How close are you to your siblings?

[Lifesprettyweird]

I live abroad and see my sister once a year or two and haven’t seen my brother for a few years. When we see each other, we get on but I sometimes feel awkward, it feels sad
Am I the only one?

1 Brother 1 Sister. Extremely close to my sister and I love my brother but he's a bit of a dick. Wish it was bit different with him but he's a mé feiner. Would love to be much closer because of my nieces but it is what it is.

Really interesting thread. I don’t know many people who aren’t close to their siblings but that seems to be the minority looking at previous posts.

I’m very lucky. I have 4 siblings and 5 Nieces/Nephews and we meet up regularly. We have an annual family holiday in UK every year where we rent a big house and we always get together for Mother’s Day, Easter, Father’s Day, Xmas day, Boxing Day and any big birthdays and wedding anniversaries (and obviously weddings/hen do/baby showers etc)

Youngest sibling is 18 years younger than the eldest and 8 years younger than the second youngest and is also the only boy. Just this year he has decided to stop coming on the holiday and didn’t come at Easter. I think it’s a shame he’s decided to do that but it’s up to him. No falling out.

I have a twin sister and we speak multiple times a day (she lives in a different city). I see another sister weekly as I look after her kids one day a week. I speak to my other sister once a month (again she lives in a different city) but still very close. I have never spoken to my brother outside of the group get togethers, there is a 16 year age gap and it’s always felt awkward for me.

I have 6. We all know about each other. They all know each other but I’ve never met them. I think of myself as an only child because that’s how I grew up until I found out about them.

I love these threads.

Nobody likes their siblings.

Stop having loads of children.

Not close at all.
I'm one of six kids. 3 of my brothers are awful.
Haven't spoken to eldest 2 for 15 years.
Younger brother is a liar and treated me terribly until I cut all contact with him 3 years ago.
My sister us a selfish cow. Speak to her maybe once a year.

One brother is absolutely wonderful and lovely. We've been best friends since we were kids. I speak to him regularly. We live 300 miles apart so I don't see him in person a lot but when we meet up, it's like we've never been apart.

One brother and one sister, I can and do go years between talking to either of them. I’m pretty sure they rarely if ever see each other either.

No real reason other than we are all have very little in common so barely kept in touch when we all left home. Our respective partners have never met each other.

I have a sister. We used to be closer than we are now. I realised that I put in most of the work, and that if I don't contact her, she doesn't really contact me, so I stopped. I can't actually remember the last time she rang me to see how I am. Also, she's said a few things over the last few years that made me realise that she doesn't really know me at all.

It's a shame, and she's still my sister, so if she needed anything, I'd do what I could.

I have a large family, 3 sisters, 2 brothers.
Growing up I was the black sheep because I was smart, studious and generally quiet. They the complete opposite. I went away for uni, tried to make the most of my life whilst they all turned to drugs, had babies in teens, long term unemployed etc and the gulf widened. I was too embarrassed to introduce a partner to them and any family event would result in them all drunkenly ganging up on me trying to get me to smoke joints with them and laughing when I refused.
One of my sisters actually told her kids that I thought I was better than them as I went to university ffs.
I want very low contact with them all for a long time.
Life happens, crises happened, and I ended up needing to step up for nieces and brothers after brothers found themselves homeless and nieces on verge of going into care thanks to my sisters careless drug possession.
Things improved, I think they saw that their life of benefits wasn't all fun and maybe I wasn't as stuck up as they thought. I was also the only one that had money and could disappear on holidays when I wanted to.
Ultimately, I found that some of them still harboured a grudge and not only hid the fact of my long term partner having an affair with a family friend but actively conspired in setting them up.
Years on and I'm barely on speaking terms with one of them.
The others I see occasionally and one sister I spend a bit more time with. As years go by we've found a lot more in common than we thought.

I'm very close to mine. I know they would 100% have my back if needed.

She lives in Oz so we only see each other once / twice a Year. But text silly stuff most days and speak once a Week. There was a lot of trauma in our Childhood, I've had therapy / worked through mine but she decided against it and holds a lot of anger, so we're in very different places. We have exactly the same sense of humour though, no-one in the World I laugh as much with!

You reading something else?

My sister and I live in different countries but are close. We chat on the phone/facetime when we like - not always every week but 2+ times a month. We see each other in person when we can: once a year? twice? sometimes not not for a year or more? If I vacation in her country, she comes along for a day or two. Now that we are older/more solvent, we can visit more often.

