My sister and I are in our late 20s and have never been close, while me and my mother being close is a source of friction. Recently, our relationship has turned from distant and tense to violent and now nonexistent.
As teenagers we went in different directions. I flourished and worked towards my ambitions, got excellent grades, and praise from my parents. My sister seemed remote and uninterested. This seems to have continued.
She has had success within her own field and enjoys a much more generous salary than I could ever achieve. I always congratulate her on her successes and ask about her life, yet it feels one-sided. She can frequently be hostile and belittling. I always try to be the bigger person, but am left hurt and angry, so I keep my distance.
This came to a head when we both moved back in with our parents temporarily and had an argument that turned physical. Over the next week, she ignored everyone, then left.
I felt she owed me and my parents an apology for the way she treated everyone. I couldn’t understand where all this hatred and anger had suddenly appeared from. But now, a few months later, my sister has got in touch with my father. Me and my mother feel betrayed. My father says he just wants everyone to get along, but has not confronted her about what happened.
I can’t accept that he is willing to resume contact, and find myself retreating from my relationship with my dad, which I really value. It feels as if he is choosing her over me.
Your father isn’t choosing her over you, any more than your mother is choosing you over her. It sounds like your family has never learned to be a group of four – there’s a lot of stratification. I don’t condone your sister’s violence – that was wrong – but you say in your longer letter that you shouted at her that “no one wanted her there”, which was also very wounding. There’s clearly an enormous amount of hurt in your family. You say you don’t know where this hatred and anger has suddenly appeared from, but it will have been festering for a long time.
It isn’t obvious who is the eldest and who the youngest. I’m guessing there’s a very small age gap. It’s worth finding out what happened when child number two was born. Did the first born feel pushed out? Did the second born feel they had upset the family dynamic? Those early years can inform current behaviour patterns.
Parents of young children can, often unconsciously, make or break sibling relationships. Siblings can, as the family psychotherapist I consulted, Dr Reenee Singh (aft.org.uk), said, “reflect what’s going on in the generation above”. In other words, with your parents, who don’t seem to be handling this in a very confident manner. Were they always like that?
But how you and your sister get on now is your responsibility: you are adults, yet you are acting like young children. Your sister not asking anything about you is a classic way of one sibling rejecting the other. What you need to do is step away from the family dynamic and discover who you both are as adults – and see things from each other’s point of view.
How do you move forward? You will have different narratives of your childhoods, and you will each need to allow the other to tell their side.
“You may want to consider writing your sister a letter, owning your part in the argument and your own feelings,” Singh said. “You can explain how you feel without blaming. ‘I felt upset’ rather than ‘You upset me’. Apologise for your part in it.”
Singh suggested it may also be worth looking at your parents’ own sibling relationships and the way they were parented – both can provide useful answers to your dynamic with your sister.
I think it’s imperative you move out as soon as you feel able to because you seem very enmeshed with your parents. In the meantime, Singh recommended trying to carve out some boundaries, both physical and emotional, between them and you. “Also, if you can, try to talk to a professional [I realise family therapy may be a step too far just now] and get a sense of who you are, not just as a daughter and a sister.
“Of course, your parents should be able to have a relationship with both of you. The unit can’t just consist of you alone and your parents.”
I got the feeling that’s what you really want, and you will need to dig deep to acknowledge why that might be.
• Send your problem to annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
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