Unraveling Sibling Bonds as We Age
The Third Age offers a chance to heal old hurts and frustrations
Sibling relationships can be fraught with complications and pain throughout life. Although some lucky people get a great deal of support from their siblings, many of us experience old issues of sibling rivalry, unrealistic family expectations, bad childhood experiences, and hurt feelings that can disrupt any hope of mutual comfort as we get older. I’m not referring here to the stresses of having a disabled or openly troubled sibling or of dealing with an abusive relationship. These are topics for future posts. For now I want to focus on the rough and tumble among siblings of similar abilities as they cope with the same set of often-overwhelmed parents, and how we get a chance to re-work old hurts and frustrations in the Third Age.
Josefina,* for example, was in her late fifties when her mother died. She was distraught that her older sister had taken a beautiful ring of their mother’s. “We were supposed to be dividing the jewelry equally, but Mama had promised me the ring. When I asked about it, my sister said Mama had told her to take it for herself. I’m pretty sure it’s a lie.” Josefina decided that it was time to stop trying to patch things up with her sister. “I couldn’t break the tie with her while Mama was alive, but now I don’t have any reason to ever talk to her again.” Josefina’s husband supported her in not speaking to her sister. “He has never liked her,” Josefina told me. “Now he says he’s glad he won’t have to make an effort to be pleasant when she’s around.”
But there was more to Josefina’s story than this simple anecdote would suggest. At the end of her angry recitation, Josefina said, “It’s not really true that she always lied. We were close when we were very young. I wish we could be close again.” As I listened to her, I thought about my shifting relationships with my own siblings. Like Josefina’s sister, I am the oldest child. My middle brother was born when I was eighteen months old. According to family lore, every time my mother nursed him, I went on a rampage and tore up the house. When I was young, that story was held up as a sign of what a bad-tempered child I was. When I got older, I understood that the tantrums expressed the rage I must have felt as an adored and spoiled toddler who suddenly and inexplicably lost her place in the sun. And when I got older still, I empathized with my parents, both very young and completely overwhelmed by the complex job of parenting.
I wondered what the story was with Josefina and her sister, so I asked her if she’d be willing to tell me more about her memories of growing up. She nodded and thought for a few minutes before answering.
“I adored her when I was very small,” Josefina said. “She was smart and so beautiful. And sometimes she was really sweet and loving toward me. But she hated having me around when she was with her friends. Mom made her let me hang out with them. I always felt like I had somehow won when that happened. Why couldn’t she just let me be with them?” Over time, Josefina’s sister had become more difficult. “She pulled away from me and everyone in the family. She was angry all the time.”
I told Josefina that I could see how much her sister’s behavior had hurt her. I said that, from her perspective, her sister was unfairly and cruelly rejecting her. But I said that while it was unfair and hurtful, I could also understand her sister’s reaction. I shared that I, like many older siblings, had taken out on my baby brother some of my own anger at my parents for “abandoning” me. From my point of view, their desertion of me was all his fault.
Josefina mulled over what I said, then responded, “I never thought about it that way.”
In the Third Age, sibling struggles often resurface in an undigested form. We bring into our later years past hurts and resentments that fall into the category of what the psychologist Christopher Bollas has called the “unthought known.” His concept refers to beliefs and explanations left over from childhood that have never been examined by a more mature, complex adult brain. Old—and often inflexible—images of our siblings are often at the bottom of these long-held grudges.
John*, a lawyer in his late sixties, told me that his older brother had “not been a nice brother. He was the first of five kids born one after the other,” John said. “I think he couldn’t believe our parents did that to him. He was always angry at us, just for being born.”
It isn’t always possible to let go of these old grudges against your siblings, but when you can find a way to resolve some of these issues, they can become an important part of your Third Age. Your brothers and sisters may never become your best friends, but with a little work you can become an addition to each other’s support systems.
What can you do to improve your relationship with your siblings in the Third Age?
First, ask yourself if there’s any way to shift the prism on your view of the problems in the relationship. What was your sibling’s take on what was going on? This doesn’t mean discounting your own perspective on any experience, but sometimes thinking about what might have been happening for your sib can give you a broader understanding of any situation.
Second, consider talking to your brother or sister about how you’re feeling and what you do and don’t understand about your mutual history. When I brought up to my brother that I felt badly about some of the ways I had acted when we were little, he said that he didn’t remember it that way. Instead, he had memories of some good times I had forgotten. Josefina’s sister also had a different set of memories. “She apologized for being selfish,” Josefina told me. “She said that she had always felt that Mom and Dad both gave me all their attention and love, so there was nothing left over for her. But she said that she thought I was wonderful and that she’d like to try to see if we could repair things between us. And she said that she thought we should try to find a way to share the ring–maybe each of us wearing it for half the year.”
Situations exists in which a relationship can’t be repaired, for instance, when a sibling continues to lie or to hurt you even when you reach out to ease tensions. But sometimes, if you make space for it, you can create a subtle yet powerful shift in how you relate to each other. John told me that he had realized about ten years earlier that his brother had changed. “It was slow, but he became a nice guy. These days I can go to him with a problem, and he is ready to listen and try to problem-solve with me. It’s taken awhile for me to let go of my old resentment and distrust, but he really is different.”
John, like many of my clients, found that having a sibling who was able to share memories of their parents and childhood, was often reassuring as memories began to fade. “It’s nice to have someone who you can call and say, ‘Do you remember that time that such and such happened? Where was that? Who was that old lady?’ Sometimes neither of us can answer some of the questions about who, what, or when. But it’s good to have someone you trust who shares important parts of your history.”
*names and identifying info changed for privacy
Photo credit: 123RF id# 97575161 Photographer: tverdohlib