Are You Dreading the Upcoming Holidays Because of Sibling Rivalry?

As the holiday season approaches, some people are looking forward to spending time with their family of origin but others, not so much. We can have good relationships with our family members or difficult ones.

One particularly challenging family dynamic is the rivalry that can occur between siblings. There can be a lot of envy, competitiveness, oneupmanship and even back-stabbing among the siblings. This can be especially evident over the holidays when family members spend more time together.

Our siblings can be our best friends; there to support us in everything we do. Our siblings can also be the opposite, doing their best to undermine our happiness and success. We can start stressing out as we anticipate the holiday gatherings knowing that we’re going to have to deal with our jealous or show-offy siblings yet again.

What is it that makes siblings become rivals? What turns sweet little kids into cut-throat competitors in adult life? It’s all about supply and demand.

All children have fundamental needs for care and validation. When their needs are met, they grow up confident and secure; when their needs aren’t met, they grow up longing for what they didn’t get. They can become deeply resentful of the sibling whom they imagine must have gotten more love and attention than they did.

When there’s enough love, care, attention and validation to go around, all the kids in the family are getting their fundamental needs met. When all the kids are well cared for, no-one feels jealous or resentful of the others.

On the other hand, when there’s not enough love or care to go around, the siblings look to one-another as competitors for the scant resources that exist. Parental love and attention become rare commodities that the siblings are vying for, as opposed to abundant resources that all the kids share freely.

When there’s an inadequate supply and a huge (as is normal) demand for love and care, siblings can find it difficult to look at one-another in any other way than as rivals. Instead of directing their frustration at the parents who aren’t giving them what they need, they get angry and envious toward their siblings.

Parents are the source of all the love and validation children need. Kids can’t attack their parents for fear of damaging the source of all their essential needs.

Sometimes, one or both parents are hurtful or intimidating. In such cases, the kids will be too afraid to express their angry feelings directly to them.

For both of the above reasons, kids are compelled to to take out their frustration on their siblings because it’s simply not safe to get angry at Mom or Dad.

It’s very hard for a child to think of their parent as having no love or care to give. They’ll believe that their siblings are getting all the attention instead of them.

If they’re an only child, they’ll think that they must be a bad kid and that they need to do better in order to earn their parents’ love. Often, kids with siblings feel this way as well.

In terms of sibling rivalry, the neglected child is determined to get their fair share of attention. It’s just like the marketplace, in which rare and valuable commodities like diamonds, for example, are hotly competed for.

For siblings, their parents’ love and approval are the hot commodities, and each sibling is trying to get their share. What these kids don’t realize is that none of them is going to get enough love or attention because their parents don’t have it to give.

It’s a sad phenomenon when children take out their hurt and frustration on each-other, but that’s exactly what happens in cases when parents are unable to adequately care for their kids.

As kids, these feelings of envy get expressed as sibling rivalry in which the children vie for the largest portion of food or the biggest allowance; as adults these feelings get expressed in the form of trying to one-up their siblings or even sabotage their efforts to succeed.

Even when the parents are out of the picture, the siblings continue the competition in a different form. Now it’s about who’s more successful, who’s more wealthy or who’s more renowned. Sometimes, the siblings will try to hijack the inheritance; sometimes they’ll actively try to prevent their brother or sister from succeeding.

Years ago, I had a patient who grew up in a very dysfunctional family where there was very little love or care. As adults, one of her siblings actively tried to sabotage this woman’s career chances and another sibling went into the parental home after the last parent passed away and removed a valuable antique to keep for themselves.

One of my patients grew up with considerable parental neglect. She had a sibling who turned the one remaining parent against her and had the parent rewrite the will to exclude my patient. The sibling didn’t need the money from the inheritance; they just didn’t want my patient to get it. These are the lengths that adults will go to when they see their siblings as competitors as opposed to best friends.

Perhaps you have one or more jealous or competitive siblings. Perhaps you’re not looking forward to the festivities as much as you’d hope to. As the holidays approach and you anticipate them with dread, know that you’re not alone.

Sibling rivalry in adulthood is a sad but common response to a family in which there’s not enough love or care to go around.

You can try talking to your siblings in the hope of re-establishing a loving relationship but old wounds run deep and they may not be able to see you as anything other than a rival, even long after both parents are gone. If that’s the case, you may need to sit at opposite sides of the family table this year, and perhaps for years to come.

Sign up here for my free monthly wellness newsletter. January 2019 is all about how to deal with troubled family relationships.

Sign up here for my new online course, How to Stop Overeating, Once and For All.