Siblings growing apart

They say that the greatest gift your parents can give you is a brother or a sister; a sibling. I totally agree with that. Even your parents are somewhat less of a family to you than your siblings. As long as you are blessed with having a sibling (or more), you will never be alone in your life.

Siblings go through a lot of things together. First of all, they grow up in the same house – many times they even grow up in the same room. They learn to share everything with each other, they fight, they rely on each other, they are always the first to embarrass you, but they’re also ready to pick up a fight with anyone else that will try to do the same. Brothers and sisters will have the biggest fights even for the most meaningless things but they will never hold grudge against each other for too long.

Well, that’s what most of us think about siblings and the relationship between brothers and sisters, anyway. But it turns out that it doesn’t always work this way. As years go by and people grow up they also change. They choose their own path and, sometimes, they choose to keep their distance from their family – that includes both parents and their siblings. There are many reasons that could make someone do that and, most of the time, they are also quite complicated. But even if I understand that, I can’t help but thinking that it seems really strange to me how someone can treat their siblings like they are nothing more than an acquaintance.

What and who can you blame for that? Where and how did it start? Was it bad parenting or did it just happen over time? There are several cases, each one is different and it can be both of these reasons or none of them.

As we grow up, we start to care for a lot of things that we couldn’t imagine we would. It is no surprise that most siblings begin to grow distant from each other when they are adults – as opposed to their childhood. Many brothers and sisters are competing with each other and, to some extent, that’s healthy and normal. I mean, we all wanted to be the best in the eyes of our parents and the only person who could steal this honor from us was our sibling. Many siblings are also jealous of each other. The one is a better student, the other is more popular or prettier. But I always thought that was something common and, maybe, innocent.

However, though, it seems that, for a lot of people, these things continue to matter even when they get older. And, especially when money or inheritance issues come on the table, well, that’s where we have seen siblings become the worst enemies. That’s really sad, of course – to see that money can destroy even a brother-sister relationship. On the other hand, I can’t help but thinking that, if siblings manage to see each and treat each other as if they are enemies or simple acquaintances, a money problem as the above, can only be a poor excuse and not the actual reason.

It’s really difficult to meddle with a healthy siblings’ relationship. A lot of things can change, but not the love that a brother has for his brothers. So when something like that happens, it means that there must be unresolved issues that lead them there.

We have seen many siblings grow apart due to money issues, life partners, or the one’s criticism towards the other’s life choices – and, sometimes, for no reason at all. But we should wonder, is any of the above reasons good enough and worthy the cost of losing the best friends that anyone can have?