Reuniting with estranged siblings-anyone here done this?

[carfreemama]

I am wondering if there are others here who have little/no contact with siblings. I am also wondering if anyone else is currently thinking about these relationship and whether/how to reestablish contact.

I have one "full" sibling who is 4 years older than me. She lives on the other side of the country. She has 2 children and I have 1 and they have never met.

My mother is much older-86 or 87 now. I am very close to her. She lives about a 24-hour train ride away. I see her about twice a year for a week or two at a time and I talk to her about every week or so.

My oldest "half" sister died in December. She and I were closest of the sibs.

I also have a "half" brother on my father's side. My father died 17 years ago. He has had convictions for sex offenses, so I am leery of trying for reconnection with him. I do see him sometimes when I visit my mom.

I also have a "half" sister from my dad. She's at least in her 50s. I haven't seen her for many years and neither has my mother.

The sister in question is very different from me. We both had a pretty unstable upbringing including foster homes, alcoholism, poverty and sexual abuse.

We haven't seen each other in at least 10 years. She doesn't respond when I send gifts, except kind of through my mom. We both have some mental health issues, but have dealt with these very differently. There is tension from my end, because she and her husband ask for money from both her MIL and my mom and have for decades, regularly; even though my mom is a widow on a pension.

My mom is getting older and I would at least like to have a civil relationship with sis, so that if/when mom needs us, we can communicate. I very much doubt she will be terribly helpful, but she's the only bio family I really have now. She did not come to our sister's funeral. I am my mom's executor/power of attorney. I would also at least like dd to know her family on my side, somehow. But I'm worried and hesitant about reaching out too much. It would mean a lot to my mom if sis and I were "closer."

Anyone else been down this kind of road with a sibling? How did you reconnect? Is there hope?

[Mountaingirl79]

Hi! I can join you in this...I have an estranged younger brother, he's 6 years younger than me. It's hard for me to talk about sometimes, because of the reasons I stopped talking to him. Sigh. My brother is a violent addict, and several years ago I decided enough was enough....and I cut off all contact with him.
I want to think that one day we will talk again, but I really can't see that happening in the near future. My bro is still living with my parents in their home, with his girlfriend. He and his girlfriend are on methadone and that is all I know of the situation. My folks know why I choose not to talk to him and they haven't said much about it. They know I tried to help him and what he did to me in return. ( I offered to have him come stay with me several years ago, before we knew he was an addict. He left his needles all over my house and eventually robbed me. ) So I guess they don't blame me. I know that they have no other choice but to help him because he is their son so my parents and I don't talk about it much. My brother's problem is the elephant in the room.
I worry so much about this whole situation.

I guess I would say if your problems with your siblings are not so awful, it is worth it to work thru and try to become close again. I wish things were different for my brother and I. I really do. I just don't know what to do either.

[carfreemama]

Hi Mountaingirl79!

Wow, your situation with your brother sounds pretty intense, too. That must have been unbelievably traumatizing for you, to have your home violated like that. It's tough when your parents are theh only "bridge" between you and your sibling, isn't it?

The similarity though is that the deal-breaker (in my case with my sis it's money, whereas with you it sounds like mainly the addiction)? is ongoing. It's hard to get past when it's still happening. That's the frustration. I really feel like she's using mom and others and when I have spoken to her, she just has this huge sense of entitlement to whatever she can get. There's my anger coming through. I'd like to get past it, but I don't know how. I want to reconnect (I think), but I just don't respect her choices. I know I'll have to purge my judgments if I hope to reestablish contact with her. My goal right now is to send a b-day present to my nephew and to my niece. I was doing this for years, but kind of stopped when the gifts were never acknowledged (no contact at all). This was the first year I didn't and I had a good excuse, since my sis died December 13 and Christmas ground to a halt, anyway. But it feels yucky, like I've just stopped trying.

If your brother is on methadone, does that mean he's in some sort of treatment plan? Maybe that's too personal a question, though. I'm sorry if it is.

