This advice columnist answers a question about sibling relationships, clear communication, and family ties across generations.
Q: My brother is about to have a baby with his partner. I think he has decided to distance from our family - I hardly heard from him and he often says he has to detach. I want to respect his wishes but I feel I'm being breadcrumbed and the relationship is on his terms only. He doesn't communicate clearly about what he needs but occasionally sends a load of vitriolic feedback by text. I miss him, feel heartbroken and feel afraid of saying anything in case he thinks I'm being critical and gets defensive then ignores me for months. It feels such high stakes now there's a little baby coming into the world. Feeling desperate.
A: Hi there, friend,
Thank you very much for writing in.
Before we get into some reflections and advice about you and your brother, I’d like to introduce a framework I use for making decisions about boundaries, relationships and plans: Need/Want/Will/Won’t.
(This is adapted from Scarleteen’s fantastic Want/Will/Won’t model of consent).
I’ve talked about this in a previous advice column response, but in short, thinking about your situation through a Need/Want/Will/Won’t framework can follow this type of structure:
Need: If this thing/these things don’t happen, then we’re not going to be able to go forward together in this situation. These are not negotiable for me.
Want: This is my perfect, puppies-and-rainbows-and-kittens, ideal version of how I’d like this to go. I might not get everything I want — I can compromise on this — but it’s good to know what my best possible version is.
Will: These are things that aren’t necessarily part of my perfect version of events, but I can roll with them if they occur. These are compromises I’m okay with making.
Won’t: These are actions I will not take/places I will not go, etc. These are not negotiable for me.
In your question, you note that you feel like what you and your brother have is a “relationship is on his terms only.”
And the thing is … yes. In a very important way, this is true, and it's important.
The amount of ‘relationship’ that your brother is willing and/or able to show up for, at this moment of your lives, is entirely on his terms.
As is the amount of relationship that you are willing and able to show up for.
So my question, then, is — to what extent, and in what way(s), does your capacity for being in relationship overlap with his?
I think we’re often more used to talking about these dynamics in the context of romantic relationships than familial ones, so let's explore a couple of those examples.
Consider a scenario where Person A asks Person B out on a date.
Maybe Person B is completely not interested in going on this date. Maybe they’re already in a happy monogamous relationship; maybe they’re still getting over a bad breakup; maybe they’re not looking for a relationship right now; maybe Person A is just not their type.
In that case, no matter how much Person A wants to go on this date, it’s not going to happen, because Person B has decided they won’t be going.
Person A can still take that lovely walk down the beach/hike along the local trails/try out that fancy new roller skating rink by themself, but these will be solo adventures. Person A might be disappointed about this, and they might be sad, but they can’t actually force Person B to come along.
Or maybe Person B does want to go on this date — they’re curious, they’re flattered, they’re enamored — but they don’t like any of the options Person A suggested.
Maybe Person A’s date ideas were all very physically active and outdoorsy, while Person B’s idea of a good date involves a sit-down meal at a restaurant or catching a show at the theatre.
Now, we’re working in the space where ‘want’ meets ‘will.’
Does Person A want to go on this date with Person B badly enough to compromise on their original suggestions? Does Person B want to go on this date with Person A badly enough to put up with an activity they’d prefer not to do?
Maybe; maybe not. It’s not a moral judgment; sometimes, what people want for themselves and what they’re willing to extend, let go or sacrifice just aren’t particularly compatible with one another (in this moment, or at all).
It’s often worth asking: Is [potential compromise point] more important to me than [relationship]?
(And, if so, for how long? And to what extent? For example, I might be willing to move farther away from some of my loved ones to be closer to my partner, but I wouldn’t agree to a move where I’d never see those loved ones again. I might be willing to spend a few weeks being quiet around the house while my partner is studying for important professional exams, but not to spend the rest of our shared lives tiptoeing around my own home. Or I might be perfectly happy to stop cooking with nuts forever, if they were severely allergic and I wasn’t particularly invested in nut-based cuisine to begin with.)
“Relationships are built on compromise” is a well-known truism, but ‘compromise’ is only one of the many construction materials that make up a relationship — it’s important, but it alone is not enough to see you through; that would be like trying to build a house out of only two-by-fours without any nails or shingles or window panes.
But maybe Person A and Person B have settled on a date idea that suits them both just fine, and still they have very different feelings about the relationship itself.
Maybe Person B is approaching this in a ‘fun, exploratory, testing the waters’ kind of mindset, while Person A is fully head-over-heels and already mentally picking out paint swatches for a future nursery.
