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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be sad my adult children aren’t close

119 replies

betwixtmass · 29/12/2023 11:53

My DS and DD are two years apart and were inseparable growing up - my DS settled down with his now wife in his early 20’s and (quite understandably) spent more time with my now DIL than doing family things which my DD found a bit hard to accept initially & I think she felt that DiL didn’t make enough effort to get to know her and integrate into our family.

I’d hoped that once my DD settled down with her DH, that they would come back together again but it seems the opposite has happened and they have grown further apart. Unfortunately there were some argument around my DS’s wedding between DD and DiL, which I don’t think has helped the situation.

They’re all civil at family occasions, but don’t spend time together as a 4 - they live within 15 mins of each other but have only been to each others houses once in the last 2 years, which I find really odd.

I just feel so sad that they aren’t close especially as they are both married now and grandchildren are on the horizon - I am so close with my brother & his wife, and always imagined my children would be the same and their children would be close but it just doesn’t seem like that will happen.

has anyone been in the same position ? Were you able to bring your children back together again ?

OP posts:

oneflewoverthe · 29/12/2023 11:55

If they don't want to be close that's up to them. Personalities change as they move into adulthood. As nice as your sibling relationship sounds you can't pressure them to emulate it.

isthewashingdryyet · 29/12/2023 11:58

Please let your adult grown up ( I don’t want to say children as they are no longer children) form their own relationship with each other and their brother and sister in laws.

my mum telling me every time she saw me that she wished I got on with my siblings better, just drove the wedge in further. Leave them alone
and I couldn’t stand one of my siblings partners who was a patronising idiot, but loved my sibling very much. So I just avoided them both as the partner was such an idiot

HellonHeels · 29/12/2023 11:59

Leave them be. You can't force a relationship between two adults. My mother does this. Every time I speak to her all she wants to know is "have you spoken to your sibling/how is sib/have you seen sib" My sib gets the same. We have the relationship that we are both comfortable with and do not appreciate our mother trying to interfere and engineer what she wants.

Focus on the relationship between you and each of them as individuals.

Allthingsdecember · 29/12/2023 11:59

Why did they fall out around the wedding? It sounds like your DD started things on the wrong foot by seeing your DIL as competition?

You could try inviting DD and DIL for a few girly days/evenings out and hope that they get closer without your DS in the mix. If your relationship allows, and you think your daughter actively wants a better relationship with your son, it might be worth a chat about her past behaviour and how important being nice to DIL is for their relationship.

SmugglersHaunt · 29/12/2023 11:59

I was really close to my older brother growing up, but the moment he met his now wife it all changed. He's stopped speaking to me altogether on many occasions (for 18 months, another time for 2 years, most recently for 10 years). We were only brought back together by my dad's death. Now he'll only speak to me on a very practical level about caring for our elderly mum. He's told me he doesn't like me, but can't say why. At my dad's funeral, he said to me: 'We just have to work together like colleagues on a work project until mum is dead, then I never want to see or speak to you again'.

I'm past caring about having any relationship with him (in fact, I can't wait till I never have to deal with him again (which is his wish!). He's been vile to me on multiple occasions). What I can't forgive is how much his attitude has upset my mum and dad, and they didn't/don't need it in their 80s. No one can understand why he hates me so much and he refuses to explain himself.

My only advice would be to gently ask each child what the problem is, but don't push it, as they may turn on you (although I'm not sure of your relationship with each child). My dad tried to intervene with my brother and was told he was 'bullying' him (pathetic, but standard response). So they stopped trying.

I hope you can somehow get past it, or it can be resolved, as I know how horrible it is.

MrDobbs · 29/12/2023 11:59

If they are civil to each other, and they each prioritise their own immediate family units over and above everything else, on balance that's probably quite healthy in the long term - everyone's different if course but I've seen far more issues where people choose to invest a lot in the relationship with their brother/sister/parents to the detriment of their immediate family.

ShippingNews · 29/12/2023 12:03

Mine are the same - nothing I can do about it. They see each other for big occasions but otherwise I don't think they see each other at all. I can see how you'd wish for something like your relationship with your brother, but not everyone spends time together as adults.

I have one sister and we might talk a few times a year - I haven't seen her for about 5 years . We live in different cities and neither of us is inclined to travel to catch up - on the phone is fine with both of us. Everyone is different I guess.

margotrose · 29/12/2023 12:03

DH and I live in the same town as all his siblings but they have practically no relationship as adults.

One sister lives around the corner from us but I've never met her and DH hasn't seen her or spoken to her in a decade or more.

GymBergerac · 29/12/2023 12:05

Unfortunately there's nothing magic that you can do about this. I'm sure my three (all early 30's now) care about each other and they get on well when I arrange any family get togethers, but they have utterly different lives and never actually seek each other out.
It's a shame but I don't dwell on it. I'm just happy that they're all individually content in their lives.

uhtredsonofuhtred1 · 29/12/2023 12:08

As soon as my mum died the 5 of us just scattered. We now live at all ends of the country and I only speak to one sibling. To be fair I wasn't close to any of them growing up due to personality differences and age gaps but I thought the younger 3 would have stayed close. It was like mum was the glue that held us together.

