I feel like some of the most difficult relationships one has, particularly as you get older, are your siblings. I don't think I am the only one, but would love to share/hear other experiences.
My brother still isn't able to keep a job, find a regular place to live, or hold down normal relationships. Some of this is due to mental health issues, but not all. He steals / borrows / takes the piss/money off most people in the family. I won't abandon him, but it's getting to the point where I think we might be enabling him.
Do any of you have great relationships with your siblings as you got older?
I don't have much of a relationship with my siblings. I'm the only one to live outside of the town we grew up in, so while they all see each other at least once a week, I see them every 3-6 months. They're not easy to talk to, one in particular makes conversation like drawing blood from a stone. I'd obviously hate to lose any of them, but I wouldn't say I'm close to any of them.
I have 2 older half-siblings, both of which I'd be happy to avoid for the rest of my life.
My sister who is the oldest hasn't spoken to me for years. I make it sound like I've tried to contact her but I haven't. She went off and had a kid a while ago and has been slowly cutting my mother out of her life for some reason. Since she is around 8 years older than me I've never really had a good relation with her so I'm more than happy to forget about her, there was nothing there to begin with.
My older brother is 4 years older than me and while we got on when we were young I began to find him insufferable as time went on. He always has an answer to everything and insist he is right. I avoid him too, he got involved with drugs at one point in his life but swore it was just that one time. I have a memory of him coming round my parents house when they were out and being rather jittery, claiming to be here to see if he had forgotten anything when he moved out a few years ago. I accused him of acting weird and looking like he wanted to find something to steal which he denied and got angry about. I didn't keep up contact with him apart from the odd birthday wish to and from. The past few years he became heavily religious to the point where he claims he wants to preach to people. I have him on facebook and see his posts from time to time show up on my newsfeed. During the lockdown he turned up outside my parents and wanted them to read the bible and "believe" so they could be saved and all that shite they go on about. I have nothing against him being religious but I hate the type of people who try to push it on others.
By all means I'm not exactly the perfect sibling to them but I find comfort on my own or with close friends rather than my family. I don't hate either of them but I can't say I like them either.
>Do any of you have great relationships with your siblings as you got older?
I started to get along with my brother after we worked together for a few months. We can have a good laugh but don't have anything in common, he stayed in my hometown being hands-on/borderline-criminal working class who whinges about how hard he has it (the reality is he's just a bit of a twat). I'll see him once or twice a year and get stories from my mother where he's been shagging some 20-something woman behind his wife's back. ITS NOT FAIR
My other brother is an idiot and we'll just be civil for the sake of the family - we shared a bedroom growing up so peace was never an option. Nobody sees him because his wife's family has taken over his life.
In conclusion: Siblings are shit.
>>29838 I also have two older half-siblings. How disconcerting.
I'm the younger sibling that's a borderline homeless drug addict with mental health issues, I have an older brother who is doing quite well for himself and has a good career, polar opposites but when we do see each other we can still have a laugh, he's a decent person.
I don't know if I'm being an arsehole or what, but since my sister has had a child we've been spending a lot more time together. She's a single parent so I guess my occasional presence is better for her child than no male influence at all, but I feel weird about it. It's almost like there's some kind of pseudo-relationship going on. She's just called me over to share a curry on her only night off from parent hood and the thought feels really strange - I'm not a particularly engaging or fun friend, i'm pretty much only visiting to see my nephew. Ofcourse I'd see her if he didn't exist but I'm sure she'd be doing her own thing with her own friends, just make time for me when it's convinient rather than now as I seem to be an outer part of her support network.
It does sound like she's trying to fill the absent father's place a little bit, I don't think it's that weird, but if you're not comfortable with it I also understand why.
She's probably feeling very alone, trying to raise a kid on her own. I reckon I hadn't had very supportive and active grandparents, my mam (also a single mother) would have gone off the deep end for sure.
>>29848 It sounds like the weirdness is because she is depending on you in a way siblings don't. I'd gamble that like most single mothers she doesn't really have friends anymore and men don't exactly queue up to be a step-father.
I find it harder and harder to connect with my sisters.
I wouldn't say we really agree with each other on any subjects and in conflicts they usually get very dramatic and emotional (and I think a bit manipulative), so basically I avoid talking to them honestly and openly.
It's really chipping away at me to be honest, I feel like I have a feigned personality when I'm around them, and I can't see any situation where they'd understand my point of view. It could be that they're in the right, but this atmosphere where fundamentally disagreeing with them causes a storm just feels wrong.
It's funny because our parents raised to understand history and culture and critical thinking and it feels like that's all gone out of the window for them, when they talk it's like they get all of their knowledge of the world from online news/trivia articles. I know that's no reason to resent your family, but I feel the gulf widening between us.
I don't really have a point or even think I'm in the right here, or that this is very important, it just bothers me a lot and I can't talk about it with anyone else really.
My ex had a fair bit of a manipulative streak whenever we got into an argument, where she'd always focus on shot-sightedly "winning" rather than addressing the issue, by resorting to underhanded tactics and saying the sort of things that do more harm than good.
It'd be easy to dismiss it as "that's birds for you innit hurr", but I have a bit of a hypothesis that it's something people who grow up competing with close siblings learn almost by necessity, and subsequently do it without realising. People with a larger age gap between siblings or only childs don't seem to display it.
Probably not much you can do about it anyway, though.
>>29897 >resorting to underhanded tactics and saying the sort of things that do more harm than good.
Yeah that's definitely the case here, even though talking about whatever issue outside our family life shouldn't matter really, the way it's dealt with feels very alienating I think is the problem. I noticed a lot of the problems on this board aren't actually the issues mentioned by the poster but the disturbances caused by how they perceive the problem.
