How to improve relations with a sister or brother: the advice of psychologists

Many people who have brothers or sisters, seek to communicate with them and upon reaching adulthood.

But for any social interactions conflicts are natural, quarrels, up to a complete cessation of communication.

Therefore, one day, even siblings, who have been very friendly all their lives, can quarrel. It’s important to know how to build a relationship with a sister or brother: it will help make the right decisions during and after a conflict situation.

Why do relations with brothers and sisters spoil?

There is a strong opinion in society that relatives are the closest people for each person, they will always understand, they can be relied upon.

And although the desire to maintain a harmonious relationship within the family is a completely natural desire, the life of any person can be very different from the attitudes broadcast by society.

Both parents and siblings can be toxic, aggressive, selfish people with whom meaningless to maintain a good relationship.

Siblings - this term is used when it is necessary to designate children of one parents. It allows you to ignore their gender. The word came from the English language.

At the same time there are a lot of people who have strong family relationships and sincerely love and brothers, and sisters, and parents.

Such families often organize meetings, celebrate each other's birthdays together, and show willingness to support each relative. But even in such families quarrels and conflicts occur.

Reasons for spoiling relations with brothers and sisters:

Differences in key views. Every person develops internally as he grows up, he gradually forms ideas about the world, about himself, about how he wants to live life, how he will raise children and whether he will have them at all, with whom he will create a love union.
He determines his attitude to different social groups and phenomena, denotes his community with certain social groups. And even if in childhood and adolescence the views of brothers and sisters coincided, with time they can change. If they differ significantly, the likelihood of conflict situations increases.
One of the siblings leads a life that does not suit the other sibling. The reasons for conflict can be both innocent and global. The following reasons are common: sexual orientation, different from heterosexual, change of religion, including the choice of sectarianism, creating an alliance with an inappropriate person, according to other siblings, a “wrong” choice of profession or lack of work, bad habits and dependencies, non-standard hobbies, hobbies, failure to have children (childfree).
Conflicts related to the separation of the property of the deceased relative.
This is the classic reason for the occurrence of extremely serious disputes between relatives of various degrees of intimacy, including siblings.
An elderly person, who has an apartment and some other valuable property in his possession, died - and relatives come to find out who should get what, hire lawyers, sue each other, even try to bribe legal entities, arguing along the way, shouting, proving that their apartment or car is more necessary than Vasya and Sveta. And invariably there will be offenses if the property was distributed in some way wrong, which can persist for decades.

Parents are divorced or in serious conflict, and brothers and sisters are involved in the conflict. Divorce and parental conflicts are almost always stressful for their children, even if these children have long crossed the threshold of adulthood. The more closely siblings communicate with their parents, the more difficult it is for them to emotionally protect themselves. Often, a divorcing mother or father tries to use children for their own purposes, for example, they strive to convince them that they are right and that the spouse is a terrible person, it’s better not to communicate with him, and if necessary, the court must testify against him. . If brothers and sisters have different views on divorce, they may conflict.
Civil war or wars between countries in which siblings live. It would seem to be extremely rare, because wars do not happen every day. But at the same time there are plenty of examples of how wars split families, and the likelihood that war will start somewhere is always there, even though it is low.
For example, the civil war in Ukraine, which is still under way, has greatly changed the attitude of many relatives living in different parts of the country towards each other.
Some have found the strength to adopt a position of parents or siblings that differ from their own, but many are still not able to restore good relationships.

There are also factors that increase the likelihood that grown-up brothers and sisters will hardly ever communicate or they will conflict:

Unstable, problematic relationships in childhood and adolescence. People who have systematically clashed in childhood will find it difficult to create harmonious relationships with each other in the future, and children's resentment may well be transferred to adulthood.
Lack of common interests. If the siblings have nothing to talk about with each other, they feel bored or irritated, they will not be able to create healthy and strong connections, and the likelihood of conflicts will increase. Such brothers and sisters are usually found very rarely and only when necessary.
Moreover, common interests may not be found among those relatives who communicated well in childhood.
Life in different countries (or in one country, but frequent meetings are difficult because of the long distance). Maintaining relationships is difficult if you can not see regularly. Although the Internet provides an opportunity to communicate to people who are in different parts of the world, it is not always possible for people to maintain the same interest in each other as it was when they were seen regularly in real life. Also, life in another country affects the mentality and key views.

Who is guilty?

Who is to blame for all these conflicts?

In any conflict situation blame the one who provoked it, who first began to make claims and express aggression.

