To NOT want a relationship with my lovely sibling?

[ConfusedSister]

This is a strange one, but I have no one in my personal life that understands my feelings around this and I just sound so ungrateful.

Basically a decade ago my estranged father died. I went to the funeral where I met my biological half brother for the first time. There were 2 brothers on my dads side with different women.

Brother number 1 was pleasent but didn't have much interest in a long term relationship and neither did I. So we had a couple of weeks of finding out information about eachother we never knew, exchanged numbers and had no further contact since. We both had our own lives and families/friends so left it there.

Brother number 2 I will call John. Since the funeral John has made a LOT of effort to maintain contact and form a sibling relationship.
He has no other siblings and other Brother number 1 basically told him directly he wanted no further contact or relationship.

I on the other hand was open to keeping contact as I didn't mind either way really. However John over the years has become a nuisance although lovely.

He sends birthdays and Christmas cards and presents. He insists on traveling across the country to see me and wants me to see him which I have obliged on occasion due to a sense of duty/obligation to him after all the effort he puts in.

He rings me very regularly and makes it clear he wants an active role in my life as a sibling.

Now here is where I don't know if I am being an unreasonable ungrateful cow or if my reaction is normal/reasonable.

I already have siblings that I grew up with from my mother's side. I don't particularly get on with them and don't put in a fraction of the amount of time I feel I have to do for John. Me and my siblings don't ring eachother constantly and see eachother at Christmas at my mums and maybe once during the summer. We are all happy with this level of contact.

If my siblings were to start calling me like John does I could say to them 'stop annoying me and no harm done. We have that sort of relationship as raised together.

John essentially is a stranger I have little in common with other than the fact we have the same dad. The relationship feels forced and unnatural to me.

John has a wife and children and he tries to force some kind of 'auntie' role from me. He will ring me and put the kids of the phone to speak to their 'auntie'. But it's awkward for both me and the kids as I have met them a handful of times over the years. He'll send me handmade gifts from the children which is sweet but essentially feels like a strangers child's gift I'm expected to put on my mantelpiece and feel sentimental about.

I find myself avoiding calls from John and dread seeing texts pop up from him. It feels almost like a burden.

I keep telling myself to be grateful I have someone who genuinely cares and WANTS to see me and cares about my wellbeing.

But if I'm honest, the relationship is just awkward and unnatural as we weren't raised together and have nothing in common. It's a forced relationship.

I don't know if I am making any sense or if anyone understands.

I'd appreciate advice. Even if it's a kick up the ass to say I am ungrateful and selfish to feel this way and to keep making me effort.

I'm on my phone so apologies for any typos.

YABVVU to have kept up a pretense for a decade! Not worked out well for either side. Any sort of backing out now is likely to cause him distress, but is better than pretense. The slowly withdrawing approach isn't fair - he needs to know how you feel, explaining how your other sibling relationships work, and how the current situation feels forced. It's incredibly tricky, as you obviously know, or you wouldn't be posting here. Those suggesting you bulldoze over him with your own rules, have strange ideas of relationships, in my view. Relationships involve compromise. He deserves that. He may very hurt, but after a time be able to happily compromise. His reaction after initial upset and time to adjust, will be very enlightening. He might withdraw altogether if he is made to feel he has to make do with being thrown "scraps", and tolerated, rather than valued. The "I'll call you" approach, that someone suggested is cruel beyond words. A heart to heart, followed by clean expected break, is kinder than that. So no easy solution here, due to the ridiculous amount of time that has passed. I wish you both a happy future, when the dust settles.

@Porcupineintherough

Quite a lot of imagination projection there *@Sssloou. There's no suggestion that the OP* has ever set any boundaries for John to trample. Or done anything to discourage his attempts at a relationship in fact.

She has set boundaries - she doesn’t pick up when he calls, and she wants to choose to respond when it suits her or when mutually convenient - these are both clear boundaries.

BUT he chooses to pester her with follow-on calls every few days even though he knows she would have seen his missed call - so that’s trampling set boundaries.

That’s not socially appropriate or respectful behaviour in any context - it’s not dissimilar to a nuisance cold calls! He is not respecting her time or choices. It’s demanding and intrusive - and that’s what’s she feeling.

99% of people don’t need to be told not to do that and it’s uncomfortable when you come across someone who can’t read social situations so that you then need to step up and state boundaries explicitly.

That requires effort and assertion and you can choose if you want to be in a relationship that requires such active management or not. That’s up to the OP to decide if it’s worth it to her.

Most relationship dynamics work with people being sensitive and empathetic and reading the implicit energy and patterns of behaviour and communication in the other person and responding in an ebb and flow that’s comfortable for the other.

He doesn’t do this.