[Mountaingirl79]

Wow, I can see my emotions mirror yours sometimes. I have a lot of pent up anger at my brother's choices and also his sense of entitlement and use of people for what they can give him. I have yet to find a way to let go of that anger too. It's not so much his addiction that makes me angry.... that I can see as a disease. I guess I am angry that he continues to make the same mistakes over and over and also his refusal to really take the steps to change his life. He is on methadone but has refused to enter couseling or twelve step programs. He basically just drinks and smokes extra now. He still doesn't have a job and lives with my parents while his daughter is half way across the country with her mom.
I do get to see my niece, as my parents have custody of her every summer. : Luckily I get to see her aside from my brother, as he never participates in family trips.

I'm beginning to wonder if there really is a valid reason to reconnect with an estranged sibling. I say this, but I would hate it so much if my boys said the same thing about each other.

[carfreemama]

Yes, that's the biggie for me, all right.

Sis and I both have OCD and I have generalized anxiety disorder, as well. So I GET the dysfunctional part. But sis seems to use her illness as a "blank cheque" to squeeze every last drop out of other people. I really don't want to be one of those people, quite frankly. It's spooky how much our lives parallel in a way. We both work for the medical industry; she as a clerk for a doctor's office and me as a medical transcriptionist. We share the same mental health diagnosis. You'd think we'd have lots to talk about. But we've responded to these similar challenges in such incompatibly different ways. I went through a period like hers, too, in my early 20s. But somehow I woke up one day. I realized I didn't ever want my mom, or anyone else, to think I was picking up the phone for any other reason than to connect; not to connect and then ask for money. My sis has just never had that "aha" moment. I think that's largely due to her husband, too.

So I don't know what the point is. I certainly don't miss her. At this point, I can't say I really even "love" her; although she's the type who WOULD say that and give hugs like a big puppy dog--and then disappear. It just feels so off to feel this cold toward a member of my own family. Other challenges I've beenn able to at least come up with some sort of strategy or plan or at least a conclusion; not this one. I've even looked for books on the subject.

I would LOVE to have a relationship with my niece and nephew, but that's the first weapon sis uses with people who challenge her in any way. It's why no-one who gives them money dares to question them. In some ways, I'm almost more concerned about somehow keeping the door open for a relationship with their kids someday, or for dd to have that if she wants. I have NO IDEA how to do this.

[princesstutu]

Hmmm. If I understand correctly, your main concern is that your sibling is using your mother for money, yes?

If that's the case, I would choose to allow that to be a situation I don't deal with. It's between your mother and your sib. I would stay out of it and do my best to not allow it to color how I deal with my sib. If you want a relationship with your sister's kids, just send them birthday cards and stuff like that. Trying to control that sort of situation can backfire hard.

Good luck! I've recently befriended two of my estranged siblings. One still won't talk to me (mental issues) and the fourth I haven't found yet. I've learned from dealing with my mother that control-freaks with mental problems rarely change for the better and often, it's best to just handle them (and their kids, unfortunately) with one's fingertips.

[peaches1974]

I have been estranged from my older brother for almost exactly one year.

This brother has always always been an extremely difficult person in my life. He is only a year older than I am, and in many ways, he made my childhood hard. He also was pretty horrible to my younger brothers (he is the eldest of five). He cut off all contact with three of us last year after a yelling match with my youngest brother...who is seventeen years younger than he is (in other words, still a kid). I was not even present when this argument happened. I simply refused to take sides on it. That was the end of our relationship, according to him.

Anyway. He is in contact with one of my brothers as well as our parents. These three people allow my oldest brother to yell and abuse them verbally over the phone (he lives on the west coast and the rest of us live on the east coast, so we do not see him often).

I am struggling with what to do at this point. I sent him a gift for his birthday and Christmas and received no response. I don't like the idea that he will never know my kids, but I also don't plan to allow myself to be on the receiving end of his abuse. His birthday is in two days and I thought about sending him a card with pictures of the kids, but that's it. Any advice?

