The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships

by John Gottman

  Comparison and competition also stems from natural curiosity about the road not taken. We look at our siblings, who came from the same parents, the same homes, and we wonder, “How could life have been different for me if I had taken the path my sibling took?” “What if I had married earlier, as my brother did?” “What if I had inherited Dad’s long legs instead of Mom’s squat stature?” “What if I had gone to college as my sister did, instead of joining the military?” “What if I had used my inheritance to invest in the stock market instead of buying this house?” Although such comparisons are normal and may give you some insights into your own life, they’re usually not very helpful for developing better feelings toward your siblings. That’s why I advise people to accept their differences and to acknowledge any feelings that may result—feelings like jealousy, envy, pride, sorrow, or resentment. But try not to dwell on the inequalities you may perceive. Give your attention instead to the task of trying to understand your sibling and his or her experiences, and you can look forward to a much richer relationship.

  Step 3. Examine How Your Emotional Heritage Affects Your Relationship with Siblings

  It’s easy to understand why issues of emotional heritage loom so large in our sibling relationships. Growing up in the same family, brothers and sisters often presume that they were affected in the same way by parental attitudes toward emotions, that they carry the same emotional philosophy and enduring vulnerabilities as a result. But sibling studies actually show that such factors as birth order, variations in temperament, and simple differences in perception can leave siblings with vastly divergent ideas of what went on in their home, and what it means to be a family. As Susan Scarf Merrell writes in The Accidental Bond: The Power of Sibling Relationships (Times Books, 1995), “Siblings can be discomforting reminders that each person grows up in a family that is his and his alone. Thus, one adult sibling’s memory of an overwhelming and unsympathetic mother can be difficult to reconcile with another’s recollection of a loving caretaker. Each person’s truth is valid, a function of the unique individuals doing the perceiving and of the particular life phases and experiences of each. This is one reason that, so frequently, grown brothers and sisters go through uncomfortable phases in their relationships.” Discovering that there are unshared—even misunderstood—memories of what happened “may make it easier to part ways, rather than to acknowledge that every family exists at multiple points of reality,” Merrell concludes.

  Seeing and understanding your differences with siblings can be hard, especially if you always believed that you experienced the same things in childhood. But once you can acknowledge that you may have different perceptions of the past, you’re in a better position to connect with one another today. You’re less likely to second-guess what your siblings are thinking or how they’re feeling about various family matters. You start making an effort to treat them just as you would other peers whom you’d like to know better. You start paying more attention to one another, listening more closely, turning toward each other’s bids for connection in a more conscious way. And the great thing is, when you do connect, you have a relationship with one another as you really are today, not as you remember each other from childhood.

  Developing a solid personal understanding of your own emotional heritage is a good place to start. That’s where the exercises in chapter 5 may be useful. Doing them may help you to identify in a general way how your family’s attitudes toward emotion and your own vulnerabilities affect your ability to connect with others. By completing the exercise below, you can explore how these issues affect your relationship with siblings in particular.

  Exercise: How Does Your Past Influence Your Bonds with Siblings?

  Though it’s important to stay current in your relationships with your brothers and sisters, your bond may also benefit by thinking about what you learned about emotions in childhood. If you haven’t completed the questionnaires on emotional heritage in chapter 5, do so now. Then, thinking of a particular sibling, answer the following questions in your Emotion Log. If you’re particularly close to this sibling, you might want to do this exercise together. If that’s not possible, then see if you can find opportunities to discuss these issues with your sibling informally sometime.

  1. Review your scores on the exercise What’s Your Emotional History? on this page. Look carefully at your scores in each category: pride, love, anger, sadness, and fear. Think about how comfortable you are with expressing each of these emotions to your sibling. Then answer the following questions, thinking about each emotion separately.

  • How does your comfort level with this emotion affect your ability to feel close to your sibling?

  • When you experience this emotion, are you usually able to explain to your sibling how you’re feeling?

  • Do you feel that your sibling understands how you’re feeling?

  • Do you feel guilty or self-conscious expressing this feeling?

  • Is your sibling likely to turn toward you, away from you, or against you when you express this emotion?

  • How would you like for your sibling to respond when you express this feeling? Can you and your sibling talk about it?

  Now think about your comfort level at hearing your sibling express these emotions. Then answer these questions, again thinking about each emotion separately.

  • How does your comfort level with hearing your sibling express this feeling affect your ability to connect with him or her?

  • Do you feel that you’re able to empathize with your sibling when he or she is feeling this way?

  • Do you feel embarrassed, frightened, or angry when your sibling expresses this feeling?

  • Are you likely to turn toward, turn away from, or turn against your sibling when he or she expresses this feeling?

