We no longer talk to each other, he refused to test for covid and wear a mask to come see my newborn at the peak of covid infections, after receiving multiple audio messages of just verbal abuse I cut ties. I lost a lot of friends we had in common but I'm good now.
Good on you.
People say, "you don't get to choose your family". Bullshit. Yes I do. Just because we're related by blood doesn't mean I owe them anything.
I chose my family. People close to me that are comfortable being vulnerable with each other. People that genuinely care. People that would drop anything they're doing just to help me, as I would them.
Im the oldest of three brothers.
Me and the youngest brother are pretty tight. Which hasn't always been the case. There was an eleven year gap between us so it was pretty touch and go growing up. When I moved back in with the parents briefly just as he was getting out of highschool, we started getting along a lot better and we ended up forming a really solid relationship. I'm really proud of the man he's grown into.
The middle brother... Well, it would be easy to say that he found religion and we drifted apart... But my youngest brother also found religion and that didn't mess our relationship up at all (Im agnostic leabing towards atheism)
The middle brother just .. isn't interested in figuring out how to be friendly. My youngest brother and I can disagree about stuff and be fine with it, but middle brother dige his heels in and can't ever find a way around it. So 1 out of 2 isn't too bad, honestly. I leave the lines of communication open for the middle brother, and every now and then we have a fun conversation. But that's about it.
I have 3 half sisters, two from my mom and one from my dad. All three are drug addicts to some degree, all three have kids they don't have custody off.
My dad used to date a lot of strippers, he brought one home one day and she heard his last name and asked if he was related to a girl who was in fact my sister, his daughter. She had apparently beat her unconscious with a glass ash tray and robbed her once. She later claimed a man had raped her, and he went to prison. She later got arrested on drug charges and tried to claim another man, which I believe was her drug dealer, had raped her. She has 5 kids, 3 of them had been taken by the state and their names changed. Haven't talked to those kids in over a decade. Her husband's name is Billy Ray, she's been married to him since her first child was born but he's only the father of 2. Active meth user the whole time I knew her.
Another sister who just required an abusive man. She only left one dude when she met another guy who just got out of prison three months earlier and got pregnant. I actually like this guy, he's not as bad as most of the other boy friends, but them together was incredibly toxic. I don't know her son, though, I saw him once when he was in diapers and hardly speaking. She once ran her truck up on the siderail of a bride because she was fucked up on robitussin. Regular pill popper.
The last sister got pregnant at 16 and I vividly remember her screaming at her daughter because she wanted attention but her mom was busy laying on a couch and scrolling facebook. I vividly remember her screaming at her very loudly and publicly in a taco bell because she complained about eating taco bell for the fourth time that week. She had money of course but she spent most of it on hydros and weed. She's was always a cunt, though.
Not very.
My sister and I get along really well but are not close.
I haven't had any real contact with my brother in the past 5 years. I see him for four hours each year so my parents can have the family together for Christmas dinner and that is it.
I had to cut my sister out of my life for her constant abuse and toxicity. It sadly cost me the relationship with my father who is now 80 and likely we won't get the chance to reconnect before he is gone. It has been almost 4 years and I have no regrets about cutting her off. She has since shown up at my door multiple times unannounced (we live 350 miles away) and has tried to circumvent me and communicate directly with my kids by giving them toys.
We get along okay. We don't have a lot in common but we can occasionally hang out and have fun playing games or something.
We talk briefly 2-3 times a year, see each other even less frequently, despite it being less than a two hour drive. Neither side is looking to change that despite us growing up together in a happy family and there being no reason for us to avoid each other. It could be that we all don't value social interactions very highly in general.
My Brother and I are extremely close. So close we joke we share one brain cell and that we were twins who were chronically seperated by 9 years at birth. He is genuinely my best friend and I love him very, very much.
I have a half sister (paternal) that grew up nowhere near me and we had no contact until she was an adult. When we finally did start talking I learned that she is just like her mother when she got angry at me over something trivial and (she) cut contact.
So I sadly have to continue considering myself an only child.
I see them a few times a month and we have group chats. We host dinners quite a lot and meetup at our fathers house. Pretty much all birthdays/holidays have some involvement with family. I'm the least involved but weve found a good balance with everyone. 3 siblings 24-34.
Older sister, younger sister, younger brother.
My younger brother is a sociopath; I cut him out of my life entirely in 2004 or so, and if he ever managed to track me down and show up on my doorstep, I'd need to find a way to hide the body. He hurts everyone around him.
My older sister is smart, but batshit crazy. She's deeply religious, but also believes in bullshit like iridology, hoeopathy, chiropratic care (at the age of 50-ish, she just started school for that nonsense), essential oils, and so on. We have pretty much nothing in common aside from language at this point.
My younger sister is... Just kinda there. Again, not a lot in common. She's a decent person, but we were never all that close as kids, and that's deepened as I've been older and now live 1500 miles away from everyone else.
