Real-life is always different than theory. One way that this notion is illustrated is in my psychotherapy practice, where I’ve noticed a number of patterns that I never read about in any book. One such pattern that I see recurring with frightening regularity is that of deeply troubled sibling relationships.

If you think about the kind of person who comes for therapy, it puts things into perspective. My patients often come from backgrounds in which they witnessed or experienced neglect, abuse, manipulation or exploitation.

The family unit was often highly dysfunctional, with one or both parents behaving in hurtful ways toward the other parent and/or the children.

When siblings are raised in environments where there’s conflict, chaos, rejection or a lack of protection, it has an enormous impact on how they end up relating to each-other in adult life.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of patients whose siblings have behaved in strange or hostile ways toward them. For example, I remember Betty*, whose sibling stole her inheritance; Fredrick, whose sibling did everything they could to sabotage his career, and Joyce, whose sibling talked the man she liked out of a having a relationship with her.

I remember Olivia, whose adult sibling was pathologically jealous of her and who competed with her for parental attention; Danny, whose sibling stole a large sum of money from him and Noelle, who’d been threatened by her sibling and was afraid of this sibling becoming violent with her.

Psychologically, it all makes sense. Children who share a chaotic, abusive or deeply neglectful home environment have two ways of responding to this trauma: they can form close attachments to one-another – uniting in the face of the abuse – or they can develop an “every man for himself” coping strategy.

Experiencing or witnessing trauma can cause a child to shut down emotionally. They often develop dysfunctional attachments to their hurtful parents. This disordered attachment style can also distance them from the other children in the family. I remember Lena. She had four siblings, but because of extreme parental abuse and neglect, she was estranged from all of them.

Parents are supposed to model loving, caring relationships to their children, so if they’re cruel to each-other or neglectful toward their kids, the children can become disturbed and confused and can adopt these ways of interacting with each-other.

There are many reasons for children to become disconnected from their siblings. Dysfunctional parents often overtly favor one child over another, and then the siblings are set up to compete for parental attention. Equally, when parents are withholding of nurturing to all the children, siblings often become rivals for the few crumbs of affection they’re hoping that their parents might dole out.

Children who grow up in dysfunctional families often feel hurt, frustration and even rage toward their parents but most of the time, they’re too afraid to express these feelings directly toward Mom or Dad. They might fear being abused even more or they might worry that if they express any negative emotions, they’ll lose all chance of receiving any positive parental attention.

It’s a lot easier for hurt and angry children to take out their feelings on their siblings because the stakes are a lot less high, so instead of bonding together out of a painful shared experience, they can end up venting their hurt and anger at each-other. This early childhood conflict can then set them up for a lifetime of hostility and even estrangement.

Sometimes, one sibling has a wish to be close to their sister or brother but their sibling rejects them. This can come from jealousy – siblings from troubled homes often mistakenly perceive that the other child got “more” of the love, attention and care than they themselves did.

This certainly happened with my patient Ethan, who idolized his older brother Jeff. Jeff, on the other hand, believed that Ethan was his mother’s “favorite,” and was getting all the attention. As a result, Jeff wanted nothing to do with Ethan.

Sometimes an older sibling is thrust by neglectful parents into the role of surrogate care-taker for the younger children. This can make the older child resent the younger ones as “burdens,” or it can cause the younger children to resent their older sibling for assuming a parental role – even though it wasn’t the older kid’s choice to do this.

In the case of Greta, her parents forced her to be the surrogate mother for her two younger siblings, and this created a life-long tension between them as adults. Her siblings both expected too much of her, and resented the power she’d had over them in her parental role, even though she’d never wanted this role.

As I mentioned above, some children who grow up in troubled homes will hold on to the hope that maybe, one day, they’ll finally get some positive attention from their parents. They’ll go to great lengths to please their parents, even rejecting their own siblings, in the hopes of receiving some better-late-than-never love. Ron’s sibling, George, tried to ingratiate himself with his parents and treated Ron as badly as their parents did, but George never got what he’d hoped for from his folks.

Sadly, all these troubled siblings would do better to try and connect with their sisters and brothers rather than choosing to turn away from them. Adult siblings have the potential of a powerful bond in having shared their childhood experiences.

As adults, these siblings could benefit greatly from being there for one-another. This would be a lot more helpful and a lot more likely than their hurtful parents suddenly becoming capable of loving their adult children.

I’ve seen far too many of these troubled sibling relationships. It’s sad that people with such a unique and powerful shared experience don’t have a closer bond. The tragedy of a troubled childhood is that it will often tear the siblings apart when what they need the most is to come together in love and support.

If you have a troubled relationship with one or more of your siblings, you should know that the children are not to blame. The family dynamics created by your parents have set you up for the dysfunctional relationships you have with your siblings today.

P.S. This notion is now part of our popular culture.  In the James Bond movie, Spectre, there’s a sibling relationship that’s about as troubled as you could ever imagine, and then some.

*In order to protect the privacy of my patients, all the names and some identifying details have been changed in this post.

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