How to Deal with Siblings Who Don’t Like You

Siblings may have deep problems getting along. It is not uncommon for siblings, especially when they reach adulthood, to grow apart. In some cases, the cause of distant sibling relationships is simply that their lives went in different directions.

In other instances, resentment, long-standing rivalries, disagreements about family matters, money, and tense relations with parents or in-laws can cause a serious rift. Sometimes siblings simply become estranged and stop interacting with each other for no apparent reason.

Why Do You Have to Deal With Siblings Who Do Not Like You?

Often, however, you may find yourself having to deal with siblings who do not like you. Perhaps you have to interact with them at events such as weddings or family holiday gatherings. Or maybe you need to come together to make decisions about aging parents. Whatever the reason, many people have to learn how to deal with siblings with whom they do not get along.

You may need to find and define barriers of communication or the causes of past hurtful episodes, and you may need to employ attentive listening skills and act as a peacemaker rather than getting defensive when discussing difficult relationship issues.

Where Do Rifts Between Siblings Originate?

You can trace some issues between siblings back to their childhood years. Perhaps your siblings felt that your parents like you more than them, or vice versa. Whether this was true or not, it could still lead to feelings of resentment that a sibling may carry over into adulthood.

There are even studies that say that the mental health impact of favoritism can carry over into adulthood. Your siblings could still compare themselves to you, and your parents may inadvertently foster this sense of competition.

In some cases, there could be a sibling rivalry in which brothers or sisters competed for attention from parents or sought to outdo their siblings when it came to athletics, social popularity, academics, or other areas of achievement. This kind of contentious relationship can often carry over into adulthood.

Some siblings fall out because they do not get along with their brother or sister’s new spouse. Another common area of disagreement involves caring for aging parents. Some siblings may feel that they do more to care for their parents than their brothers or sisters. Others may resent having to provide more financial support to their parents than other family members.

Siblings can also develop envy of other family members because of their social or economic status.

The list of reasons that siblings may not get along is long, though some causes of family rifts are quite common.

It is too late to go back to your childhood to stop these rifts before they start. However, you can take steps to deal with troublesome siblings in adulthood.

Why You Should Step into Your Siblings’ Shoes

You may not wish to give in and accept all of your siblings’ viewpoints without question, but you can change the dynamic of a troubled family relationship by trying to practice empathy. You can start this process by seeing if you understand your sibling’s issues.

This step may be a question of empathy vs. compassion. You want to understand the origin of your sibling’s dislike or mistrust. You can start by trying to understand their feelings. Once you can see their viewpoint, you may or may not feel compassion for them. However, you will, hopefully, have more empathy for them.

This empathy could be the starting point for non-argumentative communication.

However, if you continue to ignore the root causes of the problem and not deal with your dislike for one another, nothing is ever going to change. At least if you try to have some empathy, it could open the door for siblings to communicate about your relationship difficulties.

In general, people who have strong family relationships gravitate towards family members because they feel that they will be welcomed and understood. Creating a dynamic where your siblings feel like you are at least trying to understand them can foster this kind of “close family” feeling.

Practicing empathy and seeking to understand your siblings’ viewpoints can also be helpful for your mental state. Even if you do not see your siblings often, if you have a deep rift, chances are they occupy your thoughts from time to time in a negative capacity.

These negative thoughts can affect your current mood, even if you are not interacting with your siblings at that time. Focusing on empathy and trying to understand your sibling’s frustration, anger, or dislike for you can help your make these negative thoughts less personal in the long run.

Trying to walk a mile in your siblings’ shoes may not, itself, mend a fractured family relationships, but it can act as a starting point for communication with your siblings.

How Asking for Specifics Can Help Bring Siblings Closer

In many cases, family disagreements spring from a lack of communication. A first step in opening a line of communication could be to ask your siblings what they need from you. You can start with a specific request. Perhaps you could offer to take a role in caring for aging parents or in planning a family holiday event.

