How to accept sibling estrangement
I would love some advice on how to accept estrangement with my siblings. In brief, my brother and sister decided about 2 years ago to stop speaking to me. My mother told me this is because they don’t like the way I treat her. Neither her nor I think I treat her poorly, though we do fight when we’re together too much (which is like once every 2 years and the fights are nothing more than short lived yelling arguments). I also am not completely sure I have the whole story here as my mother tends to stir the pot and also likes to put blame elsewhere (I fear she has painted me as worse than I am to my siblings). My mother and I have had a fine relationship this whole time, though I do keep my distance for these reasons.
This is bothering me now for two major reasons:
1 - I can’t help but feel like my siblings “threw me away” over something relatively small. I hear about siblings who have each other’s backs even with super terrible things like murder and pedophilia (like R Kelly’s brother). I have a lengthy history of romantic relationships ending badly and this is contributing to the feeling that I am “disposable.” This feeling is now leaking into other areas of life, like I don’t want to spend time with my parents because I feel I am so disliked and I don’t want to pursue a romantic relationship because I am such a terrible person.
2 - I can’t shake the feeling that they have been given bad information. They never gave me a chance to discuss this before they decided to cut me off. My brother and I have never been close but grew further apart in adulthood because of differing political beliefs, but my sister and I were close and it was an abrupt cut off. She simply said she wouldn’t talk to me anymore until I fix my relationship with my mom. I have spoken with my mom at length about this and neither of us know what she’s talking about (other than the rare fights that neither me no or my mom think are worth ending a relationship over).
I would like to be able to simply accept the fact that they have chosen to not be in my life and move on without all the guilt, shame, and confusion. Any advice?
Note that I cannot speak to them. They will not engage. My mother will talk about it and essentially puts the blame on me while also being confused about their choices. My father will barely acknowledge the rift and likes to pretend all is fine and well. Speaking to any of them (or attempting to) is not helpful.
Also, for context, my siblings and I are in our 40s.
@irrationalKitten108
I too have been estranged from siblings..... The arguments and disagreements looking back seem trivial. However we found our rift was made bigger by our mother.....
For example: I bought a car years ago she when she saw it told me "I was overcharged and would regret my decision" yet at same time was telling a sibling "if she was smart she would look into same type of car i got as it will last and is very practical" how can she say completely opposite things??? because she knew the relationship was strained and we did not compare notes...
I would take her out to lunch which she would act like she was doing me a favor by going......... Then I got a call from a sibling saying "quit taking her to all these places cause she rubs it into out face that we never take her out to such nice places"
Not saying this is in your case but IMO often in family rifts most is from assumptions and misinformation.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Any advice on how to not take it so personally? Did anything work well for you? The rejection hurts enough as is, I don’t want it to keep hurting and bleeding into other areas of my life.
@irrationalKitten108
In any relationship it is a 2 way street... do you think they are letting it effect them?
Is it bothering you because you feel society acts like we MUST get along as family?
I took inventory of the relationships... I asked myself if my siblings.... were instead co-workers/ neighbors or school mates do i see making friends with them ?
Does their personality or attitude make me want to include them in my circle?
Now in my case the answer was NO................. maybe in yours it is worth trying.... hard to do without communication and they longer it goes the more built up is the list of reasons we build. Harder to fix when "what happened" becomes murky and remembered very differently .... so if you want to repair DO it sooner then later this is not all forgotten or forgiven down the road.