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Sibling Stress:
How Your Wedding Affects Your
Brothers & Sisters
Brides who attend
my workshops often lament that their close
relationships with their siblings suddenly, upon their engagements, change.
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A loving brother becomes cynical, slinging
hurtful, sarcastic comments at the bride, in ways he had never done before.
Brides report feeling
a complex combination of anger, sadness, hurt, confusion, and guilt
around their siblings during their engagements and weddings. What, they wonder,
is going on between my brothers and sisters and me? Where did our close
relationships go? Why are they being so mean? Why are they distancing from me,
especially now, during my engagement, when I need their support?
Dr. Jane Greer
in her book Adult Sibling Rivalry: Understanding the Legacy of Childhood,
offers some answers, offers perspective from your siblings’ seat:
“When your brother or
sister marries, you experience an abrupt and often substantial change
in the nature of your relationship. You may even experience the loss of
companionship. Your brother’s availability will be more limited and less
spontaneous than it ever was. When your sibling marries, you may lose the sort
of interaction you had before. You will almost certainly lose the degree of
interaction.”
“If your brother has
married, his primary relationship will be with his wife,” Greer
continues. “He’ll be spending most of his time with her, and rightly so. But
where does that leave you? Or perhaps your sister marries. You may remain
emotionally close, but the days are over when you can just call her up and talk
without time limits, or spontaneously suggest, “How about I come over right
now?” Your support system has changed, and these changes can’t help but affect
you.” (1992. Crown Publishers, New York, p. 151)
With your upcoming marriage,
changes in your relationships with your siblings are inevitable.
What can you do
to ease this?
Acknowledge to yourself
that your relationships with your brothers and sisters are undergoing a
profound change during your engagement, wedding, and first year of marriage.
With your focus turning toward your husband-to-be, it’s less on them. Your
brothers’ and sisters’ access to you, both physically and emotionally as Greer
describes, is changing. As a result, your siblings are feeling the loss of you
in their lives.
The problem is,
most brides and most siblings aren’t aware of these deeper feelings of loss
around the changes. Loss isn’t usually associated with weddings, and there’s no
place for sadness in the wedding celebration. So instead, people act out
unconsciously, as the 3 siblings described above have – making jabs,
cutting-off, or being downright mean about the future husband.
So it’s up to you
to open up the communication lines. Tell your siblings you’ve missed the
closeness since you got engaged. Tell them that your wedding may stir up
feelings of sadness, fear, or anger – that’s normal. Talk about how you’re
feeling. Admit that you’re uncertain of what the future brings and that yes,
things will change between you, but also that you what to stay as close as
possible.
If you honestly share
where you are, and can honestly listen to where they are – and let them be
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angry that they’re losing you to your fiancé, or
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sad that everything seems to be changing in your
family, or
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afraid of what the future holds vis a vis your
relationship –
and don’t try to change what they’re feeling, then
the channels of communication will open again. You will have a closer
relationship with your sibling again.
A changed relationship,
for sure, and one that will continue to undergo changes through your engagement,
wedding, and marriage, but you will your sibling closer by your side again.
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Allison Moir-Smith
Bridal Counselor and
Author of Emotionally Engaged
(Feb. 2006: Hudson St. Press) |