I'm also autistic; family connections don't have an inherent value to me. I don't believe in blood meaning more than anything else, or that you do anything for your family; I choose to have that kind of relationship by choice, not due to an accident of birth.
Geographically? Thousands of miles away. Philosophically? Even further (she's fundie, I'm atheist). Conversationally? Pretty close. We text, talk or video chat multiple times per week. We're probably closer now than we have been at any point in our lives.
Not close. We only talk for business purposes.
2 sisters I have a good relationship with. I see them when I am back in my home country.
Third sister has been shunned by the whole family for leveling serious charges against our dad and refused to back down when the evidence was overwhelming in our fathers favour and her key piece of evidence came about from a lie under duress.
Kinda meh really
We don't talk much anymore, but I do speak with them more often than my parents.
I am happy to hear that both my siblings are doing pretty well for themselves (I even helped my sister move into a bigger apartment today)
My dad is... still around.
My Mom is starting to do better lately mental health wise, which is great to see. She's had some recent health scares that have really put time into perspective for her.
It's a long story for both groups why the relationships are what they are. But there's really only 1 out of that group that's unrecoverable IMO and that's the relationship with my dad.
Physically, not very. Personally, extremely close. Though I am still the odd one out, so the effect is half-lost on me. I was always the family's equivalent of a stock extra.
Not very. I have nothing against them, but we just have separate lives. I may contact them once a year or so, but that's about it. One of my sisters acts as the main info exchange for the other four, but even she is only in routine weekly contact with one of my brothers.
So, a lot of my family is alcoholic - both paternally as well as maternally. Both parents are alcoholics, but it's not taking their lives over completely: they're still, more or less, functioning members of society with stable income and such. My older brother is an alcoholic, not really aware of what it's doing to relationships to me, my younger brother, and our parents and completely shuts off whenever it's brought up as a subject. He hasn't achieved too much in his life, probably because of alcohol, and is the type of person of getting super close up in your personal space, super loud and obnoxious when he's drunk. Not pleasant to be around.
Back when we all lived at our parents', it was mostly fine when I started university - we gamed a lot, spent time together, went to university together, had mutual "friends" etc. He had problems with alcohol, but they were not as pronounced as they are now. Co-dependancy led to a lot of cope and ignoring of his issues from my side which changed drastically when I moved out and moved in with my girlfriend. We started seeing each other a lot less frequently - say, like 5-7 times a year for birthdays or other similar family gatherings - and whenever we see each other, he brings up that we don't see each other at all. Yea, I guess when I just can't stand you at all when you're drunk, that influences my willingness to meet up.
Last year on my birthday, I requested beforehand that we spend the evening without my family drinking alcohol at all. They were quite shocked and at a loss for words, saying that they're not sure if that's possible, but were ultimately fine with it and didn't drink anything. They also only served vegan food instead of the usual vegan food for my girlfriend and I plus their stuff too which felt awesome. Best birthday in years.
I have more contact with my little brother who still lives at my parents' and has contact with my older brother, but it's not terrificly much either. I know that he's not doing well there in terms of his relationship with our brother, but he's not seeing the issues. Co-dependancy is more pronounced with him still. It hurts me that we're not spending much time together since he was constantly around before I moved out, spending time with me and my girlfriend a lot, going on trips, playing games etc., but I'm just not really "in the mood" these past few years.
I've thought of giving my older brother an ultimatum, letting him decide to choose the alcohol or the relationship with me, but I'm too scared of conflicts, so I end up ignoring my family for the most part. I'm happy living my life with my girlfriend and don't mourn over it too much, figuring out our life living together. I'm just happy I'm not exposed to the constant bullshit anymore.
Is the best and healthiest relationship I got in my family , I can't imagine my life without her being a part of it which is funny because I really didn't like her as a kid and use to be really mean to her ; I am the older one. I guess shares trauma and me realizing I was an ass wipe then asking for forgiveness goes a long way. She tells me that she remembers well the first time I hugged her , apparently I was about 7 or 8 and she picked up my toys for me and I was grateful so I hugged her ( I don't remember this)
Currently we live half the world away from each other , and with some luck maybe not for much longer. She has completely aliened herself from the family including my parent I guess my mom is an expection because she occasionally calls her. I didn't at least I haven't completely not like her and we respect and love each other enough to still agree to disagree in a lot of things and still love and support each other to the best of our abilities. I hope you all got a person around like that , I got really flipping lucky it is my sister.
I'm the oldest of three. My younger brother is an abusive drug addict currently serving time. I never want to see him or talk to him again. Any time we are in a room together, there's a real risk of a physical fight breaking out. Years of constant fighting both verbally and physically have taken a huge mental toll on me. The day he dies will be one of my happiest.
My baby brother is alright. He straddled the same line drug wise but was nowhere near abusive like the other one. Hes got a reputation for being a sneaky lying thief, but he's turned himself around. He's more of a joy to be around.
