Fights between siblings in adulthood: 5 reasons for conflict and how to improve the relationship

"From my parents I expected love and care. I had it. From my friends, unconditional. I have it. From my brother I hope we are inseparable. And nothing further than that, I can't understand, he seems like a stranger. My brother hurts me so much. It's not anger, it's sadness. And there's no revenge with that. It's now or never."

That is the story of a grieving sister.

Martín Fierro said: "Brothers be united..." And I wonder,

I asked on my social networks why sibling relationships get complicated and was impressed by the number of responses I received.

I share just a few:

✓Because parents prefer one of the brothers.

✓For jealousy fueled by differences that parents make.

✓Because one of the two leaves the other alone in the care of the elderly parents.

✓For the families that form each one of them later.

✓Brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who "dirty the relationship".

✓Traumatic moments in the family history that twist the course of the relationship.

✓For money and inheritance problems.

✓

(I loved this answer)

 If this were a multiple choice you could say that

.

The distribution of care tasks for elderly parents can be a source of conflict.

Photo Shutterstock.

Of course

having a beautiful relationship, but I would say that it is one of the most complex bonds for multiple reasons.

It is that from the beginning it is a relationship that is marked by affective ambivalence: love-hate present from the foundations.

I tell an anecdote from several decades ago to illustrate it.

He was caring for a 5-year-old boy who came to the session shortly after his little sister was born.

I ask him how he was.

"Very happy", he answers me with a face that does not correspond to that emotion.

His little eyes were a

.

Are you a little jealous?

I ask him.

"No," he says pouting.

I had a toy on my side table that I had bought for one of my children in those hamburger combo boxes.

The toy had a little lever that made it rotate.

"I have a lie detector here," I told him. "I'll ask you back and this toy will tell me if you're telling me the truth or not."

Are you jealous of your little sister?

"No," he answers again.

I start to spin the toy without him noticing that he was pressing the little lever.

-How does that little toy know I'm lying?

she asked me with a mischievous smile.

Jealousy is a natural part

of the process of incorporating a sibling into family life.

Love is also present and if the parents manage things well

and the beautiful moments shared.

But the birth of a brother is difficult news to digest.

Now, when children are young, the

are provided by adults.

But when we grow up we will have to

what our adults did not do.

And here is one of my favorite phrases, said Jean Paul Sartre: "We are what we do with what they made of us."

And then, if those childhood situations that hurt, because someone felt displaced by the arrival of a new member of the family, or because at the family table praise for the older brother was commonplace (

) and each one add to the list everything that may have been part of their story;

The question is:

How do we digest the story, what tools do we apply to repair what hurt

with our brother/sister?

There are two paths: either we drag the pain and apply the Law of Retaliation in our adult life, or we use the

that we acquired in our growth and generate approaches and processes of loving reconnection.

Connect with the beautiful moments of the relationship, a way to get closer.

Photo Shutterstock.

Why do siblings fight in adulthood?

So I want to make a short list taking my survey results and my professional experience of why sibling stories fail in adult life:

1- What was suffered in childhood was not digested and continues to be ruminated on.

"My brother still cannot digest old stories of childish jealousy and envy, but today we are adults, and he gives me the bill for what happened more than 40 years ago. I feel that he charges me with his disgrace for what happened in childhood. Now I apologized, I can't do more."

When the episodes of the first years of life are installed as traumatic and the tools of adult life are not enough to process what has been suffered, then

for the bond and the relationship enters a hole that is very difficult to climb.

2- Constructed families carve weak personalities

In many stories I hear that the "fault" of the disagreements between siblings lies with the brothers-in-law.

I put the key word in quotes because if the protagonists had the ego strength to

, the opinion of their partners would not have the weight that it sometimes does.

But many times I see combinations of very weak personalities that choose

and then the balance is unbalanced.

The women or men who join the family take on a preponderant role at the expense of the limited capacity of the siblings to

.

This is one of the most complex scenarios because

, as if you really had to choose between one option and the other.

I think it's a topic for a note just about this...

There are fathers and mothers who make differences between children.

Illustrative photo Shutterstock.

3- When money appears on the scene

In situations of inheritance or division of property, the true state of the relationship is seen.

Law firms are

that erupt when there is property to divide.

Greed, ambition and materiality often go above the noblest love and these situations are also triggers for old quarrels.

5- The hard task of being parents of our parents

This is one of the biggest points of conflict between siblings.

If there is no team,

(with reasons, perhaps) and this generates a distance that is irreversible in many cases.

A 45-year-old man told his sister:

.

Irrefutable, without the possibility of reversing, and very painful for

, beyond the loneliness in which this sister and mother remain with respect to this brother and son.

So many edges that come into play, so many variables.

What to do then?

✓

.

Use the most wonderful weapon that human beings have: the word.

Talk, try as much as possible to open channels of dialogue.

And as I write this note, I am surprised that since the bond between siblings is one of the most conflictive,

to work especially on this relationship.

Just as there is couples therapy, I think sibling therapy is necessary before blood reaches the river.

Understanding that life is long but not that long and does not give revenge, at least not in this format, then readers who feel identified and questioned, perhaps

and generating a rapprochement could be a good idea.

✓

and remember that many times the other's reaction is not with us, but rather that they do what they can.

Exercising forgiveness is also an option.

✓

.

There are situations that can't be turned back, because "if one doesn't want to, two can't".

So the healthiest thing is to be able to give up and stop ruminating and suffering for what has no objection or solution.

✓Trying to clean up the family secrets that make you so sick.

This is not easy, but my favorite phrase, "difficult, but not impossible."

I also want to name in this note those brothers who choose each other and in whose bonds everything is perhaps much easier because there are only hearts and stories that want to be assembled without the weight of the complexities of family histories.

That at the end of the day, we don't take tickets or goods

, the hugs we give each other, the mates we share, the memories we coin.

That, no more, no less.

And then let's do everything possible, everything possible so that Martín Fierro

.

*Alejandro Schujman is a psychologist specializing in families.

Author of I don't run away, I just fly: The art of letting go of children, Ni-Ni Generation, It's not because I said so and Tools for parents He directs, coordinates and supervises the @redasistencialpsi.

***​

These columns by Alejandro Schujman may also interest you:

➪What to do when siblings are absent in the hard task of being the parents of our parents

➪How to face the difficult task of being parents of our parents

➪Can "toxic" people change?

➪How to protect yourself from toxic family members

➪Parents suffering: how to overcome the guilt and sadness caused by accepting it

➪How to break with lifelong mandates

➪How to get out of the trap of family secrets and lies 

***

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