I agree that with this character-type the OP now needs to decide whether to take responsibility to put in more overt and explicit boundaries than she has to date and see how he responds.

But it seems from her posts that her feelings of incompatibility and overwhelm are too great she doesn’t want the relationship at all.

That’s her call to make. She may choose to try to modify the dynamics to try to make it work better for her or she may decide that having to manage such a personality in the longer term is too onerous.

The most important thing she can do now is be respectful and attendant to her own feelings which she has repressed for many years and are now a problematic burden.

Emotionally honesty to herself is the first step. If she then chooses to be emotionally honest with him they may have a much better understanding of each other and more fulfilling relationship or it may end the relationship. Either way the current situation doesn’t sound sustainable. Whether he is just socially clumsy or subtly coercive will become clear.

I would say it's never unreasonable to not have a relationship with someone you don't want to.

How ever, do you think it's your immediate families strange dynamics that are affecting you?

You are not comfortable with this, that should be enough to insist on minimal or no contact. I think minimal contact would be to know if ever there is a serious illness you'd be advised, or a new child in the half-family, and when the person dies you are told so have the option/choice to remember him/attend the funeral if you wish.

@IamnotSethRogan

I would say it's never unreasonable to not have a relationship with someone you don't want to.

How ever, do you think it's your immediate families strange dynamics that are affecting you?

I personally can’t see that OPs immediate family dynamics are strange as described be her - seems very comfortable, supportive, open, independent and respectful to me.

”Me and my siblings don't ring eachother constantly and see eachother at Christmas at my mums and maybe once during the summer. We are all happy with this level of contact.

If my siblings were to start calling me like John does I could say to them 'stop annoying me and no harm done. We have that sort of relationship as raised together

In regards to my own siblings, I could call any of them right now and they'd be there for me and vice versa but we don't speak regularly outside of occasions other than a family WhatsApp where we exchange pictures and sporadic updates.

This is the perfect level of contact for us.

There's no hard feelings about it as we know we're there for eachother if needed but don't have reason to speak regularly as nothing in common to speak about.

We'll also do a long weekend away together every other year and do things like help eachother move house or drop off shopping if one of us is ill etc.”

I read a lot of this thread last night and had to come back to it. So I aologise if there is more since I read it. But for what it's worth - my take.

I feel for both of you OP. Sibling relationships are complex ones. We all want the kind of stories we see on Long lost family where people so often seem to forge incredible relationships. We want the happy ending. And we have a very sentimental idea of family as a society a lot of the time. Which is fair enough. Family is often the most important thing to many. But we don't really look at the difficulty of different roles and obligations a lot of the time or even question the expectations we often put on it.

I think it would be terribly cruel after ten years of maintaining a relationship with a person who you say is lovely and who you obviously get on with to cut him off or distance yourself. But I also wonder if the feeling you have of needing to get away is because you feel all these expectations off you that you cannot meet - or just simply don't have the emotional or time capacity to meet. It's interesting that things like his lovely presents or bunches of flowers (obviously designed to make you feel better) makes you feel worse and under pressure. Because your upbringing presumably dictates you have to match this and you feel you don't have the capacity for whatever reason.

I also wonder if you are feeling worse about the situation because you are comparing to your siblings you were brought up with. Siblings often fight like cat and dogs - or they can be distant when grown up. Perhaps you and your siblings just have a very no nonsense way of dealing with each other. Having someone else seem to redefine that relationship with different expectations could feel odd, - or even disloyal to your existing siblings (ie if you have to devote a lot more capacity to the new one - what does this mean about all the other relationships?) or even resentful that your roles that you are comfortable with with your existing family seem to be being redefined. Also siblings and families can have ways of being that whilst have closer obligations - can also have less formality which can be relaxing in other ways. Ie we are there for each other when in trouble but we can cut a phonecall short if we're not in the mood or have a falling out or whatever without breaking the relationship (ideally anyway!). Whereas with a "stranger" as you call him - (which I don't think he is now but I know what you mean) you don't have this - things are more formal so the the obligations could become onerous or resentment-enducing. I think maybe he's in this funny middle ground you can't just relax or risk "being rude" or informal. But he seems to also be putting on you the obligations, perhaps unwittingly. Perhaps because they are often mixed in with demonstrations of care - so it's tricky. So you end up with formality or awkwardness AND obligation. But not the being able to say "eff off" occasionally!

Sorry if any of that is way off the mark. Just thinking out loud here.

As I say I think it would be cruel to cut him off or say you don't want a relationship after all this time. Also it seems to me like it may be that's not the issue as such, but more the pressure of this ever -growing obligation and expectation that is making you feel like bolting for the hills! (Which I understand).