One good. One that's a blood screaming hatred that's only gonna be resolved through death. No hyperbole either.
I just posted a similar comment about my sibling drug addict. 😭
Two younger siblings....very close to youngest if I even talk to the other one this year I'd be shocked.
I'm one of five and we're all close. Our ages are 27-35. We have 3 active group chats (with parents and spouses) and at least 1 of them is used every single day. There are times when we go a few weeks without seeing each other in person but I always miss them when that happens. We have one sister who is less close , the self proclaimed black sheep, who is much more conservative than us and married someone who is a bad fit with our whole family, but we still see her many times a year and she's on the group chats of course. My brother is more aloof, but my two other sisters are my legitimate best friends who I would love to see weekly if schedules allowed.
I am so glad my parents didn't allow us to be very mean to each other. My husband's parents let his sister act like a real brat towards him, and now they have a strained relationship at best. She is passive aggressive and sometimes downright mean to him, and yet he's the bad guy for not coming around more. Friendship is earned! It takes work and upkeep!
Conjoined.
Not as close as I'd like and probably more close than what they'd like.
I have a younger brother and I'm not close to him as much as I want to be which is mostly my fault. I'm very bad when it comes to social stuff.
I'm the youngest sibling with an age gap of 7-8 years to my older brother and sister. Growing up I was mostly alone, ignored, or often fought with them but eventually we grew a deep bond together through similar interests. The times I've spent with my siblings have been some of my most precious memories. I'm fortunate to have siblings that I could call my best friends and role models in life.
3 older sisters, 1 younger sister.
Haven't spoken to the oldest in over 5 years. No hate, she's just 10 years older than me, has 5 or 6 kids, and lived halfway across the US for my entire life.
2nd oldest and I talk at least monthy. We're the closest. Twin and I talk once every couple of months.
Little sister and I haven't spoken in months, and even then we rarely talk to each other and she has never been the first one to initiate contact. We fought a lot growing up, relationship got a little better after moving out, and now I have no idea what her issue is.
Today's her birthday, I have no intention of reaching out. She's engaged, I have no interest in attending the wedding. She went no contact first, I just have given up trying to reach out and maintain a relationship she clearly doesn't want.
Closer than the princes Charles and Andrew, it would seem. But that's because my brother doesn't fuck kids.
I have 3 siblings. We try to get together with my mom for the major holidays and birthdays, so we maybe tend to see each other at least once a month. We have a good time together and see each other regularly, but I wouldn't really consider us close tbh. We don't talk at all outside of these gatherings or anything like that. They don't respond to texts or calls or anything, which can be rather annoying.
I'm the oldest of three and we're tight as could be. We hop online with our additional brother from another mother at least once a week, sometimes twice if we have time. It started because my best friend (mentioned earlier) was one of the few individuals on this planet with a gamecube AND all 4 GBA link cables. So he would come over all the time while we were still in highschool and my younger bros would join for FF: Crystal Chronicles or Zelda Four Swords. Later it became Smash Bros or Mario Party and whatever other coop game we could find. As we each moved out, and some away from our home city, we picked an established day of the week to be our online boiz day so we'd never lose contact. It's always a joyous occasion when we can fly everyone back into town and hang out in-person.
We're not close. We talk to each other a couple times a year outside of birthdays. We get along perfectly fine and I enjoy when we do spend time together. We even lived together in college a couple years. But even then we really felt like roommates more than anything.
My neighborhood had a ton of kids. I hung out with the older group, but there was a ton of kids closer to his age (about 3-4 years younger, which is huge when you're in grade school) so he was with them. Today, I live about 1000 miles away. He has almost no motivation to travel. It feels weird to say when so many people (including my wife) are so close to their siblings, or have a good reason not to be, but we just kinda grew separately and that's totally ok.
I have an older sister. We haven't been close as long as I can remember, though my parents insist we were inseparable when we were younger. If there was some inciting incident that caused us to become estranged I can't remember it.
It's weird. I kinda think of myself as an only child, but then I have to remind myself I'm not. It's probably something I should talk to a therapist about someday.
I have a big sister and we get along well. We don't hang out much and such but we both spend a good amount of time atvour parents place as we live close by. We all get along extremely well.
If it where up to me about as close as the earth and ton 618 Unfortunatly hat isnt the case, if I cut one off the interconnected web of a shitty family will bother me even further than they have any right to do
I have 2 sisters.. We talk and game almost daily. We’re super close.
These other responses are honestly quite shocking.
There’s seven years between my younger brother and I. We were closer when we were kids but when I started college he was 11 and we had different paths in life. He fell into drugs, I’m now raising his kid… not what I planned in life. We are very different people.
My siblings and I are pretty close. I'm not in the habit of antagonizing my housemates, so I can smooth things out in the rare cases there's any friction.
about 30 meters. She lives right up the street
Lets put it this way: I have never met them in person and am not entirely sure how many half siblings I actually have.