You could provide a particular form of help, but then ask if your sibling would like you to do something else instead. In this way, you can actively try to engage your siblings by offering something positive.

Depending on the current state of your relationship, you could also open the door to a more-frank discussion. Discuss what your siblings would like from you to keep the next gathering argument-free. Perhaps you can agree on certain topics that you will not discuss or specific things that you will not do during that gathering.

Of course, you will have to live up to this promise when the event takes place.

The goal of getting specific requests, as with the approach of trying to step into your siblings’ shoes and understand their viewpoint, is to open a line of communication and take a practical step towards a better relationship.

Because the promises are well-defined, you can easily measure how successful they are. Ideally, this step will generate goodwill between you and your siblings.

Don’t Expect Too Much from a Sibling Relationship

Family relationships can be a great source of strength in some cases. However, no family is perfect. Some families may keep their rifts private so that they appear perfectly loving and supportive siblings to outsiders. Yet, there are likely tensions “behind the scenes.”

Such issues exist in every family.

In reality, you cannot expect your siblings to embrace all your viewpoints and react with understanding to everything that you say and do.

Some people feel guilty about not having a closer relationship with their siblings. If this describes you or your siblings, then you need to learn how to stop feeling guilty.

There is no moral requirement to have a perfect relationship with every member of your family. In some cases, creating some distance, at least mentally, can help you deal with complicated family relationships.

You may be surprised that some of the stress of sibling relationships comes from your expectations that you need to create a specific kind of bond, and you expect that everyone has to fulfill a particular role within the family. These expectations can be at odds with reality and create tension between you and other family members.

As an adult, perhaps the best policy is to try to build a functional link based on shared family duties or the need to be together without arguing. Once you focus on the practicalities of being together, you will not be spending as much energy working on the strained relationship.

Without the tension of expecting a “perfect family” relationship, you may find it easier to interact with your siblings. With time, this step could move the sibling bond in a positive direction.

You Cannot Control Your Siblings, But You Can Choose How You Respond to Them

You may not be able to control how your siblings respond to you, but you can control how you respond (or do not respond) to them. They may still offer criticism about you, your lifestyle, your choices, or your role (or lack thereof) within the family. You can choose whether or not to let this criticism bother you.

It may be difficult not to engage argumentative siblings in these situations because you may feel that you are under attack and need to defend yourself. However, if you can create some distance, mentally, perhaps you can avoid this type of negative engagement and the bad feelings that come along with it.

Perhaps you could observe the family relationship at a family event with a kind of detached disinterest. If your siblings approach and try to engage in negative interactions with you, you can choose not to participate. After all, the way that they communicate with you is only a problem for you if you let it be a problem.

Depending on the situation, you may even want to tell them that you choose not to engage with them if the conversation is negative. You can try to steer the communication towards positive or neutral subjects if you wish.

However, if they choose to continue to pursue communications that focus on their dislike for you, the best policy may be to disengage or practice ways to relax your mind in the face of criticism.

The goal of this approach to a sibling rift is not to let your siblings have power over you by getting you to react to their criticisms or other harmful communications. You will avoid negative confrontations and, perhaps, you can lay the groundwork for more positive conversations in the future.

Even if your siblings are unwilling to try to mend the relationship, this approach can keep it from having an overly-negative impact on other aspects of your life.

Always Try to Find Common Ground

Fractured sibling relationships often come from real or perceived differences in goals, opinions, or choices. Or, they could come from sibling rivalries, hurtful events, and rifts that go back to childhood.

In such strained relationships, it is easy to focus on differences and spend all your time worrying about clashes with brothers and sisters.

Finding common ground can be helpful on several levels.

You may be able to come to an understanding or find common goals in dealing with specific family issues such as caring for aging parents or managing family financial interests. You can focus your interactions with the problematic sibling on the shared goals of achieving a positive outcome for this specific thing.

This strategy can bring positive achievements into the relationship because you are moving towards measurable goals together and making a rational decision-making process rather than acting purely on emotion or anger.