This may be one or several siblings. In some cases (for example, when parents divorce, when they drag children onto their side), outsiders can be attributed to the guilty.

How to establish a connection and make up?

The main tips of psychologists:

Try to meet and discuss the situation in a comfortable atmosphere. It is important that the main communication related to the conflict should take place not by phone or chat, but in real life (the council does not work for people with pronounced social phobia). In the process of dialogue, it is important to discuss the situation, ask the sibling for an opinion on how to solve it, propose and substantiate your solutions, find a balance between each other's desires and deduce the rules of communication if complete mutual understanding could not be achieved.
At the same time, in the process of dialogue, both you and your brother / your sister need to remain calm and not go to insults.
This option is well suited for eliminating non-global conflicts.

Make it clear to those interested in reunification that you need help. If the conflict is serious and the sibling does not want to communicate in order to find a way out, you can try to put pressure on it with the help of other relatives (mother, father, brothers, sisters) or mutual friends. Let them talk with him, listen. This can push him to reconciliation.
Wait a while. Not every person is able to be restrained and polite when he has not “cooled off” after a conflict and has not fully reached the point of the importance of reconciliation. If the quarrel was serious, you should wait at least several days (and preferably several weeks or months) and only after that try to make up.
Give gifts regularly and communicate politely. If a full-fledged reconciliation has not yet taken place, but you periodically intersect with your sister or brother, it is important to use this opportunity to strengthen the desire to reconcile and improve relationships.
Do your best not to flare up during conversations, even because of situations not related to the main conflict.
If at some point you feel that the attitude of the sibling has improved, hint to him about the possibility to make peace, offer to meet. If he refuses, do not despair.
Visit a family psychologist alone or with a sibling. If a brother or sister does not want to go along with you (and the likelihood that they will refuse is very high), you should come to the reception on your own. An experienced psychologist will help you better understand what happened and will give a number of recommendations that can help out of a conflict situation.

If your quarrels are closely related to children's grievances, this can also help experts: family psychologists, and sometimes psychotherapists, if you or your brother / sister still have psycho-emotional trauma. Analyze what you feel in relation to the sibling. Do you feel hurt and hurt when thinking about childhood? Do you go back to thinking about what happened quite often, and this causes discomfort every time? Then you will probably need not only a psychologist, but also a psychotherapist. If you were the aggressor and want to restore good relations, the psychologist will also be able to help. But, if the resentment of a brother / sister is too great, you may fail.

If nothing worked, You will have to accept. Remember that brothers and sisters are not obliged to communicate warmly and regularly. Take your life and communicate with the siblings as needed.

Some chronic conflicts can be resolved after a very long period of time.

For example, the aged brother began to feel shame and wanted to make peace because he changed and felt that needs other life orientations.

Reestablishment is possible only when all parties involved in a conflict situation deliberately want to achieve reconciliation.

What if brother or sister don't want to chat?

The cessation of communication most often occurs due to conflict situations or psycho-emotional traumarelated to childhood.

But sometimes siblings do not communicate simply because they do not want to do it. Or, perhaps, they do not have time for full communication.

The main recommendations of psychologists:

Make sure your sibling really doesn't want to communicate with you. In some cases, communication stops abruptly, and suspicious siblings begin to think out the reasons and in the process may decide that this is due to an old conflict or changes in character, attitudes. At the same time, the relative in question is seriously ill and therefore does not get in touch, and since he is far away, it’s not always possible to find out what happened to him. Or he has a mental illness that is progressing (for example, people with severe depression or schizophrenia often tend to isolate themselves from others). If communication is always present, but then abruptly disappeared, it is important to find ways to find out what happened to the relative. He may be sick, arrested and unable to get in touch or passed away.
If the reason for stopping communication was a conflict, you can try to put pressure on your brother / sister through other relatives. Ask the mother or father to talk with the sibling, give him a note.
This method may not work, especially if the memories of the conflict are too fresh. And, if several attempts did not work, it is better not to impose and accept.
Wait. Not all people are involved in the conflict, begin to actively develop it. Some simply strive to step back and break the conversation. Over time, when their resentment decreases and they cool off, you can try to find a common language.

Accept the choice of sister or brother. If the conflict was very serious and you feel that it is unlikely to be able to restore normal communication, try to accept and concentrate on your own life. It is possible that in a few years you will still be able to make peace. If you occasionally overlap anyway, try to use these periods to improve relations (give gifts, postcards of apologies, let us all know that you want reconciliation).