Anyone else not close to their siblings?

[jbird45]

So my brother recently got married and it was a very small wedding of only 20 people. Basically family & bride and grooms best friends. During my brothers speech he was thanking everyone for the parts they’ve played in their lives - parents, his best friends, the bridesmaids (i wasn’t a bridesmaid btw) and he basically thanked every single person in that room and didn’t even mention one word about me... he then said ‘so yeh I hope I haven’t forgot anyone’ and my husband shouts out ‘yeh your sister!’ And then my brother laughed awkwardly and was like oh yeh.

Anyway... really hurt my feelings that I was totally missed out. We used to be close but ever since I met my husband and got married we totally went our seperate ways. I’ve really tried to keep a good sibling relationship but he never seems that interested, never the first one to initiate doing something together unless he needs me, he’s always treated his best friends wife like a sister rather than me since we’ve grown up. My parents don’t think he’s doing anything wrong ever and seem to always pin the blame on me that we’re not close.

I feel exhausted trying. I’ve always looked up to him but now I just feel abit empty and very sad about it all. And most of all pretty humiliated that I was the one person not mentioned at his wedding, not making it about me because I don’t want too but i just find it sad.

I hope I’m not alone ? Please tell me if I’m overreacting!! I just want a healthy sibling friendship tbh.

I have three brothers. There is a big age gap between me and my brothers (11 years and more) I used to be close to two of them. I'm only close to one now. The other I realised is a control freak and a domineering bully. He suffers with bad anxiety but it vents itself in a very unpleasant way. The brother I'm close to is usually the person who the other brother directs the angst at so that's been upsetting. I find it easier not to contact him but he never stops trying to make contact.
The third brother just completely does his own thing. He two once gave a speech and totally missed me off his list of family members. The brother I'm close to reminded him!

One I'm quite close to and her dc, one is a nasty piece of work so I went nc years ago, as for the others we basically exchange cards on special occasions. Luckily I have an amazing partner, dc and lovely friends.
My dc get on extremely well as adults and when they were children but then I tried not to parent thm like my narcissistic mother did us.

That’s really upsetting and thoughtless of him OP.
I have a large family - I’m only in touch with two now - by phone - they live 140 miles away but wouldn’t visit me either - I used to send lots of Xmas cards to my nephews and nieces but I never got one back - I was a very good aunt to them - I don’t bother with this anymore either.n
I fathom they must be sending cards out to others - so why not me.
My family is very painful - we aren’t a family really.

No. They are not nice people.
Unless I bump into them at my mothers which is never, not seen them for years. Not bothered either.

I didn't even invite my sister to my wedding.

I dislike her for lots of reasons, and don't feel any sadness or loss for us being so distant with each other. I communicate with her only when it's necessary, but I expect that will stop completely once our parents are no longer the common interest.

I think your DH highlighting was very unfair. Why would he do that? There is a time and a place and that wasn't it. He basically showed the whole room that there was an issue.

As for my experience with my Dsis, I could think of a lot of people I would rather spend time with but shes my sister, I love her and I'd do anything for her.

Oh this thread makes me sad (& worried!). I’m an only child and I will shortly have three boys (5, 3, newborn).

I’ve no experience of a sibling but my god, I really hope they don’t end up hating each other!

I'm not close to my brother and never have. For his wedding I went to a huge amount of effort to get my parents there, bought my parents outfits (mum had dementia, dad was very frail), got them dressed, arranged a hairdresser for mum, drove them there (and this was 6 weeks after I'd had an accident, 3 surgeries and suffered a life changing injury). They put dh, ds and me on a table at the back with SILs work colleagues, not even my aunt. That was an embarrassing conversation!
Our parents died this year, and once I've dealt with the final disbursements, I'll never speak to him again. My brother has shown himself up thoroughly this year

I am not close to my siblings however I know my sister has my back. She trusted me with her children for 2 years 10 years ago (niece was a teenager came here to go to school) and right now my youngest is doing her IB living with my sister in Denmark.

My brother i saw him in August first time in 5 years last time was my mother's funeral. He is ok engages w my children via social media but truth is he is happy in his little world and doesn't want a great deal of contact.

So no not close but neither are we fighting I trust both to do what is right and have had that proven both with regards to my mothers death and with regards to father and stepfather ill health.

I guess I would say not close but trust not broken

I have one brother. We speak a few times a year, not seen him in 2 or 3 years. We used to be closer but our lives have just gone in quite different directions, we are very different people and we don't seem to relate to each other very well any more. No real back story, we get on ok just very little in common, if he was a work colleague or something I'd probably think he was a bit of a posh pompous twat, he'd no doubt think I was common as muck. People who know both of us independently find it hilarious we are siblings we're that different.

I know it upsets DM that we are not close, but it's difficult to find common ground and phone calls are awkward and often descend into total silence as we run out of things to say.

OP, there are an awful lot of ‘shoulds’ implicitly in your post — the groom’s sisters are not generally bridesmaids, those are for the bride to choose from her friends or sisters, so I don’t know why you seem to have felt you might have been one. And surely if you haven’t been close for years, it would have been strange for him to single you out in his speech?

For whatever reason, you’ve drifted apart since your marriage, and now you want a relationship far more than he does, but it all seems terribly tangled up in obligation and compulsion, and you seem very angry with him for not behaving towards you as you feel he should. I imagine this doesn’t help matters.

No, I’m not close to my siblings, but I don’t feel there’s any obligation to be.

I don't speak to my sister or brother I'm the youngest. I will never speak to them again. Both are rich and selfish.

I don’t have a relationship with my sibling, didn’t really fall out, just too many years apart and he’s not really interested. People live with worse things. It is what it is.

