Is blood thicker than water.?

Slightlyflighty I would agree with your statement "toxic people should be removed from your life, blood or not" and I add it's up to you to decide what's toxic, not CO person's decision.

My husband has almost zero contact with his mother and a strained relationship with his brothers. They were raised by parents who didn't believe in shielding their children from drug use, alcohol abuse and criminal behavior. When they tried to continue that "family tradition" with our children, he told them we wouldn't allow our kiddos around it. We offered numerous options to still see us and our kids, but we were told it was their way or no way. Hubby chose no relationship.

We have friends who have taken over the sibling relationship we were missing, and now that one of hubbys brothers has kids of his own, he is coming around to how we see things, but the relationship will always be strained

That was a really long way of saying, toxic people should be removed from your life, blood or not

Just reread my comments to you, MaidMarion, and I hope it doesn't sound like I'm dismissing your pain due to the length of time. I know those months must seem like they are stretching out forever, and it must hurt just as much as if it had been years. It's just that knowing how long some gps here have been co, I feel as if you and your ac still have a chance to reconcile since this is what most people here think of as "early days." Also, imo, it's not unrealistic for you to still be hoping at this point.

I do love my brothers, both are significantly younger than me. The one 6 years my junior lives with DH and me. This occurred as a result of a major health and subsequent life crisis that broke his marriage, lost him his job /business etc. He was therefore homeless. I really did not have a choice. My other brother, 11yrs younger, is a great guy and highly involved in his church. I am an atheist. We lost our parents in the 1980s so have maintained our relationships as positively as we can given our own family circumstances ,work and location! When we meet we pick up as if we had seen each other the day b4.
DH is youngest of 4 siblings by 10 yrs. His sister keeps email communicaton with her 3 brothers but DH and bros rarely communicate directly. In the end it is a mix of time/distance and things in common. I like to meet with 2 of DH nieces with whom we have things in common. I see my nephews a couple of times a year. They are busy young men!
We are close to our DDs and DGCs who we see at least 2 x week.
FB is helpful in keeping up with extended family.
I have 6 remaining cousins. When we do meet (weddings/funerals) we have a good time but only with one do I actively get together to socialise. Good friends? Got quite a few and we see each other at least 2 x month.

Excellent point, Tricia!

Oh, sorry, MaidMarion, I forgot you said your son has cut you off, too. So sorry! Is it possible that he did this in support of his sister or vice versa?

Shizam, now you've got me wondering if this business of "warring siblings" is somehow genetic. Or could it be learned behavior? I don't mean just in your family, but in all families where this is frequent.

Marieeliz, my deepest sympathies on the loss of your dear brother. (((Hugs)))

My heart goes out to everyone in this thread who has been hurt by family, whether by siblings, ils, ac or whoever.

Maidmarion, I think it's slightly different for you that some other members because you haven't been estranged from your daughter as long - some of them have been going through this for several years, you're only speaking of months. It seems to me that means there's more of a chance that the situation will thaw out.

Vonnie, is it possible ds' dad has asked him to end or lower his contact with you? Be that as it may, I'm glad the 2 older gc keep in touch with you. Maybe the youngest one will reach out to you when they're older, too.

IMO, you make a great point, Eloethan - there's a difference between whether siblings socialize together or support each other. Wonderful if they can do both, but it's not always the case. However, not socializing doesn't mean they won't defend each other, and the second, I feel is the more important of the two.

MaidMarion I have read your comments on a similar thread recently and I found it really upsetting. It's awful that your children don't speak to you. All I can say is not to give up hope and write to them, which I'm sure you have already done, and tell them you love and miss them and you don't understand why they have cut off contact and can they please explain. Even if you have to do a bit of grovelling it will be worth it if it means seeing your grandchildren again. I wish you luck and will be thinking of you. xxx

I wish I had family, my only brother 5 years younger then me died in 2010. He was in the Navy from 15 then lived in Scotland until he died. Even so we were close and I miss him more every day. You don't know what you have until its gone. Although I did know he was always there for me as I was for him.

'But they would offer each other support in times of trouble.'
I think that's the crux of it Eloethan.
I have one sister who is 9 years younger than me and we're SO different. We hardly ever see eachother. Just had some contact in the last few days initiated by me. But she has said that she would help me out if I ever needed her.

*always thought they were lucky (curse of typing on iPad)

In my case, we've had generations of warring siblings. Both of my parents were from big families, they got on with some siblings, not others. Always th Ugh this they were lucky to have enough of them not to worry if you fall out with some of them.
As for my family, my brothers haven't spoken in 16 years and highly doubtful they ever will. I got caught up in it. Now only one of them and I are in contact. He can be tricky, but I try to stay on the right side of him as I want at least one sib speaking to me!
My two boys hated each other as children, but now seem to be quite close.
The one thing I have found that drives families apart more than anything else is money....

I think there is no hard and fast rule - it depends on each family. Families range from being enormously close to not at all close.

I too am an only child and, now that I'm older, feel that it would be really lovely to be able to give and receive support from a sibling at difficult times in life, and to reminisce about old times. I realise that that is the ideal and quite often doesn't happen.

I have a few very lovely friends but I wonder if growing up together and having shared memories can produce a special sort of honesty and closeness that is difficult to match in a friendship.

