I’m not very close with my sisters because they’re 11 and 13 years older than me. And since my oldest sister went to a boarding high school, I have no memories of her actually living in the same house. So, I never really got close to them.
I’m much closer to my brother, who’s only 2 years older than me, though by the way we act you wouldn’t be able to tell. Neither of us are people… people. I wouldn’t call him my very favorite person in the world, but I wouldn’t call anyone that.
Are you as close as the Rhymer clan, or as bitter as Sampiro & Co. (Or me and my hated brother, for that matter?) At least as close as Rhymer clan. My older sister (4 years) was kind of my hero growing up; she was smarter than me and more intelligent, as well as always doing interesting things. Now we email a lot, but I’m not a phone-talking-on-type-guy so we have to make do with that. (She’s in California and I’m in Colorado)
What’s made you close, or estranged? What effect have your parents had on the relationship? Dunno. Must be because we are such exceptional people that we naturally had to be friends. Parents had an effect, but I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. A lot of us covering for each other and getting each other in and out of trouble.
What do your friends, spouses, and other close people in your life think of it? Occasionally someone would think it was kind of odd, but not for very long. Most, if not all, quickly came to realize she was a great person.
If you’re an only child, what are your opinions about sibling relationships? N/A
If you were me, only smarter, what question would you have asked that I haven’t? If I just came out and told you then you’ll never learn, now will you?
Wow…
Must have been nice to have a family that actually got along.
I have one brother, a little over 3 years younger than I. We haven’t spoken since 2002, mostly because my father asked him to stop changing the station on Father’s Day during the US Open.
Without getting into all the messy details, he didn’t have a problem specifically with me, but after my parents spent the rest of the summer trying to reconcile with him, in September he hung up on My Mother The Peacekeeper after telling her to never contact him or his family again. We haven’t. Not even when Mom died last year. But that was her choice. “If he didn’t want to have anything to do with me while I was alive, I sure don’t need him to have anything to do with me once I’m dead.”
As long as I’m here, I should mention that even when we were a family, he and I were never close. We were just different enough ages to never be in the same school at the same time, never had any of the same teachers, interests, friends, nothing. I was the loner nerd, he was the jock. And essentially, never the twain shall meet.
Yeah, if I could write, I could write a book 
Are you as close as the Rhymer clan, or as bitter as Sampiro & Co. (Or me and my hated brother, for that matter?)
Somewhere in between, I don’t really know my sister.
What’s made you close, or estranged? What effect have your parents had on the relationship?
I actually have two sisters, one was killed in an accident when she has four, my other sister was a witness (she was like 6 or 7). I wasn’t even born yet. My sister ran away from home at the age of 14, when I was 7. We had no contact until I was 15. Even then it was minimal, she has many problems. Now we live 140 miles apart and talk about once every three to six months. We are as different as night and day, and she makes me feel like a heel most of the time. My mother wants us to be close but understands why we aren’t. We have different dads as well. My sister used to hate me because she thought I was a replacement for other sister that died, and was jealous that I grew up with both parents. I think she is over that now, she is relatively normal now. I don’t know what the future holds for us at this point.
What do your friends, spouses, and other close people in your life think of it?
My husband thinks my sister is a bitch and gets mad when I let her hurt me, but knows that I would rather have her closer than we are. He sister is a bitch too, so we deal with it. My friends don’t really know my sis, or the circumstances well. My best friend knows the most, and she wants me to be happy with or without the sister.
If you’re an only child, what are your opinions about sibling relationships?
I was raised mostly like an only child, my sister being out of the picture. I am jealous of those close with their siblings, but I understand those who aren’t. I really go to see both worlds.
If you were me, only smarter, what question would you have asked that I haven’t?
What do you think your siblings feel about their relationship with you?
My only sister and I are very close, though not geographically. Neither of us is close to any other family member.
Our parents have had a huge effect on our relationship. They were so incredibly abusive that my sister and I cling to each other because we’re each other’s sole witness to what went on when we were children. We were not close until we became adults.
People comment that I talk about my sister a lot, and that I don’t talk about anyone else in my family. As far as I’m concerned, my sister and her husband are my only family.
Questions you could ask: Would you have any relationships with your family members if you didn’t have to? Do you believe that ultimately people have to make peace with their parents? (I don’t).
I’m not close with anyone in my immediate family.
My sister is two years younger than me. Been married more times than I can count. Been addicted to everything. She’s now the Town Slut. We have nothing in common. We never talk.