This could still work out, between A and B! I mean, how many wedding toasts have you heard that included some variation of “it was love at first sight” or “I knew the moment I saw them,” where presumably the other partner still needed their own time to fall just as deeply in love?
But what makes it more or less likely to work out here is the spectrum of what each person wants and is OK with.
If B wants to grab coffee and get to know each other better — and right now, that’s it — and A is truly, genuinely open to everything from a coffee date to scoping out potential wedding venues, then there is some overlap here. They can go on that coffee date and see what comes of it.
But if B is only interested in a casual fling while A is dead-set on a lifetime commitment … then there is no overlap. In other words, there is no version of this relationship that would work for both Person A and Person B.
And you can’t make somebody be in a relationship that they don’t want to be in.
This holds just as true for yourself and your brother as it does for our fictional potential-couple here.
You can identify your own needs and sort out what the nonnegotiable elements of a sibling relationship are for you — but you don’t get to override your brother’s, or decide for him what he does and doesn’t need from you.
You can imagine the relationship you’d want with your brother in your own perfect world — but you don’t get to dictate his version of a perfect relationship with you.
You can consider what you are willing to accept; to compromise on; to go along with in order to get (all, or some parts of) the relationship you want to have with your brother — you can’t guarantee that he’ll be willing to make the same kinds of compromises for you in turn. You can reach out your hand as far as you’re able, and he might or might not be there to meet you.
And you get to decide what is and isn’t acceptable for you. Just like he gets to decide what is and is not acceptable for him.
When we talk about the ‘need’ part of the Need/Want/Will/Won’t framework, it’s also worth exploring whether there is any access friction (also known as conflicting access needs, or competing access needs) between yourself and your brother.
Access friction, a term that originated in disability justice movements, is a way of describing what can happen when two (or more) people’s needs can’t be fully met in the same situation at the same time. Through no one’s fault and no one’s doing, meeting one person’s need would mean the other person’s need can’t (fully) be met.
For example, what happens when one employee at a company has a serious dog allergy, and one of their colleagues needs their service dog with them?
Obviously, neither of these people is to blame for needing something that doesn’t mesh with what their colleague needs. And neither of them should be expected to put themself in a harmful, potentially deadly situation; they just can’t be in the same room together, ever. So other arrangements will have to be made.
Are there ways this could apply to your own relationship with your brother? Are there things you need from him that would conflict with things he needs for himself (or vice-versa)?
But let’s say your needs and your brother’s needs are compatible, or at least potentially compatible.
Let’s then go back to that spectrum of what a possible relationship could look like.
Does the relationship you want with him overlap with the relationship he wants with you? At all? Enough?
I know you desperately want to have some kind of sibling relationship with your brother right now, especially for the sake of being present for the baby-to-be.
But, as you describe it, what your brother wants is very different. You said:
You hardly hear from him at all
He’s told you that he “has to detach” from your family
He sends you “vitriolic” texts
Sometimes, he responds to things you’ve said by ignoring you “for months”
You note that he “doesn’t communicate clearly” — and in some respects, that might well be true — but in this case, I’d say that all of this is clear communication.
I read this as a person who is saying, in almost every way he has available, “the amount of ‘relationship’ I want with you right now ranges from very, very little to none at all.’
That doesn’t mean he’ll want the same things forever. Right now, though, he is telling you that this is his ‘spectrum’ of how much of a sibling relationship he is available to have.
So, what's your spectrum? What kind(s) of relationship are you open to?
Maybe you feel something like: “I want to have a close, caring relationship with my brother, but I’m willing to take any amount of relationship he is willing to offer, even if that amount right now is not a lot, because that’s still better than nothing.”
Or maybe you feel more like: “I want a close, caring relationship with my brother, and anything less than that leaves me feeling like I’m walking on eggshells and have to be afraid of saying anything. If we can’t be relatively close, then I don’t want a relationship with him at all.”
And I want to be very clear, here — it is OK, if what you want out of this relationship is closer to ‘all-or-nothing’ than it is to ‘compromise as far as possible,’ and it’s just as OK if the opposite is true. The way I see it, neither of these (or anything in between) carries any particular moral virtue or judgment, or is inherently ‘healthier’ or necessarily more likely to lead to a fulfilling and sustainable relationship for all people involved.
Just remember: When you’re compromising, make sure you don’t concede anything you’re not actually willing to give — that way lies pain and festering resentment, at best.