[peaches1974]

D'oh. I realized that I did not respond to the OP in my post. I apologize.

It sounds like your sister is not in a very stable place. You have some excellent reasons for wanting to reconnect, but I wonder if she will be in any position to meet the expectations you have? You say she has mental health issues, and she also seems to view your mother very differently than you do. You see your mother as someone to protect and help. Your sister seems to see her as a source of income and a well to draw from. I would be leery.

That said, I understand the powerful need to connect with lost siblings. I am not sure why that pull is there, but I have it too. It's hard for my DP to understand--I think because he did not come from the hardships that I did. I know what my siblings had to go through. I understand why they turned out like they did. That's hard to reject, for me.

Good luck.

[carfreemama]

I guess this is the pain right now. I figured after our sister died in December that maybe, just maybe, my surviving sis and her family would stop asking for money for a while. They didn't. It wasn't even ONE MONTH after her funeral (which other sis did not attend) that her husband called and asked for money to pay for their phone again. I know this is my mother's choice and it's technically not my business. I don't know why I can't let it go. I guess it's partly because me and dh make about the same wage as they do, but they just won't budget and they seem to have this idea that because they have struggles, it's other peoples' job to make it up to them.

I know I have to drop my own bitterness and probable self-riteousness if I want to "reach out." I'm not sure how much of what I feel has been communicated to sis; I've been pretty careful to stay neutral/vaguely sympathetic to her over the years. I don't know why I'm so angry. I have mental health issues too! But my response has been to, as much as possible, protect the people I love from the fallout. Our mom has been through so much--the loss of 2 husbands after nursing them both through long illnesses and now the loss of her eldest daughter. She's 86! She's in great health, but I want her to enjoy herself, not continue to take care of people who should be taking care of her.

I start counseling for my own issues next month, so maybe this is worth exploring with my therapist.

Peaches1974, I didn't really respond to you, either! I'll try and see if I can think of something helpful for you! I do think that sending cards/pictures of kids/gifts if you want to and can afford it, is the best ongoing thing you can do in this situation. The trick, I think, is to have ZERO expectations of reciprocity. There has to be a way to keep an open mind and heart and still protect your boundaries. I haven't found it yet, but I have to keep trying. For many years, saying to heck with it seemed the best way to go. We live so far apart, we really don't have issues with contact, either. But it's true, I do still feel the need to try. It's just becoming clear that I have to drop my own agenda and disappointment before my giving it another go. The big problem is I don't think we can ever, ever discuss any of this between us. I'll literally just have to pretend it doesn't exist.

[~PurityLake~]

OP, your situation is much different than mine. I grew up with my older brother and younger half sister. My older brother was abusive toward us, but was abusive to a much greater degree towards me. I cut off contact with him in '96 (I was 22) but in '01 went out to his house because he paid for half my airline ticket and wanted me to surprise our parents who were going to his house, too. During my stay at his house, all the old feelings came up. I felt tortured just being in his presence. A conversation we had during my stay proved to me that he would never see me as a human deserving of basic human rights. I ended contact with him again after that visit. Last year, my younger half sister came to the state I currently reside for a visit (not the first visit since I've lived here). On this particular visit, she mentioned we weren't as close as she'd hoped we were. I confided in her some of the abuse our brother had put upon me, but not on her. She was shocked and in disbelief. Apparently, she later, even after I'd asked her not to, called up our brother and asked him about it. He said I was lying and he called our mother to ask if what I said was true. She confirmed that it was all true. Then he calls me. I had no idea about all these cross state phone calls and hearing from him out of the blue was a true shock for me. I felt ill hearing his voice. He told me about all the calls and said he simply didn't recall anything that I accused him of and has a hard time believing it ever happened. I cried, I told him I blame him for a lot of crap in my life, I told him I would likely never forgive him and said I had nothing more to say to him. : He couldn't even apologize and kept claiming he didn't remember. When my parents visit, they still mention what he's up to, even though I say I don't want to know. Their last visit, they brought photos of him and his family and showed my daughters (they were christmas photos because they always fly down to visit him and his family for the holidays). I wish they'd let me just erase him from my life.

