I just read a study that says sisters tend to be more closely bonded than sister/brother siblings. I’m curious what your experience has been. Are you close to your sibling, and if so what gender are they and how many years apart are you? I have a little girl and I’m planning on getting pregnant, so thinking a lot about how her life will change with a sibling.
Growing up with a brother I always dreamed of having a sister. And even now, halfway through life, I still feel like my life would have been better with a sister. I have a good friend who says her sister is her soulmate. They have such a deep beautiful bond. I don’t know any sister/brother siblings that are that close. Would love to hear from some of you!
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My brother is my best friend. We are two years apart
My sister and I were the best of friends. She was my soul mate, my person, my ride or die. Unfortunately I lost her in 2015. Afterwards, my brother and I became extremely close. We had been close before, but her loss solidified our bond. Without her passing though I don’t know if we would have developed the kind of bond we had.
My siblings and I are all super close. I have a brother and two sisters
I have a brother and a sister. My sister is my very best friend. My brother and I are not nearly as close even though we are slightly closer in age.
My sister and i were never close. I have not spoken to her in years.
Unfortunately, my sister and I have evolved to become each others #1 haters. We haven’t spoken in years.
We’re not very close, we talk sometimes but we live very different lives: ethically, logistically, geographically. I get the impression one of them wishes we were closer.
My siblings are both women.
As the younger sister, my sister was my first (and only) bully growing up so…I was always dreaming about having a protective older brother instead of a sister. Grass is always greener! You can’t really predict how siblings are going to get along.
After she stopped being a complete bitch (college era), we became friends and we obviously bond over trauma caused by our parents, but she’s absolutely not my soulmate lol there’s a fundamental brick wall between our understanding each other but it’s fine. I’m fine with our relationship now.
Oh also adding that I have a little brother who was my shadow when we were kids and we’re more like-minded than me and my sister are.
I’m closer to my brother than I am with my two sisters. I even lived with him for a few years.
I love my brother. We are 1.5 years apart. I feel we are the only two sane ones in the family lol. I’m not close to my other brother. We are 6 years apart. I feel like he’s a spoiled little kid and he’s too much like my parents. But I love him, just not as close to the middle kid
My brother is 4 years older than me and my best friend/the best person I know
I have one sister 2 years older than me and our relationship was pretty tough for a while during the adolescent/teen years (lots of screaming over clothes and a shared bathroom and phone line 🙃) but yes now we are legitimately best friends. We travel together and hang out all the time. It helped a lot when she had kids because I adore my niece and nephew so much and want to be as involved with them as possible.
I have not spoken to my brother in years. We were never close. I feel like we were often pitted against each other growing up. One was the good child and the other not. He was also just mean. Mean with words and mean with actions. Slut shaming from even before I knew what that was and forgetting to pick me up from school so I’d walk miles home and I had no key to get in. As adults we just never built a relationship.
The last thing he said to me in text was “the world doesn’t revolve around you, princess” and that was enough for me. Don’t have to put up with anyone like that even family.
Anyway always wanted a sister! I imagined my life would have been 100 times better 🤣
Close friends, no. Good friends, yes. I’m the middle of 3 and there’s a 4 year gap each way so none of us grew up particularly close. We’re what I’d consider good friends. We live near each other and our children are all close. I’d definitely consider their wives to be close friends and they consider my husband a brother. I dreamt of having a sister as well. The closest I got is my best friend I met in high school, some college friends, and then my brothers’ wives when they got married.
Watching my oldest two daughters growing up was interesting. They’re 22 months apart and still consider each other best friends at 25 and 27. They fought a lot when forced to be in the same bedroom but their relationship really blossomed one we split up their rooms. They went to college a few hours from each other and visited each other often. It’s fun to see what could’ve been. My youngest two are also close but it’s my 24 year old daughter and 20 year old son. They played and hung out together a lot since their interests aligned. So I’ve also seen where gender and age gap didn’t really matter.
My older sister and I are 15 years apart in age and I feel sometimes like we are polar opposites on most things. So, we don’t talk much and have never been close.
I have 4 brothers and I’m closest with my younger brother who is 6 years younger than me (yes, that’s 21 years between these siblings and they are the oldest and youngest respectively).
