Siblings from difficult upbringings

[Drinkclearwater]

Is it just completely inevitable that siblings from difficult childhoods aren’t able to have enjoyable relationships with each other as adults?

I think it’s because their roles within the family system that they had to adopt in order to survive, trigger the shit out of each other as adults?

Objectively I love and like my sister.

If I adopt the role as listener for over an hour per FT call, agreeing with everything she says and NEVER offering opinions or advice and certainly never talking about myself, we get on well.

But if I dare to question her narrative about our family members or tell her that I see our parents in a more forgiving light, she either cuts me out for a while or just gets immensely snappy towards me.

It saddens me that our childhood being difficult has the potential to make us closer because we both agree that certain experiences we had were sub-optimal but instead we just seethe at each other.

She’s found her peace by moving abroad and cutting herself off. I’ve found it by having therapy and re-connecting with family who let me down as an adult but now with boundaries and it’s helped me to understand why our parents couldn’t be who they should have been, but it’s also something I treasure, the relationship I have with them all now as an adult. To be honest, it’s felt healing.

Because we can’t see eye to eye on the truth of everything we just clash and I find it such a great shame.

Why is my sibling relationship yet another thing I have to lose to live my life?

Does anyone here have a genuinely loving and soft relationship with their sibling after a traumatic childhood or is it always stolen from us too?

Perhaps there is truth in what you are saying.
My dp had quite a traumatic childhood and although he would love a close relationship with all of his siblings the reality is they have distanced themselves, and rarely want contact which has hurt dp immensely.

It’s a tricky dynamic to navigate isn’t it. With my sibling we had a very deep bond while we still lived at home because we relied on each other to try & survive (mentally rather than physically).

As we got older & left home and were out of the situation we didn’t need support from each other and stopped talking about it to the same level or depth (incredibly unhealthy - not recommended).

My sibling reacted more passively to our childhood while I was more confrontational & angry. They talked about forgiveness, and always avoided having difficult conversations. I was more of a screw you; they’d load the powder & I’d pull the trigger. I feel my sibling stuck their head in the sand and continues to pander to the family’s dynamic - they still crave what we were never part of.

Their view of me is likely that I’m stubborn, unforgiving & too black and white. And I think this is why our relationship is tricky- neither of us meet the other’s expectations or needs.

So for our relationship there is no genuinely soft side - I guess it’s just another family situation of disappointment .

I wish you all the best with your sister

Yes! My mum is very narcissistic. When we were young, we were very close but as adults our relationships have fragmented.

The Golden Child has become completely enmeshed with my mum and if mum is upset with us, GC sends us abusive text messages which mum pretends to be completely ignorant about. I have cut GC off.

I was very close to the Scapegoat and felt immense guilt that they got the brunt of the abuse. I’ve spent hours every day listening to their problems. They have a turbulent relationship with mum. If they are on good terms, I can’t complain at all. If they have fallen out, I have to agree that mum is the devil incarnate (even if I’m trying to disengage). SG is not happy until I’m emotionally wound up too and is very emotionally draining.

Since I’ve started going to therapy I’ve realised that we have a very dysfunctional family dynamic and all my siblings and myself have been very damaged and I have to prioritise myself and stop feeling guilty about what mum has done.

Yes I struggle with my dsis who seems to only think of herself. That’s why I rarely call her

Fortunately my sister and I shared our feelings about our childhood.
I think it’s very possible to have had different realities and both are actually right and true.
You sound absolutely amazing OP… well done on your hard work and your ability to move on… you have broken the cycle.

I think you’re right OP. My sister and I had many years where we didn’t speak. In hindsight we were both traumatised and we just couldn’t forge a proper adult relationship with each other (or anyone else for that matter!).

We then did reconcile but she is still quite fixated on the past whereas my tactic (which has worked for me personally) has been to put it all behind me and move on. But this means that when she does talk about the past I feel she’s “dragging” me back to a place I don’t want to be.

We also clash over our mother (our dad died a long time ago). She is still trying to “win” our mothers love, whereas I couldn’t care less at this point. So she wants me to do all these nice things for our mother along with her, that I don’t want to do and will not do.

Its really hard. I love my sister but at the same time, she’s a painful reminder.

My sister is screwed up by our upbringing, I don’t really have a relationship with her. Every now and again. It feels like we are getting along, regular invites to her home and something will set her off and she blocks me/not welcome at her house. Not told why

That’s so concisely how I feel. Dragged back into the past.
I have moved on, developed a pretty much opposite lifestyle to the one I was brought up in and my sister, despite being the one who put physical distance between herself and our family, just lives in the past. Our childhood is literally all she talks about. A lot has been embellished too because she’s had no one out there to calm her out on contradictions or lies.

It’s a sad, maybe unnecessary, consequence of an (at times) traumatic childhood. Of course our relationships with our siblings suffer. A lot of my other relationships have been harder work than they probably are for most people because I just didn’t have the modelling.

Familiar. Perhaps because she does that “splitting” thing that Ive heard about but not fully understood from my psychotherapist.
Where if you dont follow what they deem to be “good person” behaviour then they simply cut you out.

Maybe childhood trauma just causes BPD.

Thank you.
yes, on my more enlightened days, I feel that we are both right. We are just reacting in different ways because our survival modes have kicked in and she’s in ‘fight’, I’m in ‘fawn’. We are both still good people though.

I don’t know if this “golden child”/ scapegoat paradigm is particularly helpful or grounded in sound theory. It certainly doesn’t leads to healing.

It seems to hit the mark and resonate for some but I feel it blocks the prospect of
reconciliation, forgiveness or a willingness to study nuance (for example if our parents were treated poorly, they are likely to not have the inner tools to raise their own children properly).