[northcountrymama]

Carfreemama, I was thinking about starting this kind of discussion after reading some of the toxic parents conversation. Thanks for getting it going. My parents are fine, but my brother on the other hand... My brother (much older) raped me numerous times when I was a kid. And when I finally got the guts up to stop trying to be the "nice" girl who just got along, I cut him out of my life. The last time I saw him was 10 years ago, at my father's funeral, and I accepted his hug, which was awful. I hope I never have to see him again. The sexual abuse was just part of his reign of terror on our family, some of which led to his going to prison. But the scary thing is, a woman fell in love with him while he was in prison, married him, and now they have a daughter. My mother, sister and I have never met her. And this breaks my heart. But I don't know how to have contact with her, without having contact with my brother too, and I just can't do that to myself. I just pray he doesn't treat his daughter the way he treated us. But I don't have such high hopes...

[Mountaingirl79]

Northcountrymama,

I wish I had some words of wisdom. Has anyone seen a counselor for this issue?
Hope everyone is doing okay, when you are estranged from your siblings for whatever reason, it can make you feel like an only child.

[northcountrymama]

Thank you Mountaingirl79 - I was so glad to read in your post that you are able to have a relationship with your niece despite being estranged from her father. I am haunted sometimes by the thought that my niece will show up on my door step in 10 years asking how the heck I didn't stand up for her somehow. I have had years of therapy. My parents had years of marriage counseling. And my sister prefers to suffer silently, and she still suffers so much. I have to say, I rarely mention this (except in therapy) but as upsetting as it is, it's also liberating in a way, in this group of people who also have really troubled siblings. I am grateful for that.

[majorshadow]

Blood is thicker than water

a song about estranged loved ones

Hear it at URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuYXasJgv3A

[Miss Information]

Originally Posted by ~PurityLake~ 

OP, your situation is much different than mine. I grew up with my older brother and younger half sister. My older brother was abusive toward us, but was abusive to a much greater degree towards me. I cut off contact with him in '96 (I was 22) but in '01 went out to his house because he paid for half my airline ticket and wanted me to surprise our parents who were going to his house, too. During my stay at his house, all the old feelings came up. I felt tortured just being in his presence. A conversation we had during my stay proved to me that he would never see me as a human deserving of basic human rights. I ended contact with him again after that visit. Last year, my younger half sister came to the state I currently reside for a visit (not the first visit since I've lived here). On this particular visit, she mentioned we weren't as close as she'd hoped we were. I confided in her some of the abuse our brother had put upon me, but not on her. She was shocked and in disbelief. Apparently, she later, even after I'd asked her not to, called up our brother and asked him about it. He said I was lying and he called our mother to ask if what I said was true. She confirmed that it was all true. Then he calls me. I had no idea about all these cross state phone calls and hearing from him out of the blue was a true shock for me. I felt ill hearing his voice. He told me about all the calls and said he simply didn't recall anything that I accused him of and has a hard time believing it ever happened. I cried, I told him I blame him for a lot of crap in my life, I told him I would likely never forgive him and said I had nothing more to say to him. : He couldn't even apologize and kept claiming he didn't remember. When my parents visit, they still mention what he's up to, even though I say I don't want to know. Their last visit, they brought photos of him and his family and showed my daughters (they were christmas photos because they always fly down to visit him and his family for the holidays). I wish they'd let me just erase him from my life.

