Richard Hogan: Sibling relationships can be tricky to navigate

Richard Hogan. Photograph Moya Nolan

The longest relationships you have are with your siblings. But they can be some of the trickiest relationships. So many factors are at play: Where you come in the family, how your parents managed the dynamic between their children, and your siblings’ life partners.

Also, the eldest often has too much responsibility placed on their shoulders, and can become over burdened with being the good, conscientious one. If you are the eldest daughter, the family system might quickly label you the good daughter, and the good sister.

As you move through life you become the good wife, the good mother, and on and on, and the label of ‘the good one’ weighs you down with unsustainable responsibility. This can lead to resentment, as you see your other siblings unburdened by labels.

The youngest can be viewed as the one who had it easy, breezing through life without a care. No responsibility might ever be placed on their lap. It drives them crazy that no one ever takes them seriously, least of all the eldest. This can be the root of endless conflict, because the youngest craves validation from the eldest, which never comes.

A simple request to pass the salt at Christmas dinner can be loaded with decades of invalidation and pain.

Ah, families! They’re complicated. Oh, I forgot about the middle child: They can be stuck between the eldest and the youngest as the two big personalities in the family struggle with each other.

Jealousy is often present, and can cause a lifetime of conflict and hurt.

Who is the first person you compare yourself to? Your brother or your sister? And if your parents aren’t very savvy in the ways of sibling rivalry, they compare you, too. ‘Oh, John isn’t sporty like Paul, but Paul is more academic’. 

This kind of narrow labelling of children can breed all sorts of discontent between siblings. It sets them all up for a life of competitive comparison, and conflict.

Of all the emotions we feel as humans, jealousy is probably one of the most destructive for our joy and happiness. Theodore Roosevelt summoned it up perfectly when he said, ‘Comparison is the thief of joy’. 

Nothing robs your joy more than comparing yourself to others. There will always be someone faster than you, wealthier, fitter, stronger, and more intelligent. When we compare ourselves to others we are robbing ourselves of celebrating who we are and what we have in life.

We are ignoring the miracle of our lives and focusing on deficits. We all have deficits and if that is the only thing we concentrate on, we will never truly be happy.

Jealousy is really about a feeling of not being proud of who you are, or feeling you are not enough and someone else is.

There is a deep insecurity underlining jealously that causes a crack in someone’s foundation. That rupture can form very early in someone’s development.

Often, in my experience working with jealousy, an anxious attachment can be the cause of it. Anxious attachment is one of the four types of attachment styles that have been associated with your primary bonds as a baby. The early relationships you establish in childhood with your caregiver can seriously impact how you relate to others in adulthood.

Children who experienced this type of attachment style had a primary caregiver who was inconsistent and unpredictable with their love and bonding.

This can last a lifetime, as the person has a chronic orientation toward romantic relationships that involve fear that your partner will leave you or will not always love you or that you are unlovable.

Often, the person cannot understand why they feel such insecurity about the person they love. They exhibit jealousy.

The mere sight of someone talking to their partner stirs all those earlier feelings of inadequacy and fear. They believe they have to act to save their relationship, and in this desperate act often drive their partner away from them, confirming their worst belief about themselves, that they are not worthy of love.

The hurt that jealousy brings into our lives can be absolute. Everything reflects our inadequacies. But understanding your attachment and where this rupture occurred in your development can help you to heal and move past feelings of jealousy and fear.

We are all driven by invisible forces that impact how we interact with those we love and how we experience love in our lives. Your siblings are such an important part of your journey through life, yet we can be less than sympathetic to them. If we stopped viewing them through the lens of what they have, and how they had it easy in life, or how they always know everything, perhaps we might see them as they truly are: Messy and insecure like the rest of us.