I made a conscious effort to befriend my little brother early on. I have another brother who is 2 years older than me and I have always had the feeling that he resents me – I was often grouped in with him for convienece sake when younger so I can’t say I totally blame him. But when my younger brother came around, I decided I wanted to be close with one of my siblings and I fostered that relationship as much as possible.
These days he has his own family and I have my life hundreds of miles away and we don’t talk much, but I still consider him my friend.
I have 2 half siblings and they are 11-13 years older than me. I grew up in another country so while I knew I had an older brother and sister, I was pretty much raised as an only child. My siblings eventually ended up moving to the same country as adults. We all love each other, but we weren’t particularly close (like we would all hang out semi-regularly for dinner parties, bbqs, family events etc., but we weren’t ever in constant contact or hanging out one on one, and didn’t have a lot of deep conversations etc.). I was definitely closer with my sister than I was with my brother.
My sister passed away about 10 years ago now and we were all much closer when she was still around. I like to think that as I because more of a fully fledged adult, we would have gotten closer and been able to hang out more. Not that we weren’t, but we just didn’t/weren’t able to hang out all the time being at very different life stages and her having a husband and 2 young children as well as being very ill. We did hang out more towards the end of her life because we would all go and hang out at the hospice to keep her company. She and my brother were a lot closer – they have the same mum and grew up together and are closer in age. They were close in the way I would have loved to be, given the chance. But it’s different when you have such a big age gap and didn’t grow up together.
Currently, my brother and I are not close and not speaking. We had a bit of a falling out after our dad died last year. We were both closer with our sister before that, anyway. After our sister died, we would see each other occasionally but we could also easily go months/years without being in communication or seeing each other. This time, we will likely go several years before talking or seeing each other again since he’s moved across to the other side of the world.
I wish we all could’ve been closer, but life took us all in different directions. I think if my sister were still here we would’ve been, especially because I’d be a little older and able to participate and be more involved in conversations and life things with them. My sister would’ve been the glue that kept me and my brother together and would’ve kept us in check.
I’m not that close with my siblings. I’m older than them and just very different.
I am much closer to my sister than my brother.
My brothers (31 and 33) and I (F35) are all pretty close. I talk with the youngest 1-3x each week, we have a really good relationship. We don’t talk about super deep stuff, though, because he’s not ready to go there emotionally (doubt he ever will be). My other brother and I talk maybe once a month. He and I used to be extremely close and could talk about literally anything, then he got married and our relationship became much more distant. I still miss him, even though we still get along. He doesn’t prioritize me anymore. TBH, he’s never had room in his life for more than one close female relationship. We became close after his divorce, then he met his current wife…anyway, I do think it’s possible for sisters and brothers to be very close, but I know a number of sister pairs who are inseparable and I’ve always been a little jealous of it. I know I still have it pretty good in the grand scheme of things so I try to be grateful for what I do have, and that at least one of my brothers hasn’t let his marriage come between us!
My sister is my best friend! I call her for any and everything and she knows all my darkest secrets and biggest success stories. Her kids are like mine. I love the whole family ❤️
Oh and she’s 18 months older.
My older brother and I love each other from afar. We could each call the other and be there for one another in a heart beat. Though we can’t spend more than a couple of days together without a fight. I think in our childhood we were pitted against each other so often, and he still hasn’t grown out of that. It used to bother me because I idolized him when I was young, but he still can’t be trusted not to throw me under the bus in order to elevate himself.
My sister and I are each others best friends and worst enemies. Please do your research on how to raise your kids to be loving siblings to each other. I worked as a nanny and I realized that siblings who have loving parents and who feel like they get enough attention are treating each other much better. Otherwise they will fight about the little love they get from their parents, that‘s how it was with me and my sister. There was and is a lot of jealousy because there was not enough love and attention in our home growing up. (Sorry for my English)
I just have one brother and we are really close. There are only 16 months between us so maybe that is a factor. We liked the same music as teenagers, dated each other’s friends, had parties when our parents were away. Now I’m close to his wife and kids as well and we have great times together.
My dead ones I totally would have. But the remaining alive ones. We barely talk
Younger sister, 3 years apart. She is my absolute best friend and one of my favorite people in the world. I love her more than I could explain!