PurityLake -

There is a tiny, tiny chance that your brother has truly no recollection of his abuse towards you.  One legitimate reason would be if the abuse occurred during a dissociative break from reality.  The horrible reality is that abusive people CAN DO THINGS DURING A DISSOCIATIVE SPLIT and they have no 'real' recollection of doing so years after the fact.  There can be seemingly normal people who act out aggressive abuse and rage and either willfully or subconsciously repress/suppress the memories. 

Both my mother, my stepfather and two of my sisters have been abusive to me in my childhood (my oldest sister was physically abusive - she hit me all the time and she chased me around the house with a kitchen knife once - she chased me outside, I climbed through my window...and she continued to chase me inside my room).   They both have blocked out certain memories that I KNOW happened to me...because I was dating my husband at the time and HE remembers these things too.  I have blocked out my share of memories too...because I was traumatized and when a child is traumatized...there is difficulty in how memories are transcribed by the mind.  Unfortunately, I have blocked out happy memories as well as traumatic ones too.  I know this because my stepmother has asked if I remembered some of the fun things we did with her and my real dad on visitation.  And I simply don't.  They are inaccessible to my conscious memory.

I do stay in my mother's life because she had changed over the years and has done a lot to 'make up' for the past and I am closer to her than I ever have been in recent months.  I stay in my sister's lives lives because of their children...and yet, at the same time, I am not very close to them.  I've had to keep firm boundaries with them in order to protect myself.    It's a very difficult and tricky thing. 

I have had to realize that at any time, they could turn on me.  Even after I moved out of the house, they all have hollered at me, hung up phones on me, triangulated (ie - called each other up behind my back and talked, plotted and schemed a bit).  I have had to learn to really emotionally distance myself from the Drama they create in order to have a relationship with my nieces and nephews.

If a family member was abusive and they don't actually have a mental illness with psychotic episodes (I'm thinking borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder or some such thing) it's possible that they were abused by someone too...and they had acted out what was done to them.  This is why abuse runs in families, across generations.  Alice Miller's book, the Drama of the Gifted Child (not gifted intellectually, but gifted in the sense of the ability to survive some pretty awful stuff) talks about the perpetuation of abuse down the generations. 

I'd like to recommend Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery.  She provides information and help regarding something called complex-post traumatic disorder, a name that, among other things applies to the result of living with an abusive person/family.

http://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/psych270/PTSD.htm

• Difficulties regulating, including symptoms such as persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or covert anger.

• Variations in consciousness, such as forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, or having episodes of dissociation (during which one feels detached from one’s mental processes or body)

• Changes in self-perception, such as a sense of helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings

• Varied changes in the perception of the perpetrator, such as attributing total power to the perpetrator or becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, including a preoccupation with revenge

• Alterations in relations with others, including isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer

• Loss of, or changes in, one’s system of meanings, which may include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair

Another good one is 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery by Babette Rothschild.

For a really good book on Mourning the wounds of childhood (and if you have siblings that abused you, perhaps it was not your parent that abused you, they failed to protect you from sibling abuse), Dealing with Fear, Guilt, Anger (and distinguishing anger from it's opposite - which is DRAMA) and learning assertiveness skills and maintaining personal boundaries and some other valuable things is David Richo's "How to be an Adult:  A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration."   It's only 122 pages long...but it's incredibly eye opening.

I did not have the strength to break from my abusive family...but over the years had learned some self-protection.  In time...the family drama lessened  AND I learned to stay out of any new drama that cropped up.

Grief work for those who've been abused by their families is never really "done".  It's a lifelong process of recognizing, mourning triggers that happen in the present from the past and dealing with any new realizations about the losses that may appear.

I just wanted to share this information with others.  Best of luck and peace to all of us...