This new phenomena of putting people in a ‘narcissist’ box and this cutting people out culture is a dangerous new trend I think. It will lead to loneliness because no human is perfect.

People may assume the role of ‘golden child’/ whatever but the adopting of said role is a survival instinct, firmly and unconsciously embedded since childhood we develop these roles within family systems in order to survive.

It feels like labelling people as permanent “narcissists” is closing the chapter and leaves no room for relationships to heal, grow or transcend difficult times.

Your poor DH.
I get it. It hurts if you hold family as being important.
none of my family wants or can do closeness and it saddens me deeply. I feel like I have no witnesses.

Thank you.
I think I’m your sibling and you are my sister!
It’s helped me to ready from the angry confrontational one’s pov so thank you.

I think I’m able to be more forgiving because I am married to a lovely, caring man and we raise our child in a peaceful, nurturing home so this process is healing me each day.

My sister hasn’t met anyone and she’s nearly 40. She often had one night stands and then gets ghosted. It’s so sad to see each time this happens she hates our parents even more and blames them for anything that goes wrong in her friendships or relationships.

I try to remember that I’m in a more privileged position than her and share my peace and internal resources with her through listening and agreeing with her but often these days she snaps at me too completely unprovoked so I’m slightly tapping out.

I find it sad that I can’t enjoy our relationship.

Completely different experience for my sis and I. Very traumatic childhood. I became the golden child. She became the naughty child.

We've had many nights through the years coming to terms with our childhood and how it affected each of us. We vocalised how we felt about each other, about our parents, our step parent, what happened to us.

We can identify the impact it's had on how we have behaved through the years and how we behave now.

She's one of my closest friends and has been for the last 10 years. No one else gets me like she does, and vice versa, as no one else truly understands the hell we went through.

The paradigm was certainly helpful to me. After a lifetime of being confused and sucked into my dysfunctional family, I could finally see the links and roles in my dysfunctional family (and I was no passive character in that).

It gives me a better understanding of the dynamics (including my part), keeping boundaries, not reacting and manage my family in a more calm way and less distressing way.

As for forgiveness, reconciliation or healing relationships, I did care for that. When I was younger, my family would laugh about me being the “peacemaker”. It’s only as an adult, I realise how messed up and damaging it was for me to be given that responsibility.

We’re all adults and responsible for our actions (and their consequences). My main priority is my child (my mum and sister behaved terribly during my pregnancy and first year, I genuinely think they were annoyed that I stopped giving them as much attention).

I’ve decided that my child comes first and I’m not going to expose DC to the shouting, screaming and fighting that I’ve grown up with and normalised.

I try to remember that I’m in a more privileged position than her and share my peace and internal resources with her through listening and agreeing with her but...

Really interesting discussion, OP. But if someone tried to do the above to me, I'd get pretty snappy too. You do sound pretty patronising about your sister, and she will feel that.

Your relationship with your DSis is very similar with my SG DSis. We are really close and the only ones who can truly open up about what happened. I think what helped was that I could see how she was treated was unfair from a very early age so didn’t join in with the abuse.

I have however pandered to her a lot (spending hours every day listening and rehashing the past) because I feel so guilty about what she’s been through. But I’ve recently realised that it wasn’t my fault and no amount I do can make up for it.

I’ve cut down how much I speak to her (complaining about our family). I was convinced that she would be very angry and cut me off, but it’s actually been very healthy (both for our relationship and my sanity!).

Good on you. It sounds like you’re doing all the right things for peace and can see everything clearly for what it is.
my sister was awful really when I had a baby. She screamed at our dad for coming to visit me and my new baby.
she also came from abroad to visit and laid in to me because I told her not to slag the family off to me because it made me feel in the middle of it all. She was completely allergic to my boundary and continued to insult me while I was sleep deprived, dealing with a new born baby and our mother had only just died. I remember crying on my bed with my baby asleep next to me. Confused about who was in the wrong and upset that our relationship doesn’t work well for whatever reason.

it’s not really left me and now I keep our rl very superficial to keep a thread of contact.

She once didn’t send a card or text on my birthday (we had always had a tradition of making each other feel special on our birthdays prior to this) and when I told her I was sad about it she screamed down the phone at me and didn’t talk to me for months.

The more I think about it all, the more grateful I am that she lives far away and flounces off in a huff about everything.

I get that it came across like that, but what I meant was that I put myself on the back burner for her in acknowledgment of my luck.

It seems like you have decided to move on from your childhood and not allow it to define you. That is great.

However your sister has been unable or unwilling to do that. Someone should point out to her that forgiveness really is the best form of self interest. The fact that she is 40 though and hasn’t moved on is quite worrying in regards to her future.

Have you told her you have had therapy and decided to make peace with your childhood? That it’s not you excusing your parents but clinging onto negativity was only hurting you?

You are well within your rights not to discuss your parents with her and you could make it clear to her that you recommend she seeks therapy as you are no longer prepared to discuss the past.

Also your relationship with your sister is clearly dysfunctional and the sad thing is unless she responds positively to
your attempt to create boundaries then you may well need to cut her out for a while to see if that encourages some self reflection on her part…..

Wow! That is truly awful behaviour! It doesn’t matter how much she’s hurting, there’s no excuse for that.

She reminds me of both of my DSis. One lashed out at me a lot, the other is very loving but complains relentlessly and very thoughtless e.g. completely ignored my DC birthday (but expects me to prioritise her).

I wish we could all get along (especially since I’m quite lonely) but that would involve constant pandering and I just don’t have the energy for that, nor want to set that example for my DC.

You seem to have a really good sense of what’s happened in your family and processing everything. You should be very proud of yourself x