Why Don’t Adult Siblings Get Along?

Most caregivers have run into at least a few examples of sibling conflict. The issue is almost inevitable. No matter how hard you try or how much you communicate, there are always some points of contention.

It may seem like even the simplest decisions require hours of discussion and that you get questioned at every turn. Or perhaps there are loud arguments and outright fights.

Honestly, it’s hard enough to care for aging parents when everyone is on the same page. Doing so in the midst of conflict makes everything so much worse. 

How come it’s this bad? Why don’t adult siblings get along and, more importantly, what can you do about it?

What We Know About Adult Siblings

Sibling relationships are important when we’re kids, yet tend to get overlooked when we’re grown. This is even true in academic research and therapy, where the focus is heavily skewed toward adult children and their parents, rather than how adult siblings interact with one another.

This becomes very obvious when we talk about estrangement.

Not getting along with your parents is often seen as a huge issue and a sign that something is seriously wrong.

Barely talking to your siblings isn’t met with the same attention. That type of distance is often seen as normal, even something that’s expected. This bias is seen in therapy too, where most conversations focus on parent-child relationships, rather than sibling-sibling.

Why Adult Sibling Relationships Matter

Yet, for good or ill, our longest-standing relationships are those we have with our siblings.

After all, we have known our siblings for as long as we’ve known our parents (or almost as long, depending on birth order). And… our siblings will often outlive our parents. Who else knows us from when we were very young through to our last years? Few other relationships last this long.

Sibling relationships are also more important than we might imagine. Research suggests that our siblings influence us throughout our lives. Positive relationships help to protect against loneliness, while poor relationships can increase the risk of depression, anxiety, and other negative effects.

This effect isn’t surprising.

Because family relationships are so long-standing and have been there through thick and thin, they can help us feel grounded and connected. This is incredibly important, given that life is inherently unpredictable.

Sibling Relationships in Caregiving

Sibling relationships become even more crucial as a parent ages.

When siblings can work together and trust each other, they can help promote the best possible outcome for the parent. Such siblings can also help to share the practical and financial load of caregiving, making the task much easier.

When there’s conflict, a great deal of your energy is spent on finding solutions and negotiating. There’s less time and energy left for supporting your parent and it’s easier for issues to get missed.

Caregiving can also make sibling conflict much worse.

In many other situations, siblings can carefully manage their lives and relationships to avoid too many difficult interactions and keep the past in the past. But… prolonged contact over a stressful topic can bring old resentments to the surface –

Why Adult Siblings Often Don’t Get Along

Differences in Values and Life Course

As is often said, you can choose your friends, but not your family.

Notably, we tend to choose friends with similar values and interests to us. They’re often people we find easy to connect to and get along with. Or, people that interest us enough that we want to put the work in.

But, family is different.

Despite your history, it may feel like you have little in common with siblings. You may also have vastly different values, world views, and life paths.

Perhaps one sibling has a strong career focus while another jumps from job to job, with little interest in settling. Perhaps there are strong differences in political views or religious perspectives or notable differences in values.

It’s not impossible to get along with people who are so different. But, doing so requires effort on everyone’s part. Sometimes we simply don’t understand what’s going on with them and why they make the decisions they do.

The Impacts of Childhood

We all survived childhood but didn’t do so without taking a few knocks along the way. This is true even with the kindest and most well-intentioned parents.

Part of the issue is that we’re vulnerable when we’re young. Our brains are still developing and we are learning what it means to be an individual, to be human. As a result, negative experiences in our childhoods sometimes affect us for decades.

Growing up and adapting to our social world can be confusing enough on its own. Then you add family into the mix, where each family member has their own dramas, stressors, biases, and the like.

There are multiple ways this can play out for siblings.

Parental Favoritism

Not choosing favorites is one of the most common pieces of parenting advice. Yet, research suggests that most parents show at least sometimes treat one child better than another, with some showing favoritism much more often.

Favoritism can have many negative effects for children, even into adulthood. They may feel lonelier, have fewer people to turn to, and may experience more sibling conflict.

This issue is even greater when parents are going through considerable stress of their own. Such stress makes the parent less aware of their own behavior and potential favoritism, which then makes issues worse.

Negative effects aren’t limited to intended favoritism either. They can also occur with accidental favoritism or even just perceived favoritism.