And conversely, when the only options you’re offering are ‘all’ or ‘nothing,’ keep in mind that you might get ‘nothing.’
And all this is before we talk about the baby — your future nibling!
There’s a wealth of research about how having a baby can prompt the new parents-to-be to look back on their own families, upbringings and childhoods (in wonderful ways, and in painful ways). For people who experienced trauma and abuse in their youth, this can be particularly intense.
You can see these conversations playing out across social media, too: People remembering how they were told “just you wait until you have a child who behaves just like you,’ who have now become parents and realized that their kids — who often do act just like they did when they were little — are, in fact, easy to love. And so were they.
From what you’ve written here, I don’t know a lot about what you and your brother’s childhoods were like. Maybe you were both very happy and supported, and his choices now seem to be coming out of the blue. Or maybe his journey to parenthood is bringing up some feelings about his own past that he is grappling with right now, and what extended-family life is going to look like when the baby gets here.
Which leaves me wondering, have you talked to your brother about this? Have you asked him — directly, in words — what kind of a role he envisions you playing in the baby’s life? Have you told him about the kind of family relationship you’d like to have with the baby?
This might seem like a tall order, or even impossible: I know you’ve said you’re afraid of “saying anything” in case he takes it as criticism, gets defensive and stops speaking to you.
But if you don’t ask, then maybe you’ll never know if there is some healthy, achievable version of a relationship here that would work for both of you and for the baby. In your own mind, is the risk of a negative reaction worth the possibility of finding common ground?
I also want to talk about the “high stakes” you’re feeling right now — like everything depends on being able to eke out some kind of a relationship with your brother, now that there is about to be a new baby in the family.
From what you’ve written here, these feelings don’t seem to be coming from a fear that the baby is going to be abused, neglected or harmed. If that is something you’re concerned about, and you have reason to believe that the baby is going to be unsafe, that is a different conversation — possibly with social workers or family wellness support services in your area.
But it seems to me that the thing you’re afraid of here is mainly that you might not get to be a part of the baby’s life; that they might not get to know you as a core part of their family.
And I know how heartbreaking it can be, when the role you’d imagined yourself playing in the next generation of your family’s life doesn’t come to pass in the way you’d envisaged: Especially when you know what a loving, supportive, present and enthusiastic family member you could be to them, if only you were given the chance.
But — without diminishing those feelings — I think it’s important to realize that, all other things being equal, the baby is going to be OK whether you are present in their life or not.
I’m being very blunt, here: Right now, this not-yet-born baby does not know you. You are a stranger. The first few years of their life will be full of pleasant, adoring strangers who drift in and out of their days in a fuzzy blur of faces and smiles and shiny new toys.
If you do get to be present for the early chapters of this baby’s life, that could be a lovely thing.
If the baby doesn’t have a close relationship with you when they’re little, they haven’t had something harshly torn away from them, leaving a loss or an absence they’ll be pining for — they just haven’t had one possible good thing in their life.
Lots of babies have no aunties or uncles at all — even to love them from a distance — because their parents were only children. Lots of babies grow up with no grandparents in their life, because their grandparents died before they were born. Lots of babies grow up with only one parent, for all sorts of reasons.
There are lots of ways to be loved. There are lots of ways to have a family.
The baby will be fine.
And the funny thing about babies is, they have a way of growing up into clever and curious young people who want to know more about the world around them and the people they come from, and who get to make their own decisions about who they talk to and where they spend their time.
I hear that you desperately want to be a part of your new relative’s life — but you’ve got a whole lifetime ahead of you to do that. Their first few months on earth are not your one and only chance to know them or to love them.
Talk to your brother. Tell him what you want; ask him what he wants. Find out if there’s common ground. If there is, build from there. If there’s not, you can still keep your door open for this nibling to come into your life in the future.
Take care,
Hila
Hila (any pronouns) is the Advice Columnist for the Together Estranged Newsletter. They have been happily estranged for a number of years, and now live with their chosen family and beloved, silly dog in rural Canada. They have a background in mental health, peer support, writing and journalism. Outside of work, Hila can be found recreating desserts from The Great British Bake Off, running on the beautiful trails near their home, singing show tunes, and learning to knit.
Please Note: The peer to peer Advice Columnist is not a licensed mental health professional; this is not medical advice. If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, please go to your local urgent care center to talk to a professional counselor.
The views and opinions expressed by Advice Columnists are those of the Advice Columnists and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Together Estranged.
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