My sibling relationships

All of this got me thinking a little about my estranged relationships with my older brother and sister. The great sadness of my parents doomed marriage was where it should have brought us siblings together and made the relationships forever strong, it had very much the reverse effect.

For many years I did have a good relationship with both of them, but they left home and it was just me and my mum. My brother moved to the other side of the world and my sister moved to the north of England which is where both of them still live now. In my late teens and early twenties I lived near my brother as I had moved out to Australia and we did have a very good relationship, actually better than good, it was brilliant, but I didn’t want to stay in Australia so I left knowing that the distance would make it difficult to sustain a good relationship.

My sister and I had always kept in very close contact and with me living back in the UK it was easier to see each other and to be honest I would always go to her for advice for probably just about everything. 

At this point and I still have absolutely no reason why, but my brother had decided to sever all contact and refused to speak to with my sister. I have no idea what was said or even if there had been an argument. I’m sure I will never know the reason why. Still that’s for them to live with. Although I am sure there will be regrets 

As the years passed I found the distance grew wider, not just geograpically, but also on a personal basis. I also found that there was too much living in the past for me to want to keep contact going. 

If I ever spoke to or met up with my brother or sister I found that the conversation would always return to our childhoods and all the issues that this brought with it. To my way of thinking we never seemed to look forward, only backwards, which is quite ridiculous, and it felt that actually that’s all we had in common. 

Some years later I went through a tough divorce and just when you need your siblings for support or just to chat to, for me unfortunately they were nowhere to be seen. 

At this point I didn’t make a conscious decision to have no contact it just evolved that way. The longer it went on the easier it got and infact I have to be honest I didn’t miss them. That was 15 or so years ago. 

In recent years, I did start to have contact again, but found that our lives have nothing in common anymore and the conversation by either phone, text or email, became quite difficult and strained as to what to say. I found we simply had nothing in common. So with regret we have lost all contact again. It is a shame when siblings don’t have contact, yes it does make me sad when I see other siblings together and what possibly could have been, but half a lifetime has passed now, and in all honesty I doubt it will be re-instated anytime soon. The truth is the only thing we have in common is the same parents and a messed up and dysfunctional childhood, and that is not enough to form a long term relationship. 

One of the saddest things that I have concluded from this for me on a personal level is from the moment I was born the only person from my family that I have a relationship with is my mum. She is aging now and when she passes, it will feel in a strange way that I’m an orphan. Thankfully I will have my own loving family around me.

I would imagine when we are all very old we will probably end up on long lost families!

I would to hear of your sibling relationships.