I wonder if a way of approaching it might be from an angle of talking about yourself and the way you are and been brought up. Ie perhaps you could say that he's been super kind but from your upbringing you feel very obligated when someone sends flowers and presents and that it is actually a bit stressful for you (as I'm sure he doesn't want to make you feel stressed). And maybe also having a chat about the fact that you really appreciate him but you have quite a big family with a lot of commitments and you feel you can't maintain this level with everyone and that you're not the chattiest on the phone. You'd love to catch up once a month or every couple of months or whatever (or whatever you feel you can do) but weekly phonecalls is quite a lot for you at the moment.

I don't know. I don't want to suggest things or how to put it. I just wonder if there is a way of trying to gently reshape the relationship so it is less romantic and obligatory and less pressure and more...well the good bits. More casual. More in the friendship realm.

I wonder if he hasn't very much family as in blood relations - whereas it sounds like you have quite a lot. I think it should be possible to gently make him realise that you have lots of obligations there and it's not possible for you to give that amount of time to everyone. So aiming for less but better quality - sort of thing.

There is another aspect to this. I suppose there is the aspect of the expectation of a kind of emotional closeness with family. And some people are just shyer or more reserved or maybe feel actually awkward or stressed by that. It could be he wants more emotional closeness and that is lovely. But it could be you are simply a more reserved person. And the irony of it could be that if he gave you more space, you'd probably feel a lot more relaxed - hence being a better relationship for both of you. Perhaps there is a gentle non rejecting way of explaining that you need a bit more space but that doesn't mean you don't want a relationship with him (if you see what I mean). That you are more reserved/shy/self-sufficient/however you might be and the current level is making you feel bad and you don't think he'd want this.

I don't know if all of that is terrible advice or not. I feel for you both and I admire your honesty OP. At the same time I think that we can feel like getting away from things that make us feel very pressurised or that we can't (or don't want to) live up to. But if he brings the pressure down, you might not feel the same way at all and you might relax and enjoy the relationship for what it is. And I'd think that was worth a go first as he sounds like a nice person just a bit too much for you.

Can we swap half siblings?

None of mine give a flying fuck about me - and we grew up under the same roof.

I don't think OP needs to be "be kind" but this has been going on for 10 years. I would feel weird to have a friend describe me as a stranger after all that time and honestly it would have been much more "kind" to have given him the message sooner, that this relationship is not happening.

It's fine not to want a relationship, but it doesn't really sound like a clear message has been given to the guy, apart from not answering calls sometimes. You have been happy to reciprocate gifts and visits so far. I wouldn't automatically think someone I knew a decade, who had visited and hosted me, was avoiding me if they missed a call first time. There's no obligation on OPs side, but I do feel for him that he seems to think this is good sibling relationship.

10 years. That's quite a long time OP, i thought it was going to be 2 or 3 max.

I voted YANBU - i'm amazed the vote is swung the other way.

I'm an only child and i have no hankering for a sibling. I can understand exactly the disconnect you feel.

Initiating a sibling relationship in adulthood is not the same as growing up together. Easy to say you'd love a sibling to walk into your life, ect ect, but you don't get to chose what they're like. Imagine your most annoying neighbour and then finding out they're your sibling for eg!

What should you do? Well the right answer is to tell him gently that now the kids are older (or something) that you'd like to reduce contact a little. OR you can just get better at hiding from him ...

Do i feel sorry for him?
Yes because from what i can make out he's never been given any boundaries to stick to so is probably blissfully unaware of how you feel.
Does that mean you have to go on forever as you are?
No. He's an adult and will cope if you're gentle.

YANBU to feel awkward and to not want this dynamic of a false closeness imposed on you. It's a personal thing and completely up to you as to how you feel.

However, I think YWBU not to gently start setting some clearer boundaries with John, especially since you've gone on for 10 years with his probably having no clue as to how you feel.

I would start with the phone calls - just tell him you can't always talk as you're busy, so why not arrange for a call once every week/fortnight/month so there's a standing arrangement in the diary, and he doesn't chase you and you don't feel like you're dodging him.

Or if you don't want to have calls with him at all, then say that! Obviously he thinks you're fine with chatting to him if you keep doing it, so if it's not what you want, then it's kinder to let him know.

YANBU to stop seeing him or to do whatever it is you want to do in life, but YWBU to come back here in 10 years and complain that it's still inexplicably happening against your will!

My dad has 3 siblings who grew up in care, Separately. As adults my dad tracked them all down and we used to see a lot of them. Now only one keeps in touch. There wasn't a falling out or anything, the relationships just fizzled. My dad was a bit hurt but he's moved on.
At the end of the day it's your choice. As long as youre kind about it.