My brother is two years older than me. Very lazy and unmotivated. A professional moocher. Drinks two bottles of wine every night, as does his wife. Has lots of girlfriends, despite being married. We have nothing in common. We never talk.
My mother and father divorced when I was 10. My father is now a religious nut and extreme miser. He makes Hetty Green look like a philanthroper. He lives not far from us, but he only wants to see his grandchildren (our children) a couple times a year.
My mother is a nice person, but for whatever reason we’ve never been close.
Are you as close as the Rhymer clan, or as bitter as Sampiro & Co. (Or me and my hated brother, for that matter?)
Somewhere between. I have one sibling I’m fairly close to in that we swap emails semi-regularly. Another one who we communicate with periodically, but shows no real signs of wanting to maintain the relationship (e.g., did not announce they were having a baby, until 2 weeks after the baby was born. I found that a real slap in the face). And a third whom… well, I wouldn’t push him in front of a speeding bus but if I saw him crossing the street and noticed the bus coming… probably I’d yell out but I wouldn’t guarantee anything.
What’s made you close, or estranged? What effect have your parents had on the relationship? Personalities mostly. The parents tried to encourage us to have contact with sibling # 3 but #3 has alienated the entire rest of the family beyond all hope of repair (and has never ever, once, in 50 years of life, expressed remorse over anything he’s done). Now that the parents have gone on to another plane of existence, Sib#3 is no longer a part of my life.**
What do your friends, spouses, and other close people in your life think of it?
We don’t really discuss it that much, though I have a number of friends who have similar levels of contact with their families so they would cetainly understand.
If you’re an only child, what are your opinions about sibling relationships?
N/A
If you were me, only smarter, what question would you have asked that I haven’t?
“Do you wish things were different? How and why?”
I have the same relationship with both my brother and sister. It’s weird. We’re very fond of each other, but are not close by any means. I wish it weren’t that way. But we’re there for each other in a pinch. I guess that’s what counts.
Except for the fact I have no kids for you to be an uncle to, I might suspect you were my younger brother. 
We just turned out to be completely different people. He’s an extrovert, I’m a introverted.
Looking back on it, I suspect I was jealous of him during our teenaged years for having friends and our mother’s attention during sports, and it always seemed like he was better able to get away with things. Besides, as teenaged boys often are, he was a prick, though I admit he outgrew it. We grew apart and never had any reason to grow back together.
Are you as close as the Rhymer clan, or as bitter as Sampiro & Co. (Or me and my hated brother, for that matter?)
I’ve always been pretty close to my brother. He’s one of the people I love most in this world, though I’d never say so in print.
What’s made you close, or estranged? What effect have your parents had on the relationship? I’m not sure. We just grew up that way. We had our share of arguments and such, but we’ve never NOT been close.
What do your friends, spouses, and other close people in your life think of it?
They think it’s great. My fiance is not at all close to his sister, so it’s an alien thing to him, but in general, it’s just considered nice, I guess.
If you were me, only smarter, what question would you have asked that I haven’t? How far apart we are in age. We’re nearly 7 years apart, which I think helped a lot. I looked up to my older brother, and there wasn’t a lot of “rivalry” because he was clearly the oldest and I was clearly the baby. Also, he taught me a lot of stuff, including my sense of humour. So the age gap almost certainly helped.
I’m the oldest of four and in general not overly close with any of my immediate family. They didn’t take my being gay very well, so even though I knew I was welcome at home I didn’t choose to be there very often, The constant reminder that I was going to hell made visits home not so pleasant.
My youngest brother was born just before I turned 18 and I shortly after moved away from home so I didn’t get much time to get to know him. With the above mentioned rare visits I don’t really know him that well, he’s 13 now.
My sister is 19 and was 8 when I left home, so I knew her as a young child but really don’t know the woman she is becoming. I feel like we could be close, but my family has kept a tight rein and she really doesn’t know much beyond the very conservative life they live. I’m hoping to become friends as an adult with her.
My other brother is 25 and in seminary. We were very close growing up but have very much drifted apart over the years. I know we still love each other, but it has become increasingly difficult to have any real conversations with him, so we only speak once a year or so.
At this point I would call my relationships with my siblings there but very strained, for varying reasons. We love each other because we’re siblings but have very little in common otherwise.
