How close are you really to your siblings?

[Ann3216]

I’ve wondered often about this. People seem to be really close on tv and films etc. (I know not really life!). I have 3 siblings all older than me. I talk to two of them often, like 4/5 times in the week. But I don’t think we’re close in the sense that I see others such as no one did any celebrations for each other like milestone birthdays, baby showers, hen do’s etc. there’s a big age gap between me and the other 3. I’m 8 years younger than the 3rd child. The other 3 have an age gap of 1 and 2 years between them.

DH too doesn’t seem close with his siblings. Rarely sees them.

I feel sad when I watch films and tv programmes and hear about others making plans with sisters etc.

hiw can I endure my kids grow up close?

I don't think you have any control over whether they grow up close or not. It depends on their personalities and other factors. Me and my brother were very close but then he met his now-wife, who doesn't like me. There was a falling out. I message him maybe once a week. We see each other face to face maybe twice a year.

I had to cut contact with my sister as she did so many awful things to me. I love her and miss her terribly but I know she wouldn’t care if I died. I finally got personal boundaries at 40. You can’t make someone love you or visa versa just because they are family. I discovered the hard way.

I’m very close to my younger sister nowadays but that didn’t happen until we grew up & started getting on. I think if our parents had tried to make us be close as kids then it would have taken a lot longer.

My brother & I get on ok but don’t talk that often.

I’m not close to my sister. We get on on a superficial level. See each other a few times a year. But we’re not close. She knows little about my life and I hers. We don’t have a lot in common.
DH isn’t close to his siblings either. Again superficial friendship but nothing more. See them infrequently and they don’t know much about us and vice versa

I get on well with my sister and brother and we sometimes holiday together and see each other about a dozen times over the year. Regular whats app etc but we live more than 200 miles apart and are busy with our own families, work, partners etc so are not on the phone constantly. TV is rarely a true reflection of life.

We do celebrate special occasions though. The whole family had a weekend away a few weeks ago to celebrate my sisters 60th.

My siblings and I are trauma bonded after tragic parental bereavement experiences.

I love them deeply and I would die for any of them. Whenever we are together it's really great, immediate deep connection and belly laughter about the crazy childhood memories we uniquely share.

BUT we are geographically scattered (europe, middle east, far east) which in some respects relates to fleeing the traumatic memories...

Our face-to-face contact is limited to a joint holiday once every couple of years. In the meantime we do WhatsApp messages and sometimes calls, but the time difference is tricky.

At the end of the day I think the sibling relationship is amazing and unique, but no parenting style or technique can force closeness as adults - what will be will be!

Wish you all the best. xx

I'm close to all 4 of my sister's. I'd do almost anything for them. I bought my younger sister a car when hers broke and she couldn't get to work without one. I have a holiday home and let them borrow it whenever they want and my nieces and nephews too. We all meet up 4 times a year.

Sounds pretty close if you speak 4/5 times a week. I have 4 siblings don’t speak to any of them. One sister haven’t spoken to her in 3 years we are NC the others are 3 brothers I get on fine with just not close and barely speak or see them.

im one of 3, we were close as children but since mid teens it’s definitely been a case of three being a crowd, they are very close but I am not that close to them. We get on but aren’t close

I can go years without seeing my brother, and we maybe phone once a year, other than that it's just birthday and christmas cards. It's not that we've fallen out, we just have nothing in common, live in different towns, etc.

My mother in law is the same, she has two brothers and even forgot to tell them when she moved house - she only realised after a couple of years when she hadn't got christmas cards from them for a second year!!

I think we just live in a more fragmented way now, caused partly by going off to Uni, and often never coming back to work in your home town due to lack of decent jobs etc., so you either stay in your Uni town or move to another city, wherever the work is.

From friends and family, those that stay close do seem to be the ones who don't move away for Uni or work etc., i.e. get jobs in their hometown, so stay geographically close to family, which makes it easier to keep close to family.

I'm an only , so couldn't comment on me . My dh has 2 siblings , they were all born and brought up here in uk but both of them now live in different countries.
One we saw about 5 years ago , the other more than 10 years .
They don't even keep touch for birthdays or Christmas but have never fallen out.
I find it a bit strange.

I have one sibling, a brother who is six years younger than me. He was very, very hard work as a child (he was assessed for ASD and ADHD twice - turns out he doesn't have either but I have both, though it was overlooked until I was 30!) so my parents were preoccupied with stopping him becoming completely feral. With me being so much older, we obviously had nothing in common and he was basically just a source of irritation for years. I then moved out when he was 14.

