Parents of Schoolgoers  Discussion Forum

Name: personal

I am a Young, new sister in law- married to the oldest brother of a 4 sibling family. He has 2 sisters, and 1 brother. a 13 year spread between him and the youngest sister. 12-25 YO. I need HELP! they are all going through some of the most difficult growth stages, this is a horrible time to try to BEGIN a relationship with them as OLDEST BROTHER (my hubby) & wierd sister in law (ME). My husband spent most of his life as an older sibling - occupied with parental pressures, and figuring out the world, measuring success, feeling his way all by himself, etc.. His recent realizations of having a stronger relationship with his siblings brings hope but also opens up a huge can of worms. They all have hard-to-hug attitudes (teenage/pre teen years) The middle brother (a high schooler) is deaf and thinks any attention or efforts to communicate is a joke (which feels really rude) and any criticism or questioning is discriminating against his state of being (everything- EVERYTHING is either for or against his being deaf)- rather than the attitude he carries. I don't know if their lack of ownership among all of them in making steps towards building a better relationship is indicative of their age, family characteristic, OR individual personality types. For one reason or another- It's hard to determine what my role should be as an oldest sibling and an in-law. To me, family is family, and the idea of sister \";in-law\"; is not how I feel, is not how I love them, or see them. As an in law growing up the youngest in a very tight strongly bonded family, i'm confused, at times angered, and often feeling rejected- what should my role be? How should it be initially, how should it progress? any suggestions? Things don't change over night but I don't think wonderful people should have their relationships stagnate based upon our childhood life circumstances. At times I feel like giving up. I would love to hear any advice or references to people & places I could go to figure things out. If anyone could point me to a forum to talk about this- Bless you. We are trying (as older siblings) to have a family retreat in a couple of weeks to hash some stuff out and begin to make small breakthroughs. I hope I'm making sense, I tried to look all over the net about the nature of sibling- in-law relationships but have come up fruitless. Please comment on anything/everything. Thanks!
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