I have a rather mixed up set of siblings, an older half brother, 2 younger brothers, 2 younger sisters and much younger half brother and sister. I see and get along great with my older bro, one of the younger brothers, both younger sisters and the much younger half sister. If there is a family gathering, we can pretty much all 6 of us will be there. One brother, almost a year younger than me, has chosen a life of drug use and does not talk to anyone in the family. He has stolen from every family member when he does show up so he pretty much has been 86ed from the family. Over the past 20 years I have had to go to court and clear my name a number of times when he uses it when arrested. It not a good feeling to find out you have a warrant for your arrest in a county you have not been to in over 30 years. Last we heard about him he was back in prison. That is a good place for him.
My younger half brother has some mental issues, they caused the end of my father’s marriage with his mother. He currently lives in Arizona with his mother and says he has disowned his sister because she chose our father’s side in the divorce. I think his mother is a whacko, that is why he ended up like he did.
An interesting side note, my younger son and younger half sister both work for the same company in the same department. They both also have the same last name. They are often asked if they are brother and sister. They get some strange looks when they say she is his aunt even though she is 4 years younger than him.
I would probably resent my username being used as a synonym for bitterness, though this being a week after my sister and I had a Jerry Springer quality white-trash vulgarity-laden (that being from me) screaming fit in broad open daylight on the front lawn of her house as a morbidly obese Holiness minister, 6 dogs, a flip-flop wearing husband, an old woman with a cigarette and an oxygen mask and various octogenarian neighbors looked on and as inanimate objects caught hell.
That said I’ll say that, unlikely as it seems and I really am serious- I’m very close to my sister. I love her very much, I often like her, and while she’s nuts and can be an absolutely impossible condoscending harpie there’s a lot about her I’m very proud of, when I’m not calling her names and warding off blows (and that’s only once in every several dozen encounters really). My brother I have a sort of “warm neutrality” with- I can take him or leave him, when our mother dies I’m pretty sure we’ll exchange Christmas cards and that will be about it, while my sister I can’t imagine not knowing until one of us is dead.
Sampiro, I apologize if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to imply that you personally are bitter; only that your relationship with your siblings is something other than bucolic. Usually I’ve read your threads about your family as presenting it in that way; if things are less vitriolic than that, I’m happy to be corrected.
How’s your mother doing, if I may ask? I’msure I’m nothte only one who’s been wondering.
My sisters are ten and thirteen and I’m fifteen.
We’re super close. They tell me everything (well, probably not EVERYTHING, but a lot.) and I’d give my life for either one of them.
We fight sometimes, sure. We’re very different people at very different stages in our lives right now and we clash all the time. But they know they can come to me for help and chances are about 80% that I’ll jump up and help them (not 100%. I do have a life outside of walking my baby sister to her friends’ houses.)
What’s made us close? Well, we’re all girls for one thing. We’re all pretty close in age. We all grew up with a sort of sense of responsibility to each other. We all share the same dad, who is prone to flying off the handle, so the middle sister and I sort of banded together against him. Like if he’d punish one of us and the other thought it was unfair, we’d cover for each other. The little one is a whole different story. She’s like Michelle on Full House- she’s a horrible spoiled little brat and half the time, we hate her for it. but she’s our baby sister and so we take care of her. Plus she is actually really cute.
How do our friends see it? Well, that’s what makes me feel like we’re abnormally close. I get a lot of, “aww. I’d never do that for my sister.” or “aww, you three are so cute. I wish I loved my sister.” Some think it’s weird or unbelievable- like if my sister has a ballgame and a friend wants to do something, they can’t believe I don’t want to grab the opportunity to get out of going to a fourth grade basketball game.
I can’t really say whether things will be different when we all grow up. I’ve always imagined staying close to at least the middle sister. I decided when I was about six that she would be my Maid of Honor when(/if) I get married and I haven’t changed my mind about that yet. We used to try to synchronize our careers so that we could work together or work for each other. I wanted to be an actress, she wanted to be my hairdresser and makeup artist. I wanted tro be a ballerina, she wanted to design my costumes. She wanted to be a school secretary and I wanted to be a teacher, etc. And we just figured the youngest could follow us around and bring us coffee.
**Are you as close as the Rhymer clan, or as bitter as Sampiro & Co. (Or me and my hated brother, for that matter?)**I am almost completely estranged from my parents and my brother. WRT my brother, neither I nor my parents know whether he is alive or dead, nor where he lives.
