visits per week.
Older Dbro lives close I probably see him monthly.
Dad visits every morning.
I get stressed out my home is the main hub. I have at least 1 visitor every day sometimes 4 in a day my DF is a know it all too.
niece's & nephew's pop in most days.
I wish they'd all fuck off.

Used to be very close, about a year ago he cut me off completely over something I had no control over, and never even spoke to me about it, fuelled by his wife who always wanted to separate us from him. He still speaks to my mother but not me or my dad. Broke my heart, but made me realise that there had always been lots of issues which I excused and forgave, and it wasn’t a 2 way street. Will miss the person I thought he was forever, but won’t have contact with the person he actually is again. Makes my mum very sad that there won’t ever be a family gathering again, but also, she isn’t willing to challenge him on his behaviour, so that’s just the way it is.

Some yes some no. I try hard with 1 but she suffers with her mental health and is such hard work. She has posted videos about me online slagging me off and my other sibling showed me, but to my face she is fine. She must think it's ok as I dont know about it. I do alot for her too like driving her around. Inside I'm fuming but wont say anything as she will kick off and she's attempted suicide in the past but I'm not engaging with her no more.

No. I am NC with my parents and only see my brother to things we are both invited to by other, wider, family. Which has meant I haven't seen him since before Christmas. To be honest, it's been great.

The more time without my family the more I realise that I am better off without.
I'm curious as to what people do get out of family, apart from childcare, which I had never come across before MN. Is there any point to family other than obligation and not being able to afford childcare?

Neutral tbh. We get on ok but don't have that much contact. I deal with all of the ageing parent stuff as dsis lives too far away. There isn't really much other family stuff that needs doing.

In usual times, we typically see her and her family 3 or 4 times a year, for a few days at a time. It's good but we do start to irritate each other after a while. Just sporadic texts in between, really. We've done the odd zoom call in lockdown.

I wouldn't say that we are close at all, but I do love her.

They are my worst friends...they are my best friends. The only people in the world (apart from dh) I would ring at 3.42am and say 'please come' and they'd actually turn up.
But by gawd, they are aggravating mares. They have appalling taste, they are sometimes thoughtless, they judge my parenting, they try to guilt trip me into having dealings with distant relatives I hate, they gossip about me behind my back. There's been times I haven't spoken to them for months because of Behaviour. But we come together solid as rock when there is a family crisis, and if someone outside of us speaks badly of one of us, well, woe betide.
But I routinely come off the phone from them and remark 'silly bitch'.
Also, I have to admit I don't laugh with anyone else the way I laugh with them. Shame that don't happen more often.

Umm. I was close to my brother but when he got with his wife we grew apart.

He’s currently in ICU and I’ve seen his wife’s controlling true colours unfortunately. After weeks of barely hearing from her and her saying (without me asking) that she won’t give a daily update as she thinks it’s pointless, I decided to call the hospital (after she wouldn’t tell me what ward he was on) to see if I could get updates myself and received a shitty message back calling me a selfish bitch and that she’s fed up on me throwing my toys out the pram.

Safe to say, I won’t be making any effort with them in the future because I know as soon as he’s well enough he’ll say the same.

Families eh...

My Dsis are very close we always have been and always will be, we might irritate each other although that happens rarely and we accept each others characters. I could trust her with anything and she could with me.

Our DB is very troubled, toxic and angry at the world and has practically cut both of us out it's sad as I remember the darling little boy he was but that was a long time ago. He lives in another country now so don't really do family things but when he was here my Dsis and I just tired to make an effort and equally tried not to kill him 🤣