We're now in our late 20s/early 30s and we get on well but we only really communicate via sporadic texts. We still have naff all in common; even looks-wise, you'd never guess we were related. I moved across the country as soon as I could and I'm not at all family-oriented so I don't visit a lot. He is a bit of a bumpkin (said with affection, I promise!) and a real homebody, so he still lives and works where we grew up.

I am 57, my three brothers are all mid 70's, so a big age gap. We are not very close any more, we are just so different, different outlooks, different generations. They were lovely to me when I was young, I essentially had four dads, lots of affection and play. When they got married and had children we all got together for BBQ's, Easter, Xmas, but by the time I had my DC's theirs were already much older, and they had moved on. My DC's missed out on family, and when my DM died, and there was lots of angst over the will, any remaining sibling connections were lost.

I do feel sad about it, but it is what it is. DH is also youngest, with two older sisters, and he has the same issues.

I'm incredibly close to my 2 sisters. We live close to each other, had kids similar time, consider them my closest friends.

But like a previous poster, possibly brought closer together by difficult events in childhood?

You’re mega close to your siblings if you speak to them 4/5 times a week

Not very close. One lives abroad, there is a 15 year age gap and I’m closer to her kids.

One is married to a psycho, there is a 10 year age gap so I’m closer to her kids.

Others are abusive and scapegoat me.

I’m not super close with my brother in that we don’t really text or talk on the phone that much and see each other mostly at family events like birthdays and Christmas etc. but we love each other very much and would do anything for each other. We just don’t feel the need to talk to each other loads.

I guess it depends on what you see as “close.” We will always look out for each other and trust each other totally, but we aren’t in each others pockets and live separate lives. And we’re very happy with that.

DH and I live in the same town as our siblings, but we might as well live on the moon. I am NC with my sibling. DH is the baby of his siblings - they are all 15+ years older than DH and are retired with Grandchildren. We have young children. We have nothing in common with them and are at totally different life stages, so no reason to meet up.

I have one sister who is my best friend. We are close in age and live within a 15 min drive. We message daily and see each other frequently. We have a shared hobby so that features a lot in our meet ups and our kids are similar ages too. Trust her implicitly with anything.
DH has a younger sister but is totally NC and has been for over 15 years now. They were not particularly close growing up and have nothing in common at all. It's not so much that they've had a huge falling out or anything, there's just no relationship there at all.

Really close. I’m one of six and I genuinely like all of them and enjoy spending time with each individually and together. They are all very different so have different qualities and of course, my relationship with each other them differs from the others but I really feel lucky to have them as siblings and as friends.

I have two brothers. We're all in our 40s. We don't get to see each other a great deal because of distance but I'd say that emotionally were very close. We WhatsApp each other almost every day and have a very strong bond.

I don’t see my brother at all now, I was never close to him growing up as we were always very different people. He’s not a nice person, believes men are superior, he treats his wife and step children terribly, he’s jealous of anyone with more money than him and is homophobic. A real gem.

I have very close friends though thankfully.

My own children are very close and I hope they stay that way.

I am close by to my sisters, the two who are near in age to me particularly. We don’t live in each others pockets, but would do anything for each other and have a great time when we are together. We’ll always be around for each others special occasions. I often stay at theirs or they stay at mine and are close enough we would share a bed etc.
I’m the oldest of them and a lot older than the youngest (who’s close in age to my eldest dd), my relationship with her is a bit different, almost parental as parents were older when she was born and I did a lot of the more “fun” parenting type stuff my parents didn’t have the energy for with her.

im not as close to my brother, but quite close to my sister in law, but don’t see them as often.

I'm fairly close to my sister, but we don't talk that much - FB messages every few days or so. She'd be the first person I'd turn to if I'm stuck though, and vice versa.

DH would describe himself as very close to his siblings, but tbh it seems to me more like co-dependency than closeness. They see each other all the time, holiday together etc, but actually there's a lot of "politics" and talking behind each other's backs etc. I much prefer the relationship I have with my sister.

I've never really understood the angst some people seem to have about being close to siblings though. There's nothing inherently "good" about being close to them - it happens or it doesn't, in my view.

I know siblings who proudly describe themselves as "close" but in truth they are all quite insular and incapable of making friends outside of their family. I think that's quite sad.

Not at all, didn't even invite my sister to my wedding. We are totally different people, nothing in common, never really liked each other growing up.