I have a brother who is younger than me by 6 years. Our upbringing was a bit weird. Our parents basically forbid anything that might cause them inconvenience, irritation, or expense - which was most things that might interest a kid. (No, they’re not religious, which is the first question that everyone asks. They’re just raging assholes who are also a bit stupid. I can’t really explain it much beyond that.)

In addition to the manipulation and emotional abuse, they rewarded us if we informed on each other. I seldom did. Not through any great virtue or integrity of my own, but because I routinely got punished for the stupid shit he did. For instance, I didn’t tell them when our adult neighbor shot little bro with an air rifle because I knew he would catch absolute hell for being in the position of getting shot with an air rifle. Even if I didn’t catch hell about it, it was miserable to watch him get screamed at. For context on this story - we had been told to stay away from Steve’s yard because Steve was a known psycho with a hatred for neighbor kids. On that glorious summer day, Steve had dropped a $5 bill on his driveway just inside the property line… and was waiting for a kid to come by and be dumb enough to try to pick it up.

I might actually tell that one at their funeral.

By contrast, bro was younger and never got any blowback if I was doing something wrong. He actually recorded me talking on the phone with a friend when I was in middle school. He picked up the other line and held one of those shitty '70s tape recorders to the earpiece. Talking on the phone was forbidden and he was collecting proof to use against me. My friend and I weren’t plotting shit, I wasn’t grounded (the concept was foreign because we were never really allowed to go out or do things like talk on the phone anyway), it was just forbidden to talk on the phone.

I could excuse it when he was eight, but he passed along “dirt” on me well into his late teens and my twenties. He was under pressure from them as well, but he basically shredded any idea of trust between us for far too many times to count. I forgot what the final straw was, but I remember thinking, “I can never confide in this person and feel trust.” In every meaningful way, I’ve ignored him for the last 20 years.

He’s probably the least shitty thing about family gatherings, but that’s not saying much.

I’m 59 and have a sister who is 61. She went all out Trump Christian years ago and we barely talk

I have two older brothers. One is an unhinged hypochondriac that’s gets off on fighting with people, and the other is a white supremacist. Haven’t talked to either in about 5 years. I have a brown daughter.

Older brother, we live halfway across the country from one another. We play video games almost nightly in Discord as a way to keep in touch. Visits are a couple times a year it wasn’t always good but the 5 year age gap gets easier to overcome the older we get. Both in our 30s and we align on most things these days.

I have three younger siblings. Our relationship is basically that of acquaintances.

Two younger sisters. The age difference is quite big, I am 8 years older than one and 13 years older than the other. That’s just a possible side-effect of being born when your parents were VERY young.

The older of the two I barely speak with, no real animosity we just simply have nothing in common.

The youngest one I speak with a little bit more often, as we do share some similar personality traits - I see a lot of myself in her from when I was younger.

The final complication is that I live on the opposite side of the country from them. So no in-person visiting.

I’m 34 (male) and my brother is 31. He’s my best friend (besides my wife) but he moved like 10 hours away so we try to fly a couple of times a year to hang out. We text every day multiple times.

I appreciate that everyone doesn’t have perfect relationships with their siblings.

Growing up, my parents made me feel horrible for having a bad one with my sibling. As though there was something wrong with me.

To this day, I carry a lot of shame around it, as in, how can I expect to have healthy relationships with friends and professional relationships at work if I couldn’t even manage one with my sister?

So, thank you all for making me feel less like an anomaly.

My younger sister is MTF. She’s always been a loud asshole, and I had hoped that maybe living as a man was the cause of it. Nope, still a loud asshole. Just with different hardware. Love her to death, though.

Way better than my crackhead Trump-supporting older sister.

Had a older brother lost him 6 years ago found him again last year now we’re best brothers again

Younger brother. Haven’t spoken in about 17ish years. About sums it up.

Older sister by the same age range as yourself, OP. As kids we fought, when she made it to college we became closer, when she entered adulthood things got strained as she and my family did not approve of my SO (they were right, she was terrible), and once we were both adults we are friendly. We don’t really have much in common as she very much lives a “Leave It To Beaver” type life (kids, house in the burbs, stay at home mom) and my SO and I are DINKs, do extreme sports like rock climbing and backcountry ski/splitboard, and have no plans to have kids (vasectomy on the horizon). So we keep in touch but don’t connect on a lot of things besides our shared family members / updates on my nephews

Got an older sibling by 2 years. We don’t talk weekly, but we are still quite close when we do talk. Always have been close. Never big fights and usually got along really well.
As kids we used to “manage a business” together (it was plushie based) - we entertained ourselves during long car rides with that business.

I get along really well with their partner, I am like a mix between the two of them. We can talk about everything. They called me when they had shit going on (like their gender), they took care of me when I was suicidal.

We are early thirties

I have a younger brother and a younger sister.

I don’t really speak to my brother. I see him a couple of times a year when the family gets together but we don’t have anything to talk about anymore. He’s autistic so maybe he can’t help it but he’s impossible to have a normal relationship with. He’s never had a job because he cant be trusted with any kind of responsibility. He can’t stay away from alcohol if it’s available and he can’t handle it at all. It’s always the same when he drinks. First he gets overly excited and it’s very awkward because his whole personality changes. Then he gets easily irritated and gets into arguments about petty stuff nobody cares about, but he just can’t let go.

He regularly texts family members about how they have let him down when he’s getting drunk at night. He gets way more support than he deserves though. Once he just texted me “I’m sorry” and turned his phone off. Naturally I got worried when I couldn’t reach him so I called mom, she told me not to worry though, turns out he just does that sometimes.

My sister and I get along much better but I worry she’s losing it. She’s easily the smartest and most socially capable of the three of us but she’s never had a job outside of telemarketing and now she’s too depressed to work at all. We don’t have many relatives but the few we do have have a tendency to end up alone, bitter and severely unhealthy as they get old, and it’s starting to seem like that’s where she’s heading.

I’m very worried they’re both gonna come ask me for money when our parents are gone.

As a child, I had horrible relationships with my brother and sister (I’m the oldest of us three). We’d be constantly fighting over this and that. As we grew up and matured however, we’ve all gotten really close. We’ve been each others’ best friends since early adulthood, and hang out all the time. Sure, we may disagree about things, or do something mean to another sometimes. But we forgive and move on. I really treasure my relationship with them now.