Birth Order

Birth order can have impacts on children too, including how they are perceived and how they’re treated.

First born children often experience more rules and are subject to greater expectations, partly because their parents are learning how to raise a child and are worried about getting it wrong. They may also be expected to play a role in raising younger children, fostering an increased sense of responsibility.

There are often fewer rules and different expectations for children born later.

Differences in expectations can be influenced socially. Children may also start to play these roles out of habit and practice them long into adulthood.

For example, a first-born daughter may feel that she is expected to be the responsible one, especially as her parents age, while thinking that her younger siblings are lazy and are unlikely to step up.

Birth order can also impact how siblings interact with each other, creating very different experiences for older versus younger siblings.

While these effects differ between families, they’re often significant and can be a source of tension for many children.

Different Childhood Experiences

Even when siblings grew up in the same house as each other with the same parents (i.e., no divorces or remarriages), their childhood experiences may have been vastly different.

We’ve talked about birth order and favoritism already. Here are some other relevant factors:

• Different vulnerabilities and love languages. For example, a child with a strong need for affection and affirmation may struggle with an emotionally distant parent, while a more independent child may experience few issues.
• Different stressors. One child may hit crucial development milestones during family strife, while another experiences the same milestones in security.
• Gender and cultural expectations. Children may be treated differently based on their gender and/or how they conform to gender norms.
• Parental trauma. A parent’s own trauma may have unexpected effects on their children. For example, a mother who was raped may be overbearingly protective of her daughter. 

Assumptions and Biases

We always see the world through our own personal lens.

Think about it.

We never have the full story about anyone. We’re not inside their heads and bodies, so we can’t fully understand the decisions they make.

Our minds tend to fill in the gaps. To make assumptions about the parts we don’t know based on our own perspectives and biases.

This approach works well in some situations and not in others. If we have a very inaccurate view of someone or don’t understand their situation well, we might completely misunderstand what’s happening.

Indeed, it’s easy to see the worst in someone, even when they’re doing their absolute best.

This issue may be especially significant with family, as it’s easy to make assumptions based on the version of the person you knew as a child, rather than who they are now.

Things Have Been Left Unsaid

Many impacts of childhood could be easily resolved with open and honest conversations. Unfortunately, such conversations often don’t come to pass, partly because it’s easier to avoid the drama and keep things at the surface level.

Some of those hidden stories and resentments are also buried.

For example, you might know that your brother or sister is often frustrating, without really understanding how she pushes your buttons so easily. It takes time and effort to get to the bottom of such stories (therapy can help!), but not everyone is able or willing to put the work in. 

Siblings Can Seriously Hurt Each Other

Siblings often know a lot of deeply personal things about each other, stretching all the way back to childhood. This can include rejections, deeply held insecurities, missed dreams, traumas, crushes, nighttime accidents, and more.

Such knowledge gives siblings the ability to seriously hurt one another – and some do.

This is an especially big issue when kids are young, as kids are sometimes cruel without meaning to be so. And, the things we hear as kids may take on a much bigger meaning than we might expect.

How We Prioritize Relationships

Modern Western society has a strong nuclear family focus, where most of our attention goes to our spouse/partner and children. This often leaves little time or attention for extended family, including our siblings.

This focus has another implication too – when there are conflicts, we often choose our nuclear family over parents and siblings (or choose our parents over our siblings).

Such practices might happen for decades or longer. It’s no wonder that sibling relationships often suffer.

Other Factors

There are many more areas that we could talk about as well, like power struggles between siblings and the way that mental health can impact relationships.

But… more examples don’t really help. The simple point is that sibling relationships are complex and often difficult.

As such, sibling conflict doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you or your family. It’s a common issue, one that impacts most families at some point or another.

The question is, what do you do next?

The Good News

It’s easy to get disheartened with this topic. You might think that your relationship can’t be repaired or that there are more issues hidden under the surface.

However, sibling relationships don’t need to be bad. Many siblings have close relationships where they support one another.

Relationships are also salvageable. You can make space to talk to one another and look for a way forward, even if you have barely talked for years.

Indeed, the presence of family bonds and shared history may make sibling relationships more resilient than other types of relationships. These aspects provide an incentive to rebuild the relationship and mean there remains some type of connection, even when you’re estranged. 

In later posts, we’ll consider sibling reconciliation more in-depth, especially in cases where an aging parent needs support.