Note: This story discusses emotional abuse.
Just because someone has siblings doesn't mean they have a good relationship with them. So when Reddit user u/youngGod928 asked: "Siblings who no longer speak, what caused the divide?" so many people provided their heartbreaking stories. Here's what they said below.
1. "I haven’t spoken to my sister in a decade, and I don’t attend family events where she will be present. She stole my mom’s identity and racked up almost $20k in unpaid debt. My mom plays it off as a childish mistake (my sister was 27 at the time), and despite my pressing her, my mom refused to press charges. Without her help, the police just had to let it go, and my mom paid off the debt."
2. "They asked my kids who are adopted to step out of a family picture 'because they are not really family.' I gave them a chance to think about what they had just said and silently counted to 10. They doubled down — and that was the last time I (or other family members) spoke to them."
3. "I cared for our terminally ill dad for 2.5 years until his subsequent death and can count on one hand how many times my siblings came by or helped."
4. "She lied about having cancer. I'll just never be able to trust anyone like that in my house and around my family. There's really nothing that can fix it either, and I think you need to have something really broken in your brain to do something like that, like unrepairable damage."
5. "When my sister got married for the first time, she became a monster. She started treating everyone who was not her husband as if they were shit, demanding money from my parents (which they gave her, they even made me sleep on the floor so they could sell my bed and give her the money) and guilt-tripping everyone who didn't jump on the spot to babysit whenever she wanted. She started to look down on me. My parents lost everything to help her, and now they're literally broke, just surviving with what me and my uncles give to them. And my sister claims nobody helps her."
6. "Both my younger sister and I were horribly abused by both parents. There were three older siblings that were wanted and were treated like gold. I moved away and was in therapy for 13 years. Both parents are dead now. She did no therapy and had two kids, one which she can't shut up about and one she can't ever mention. Two years ago, she took an inheritance that was meant for me and spent it on her house. It was the worst betrayal I have ever experienced; I did not see it coming. It still causes painful rage, but it is slowly getting better. I will never talk to her again and will never have to see that she has become what abused us both. I still feel like an idiot."
7. "Our wives started a thing years ago over attitudes and shit. Slowly grew into a full-on shit-talking thing from his wife, and my wife, in her true fashion, ignored her and didn’t partake until his wife started calling her a shitty mother for smoking weed one night. They were over after the kids were sleeping for the night. She wrote a whole text letter and sent it to the family text, just vilifying my wife, only because my wife wouldn’t engage with her. My wife goes off on her. Telling her she’s an adult and if her kids are down for the night and she wants to smoke a little pot, that’s for her to decide. My brother's wife isn’t even a mom and has no place to speak about her quality of motherhood. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Anyway, my brother reached out to me and tried to get his wife’s messages across through me, and I told him I was not involved and he shouldn’t be either. Let it simmer and eventually cool off."
8. "She is nine years older than me, and in my life, I’ve lived in the same house as her for less than a year. She lived with her mom for most of her childhood. She got married at 21 or 22 years old and was what we used to call a 'bridezilla.' I was around 13 years old and was supposed to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. She was very set on a hairstyle she wanted all her bridesmaids to have, and she wanted them all done at a certain salon. The salon was very far from where I lived, and we had to be there early, at about 7 a.m. So my mom made an appointment for me to have my hair done at a salon near my house and even gave them a picture of what my hair was supposed to look like."
"The night of the rehearsal, my half-sister and my mom got into an argument about my hair, and my sister kicked me out of the wedding. Her mom told my mom that because I was no longer in the wedding, we had to leave, but my mom pointed out that my brother and dad were still in the wedding, so we didn’t have to.
Long story short, her mom slapped my mom across the face, the police were called, and nobody from my dad’s side of the family went to her wedding. As an adult, she is very close to my dad and brother, but I have next to nothing to do with her. I’ll see her at family get-togethers, but I have no interest in having her in my life outside of that.
I was still a kid, and she did irreparable damage to our relationship because of a hairstyle. All these years later, she still has not apologized for that night. What’s funny, too, is that, based on wedding pictures, none of her bridesmaids ended up with the hairstyle she wanted them to have because everyone had different types and lengths of hair. I hope it was worth it to her."
9. "At a certain point, I realized every time I talked to my sister, she wanted me to do something for her — every single time. We could not chat without her asking me for a favor of some kind. She’s older than me and got into the habit of bossing me around in our childhood, I think. The straw that broke the camel’s back was our aunt. She’s in poor health, and her children aren’t taking care of her. My sister straight-up said I should be her caretaker. I told her no, for the first time in my life, and she lost her shit. I held my ground, but she wouldn’t let it go, so I eventually blocked her phone number, blocked her on social media, etc. I miss her sometimes, but I also think family should not be about how much you can use one another, and she treated me like I was her personal assistant."
10. "I always thought I had a good relationship with my sister. We both moved a lot and lived in different cities, but we regularly called and sometimes visited. At a certain point, we lived in the same city, and I visited her a few times; I even remember borrowing her car for something. At a certain point, I noticed I was making more of an effort than she was, so I asked her, and she said she was just busy. We had a day planned when she would visit me, so I took off from work, but she never showed up. I called and texted her, but she didn't answer. Two days later, she apologized and said something came up, but she never said what. We made other plans, but she canceled an hour before. I got pissed cause, again, I took off from work and made arrangements. She apologized, and we tried a third time. I told her this was the last chance, and she promised to be there, but again, she didn't show up. I decided I had tried, and I never initiated contact again."
"It's now been 15 years since we last spoke. I went to her diploma ceremony a few months after this all happened where we didn't speak, and she actually didn't even look at me. Nobody in the family ever mentions this, and it's like it never happened."