How to Limit the Relationship without Ending It

It may be tempting to cut off all contact with siblings who do not like you. In some cases, you may feel like this is the only option. However, an alternative is to limit the contact with a difficult sibling without totally ending the relationship.

Depending on the current relationship, this step may require a bit of negotiation. You could speak with your sibling and tell them that you recognize that you have a rift that makes interaction difficult. Explain your ideas for how you can maintain a level of contact while limiting the chances of negative interactions. Perhaps your communications could involve the occasional phone call. For some sibling relationships, exchanging emails or sharing family updates via social media is better than direct interaction on the phone or in person.

Perhaps you could arrange a gathering once or twice per year. Such events could be worthwhile, especially if both families have children. Another option is to have a casual meeting for coffee or lunch once in a while.

When you attempt to make such arrangements, you can expect some negotiation. It would help if you found a way of meeting and interacting that works for both you and your sibling. Perhaps you can start with some indirect contact via email or social media, and then move to family events or occasional coffee outings once you develop a level of comfort with these virtual interactions.

In some cases, you may want to encourage family engagement by creating a specific social media page or website and asking your siblings to contribute to it. This type of engagement may be tricky if your rift revolves around envy or rivalry. Still, it could be an uncomplicated way to interact with your siblings positively without having face-to-face contact.

You may wish to temper your expectations when making such plans. Rifts, especially long-standing ones that date back to childhood, will not heal overnight. The goal of limited interactions is to keep in contact without leaving too much room for the negatives.

Why You Should Foster Close Relationships Elsewhere in Your Life

Many people expect, or even feel obligated, to be close to their family members. However, when these expectations or feelings of family duty run into relationship difficulties, they can become a source of great pain. One thing that you can do is let go of the viewpoint that you must be close to your family. Instead, you can seek close, fulfilling relationships elsewhere.

You can seek out relationships that give you a positive outlook and make you fulfilled. How do you find such relationships? It may take work and making an effort to meet new people. In some cases, you may already have such relationships in your life and not realize it.

How can you tell?

You can look for signs of a fulfilling relationship with both new friends or existing ones. When you are with someone who brings positivity into your life, your conversations will flow easily. This level of communication might not happen when you meet someone for the first time, but eventually, you will know whether or not you can communicate easily with a person.

Another sign of a fulfilling and positive relationship is if you feel energized when you are with someone. The opposite of this would be if you feel depressed or stressed out when you have to meet or interact with someone. Positivity usually brings a feeling of energy; you want to make the effort to spend time with this person.

You may not tell your most intimate secrets to someone who you are just getting to know, but eventually, you will want people to whom you feel close to providing a deeper level of understanding.

This dynamic can go two ways. You want to be able to confide in your friend or significant other and feel that they understand or are at least trying to understand your viewpoint without judging you. At the same time, you need the ability to reciprocate that level understanding without resorting to judgment.

Often, this particular relationship element is what is missing in a broken sibling relationship.

When you look elsewhere for fulfilling relationships, you are not trying to replace your family relationships; you are merely changing your focus and where you put your energy.

Perhaps without the need for fulfillment from siblings, you can focus on fostering a working relationship with them that can involve cordial interactions or handling shared family duties or responsibilities on a practical level. These kinds of interactions may or may not lead to a better relationship in the future.

Since you are getting positivity in your life from other sources, you do not have to seek it from sibling relationships. In some cases, you may even be able to share your family frustrations with the people with whom you have fulfilling relationships. Their support may help you feel that you can deal with difficult sibling situations while having “someone in your corner.”

How to Identify the Cause of a Sibling Rift

People are often unaware of the exact causes of a rift between themselves and their siblings. Often, with sibling relationships, the issues get tracked back to learned behaviors from childhood. These behaviors are subconscious, and you fall into them because they are familiar; this is the way you have always interacted with your siblings. Sometimes, siblings in adulthood automatically fall back into the roles that they occupied when they were children.