  • How would you like to improve your ability to share such feelings with this sibling?

  2. Review the results of your responses to the exercise What Was Your Family’s Philosophy of Emotion? on this page, and answer these questions.

  • Was your family’s philosophy primarily emotion-coaching, emotion-dismissing, emotion-disapproving, or laissez-faire?

  • In relating to your sibling, is your philosophy primarily emotion-coaching, emotion-dismissing, emotion-disapproving, or laissez-faire? What effect does your own philosophy of emotion have on this relationship?

  • In relating to you, what’s your sibling’s emotional philosophy? How does this affect your relationship?

  3. Review the results of your response to the exercise What Are Your Enduring Vulnerabilities? on this page. Then answer the following questions.

  • How do your enduring vulnerabilities affect your ability to connect emotionally with your sibling?

  • Do you feel that past injuries interfere with your ability to bid for emotional connection with this sibling? In what way?

  • Do you feel that past injuries interfere with your ability to respond to your sibling’s bids? How so?

  • Do past injuries ever get in the way of your ability to feel included by your sibling?

  • Do past injuries interfere with your ability to express affection toward, or accept affection from, your sibling?

  • Do you sometimes feel that you’re struggling too hard to control your sibling because you feel vulnerable?

  • Do you sometimes feel that you’re struggling too hard to resist being controlled by this sibling because you feel vulnerable?

  • Are there ways that your sibling could help you to heal from past injuries? What healing thing would you like for your sibling to do or say? Can you express this to him or her?

  Step 4. Sharpen Your Skills at Emotional Communication with Your Siblings

  Members of the same family often use a complex vocabulary of nonverbal signals to communicate their feelings to one another. In chapter 6, you learned about the many forms of emotional communication, and practiced reading one another’s signals with the Emotional Communication Game. Here you’ll have anot
her chance to play the game, this time portraying situations common among adult siblings.

  Exercise: The Emotional Communication Game with Siblings

  To play the game with your sibling or another adult, silently read each item and its three possible interpretations. Then take turns reading the items aloud, as the other person tries to guess which of the three meanings you’re trying to convey. You can also play it on your own, though I encourage you to do it with a family member because it provides an opportunity for noticing one another’s gestures, facial expressions, vocal qualities, and so on.

  1. Have you called Mom lately?

  a. You’re just asking for information.

  b. You’re annoyed that your sibling ignores your mom.

  c. You know that your mom has some good news that you’re dying to tell your sibling but can’t.

  2. When are you going to come visit us?

  a. You’re just asking for information.

  b. You’ve done all the visiting over the past few years, and you’re annoyed about this.

  c. You hope that your sibling will be considerate about the timing of this next visit, and that he or she won’t show up without calling first.

  3. Let’s talk about who’s paying for the next dinner out.

  a. You’re tired of paying for the dinners, and you wish your sibling would offer to pick up the tab once in a while.

  b. You want to pay for the next dinner, and your sibling wants to pick up the tab.

  c. You’re just trying to see whose turn it is to pay.

  4. Which one of us do you think our parents favored when we were growing up?

  a. You’re angry that your sibling was favored, and you want to talk about old grudges you have.

  b. You’re just wondering what your sibling thinks about this issue.

  c. You’re anxious talking about this, but you think it’s important to discuss because you think your sibling has some strong feelings about the issue.

  5. Are you going to buy a new car?

  a. You think that a new car is incredibly extravagant, and that your sibling shouldn’t make this purchase.

  b. You’re excited that your sibling is finally doing something nice for herself or himself.

  c. You’re just asking for information.

  Step 5. Find Shared Meaning with Your Siblings

  As people grow up and leave home, sibling relationships typically take a backseat to other bonds like marriage, friendship, and parenthood. But as we approach middle age, two things typically happen that bring our siblings back into the forefront of our lives. First, our parents grow old, requiring siblings to come together around such issues as long-term care, their parents’ end-of-life decisions, and healing from the grief of a parent’s death. And, second, we start to think more deeply about the stories of our own lives: how our childhood relationships with parents and brothers and sisters affected us; what the bonds of extended family mean to us today. Our adult relationships with our siblings loom large as we grapple with these issues and questions.

  That’s certainly the way it was for me and my younger sister, Batia. For most of our adult lives we were happy to live quite independently of one another, in different parts of the country. But something shifted in our relationship after my father died in 1987, and this caused a falling out. It’s still hard for me to say how the trouble started. I think Batia had the feeling that I wasn’t taking leadership in the family and that I wasn’t looking out for her feelings. It wasn’t that she needed me to do much. But this was a difficult time for all of us, and she just wanted me to show that I really cared about her and would be there for her if she needed me. Unfortunately, I mistakenly took this as an unreasonable request for me to be a parent for her. I later learned that this wasn’t her request at all, however. She just wanted me to be more present in her life—to not be so aloof.

