Would you be friends with your sibling?

[prose3589]

I am the oldest of five. Three of us are very close in age. The other two came much later. My brother is just a year younger and is wildly successful in his business but his personal life is a shambles. With that said, he would be the first person to come to the rescue. My sisters and I are very close even with the age gap. The benefit for us is that our children have grown up together and are so close.

I think our parents divorce helped us to be closer. We basically raised ourselves. So overall glad to have their friendship.


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[Nemo2]

Can't say, I'm an only. Always thought I was missing something without siblings... then maybe not

I have no siblings either.....and I get along tremendously with all of them.

 

[Donzo]

I have a step bro and a bio sister. Hecka no on my step bro...he is so self centered and focused on what he can get and how he can look good from/to others.
My bio sister has had alot of problems in the past, drugs, wrong men and even got shot in the chin when she would not give up the drugs she had just bought......
Now she is a changed woman/survivor and we are getting closer and closer. She really looks after our Mom and has been sober for 10+ years. It was really strange and nice to re-connect with her after so many years - I would totally pick her as family...now

 

[pacergal]

Love my siblings and we get along well, but if not related, I doubt we would be friends. Too much of an age difference between us all, totally different lifestyles.

 

[Ally]

One brother, no, he makes us all furious whenever we are around him. Another brother, yes, but we have less in common, so wouldn't be as close. My last brother, definitely, we travel with them annually and have a great time.


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[Telly]

Another NO here. Although I don't blame my siblings. Dysfunctional family, the fault of whacko parent. And I was the abused one. We are all spaced far apart now, geographically. When DW-to-be met my family many decades ago, she did not think I was really related to them... I couldn't be.
My independent spirit was forged in the fires of abuse. And so was empathy.

 

[skipro33]

I'm not anything even remotely close to my siblings. My older brother, at 58 was diagnosed with Alzheimer. I hadn't really even talked with him for maybe 3 or 4 years before that and he's now 62.
Younger sister is batshit crazy. I can't describe her any better than that, but I wouldn't go near that dingbat for any amount of money.
Younger brother is o.k. but he's got anger issues and I just don't need someone with that in my life.

However, my own kids and now grandkids couldn't be closer. We all get along so well, we take month-long and longer vacations together. It's been great!

 

[clifp]

My oldest sister I think so despite the 12 year age gap. We are pretty much alike.

My younger sister (9 years older), very unlikely we are very different and have much different interest. Here is the irony my younger sister and are quite close. Certainly because we only live 5 miles apart, but also because of opposites attract. I can easily see my sister and I being business partners in another life.

 

[lampshade]

Yes, I do believe we would all be friends. Also, I have mentioned to my Mom that if she were not my Mom, I would have wanted her to be an neighbor lady that I could have talked to growing up.

My Mom is a good person.

 

[Midpack]

My sister and I get along fine but we wouldn't be friends. We talk weekly, but when our parents are no longer alive, I suspect we'll talk less and less frequently. She might want to stay in touch more than I do.

DW might be friends with two of her siblings, but no chance with her other two siblings.

 

[Marita40]

My answer would be no. This thread is interesting to me and somewhat consoling. I thought the answers would be more yes than no, but they are not.

 

[scrabbler1]

Just to add to my brief "no" response earlier, here are a few examples of how unalike my brother and I are:


He is married, I am single.


He has a kid, I am childfree.


He lives in a large, McMansion house. My apartment would fit into his kitchen.


He is outgoing, I am an introvert.


He plays sports, I am an indoors geek.


He is a Republican, I am a Democratic-leaning Independent. (We agreed to a cease-fire on political discussion 15 years ago.)


Also, we lives about 200 miles apart so we see each other about once a year. We exchange emails now and then and talk on the phone once in a while. We exchange birthday gifts.


If we weren't related, we'd have nothing to do with each other.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

The answer to this question is no. I am so different from my brother and sister. My brother and sister are not that close to each other either. If we talk , it's always about the few things we have in common.

 

[Revlefty]

Are you kidding? My brother is a Chicago Bears fan! That's just too much for a Packers fan to swallow!

Actually... my family (25 of us) just spent the weekend together in Michigan celebrating my parents' 70th wedding anniversary. We had a good time together. But I don't think I have enough interests in common with any of them to consider them "friends."

 

[38Chevy454]

Yes and No for me. I am oldest, and my next younger sister is 3 years less than me. We are complete opposites, and also did not really get along as kids. Funny thing is now as the executor for my parent's estate, I have had to help her get finances in order and she is becoming closer. But about 2 hours in-person is all I can take before she drives me crazy Visits 1-2 times/year is enough for me, although we stay in touch via email probably weekly. I do not see us as friends except we are related.

My youngest sister is 12 years less than me and we are very similar and get along great. We meet up when we can approx 3 times/year, and since our parents have passed, and her husband's parents are just not the grandparent type with almost no visits, me and DW are sort of the alternate grandparent role to her kids, although technically Uncle and Aunt. Youngest sister's DH is a good guy and we get along good. I would say we could be friends for sure. We are meeting up for camping trip in couple weeks, looking forward to that.