These subconscious reactions could come from behavior modeled by your parents, a sibling rivalry, competition for parents’ affection and attention, or perhaps some bullying or emotional abuse between siblings. Negative emotions and a loss of self-esteem could also be a part of this dynamic.

Looking back to isolate the cause of a sibling rift may seem painful, but it can help you move past automatic, subconscious reactions to your siblings and, perhaps, see the relationship from their perspective.

Though there may be deep-seated issues, the goal of identifying the cause of these problems could help you move beyond automatic, subconscious reactions to your siblings.

Why Should I Set Boundaries With My Siblings?

It’s probable that even if you have a good relationship with some of your adult siblings, you interact with them under a set of rules and norms that got established during childhood. One way that you can keep strong relationships secure and mend broken sibling relationships is to set boundaries.

You can use other methods for dealing with troublesome siblings to define boundaries both for yourself and for your brothers and sisters. For example, you can look at those things that trigger negative feelings for you when dealing with family members. For instance, perhaps talk of financial matters or career achievements triggers feelings of low self-esteem or anxiety in you.

Your siblings may or may not be aware that this type of talk hurts you, but you can set a clear boundary by saying that you will not discuss money matters with your family members. Likewise, you can put yourself in your sibling’s shoes and see if there could be anything that you do that might trigger an adverse reaction from them.

You might even limit the time for interactions or visits. You may also be able to adhere to this particular boundary on your own without the participation of your siblings. You can plan to leave a family gathering after a specific amount of time, or let your sibling know beforehand that a visit has to end at a particular time.

If you are on speaking terms with your siblings, you could ask them what boundaries they would like to set for your interactions. When they answer, you may feel tempted to take their boundary requests as judgments or criticisms. You can instead see them as rules for communication that you need to abide by just as you hope they respect your boundaries.

Ultimately, there are several goals in setting boundaries. First, you can avoid negative interactions by avoiding subjects and actions that trigger either you or your siblings. Second, you can create a different relationship dynamic than you have previously had. Third, you protect yourself from the negative aspects of a relationship and, perhaps, lay the groundwork for a positive relationship.

You might be surprised that both yourself and your siblings are unaware of each other’s triggers, and both of you may be willing to work within the newly set boundaries to create a better relationship.

Of course, this idea may not work as a fix for every troubled family relationship, but it is worth trying and may at least point your interactions in a more positive direction.

Can You Avoid Big Get-Togethers?

Some family events, such as weddings, funerals, or parents’ birthdays, are unavoidable. However, other events are inherently stressful and tense. Holiday gatherings or family barbecues can be positive, but they can also be detrimental. Many families hold these events out of habit or a sense of tradition even though they often turn into negative experiences.

Doing something physical or active instead of hosting an event is an excellent way to take the pressure and keep from falling into typical negative interaction and communication patterns. You could go to a museum or zoo or play a round of golf (as long as hyper-competitiveness is not one of your sibling rift issues).

The goal of this type of interaction is to spend time together on a shared experience that takes you outside of typical interaction patterns. You are doing something that both you and your sibling may enjoy, and you are sharing the experience rather than enduring a meal or party that you have not enjoyed for years and do not expect to enjoy this time.

Don’t Get Defensive, and Be Open When Siblings Reach Out

You may not be the only person trying to mend the relationship. Your siblings could also be trying to fix a fractured brother or sister relationship. It is human nature to get defensive when people try to address relationship issues. You likely find it difficult to bring up relationship issues, and your siblings probably feel the same way.

They may shut down their efforts to address family problems if you react defensively when they bring up these issues.

Being open when a sibling tries to address a rift in the family is undoubtedly tricky, but if you can overcome your initial instinct to become defensive, then you may be able to deal with the things that are causing your sibling distress.

At the very least, you can listen to their views and attempt to understand where they are coming from without judgment.

This initial conversation can lead to setting up a framework of boundaries, understanding, and workable relationship rules that you can use to foster a better relationship going forward.

By not getting defensive, you open the door to a conversation that could mend the relationship, or create a new relationship that works for everyone.

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