The parental dream is for their children to always love one another and get along. They are our legacy, our image, and our long-lasting footprint. After all, when we leave this planet, our children are what is left of us and we want our image to remain intact — looking happy, healthy, and loved. So the story is told.

Because of this story, we hold on to the dream that our family unit should look a certain way. When we are children, we can navigate these relationships easier. Maybe it is because we don’t have as much history or herstory. Maybe it is because children can express feelings better and haven’t quite learned to bottle them up. But then we reach adulthood. Adulthood messes everything up. Adulting and all of the expectations that come along with it are the cause of much suffering. Every family is the same, we just have different last names.

Every family and I mean every family has some sort of messiness to them. I spend my days listening to clients and inevitably family comes up.

“It’s always drama with them.”

“He won’t even look at or talk to me. Can’t he just let bygones be bygones?”

“We are on opposite sides of the political aisle and I can’t see a way to get to the middle.”

“We have nothing in common.”

“He is a terrible parent.”

“Her children are the worst.”

“Can you believe they said/did _______?”

“I feel like the black sheep.”

And on and on.

Many of us were taught the illusion of family — the way the family is supposed to be, unconditionally loving, happy, and seemingly put together, forever and ever.

News Flash: Healthy Adults Can Love Their Siblings But Not Like Them.

We’ve been taught we must always love our family, they are all we have. But that isn’t true. We also have a community. Community is where we can learn some boundary-making skills and can transform the relationships within our family using these skill sets.

Into adulthood, we create friendships we can consider sisterhoods or brotherhoods or across-gender-line-hoods, i.e. community. Family is the testing ground for discovering our relational strengths and weaknesses so when we do go out into the big world and build our own community, we can discern what works for us and what doesn’t.

There is still plenty of trial and error but with friends and used-to-be-friends we can step back and learn from our experiences without all of the strings attached, the familial stresses of continuing to make something work that just simply won’t. As adults, we can choose to move on and into the next relationship, trying things differently next time. With families, we feel like we have no choice. But we can bring these boundary-making skills we learned while creating our community and practice them with our birth families. Emotional boundaries protect you, keep you sane, healthy, and happier, and yes, they can be applied to your siblings (and parents too!).

Orphaned adults (adult children without parents) might have better boundary-making skills than those with parents still on earth. Without your parents, it is a little easier to make boundaries since there is no one holding you to the fire to get along with your siblings. No more expectations, guilt, or fantasies. The death of parents liberates adult children from these unrealistic expectations. But for all of you out there with parents around to still guide you, butt in, or simply continue to cause drama, armed with the knowledge that you actually don’t have to get along with your siblings, you can begin to free yourself from the guilt-shackles and live your family life with boundaries, too.

Not getting along with your siblings doesn’t mean writing them off. What it means is to compartmentalize the relationship by lowering expectations of what you thought was supposed to be to what actually is. You can still love your brother/sister but you certainly don’t need to be the victim of whatever it is they bring to your life. You can choose what the relationship can look like. Your parents aren’t in charge anymore. Despite the “one big happy family” delusion.

This brings up the happy medium part of this love-but-don’t-like-them philosophy. My parents are gone, but I coach many parents with adult children. Most of them seem to be good parents, albeit human parents. None of us leave here without doing some emotional damage to our children, therein lies the human part. Putting the expectation on our children to have fabulous relationships is our dream. Admittedly, it is my dream. But that is just it. We put that on them. And it really isn’t fair. Ultimately, maybe we should just teach them to get along with each other the best they can given birth order, personalities, and life experiences. As adults, a lot more than parenting influences us. Most of them leave us at around 18 years old and after that time, many other influences contribute to their perspectives. We are not in control.

I have a client who wants nothing more than for her sons to have a great relationship. I have explained this isn’t her journey but her dream, and the suffering that goes along with the illusion will just continue as long as she allows it. Everyone awakens, whether it is now or on their deathbed. Will these two sons of hers wake up one day and realize they don’t need to be best friends but simply get along well enough or will they realize this on their deathbeds? In the meantime, they have wasted a lot of energy, maybe even to the point of illness, continuing to drink the poison of pointing fingers and accusations. They can love each other but they don’t have to like one another.

Emotional boundaries. Co-existing. Sort of the same thing. The sooner we recognize how much we can handle, what we are willing to put up with or set aside, without enabling others or making ourselves stressed or sick, and releasing the illusion of what the relationship is supposed to look like, we can love our siblings for who they are and be ok with not really having to like them.