[~PurityLake~]

Thank you for your post, MissInformation. Since I last posted, I had given my relationship with my brother a lot of thought. He had claimed the reason he didn't remember many of his teenage years was due to drug use. He has been married to his second wife for a very long time and they have a 12 year old son and a 10 year old daughter and he has a 19 year old son from his first marriage. This means my daughters have cousins they've never met who live in another state. The cousins are what keeps drawing me back to reconsider how I am dealing with everything. Over the past three years, at Christmas, my niece has sent my daughters clothes, books and toys she has outgrown. A few months ago I added my brother, his wife and two of his children to my facebook friend list. He can read what I post and through that, can know who I am if he cares to know. I can read updates about their family and my daughters can see pictures he posts of their cousins. We still never directly communicated with each other since that phone call two summers ago. I received a box from his daughter for my daughters Christmas Eve and when I logged on facebook I saw he was online and I IM'ed him to let him know the box had arrived. He told a joke to my daughters, wished us a Merry Christmas. I'm still not sure how I feel about having 'talked' to him, however briefly.

[Miss Information]

I am sure it felt 'weird' and 'surreal' and maybe even a bit 'scary'.  But...you don't have to label it any particular thing.   It seems like it was a good enough interaction...for now.  And yes, facebook is a relatively 'safe' way of keeping up with each other without major incidents.  Baby steps...a little progress at a  time is a good thing.  Respect your feelings/intuitions about any interactions with him.

It sounds like your niece is a wonderful young girl and I'm glad she is thinking of your daughters.  That is very sweet and thoughtful of her and I can see why you want to keep in contact with them.

[singergirl53]

Hello Everyone,

I have recently done this and I feel it doesn't work. My parents married. they were very much in love. He started drinking and cheating. They divorced when I was three. He moved on you another women and had my sister born out of wedlock. I am the oldest by the way. Then he marries another women takes on her three children has three more with her and my illegit.sister.

I never lived with them, I had a mother and step-dad who loved me I had a good life and education. My step dad was my real father to me. My dad was in and out of my life. He had issues with alcohol. He beat my sisters and brother and my guess his step children too and his wife at the time also beat the crap out of them.. The only exception was my baby sister who is I feel is mentally ill and evil. They never laid a hand on her. Her mother was literally crazy and twisted.   I was spared all of that. I also had to deal with own depression for years. I got therapy and stayed in it for years. In 2006, I met with my sisters. I have seen my brother on two occasions but he really doesn't know me and has chosen to stay away but he knows the door is always opened. I am closed to his wife, she is the  bomb. My baby sister is a very dangerous person and we have no contact.  My other two sisters  I have nothing in common with. One needs a lot of attention which I am sure is do to the beatings and lack of love. I get that. Her mother was also a drunk, She always has to dominated the conversation and my other sister says she wants to be close but really doesn't. Actions speak louder that words. She bitches about the attention whore sister but is always there for her. But she constantly blows me and my family off at every turn. The last straw was this year and I am done. I feel she is a hypocrite. I also feel that if one sister is talking shit to you about the other sister then she is going back to the other one and talking shit about you.  I am too old for this bullshit and games. I had a good life with parents who loved me. One sister is in therapy and the other one needs it badly. I just don't trust these relationships anymore. I have decided to stay in the relationship with my sister who needs the attention just because she has children and I don't want to hurt the kids. At this point  I am in it for the kids. The other sister has chosen to always be there for the other sister. I think she does it out of obligation and is caring my fathers guilt. He is dead and so is her mother. My step dad is gone and  I still have a mom who loves me. I won't apologizes for having a better life than them. But they should stop bitching about their past bury it and move on. They have the power to have a good life now.  I know what mental pain is like but I have decided to move on. 

These sisters rarely support me. I have to listen to all their problems and they never listen to mine.  The most I get is, I don't know what to tell you. They don't know how to be sisters and more importantly they don't deserve to be. I like myself too much and I won't be dragged down in their pity park. So, I just don't think this works especially when you don't grow up with them. Thanks for listening.

singergirl

PS we all have issues, get help and move on and be the person GOD wants you to be. You don't need losers to drag you down. If they want to wallow in self-pity let them. but you have a life to live go out and live it to the best of your ability and God will bless you.