SwedishEdith · 29/12/2023 12:09

Allthingsdecember · 29/12/2023 11:59

Why did they fall out around the wedding? It sounds like your DD started things on the wrong foot by seeing your DIL as competition?

Oh, god, don't do this. I'm probably like your daughter in this situation. I had nothing in common with my SIL and would have hated this.

Squirrelblanket · 29/12/2023 12:12

I don't think that being close as children means they will be close as adults. My husband has an older sister and a younger brother. He gets on fine with both of them but there's not much common ground and practically our lives are very different so we tend to see them a couple of times a year at most (usually at family gatherings). No one has done anything wrong, it's just that personalities change as you get older and sometimes you just don't gel in the way you did as kids.

Strawberrycheesecake7 · 29/12/2023 12:15

Some siblings just aren’t close and there’s not really anything you can do about it unfortunately. I was very close to my sister as a child but she lost interest in spending time with me when we were teenagers. This bothered me for a few years but I have a child now and just don’t have the time to spend on trying to “fix” our relationship anymore. While we get along fine at family gatherings I’ve just accepted we’re no longer close.

Feliciacat · 29/12/2023 12:15

This thread is making me feel better. I’m only close with one out of four siblings and two of them didn’t wish me Merry Christmas…and I didn’t even notice for a few days. We literally don’t enter each other’s minds! We had a dysfunctional childhood which definitely didn’t help.

I am thinking maybe parents put expectation on their kids to be besties and so the family (including the children) have that expectation. Then when the children are adults, they often don’t have a relationship but feel bad about that because of the cultural expectations. Maybe distance is normal.

anothernamechangeagainsndagain · 29/12/2023 12:16

Not all siblings are close when adults. It's not deliberate it's just that you only have so much leisure time and priorities change. I see my brothers twice a year maybe, Christmas at my parents and maybe once if one of them visits me or vice versa, typically when in the area for something else, no hard feelings, just not that close

CrapBucket · 29/12/2023 12:18

I hope my kids are mates as adults, I totally understand your feelings.

Don’t interfere though…. Just treat them equally.

GenXisthebest · 29/12/2023 12:20

Honestly, does it matter OP? Of course it would be "nice", but if they're both happy that's the most important thing. I'm not close to my brother - even though we're close in age and live less than an hour away, we rarely see each other and when we do it's almost always at a family thing rather than just the two of us or just with our partners. We're fond of each other, but we're very different people and don't have a lot in common. We're both happier this way, so why would we want to change it? Try not to let it bother you OP.

PicaK · 29/12/2023 12:22

What did your DD do to upset things around the wedding?

whirlingdevonish · 29/12/2023 12:24

Mine are the same as yours.
Peas in a pod when you get but they grew up and developed their own personalities and interests. They get on ok now but will never be as close as they were when at school.

My sister and I are worlds apart. We tolerate each other but that's it. So I see my own children's relationship at least better than that.

I do think what you've described is more common than you think, OP. People like to give the impression that their families are coherent and lovely but ime they rarely are; there are almost always cracks.

Original poster

betwixtmass · 29/12/2023 12:25

@Allthingsdecember I know my DD isn’t always perfect but my DIL was quite a bridezilla at times and that’s why they fell out. I don’t want to be too outing but she was very precious over a certain aspect of the wedding that directly impacted my DD and my DD made her feelings known. Unfortunately I think this has been an underlying tension between them since.

Maybe I should encourage DD and DIL to spend some time together and see if that works

OP posts:

literalviolence · 29/12/2023 12:27

betwixtmass · 29/12/2023 12:25

Maybe I should encourage DD and DIL to spend some time together and see if that works

Don't do that. You may make things worse and they may feel this as a pressure which makes them want to keep more distance. What you need to work on is accepting the decisions they've made.

itsmyp4rty · 29/12/2023 12:29

You might find that they come back together more if they have kids of similar ages and the cousins get on well. Don't try to force the situation, just let things evolve and stay as neutral as you can.

Original poster

betwixtmass · 29/12/2023 12:29

@literalviolence i know what you mean about not wanting to pressure them.

And know I can’t force them all to be friends but it is really is such a shame

OP posts:

SunshineAutumnday · 29/12/2023 12:36

You can't force a situation and you have to respect their choices.

Giving your opinion and viewpoint is not helpful either.

Maybe it's only yourself that sees it as a shame.
I'm not close to my sibling, never have been - it's taken my mum 40+ years to get that we don't get on. It's not a shame, its part of life and who we are and it's not going to change.

So, my advice is let it go and move on.

Original poster

betwixtmass · 29/12/2023 12:36

@itsmyp4rty yes I’m hoping they will bond over having children. I know it’s really important to my DD to have a close relationship with any nieces or nephews so im hoping they’ll all make an effort with each other

OP posts:

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