Hey, That's My Sweater

By Jan Roberson, Ph.D.

In "Hey, That's My Sweater", you will discover the six stages of adult sister relationships and, most of all you will learn the secret to healing and improving your relationship with your sister.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jan Roberson, Ph.D.
• Release date: Jul 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780692737101

Jan Roberson, Ph.D.

Dr. Jan Roberson is a woman with a very strong sense of intellectual curiosity as evident in her having earned 5 degrees including a Ph.D. in the field of Human and Organizational Development. In addition to her writing, Jan has been an instructor at a major University and a consultant since her retirement as a Program Manager at a large Aerospace company.Jan currently lives on the Central Coast of California with her husband.

Book preview

Hey, That's My Sweater

Healing The Sister Relationship

By Dr. Jan Roberson

Copyright 2016 by Dr. Jan Roberson

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-0-692-73710-1

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Sister Bond

Chapter 2 - The Sister Problems

Chapter 3 - The Sister Relationships

Chapter 4 - The Sister's Reluctance

Chapter 5 - The Sister's Motivation

Chapter 6 - The Sister Solution

Discussion Questions

Bibliography

About Dr. Jan Roberson

Connect with Dr. Jan Roberson

Chapter 1 – The Sister Bond

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves — a special kind of double - Toni Morrison

Two sisters, born of the same parents, with the same family dynamics ought to be best friends. At least, that is what most women think. Unfortunately, this ideal relationship is far from reality for the vast majority of women. From the hundreds of women I interviewed, I have found that the sister relationships can range from that ideal loving and supportive best friend to the much more common experience that is similar to a Pandora's Box full of drama and stress. In this book, we will explore the sister relationship. You will hear stories from sisters as they describe their sister relationships in one of six unique types. Together we will uncover the dynamics that have contributed to the difficulties sisters face. Lastly, this exploration will end with a workable solution to the all too frequent problems found in sister relationships.

Your sister has likely been one of your earliest companions and, in most cases, she has been a part of your life for almost as long as you can remember. She, most likely, is one of the few people alive who have witnessed all your life events, big and small, from the time you learned to walk to the birth of your children, and eventually, the death of your parents. It is this common history and shared experiences that have created the unique bond you experience with your sister today. While your relationship with your parents may have started before even knowing your sister, the parent relationship tends to change over time. This parent relationship can shift from the parents being an authority figure to becoming a peer and ending with them often needing childlike attention and care. Likewise, there are lovers in our lives who can evolve from significant others to husbands and in some cases to exes. We can experience many important people throughout our lives, but it is only sisters who provide us with an unchanging connection: No matter what may come, she will always be our sister for better or for worse.

The vast majority of women I interviewed told me that they desire to have a better relationship with their sisters. The reasons so many of us experience this longing for a closeness with our sister are numerous and include the following explanations:

•Our sister knows us better than just about anyone and, therefore, a rejection from her can hurt deeply.

•We have changed a great deal as we have aged and matured. We probably want acceptance from someone who knows us from the start not just who we are today.

•We try to reclaim and relive some of our youth through the feelings we get from being with our sister. She is almost sure to remember when you were young, cute, vivacious, etc.

•We seek the acceptance, approval and attention we may not have gotten from our mother, so we look to the next best source—our sister. One of the women I interviewed said, "I've been trying forever to get my sister's love and approval, just like I tried to get my parents' love as a child."

•Some of us may have been told almost daily to Be nice to your sister and Try and get along with her. We might subconsciously be trying to still please our parents.

•Our sister knows the child within us and that child might want to be seen and heard as only our sister can.

•Our sister can help us to clarify and remember our shared history and common experiences.

•The relationship can be easier than one with strangers as we shouldn't have to put on airs or try to impress her. We may experience a freedom to be ourselves since she already knows who we are.

•As we age and people close to us start to die, we tend to reach out to and value family more.

Some women might ask why we need a closeness with our sisters when we can have any number of girlfriends to take their place. This question is addressed further in Chapter 5: The Sister's Motivation but, for now, the answer is because it is possible for a sister to offer more than a friendship. Not only can a sister, who knows you better than anyone else, help you relive the memories of the good times of your youth, but a sister is one of the few permanent things in your life, she will still be your sister no matter what happens. On the other hand, friends can come and go and they might not always stay around during the hard times like a sister.

From the stories sisters told to me and from my own experience, I have found that for most women the relationship they have with their sister has ebbed and flowed over the years. It can fluctuate anywhere from times of extreme closeness to almost indifference or worse, even anger. Our adult sister relationships can actually take many different forms, some of which lasted very briefly such as a small spat where you reconciled the next day and others types that lasted for many years. This flux in our relationship with our sister is common and almost all women can identify with having experienced several forms of the relationship over the lifetime of knowing their sister. In fact, research has shown that some life events can often influence these relationships. For example, there are several events that have been found to increase the closeness of adult siblings. These include divorce, widowhood or health problems. (Connidis, 1992) Likewise, getting married and having children often decreases contact and exchanges among siblings. (White, 2001)

In total, I have identified six different types of relationships that sisters can experience.

1. Raging

2. Estranged

3. Tense

4. Supportive

5. Invested

6. Solidarity

Based on my interviews with sisters, it was easy for me to look at the extremes and divide the types of sisters into those that strongly bond with each other (Solidarity) and those that show signs of hatred (Raging). Then there were those sisters who exhibited strong attraction and friendship towards each other (Invested) and those who wanted to avoid any interactions (Estranged).

These four states are similar to ones found in any set of relationships, but for sisters, I found that these four classifications (Solidarity, Raging, Invested and Estranged) left two groups completely unaccounted for. The fifth group I identified was comprised of women who were there for their sister in times of high drama or crisis (Supportive). Lastly, there were those women that were cordial to their sister but only for the sake of keeping peace in the family (Tense). It is these six states that make up the entire sister experience.

It is important to make clear that these six classifications are not a ladder to be climbed. We do not start at one end and neatly progress through each