  Sorting through all of this took time—years, in fact. For me, the slow process of gaining a better understanding started when my older cousin suggested that I write a letter to Batia, apologizing for any pain I might have caused her, and asking her to drop past grievances. She agreed to do that, which was a great gift. After that, we both began learning to identify the old hurts and trying in good faith to heal them. Our most important differences concern our ideas of what it means to be a family and to be able to count on one another. My wife, Julie, has been very helpful to us in this process, in part by helping Batia and me to smooth over issues—sort of translating for each of us so that we can be empathetic to one another. And now that we’ve been able to hear each other out on this issue, I feel that we’ve reached a new level of understanding and a much more respectful relationship. It’s definitely a work in progress. And keeping the lines of communication open will continue to be important—especially as our family deals with the next chapter, which is providing for our aged mother, who’s becoming increasingly dependent on others for care.

  On the next few pages you’ll find an exercise for exploring meaning within your sibling relationships. You’ll also find suggestions for family rituals that may help you and your siblings to connect emotionally.

  Exercise: What Do Your Sibling Relationships Mean to You?

  Below is a list of questions to consider regarding your relationship with brothers and sisters. You can answer them on your own, or, if you’ve got an open, trusting relationship with a sibling, you may want to answer them together, discussing the places where you agree and disagree. Whether you discuss them openly or not, don’t be surprised if this exercise makes you more aware of your differences. That’s the point. We can’t accept our differences until we acknowledge what those differences are. Then, if we decide to strengthen our connections despite our differences, we can express that desire to one another, creating a much deeper, more meaningful relationship.

  • What does it mean to you to be a good sibling?

  • What qualities should a family of adult siblings have in order to help its members lead happy, fulfilling lives?

  • Do you feel that you’re a good sibling in this relationship? Do you feel that your brother or sister is a good sibling?

  • What does family mean to you? What qualities should a family of adult siblings have in order to help its members lead happy, fulfilling lives?

  • How close or distant do you think an extended family should be? Think about the role of extended family in your home when you were growing up. How do you want your family to be the same or different?

  • How important is it for brothers and sisters to provide emotional support for one another? What does good emotional support between siblings consist of? Do you feel you get what you need from your sibling?

  • How important is it to you to be able to share your true feelings with your sibling?

  • How do you and your sibling show that you care about one another’s current lives?

  • What does your sibling not understand about you that you wish he or she would understand?

  • How much time should siblings make for one another? Are you happy with the amount of time you spend with your sibling?

  • How important is it for siblings to share responsibility for their aging relatives? How should these responsibilities be shared? What role does each of you want to have?

  • How do you each view your parents?

  • How important is it to be able to talk openly about the past?

  • What were your separate perceptions of your family growing up?

  • Is it okay to talk about memories of difficult times, or about how family members were hurt?

  • What if you disagree about what happened during your childhood?

  • Are there remaining hurts and grievances that need to be discussed?

  • What values, philosophies, or points of view have you adopted from your family of origin in building your own families? Which values, philosophies, or points of view from your childhood family have you rejected?

  • What if there’s a big difference in
the amount of money or success you and your sibling have had? How does this disparity affect your relationship?

  • How important is affection, gratitude, and appreciation in your relationship? Are these elements that you’d like to change in your relationship? In what way?

  • How important is it for siblings to celebrate holidays together? If it’s important, which holidays matter most? Are there ways you’d like to change the way you come together (or not) during the holidays?

  • How important is it for siblings to acknowledge one another’s birthdays? Are you happy with how this works in your relationship?

  • How important is it for relatives to be at such ceremonies as weddings, graduations, and funerals? Do you agree with your sibling about this?

  • How important is it for siblings to have fun together? Are you satisfied with this aspect of your relationship?

  • How important is it to have the same philosophy of raising kids? Do you share the same values in this area?

  • Are there ways that you’d like to change your relationship with your sibling? In what way? What would it take to make those changes? What would your relationship look like once those changes took place?

  Rituals of Connection with Siblings

  Family reunions. In some clans, the term “family reunion” means scores of distant cousins getting together annually for a weeklong jamboree under the family crest. For others it’s a more intimate gathering—just one family, perhaps, consisting of a couple and their grown children whose careers have carried them to far-flung corners. Either way, the act of planning, or simply attending, a regular family reunion is a common ritual that often strengthens bonds between adult siblings.