I’ve got a 2 year old daughter with a son on the way. I must admit I was hopeful for two little girls, and for them to have the relationship my sister and I do. But I’m really pumped for her to have a baby brother as well. She’s incredibly excited and we know a ton of brother/sister combos that are super tight. At the end of the day I think sibling relationships are partly nature, partly nurture. My husband and I both value our sibling relationships and will of course try and keep a tight, loving family unit. Ultimately though these are little humans with their own personalities…. I can only instill love and respect and hope they find that they like each other, too.
I have one sister, she’s two years younger than me. I won’t say we’re super close anymore – we’ve definitely been closer at different stages in our life but now at 38 and 40, we’re just very different I guess?
I’m surprisingly close with all my siblings, 2 brothers and 2 sisters. We each have different interests and things that bring us close.
I care deeply about my siblings but no, they aren’t my best friends and i probably wouldn’t interact with them at all if they weren’t my siblings because I don’t think we like each other very much/ have much in common .
My baby sister is one of my besties! It’s a miracle though, because our parents deeply did not condition us for that to be the case. God is good lol
No, my brother and I are total opposites and he has anger issues. I also think my life would have been better with a sister maybe, but I would have likely resented any younger siblings because my parents never had time as it was.
My sister is my person. Literally my closest friend and the best person I know.
i’m really close with all three of my siblings. I’m the oldest, but I have health issues from my disabilities. Whenever I tell them I might be heading to the hospital my siblings blow up my phone asking for updates, double or triple texting with no shame. My brother lives in Tokyo and the last time I went to the ER (for an allergic reaction lol) he asked if I wanted him to hop on a plane home and I know he would’ve bought a ticket had I said yes.
They’re 7 (brother), 9 (sister) and 12 (sister) years younger than me.
I’m not close to any of my siblings. I straight up don’t talk to my sister – I do not consider her a safe person. I haven’t seen her in several years. I have a very complicated relationship with my family in general.
My oldest brother is the first family member I would probably go to for anything. He is the foundational support of the entire family just through his competent and caring personality.
My younger sister is very insular, so we don’t chat all the time like friends. We are friendly.
My older sister and I were very close, but over the years she has become very settled in her views, and we cannot have the emotional talks we used to have. If I were to seek support for anxiety, for example, she would be super sympathetic and loving but tell me to give my worries to Jesus and he’ll fix everything. I love her, but we avoid anything deep because she’s pretty close to being QAnon, and as far as she is concerned, I’m a wayward heathen who has been seduced by the woke agenda. So we send each other memes and talk about our kids.
No, none of us are super close, though we are friendly, some of us more than others. I have a much younger half-sister that I have no relationship with, neither me nor my brothers have talked to her in years.
One of my sisters(15 months younger) is my best friend, another (7 years younger) I haven’t spoken to in years, another (12 years younger) annoys me but she’s young so she’ll come around and my brother (3 years younger) is a loveable dumbass that fixes my cars for me and introduced me to my husband.
My brother is older than me by 3 years and we live in different towns. Our relationship is good, solid, mostly we text each other funny memes and occasionally we chat on the phone. I would be there for him and he for me whatever / whenever.
My brother and I would not be friends if we were not related. We’ve grown into very different people, though we were close when we were young. I’m the elder, and we’re three years apart.
My sister is 16 months older than me. We were very close growing up, shared a lot of the same friends and activities. Fought each other aggressively all the time lol. But we wouldn’t let anyone else bully the other.
We talk regularly now as adults, visit each other, plan parties and baby showers for each other, both work together to take care of our elderly parents. But we are very different people. I think if we met in the wild we wouldn’t really be friends! That’s the most interesting phenomenon about siblings to me.
I have a brother who’s six years older than me and we aren’t close at all—largely because he used to shut me out as a kid and because he beat the sh*t out of thirteen-year-old me when he found out that his best friend had molested me. (He blamed me for “ruining [his] friendship.”)
I’ve been low-contact with my family since I was 17. My brother and I don’t talk except on the rare occasion. I just recently saw him for the first time in two years, and that was only because my parents were so desperate for me to come visit them that they offered to pay for my flight there.
Am an older sister to a younger brother and we see each other once a year. Not a friend, let alone a close friend. I’m closer to my older female cousin than to my brother.