Adult sibling rivalry
Many of us have wonderful close relationship with our siblings, still, for many people, discord sown early endures for a lifetime. Plus, as siblings get older and more established in their own lives, it’s so easy to drift apart. Even if you do everything you can to stay close, a certain amount of distancing is almost inevitable.
Unfortunately, while this is human nature, it still stings when the cause of the strained relationship is due to your parents favor another sibling or another sibling’s family. While most parents love their adult children, it’s surprisingly common for people to feel that a sibling is or ‘has always been’ favored by a parent, even if this may not be recognized or acknowledged by the rest of the family.
Whatever the reason, when one or more parents is favoring another sibling over you, either by bragging more about your brother’s accomplishments, paying more attention to your sister, or always taking your brother’s side in a disagreement, it hurts to be the less favored ‘child’ and it can make for a stressful family gathering with raw feelings that can be easily hurt.
Here are some ways we can learn to cope with the hurtful feeling as an adult and it’s not too late to be included in the new year resolution of 2008. :-)
Don’t Take It Personally: Understand that our parent may not love the other sibling more, they just feel closer or more invested in their lives, for whatever reason. They may not even be aware of it, and most likely not doing it to hurt our feelings.
Accept The Reality of the Situation: You will feel better if you accept that you may not get as much support and approval from parents as you want, and that’s alright. If you don’t go to them from a place of need, you will actually have more personal power. It may be difficult to get into this frame of thought, but you’ll feel better after you do. You will even start noticing that you do get from them, and valuing that.
Find Support Elsewhere in Your Life: You need to find supportive people in your life to provide the love, acceptance and approval you may not get from your parents as much as you’d like. While we may not be born into families of people who think like us and share our values, there are many people in the world that can provide the support that our family members may be unable to give.
Don’t Perpetuate Sibling Rivalry: Don’t compete with your siblings and don’t blame them for being favored. Just accept that your relationship with your parents is yours, and keep it separate from your relationships with other siblings
Invest In Your Own Family: Finally, if you have a committed relationship or family of your own, you can focus on providing what you would like to be getting from your family of origin. Focus on what you share and what you can provide to yourself in your own life, and you’ll be better able to accept familial quirks.
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