Not that close, although we do get on. See each other couple of months or so.

Very close. All in contact with each other. My sister is the most fun person to spend time with, she’s quite a bit younger than my brother and I and is just an absolute hoot, she lives quite nearby but unfortunately we don’t see each other as often as we’d like but we are in touch regularly. My older brother I see quite a bit of, he and dh do football stuff together. Message each other a bit and again he lives only a few miles away but he will call in for a cuppa when passing every couple of weeks.
I’m really lucky to have a lovely relationship with them, they’re great people.

Close to my sister, we weren’t always that way but actually became closer when we ended up living 400 miles apart. She had kids who I adore and that helped build our relationship. We keep in touch via WhatsApp and visit several times a year. My nieces and nephews now have kids and it’s fabulous when we all get together.

I also have a younger brother who I was close to and protective of when we were younger. Unfortunately he turned into an absolute arsehole and for various reasons I haven’t seen him for over 20 years.

I have one child and sometimes, when I feel guilty that he has no siblings, I remember that there are no guarantees that siblings will be friends. My DH has one brother and they are not friends, just keep in touch regarding practical arrangements for their elderly parents.

Very close to my sister. We talk daily, often just short calls as we're both on maternity. We've always been close aside from a couple of awkward early teen years.

I'm the youngest of 5.

Last saw my sister over a year ago and haven't spoken to her in about the same time frame
I last saw one brother Christmas 21, other brother in 2015 (he's an awful, lying, rapey, thieving a-hole though so not missing out!)
The only brother I cared about/spoke to regularly died unexpectedly in 2022.

I went through years where for my birthday I'd ask just to see them and hang out rather than a gift, when that didn't work I asked for phone calls, when that didn't work I just gave up.

Watching my two smalls together now it breaks my heart that this could be them in 20 years. Really hoping they remain close and have a little team for life.

Not at all. I moved away from where we grew up, to be closer to city.

Eldest brother still lives closeby as he met someone local but there's no reason to still live there as we don't have a family unit or home. I won't be moving back. He isn't the most social and his children much older than mine, we see them about twice a year and not even at Christmas as he stopped wanting to see anyone then. But we don't celebrate Christmas as a family as we have no sane or healthy parents. One of death bed and one none of us speak to.

Second eldest brother lives abroad alone, never has met anyone which is sad and I think is depressed but doesn't let anyone in.

Younger sister is take take take, won't take responsibility for her life, calls me crying when the next relationship ends, ran herself into debt, can't afford rent so asks to live with me and my family - not ever again after I put her up for 5 weeks when I was pregnant only for her to scream at me in my own house, very dramatic and now in a bit of bother as she needs to sort her life out once and for all. I really hope she does but I said to my husband I feel like she will want me to carry her forever.....

Also live abroad. Talk to my sister all the time, see her when I can.

NC with brother for last 10 years. He's not a pleasant person so suits me down to the ground. DSis is LC with him as they both live locally.

It's completely normal to drift apart from siblings in adulthood. They are just people we shared a house with as children, but that doesn't mean that we like them (or vice versa) or have anything in common with them. Whereas we choose our friends, so the bonds and commitment are much stronger.

DH and I have 4 siblings between us

Not close to any of them. One of them lives like 5 minutes away but we never spend time together unless our paths cross at MIL’s house

My sister is my best friend in the world and feels like the other half of me. I adore her. Even though she's a witch and we are very very different people, she's absolutely the person I'm closest to. My daughter says she's auntie mum 😂🤷🏼‍♀️.
My brother we are not close at all. I don't like his choices, how he behaves in relationships, his lifestyle, or the way he treats people. I don't like his priorities although I enjoy his company at times and think he is funny etc, I don't make plans with him and he doesn't visit us. I only see him in a wider family situation.
I grew up living with my brother and not my sister.

I have one sister and we’re not close. We used to be when we were children but she made her own friends as a teenager and since then hasn’t had much interest in spending time with me. I’ve seen a bit more of her in the last year since I had my son, because she likes being an auntie, but I still wouldn’t say we’re close at all. She would never choose to spend time with me alone, which is a shame as I would love to.

4 of us.
I am close to my eldest sis and my brother. Literally my rocks.

me and the other sister can be close but more like chalk n cheese.

my brother isn’t close to the other sisters.
the other sisters are close-ish.