**What’s made you close, or estranged? What effect have your parents had on the relationship?**My brother is nuts. Worse than my parents, worse than me. He’s a full on self-medicated psychotic, and while he is a lot of fun in small doses, a long term relationship with him is impossible. He is quite literally a wild and crazy guy.
**What do your friends, spouses, and other close people in your life think of it?**Initially they are sad, and incredulous that the relationship can be so bad as to result in such complete seperation. Then they meet him… The last time that happened was 4 years ago.
**If you were me, only smarter, what question would you have asked that I haven’t?**I’m not qualified for this one.
Okay, this means either that (a) you are unconditionally admitting that I am smarter than you (or as smart), or (b) you and I are actually the same person, which mean at least one of us is a disassociative delusion. ;j
Are you as close as the Rhymer clan, or as bitter as Sampiro & Co. (Or me and my hated brother, for that matter?)
I have only one sibling; my five-years younger brother. We are very close - he’s one of my very best friends. Probably second only to my husband. And it’s a close second.
What’s made you close, or estranged? What effect have your parents had on the relationship?
My parents had very little to do with our being close, I think, except for the mandatory “share your toys” mantra. I don’t know. When we were children, my father used to take great joy out of teasing us about our closeness-yet-still-obviously-siblings relationship, comparing us to, say, Garfield and Odie, or Ren and Stimpy. I was always Garfield or Ren, with my brother being the loyal halfwit sidekick. I was considered a big meanie by my parents, but my brother never cared.
As we got older, I curbed any “meaniness” I might have had towards him, as that sometimes happens with maturity, and began protecting him instead. I still wouldn’t sit with him on the bus, but no one made fun of my brother - at least not within my earshot.
Somewhere along the line, as we grew up, we shared a lot of similar interests, and eventually realised we both had pretty much the same sense of humour. We have our own “language”… it’s english (with some other languages we both study thrown in, but it’s not Palare!) and as my mother says: “I understand the words you’re saying, individually, and yet I have no idea what you two are talking about!”
I don’t know exactly when it happened. But I can pick up the phone at any time, call my brother, spew what appears to anyone listening to be utter nonsense, hang up, and come away laughing myself to tears, telling everyone my brother is the absolute funniest guy in the world.
What do your friends, spouses, and other close people in your life think of it?
My husband thinks it’s great, as he is also close with his brother. I have had some friends in the past raise some eyebrows over our closeness, however. I hug my brother sometimes, but have never kissed him. There is nothing sexual/incestuous at all about our closeness. I’ve thought about this seriously at one point after a friend brought it up, and again recently when a joke I told my husband fell flat, and I inwardly sulked to myself that I wished my brother were here - he would have gotten it! I thought that might have been a strange thought, as it was connected to “my brother is the only person who really understands me”. But no, there is nothing incestuous about it. It’s just a different kind of love, a different kind of closeness. Not all love is the same, even if it might be equal. I love my brother with all my heart, but incest? I have to say, thankfully, no, the idea turns my stomach. Or, to put it simply: Ewwwww!
If you were me, only smarter, what question would you have asked that I haven’t?
Does not compute.
And to answer groo’s question:
Would you have any relationships with your family members if you didn’t have to? Do you believe that ultimately people have to make peace with their parents? (I don’t).
This one is a little odd for me. I, too, don’t believe one has to make peace with their parents. I’ve disowned family members for awful, refused-to-be-fixed behaviour (though, to be honest, those people were quite abusive, and all the support and therapy in the world didn’t change their ways, so we did the only thing we could do: leave them. The bad outweighed the good, and it hurt us more than it hurt them.)
I love my dad, and then there’s my mother. That woman, she drives me insane. Yet I love her to death. We get along great for a while, but then she’ll drop some bigoted, prejudiced statement about something or someone, and I’ll be seething. She hates gay people. I can’t come out to her, and yet I can’t leave her in the dust. I couldn’t even begin to dream about cutting her off. I’d never get over it. She has taught me, unwittingly, that I can love pretty much everyone. Everyone has shades of grey. I’m not going to like every single aspect of everyone, but, given the chance, everyone probably also has something about them that I could love. Sometimes the good outweighs the bad, and other times it doesn’t. But there’s always something.
I am undone! For I can refute neither statement!
Oops. It just occurred to me that I should clarify this for those who don’t know me/my posting history: I’m bi, monogamous, and married a man. On February 19, 2003, some of you might have felt a light breeze riffling through your hair? That was my mother, 3000 miles away, breathing a deep sigh of relief.