Mine is a twat. My whole childhood was ruined by him. We were v close in age so I could never escape him. Once my df dies I will never have to have so much as a conversation about him again and I cannot wait.

No. I have one brother who is 28. While I love him fiercely and would do anything for him, I don't particularly like him or enjoy his company. If we weren't related, we wouldn't be friends.

I only see him when I see my parents, which has been once this year as they're 300 miles away.

I have three siblings and I'm not on speaking terms with any. They're all a combination of abusive, self-obsessed, hypocritical, smug and unpleasant. Their partners are all nasty too.

My DH and his brother aren't close. They 'get on' (as in there's no issues between them) but they just have nothing in common. They simply don't seem to need each other in their lives. Their parents have both died, so there's nothing binding them together. They live 2hrs apart, so they're not even geographically close.
We see him at Christmas (not this year) for lunch, and that's about it. They've probably spoken 3 or 4 times since last Christmas.

It makes me really sad, as my sister died, so it's a relationship I've never really experienced (we weren't that close as kids, but as young adults we were just starting to have more in common).

I think it’s more common than you think.

You can’t even buy a card without being confronted with “your sibling is your best friend” bollocks. For some it is, but for others it’s not.

It is sad when you have that realisation

I have younger twin sisters. My father died a couple of weeks ago and one sister has emptied my parent’s house of everything of any value and started demanding to have the death certificate and will within hours of him dying. My mum’s in a care home and my other sister has POA.
Sister1’s behaviour has been unbelievably appalling. At the cremation she was telling everyone how much the funeral wreath cost and what a waste of money it was 😳🤬
It’s completely broken me, I don’t think I will ever recover from this.
She’s also coerced thousands of pounds out of my mother, to the extent that my mum couldn’t even afford a birthday card for my birthday. Last Christmas apparently mum put money in envelopes for everyone one Sister1 took the money out, leaving £5 in each envelope and pocketed the rest.
I am horrified and utterly sickened.

I don't. If I never saw her again it would be too soon. And I worry how inappropriate my reaction would be if I was told she had died.

The only time I see my younger brother is at Xmas we used to be close but not anymore he’s a very selfish person so only gets in touch with anyone when he needs something. I don’t let it bother me anymore. We don’t have a close relationship and I’ve come to accept that. Don’t dwell on the wedding too much just concentrate your efforts on the people that appreciate you.

If I wasn't mentioned in a speech I couldn't care less. It sounds like your husband humiliated you in front of all your family. I'd be devastated if mine did something like that.

I have two sisters.Got rid of the toxic one a few months ago.
She has always been stuck up and domineering.
She will decide who is next on the hit list and who is next and the suck up to list.
Some family members have always said take no notice we all know what she is like.....so she keeps repeating the behaviour because she gets away with it.
A few months ago I was on the hit list again. Slagging me off to the others and telling lies.
I decided to tell her some home truths and say I wasnt putting up with it anymore.
She denied everything,got upset and played the victim.
So I am done.
Feel like a huge weight has been lifted

I'm NC with my sister. Have been for 5 years.

It was devastating at the time, but now I realise how miserable and unhappy she always made me feel. She criticised my clothing, my hairstyle, how I did everything and worst of all how I parented my kids even though she never had any. Nothing nice ever came out of her mouth towards me.

It's been life changing, as if the dark cloud has lifted. I feel happier, and more peaceful though it's hard getting our Mum to accept it........ but she chose her other daughter as golden child, and made me the family scapegoat. I'm never going back to that role.

I'm the youngest of three - with big age gaps (10 and 14 years) between myself and my older brothers. Oldest brother and I're pretty close, but he essentially helped to raise me, which may well be why. He's the first person I turn to in a crisis and he and his wife have been a huge support for me in the past few years. We live at opposite ends of the country to one another, though, but call and 'e'mail all of the time. Middle brother was very much our mother's Golden Child (oldest brother and I're very firmly the family's scapegoats) and I didn't talk to him for almost 30 years, because of some bad choices which he made and would not own. In fact, it took him moving to literally the other side of the world for us to start talking on social media, maybe three or four years ago. We'll never be close - and that does make me sad... but that was his choice, not mine.

My mother is the oldest of four and does not talk to any of her siblings because they all went NC with her whilst I was still very young. My aunt married my father's brother and I was set to be their bridesmaid, right up until the day of the wedding when my mother threw a tantrum (because the attention was on my aunt, not her...) and she forbade me from being bridesmaid. I was 3 at the time and I remember it vividly. My aunt decided there and then that she was done (and apparently cried when I crept up to stand beside her during the vows and held her hand - but I don't remember that bit!). My uncles I think just had enough of my mother's stroppiness and dropped the rope she was expecting them to hold onto.

My maternal grandmother is the oldest of 2 and hasn't spoken to her sister in almost forty years. Their father's death and my great-aunt "over-stepping" by hosting the wake, seems to have been the catalyst. Both sisters are in their 80s and 90s now, but I doubt very much they'll ever speak again.

On the other side, my father is the oldest of 8 - 2 full and 6 half-siblings. He was very close to the 2 full-siblings, and dabbled in talking to the 6 half-siblings, but now only speaks to one full brother. I have a better relationship with the half-siblings than he does... and I think he/they like it that way. Unlike with my mother and her siblings, there was never any falling outs, simply a drifting apart coupled with a lack of desire to maintain contact.

I have two children, myself, and although I know it's inevitable they'll fall out as they age (8 year age gap, so they'll always be at different stages in their lives to one another), I can't help but hope they'll buck the family trend, and maintain contact with one another throughout their lives.