 

[Music Lover]

My answer would be no. This thread is interesting to me and somewhat consoling. I thought the answers would be more yes than no, but they are not.

I wasn't sure what to expect, then I thought about all my friends who have siblings and realized that very few of them socialize with family outside of family functions. I'm sure most of us have some good friends who have siblings they've only met on rare occasions.

For example, I've only seen the brother of one of my best friends twice in the last 20 years...once at my friend's wedding, and once at their mother's funeral. Yet, my friend and I played sports together, went to the bar together when we were younger, and have been in a band together for more than 30 years.

 

[ziggy29]

Two of my brothers and I (I'm the youngest of 5) have a lot in common and get along wonderfully, and any time we get together we start having fun and goofing around like we were 12 again. Seems odd to talk about family and call them "friends", but yes, we socialized a fair bit by choice (at least when I lived closer) and not just because of family obligations, so I guess you could say that's a friendship.

 

[Alan]

One of the things we are really looking forward to when we move to England next year is being much closer to and seeing much more of our siblings (we have 3 siblings each).

We love staying at each other's houses, we go on vacation together and we laugh a lot together. My brother is in Australia but we are still in regular contact, and see each other every few years. Last year we spent a month with him in Australia, and one of my sisters is going out with her husband and son in a few weeks to stay with him.

 

[frayne]

Nope here as well. I'm the middle of five and live the farthest away, 500 miles or so. Talk to my little sister every two weeks and only talk with the others if there is a family issue that I should be aware of. The four are fairly close and I have always been kind of the odd man out, which works for me.

 

[RetireAge50]

Yes and we are friends today. We had a family of 7 growing up.

 

[Dreamer]

There were 5 of us and I am the second oldest. My older sister (4 yrs 4 mos) and I are extremely close. We talk on the phone several times per week. We went to Disney World with grand kids in June, went to NYC with our spouses, went on cruise together and have been to the beach several times with family. I live in WV and she has a house in VA and PA. We always get together when she is at her house in PA. My brother who was 3 yrs younger died in 2001. He was a lot of fun and he visited with us often. My DH and him hunted and fished together and he always came for holidays and cook outs. My younger sister, who is 4 yrs younger and lives the closest, and I have grown apart. I have not been to her house in several years. She called and asked if her and DH could come to our house earlier this year, because she wanted to see our remodeled house. They came and we had a "polite visit". After talking about the kids and grand kids, I could was wracking my brain trying to think what to say. She told my younger brother that she felt like she lost her 2 sisters because she inherited everything from our mother and stepfather. She neglected to tell him that my older sister and I had asked her to hang out with us several times and she had declined and told us to have a nice summer and maybe next summer she would find the time to go to lunch with us. I called her again this month and asked her and she declined and said maybe next month, so who knows. I keep trying and I feel sorry for her, because I feel she is missing out. She definitely had the hardest childhood of all of us. My younger brother is 5 years younger and he will call and we will be on the phone for 1-2 hours easily. We are probably the most financially compatible and our philosophy on rearing our children was the closest. We only see each other a couple of times per year, but really enjoy it when we do. I would love to see him more often. I would be friends with 3 of my siblings, even if we were not family. I miss my brother that died and would love to be able to see him again. I would not be friends with my younger sister, because I feel like I am walking on eggshells when I am around her. (My niece was spending the weekend when she was younger and I asked her why she was not allowed to read the Harry Potter books. My daughter was really into them. I received a 4 page typewritten letter from my sister regarding this. Evidently, she questioned her daughter about every thing we did and said.)

 

[HFWR]

I "like" my siblings, but have little in common with them...

 

[GSMAN]

I would love to say yes but that certainly isn't the case. I am the oldest of 3 siblings. My middle sister is 4 years younger and other than my parents we have very little in common. I never felt that I have known her. I get the impression that she only tells me what she wants me to know about her. Very strange relationship. Her husband is even more aloof. My youngest sister is just flat out nuts!! My parents had to raise her first set of kids, 2 boys, then she remarried and had 2 more which again my parents helped raise. She is 42 but still acts like a teenager. She is totally opposite of me. She has flaunted her crazy lifestyle to my parents with the drinking, partying, etc... That is what bugs me the most about her. My folks are very conservative and she has always been a rebel without a clue!!

 

[iac1003]

No. I have 1 sister, have not seen her in years and she communicates with me only by Facebook Messenger. We really have nothing in common. I am sure she kept my only niece away from us because she didn't want the 'bad influence of me,' the only professional with an advanced degree in the family. Whatever.

As a kid I was convinced I was born into the wrong family as I was nothing like any of them. But I look too much like them for that to be the case. So many relatives are gone now anyway. I keep in touch with my first cousins and their children via Facebook and that's fun but I live 2,000 miles from all of them so I haven't seen them in years either.


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[Badger]

Of the three of us I have been closest to my younger sister. She is intelligent, gracious, respectful of others, interesting to be around and married to a great husband. If she lived closer I would enjoy spending more time with them both. My older brother, on the other hand, exhibits all the signs of being a sociopath. He is well aware of how I feel about him and my displeasure with how he treated our parents, sister, and me in the past. As far as I am concerned he is a non-entity.

Cheers!