My own two children are very different in their approach to life and rarely socialise because they have so little in common. But they would offer each other support in times of trouble.

MaidmarionI know how you feel we miss our GC too. The eldest is 5 and we haven't seen him since he was 8 months old. The other is coming up to 18 months and we've never seen him.

We send them cards for their birthdays and at Christmas, always buying 2 so the other can go in their memory box. I hope you are able to reconnect with your D and GC. We've been estranged now for over 4.5 years, it's hard but life goes on.

There can be no hard and fast rules, as every family is different. If you get on with everyone in yours, count yourselves as incredibly lucky, as that is the exception rather than the rule. In our case, we're estranged from our eldest son as we simply couldn't take any more of his self-centred, emotionally abusive behaviour, and his attitude towards us as nothing more than a soft touch for money. So no... blood is not thicker than water. At least we can choose our friends, and when you find good ones, you've struck true gold.

My relationship with my youngest sister was, for a long time, very cool, but it was always friendly at family get togethers and each would be there like a shot if the other was in any trouble, but we didn't often get together by ourselves.

After our surviving parent died, we had several heart to heart conversations and I found out that her coolness to me had been based on a premise that had nothing to do with me directly and was wrong anyway. We now have a very happy relationship and both of us are so glad that we made the effort to keep our relationship friendly and civil during the difficult years, particularly as our middle sister died suddenly some years ago.

I haven't had contact with my eldest sister or 2 older brothers since my dad died in 2013. Nothing to do with money. Things were said, there's no going back. I have regularly contact and meetings with 2 other sisters.

Maidmarion im having the same problem with eldest DS who lives in America. I get one message a year from him wishing my happy birthday and when I ask him why I don't hear from him at any other time he just ignores me!
The tw eldest GC are 23 and keep in touch but I have no contact with the youngest who is only 11. I met his father when he was 5 (his mum had passed away) so I'm the only mum he's ever known. His father and I are divorced and he still keeps on touch with him.
But after thus latest dismissal I've decided that I can't spend any more energy worrying about it and letting it affect my life. Very sad.

I find my family very irritating at times - their attitudes can be very annoying.

My brother only speaks to me when he wants something, which is fine because he refused to speak to me for year when I told my niece off for something, so she went crying to daddy and mummy instead of being the grown up woman she's supposed to be. That's all blown over now and we are all civil to each other.

My sister is very argumentative at times, and my mother has no mouth filters.

So, I pull up the drawbridge from time to time to allow myself some breathing space and will make contact when I'm ready again.

Blood thicker than water? For some yes, but as I get older I seem to be drifting away and pleasing myself more than others who I've helped all through my life. I don't feel resentful - I just want some peace and quiet! :D

my sister "abdicated" from the family after my dad died,the only reason we could think of was she didn't want responsibility for mum,who always had health problems.Whenever there was a serious health issue we'd contact her,by letter as she changed her phone number ,she never visited ,even when mum was dying 12 years later .My mothers attitude was "if she cant come and see me while I'm alive ,dont let her come and cry crocodile tears when I'm gone" .My other sister and I didn't feel we could exclude her from the funeral so managed to get a message to her through her daughter(on FB ) .She did come to the funeral supported by her partners parents and cried buckets of tears ,then said she was too upset to stay after the service.We didn't see her again for over ten years when she turned up to see a visiting relative from abroad...we haven't seen her since.She nods if she sees us in the street ,I'm convinced people think we did something awful to her but I spoke to a friend of hers who says she always says she had a wonderful childhood and fantastic parents ....who knows whats going on in her head

As a family of two parents and 3 children, we all rubbed along together. My parents have both passed away and myself, my sister and brother are still just as close. However, when we get round to extended family its a different story. One of my aunts has caused so much trouble since she returned on the scene after 50 years absence. So she got her marching orders. We do not have anything to do with one set of cousins because they are so awful, and we don't care if we never saw them again! We are happy in our own little unit. That's Life!

Like HurdyGurdy I was an only child and always wanted a family. I was fortunate to have 4, 3 daughters and a son. Their dad left when the eldest was 15 and the youngest 6. Very little contact with him as he moved away and married twice more! We are all very close and they have taken my 2nd DH, who I married after they all left home, to their hearts. They all keep in contact and some years we have wonderful family Christmases! I am blessed indeed! Phone calls from the girls every week - not so often from my son, but the old saying is - "a son's a son till he gets him a wife, a daughter's a daughter all her life"! I guess we were very close when they were children, hard-up too - they are all good at managing money!

Short answer is No! We are a family of Steps and adoptions and remarriages. There has been a lot more love between those who choose to be together than those born together. Its all about working at the relationships with love and respect, and then perhaps admitting that some relationships are just never going to work and letting them go with dignity.

I think we all wish our children have a good relationship and surely out parents hoped for that too, so how do they feel when siblings won't speak to each other I wonder? I count myself as very very lucky that my family have weathered a bumpy ride and come out on good terms and my heart breaks for some of the people whose stories I have read on Gransnet

Jealousy plays a large part where families just don't get on with one another. We all have the chance to improve our lives. I have no siblings. My problem was an older cousin who from my childhood to becoming an adult treated me with contempt. Even more so when I became a mother.I could never to this day understand what made her be like that to me.