Sibling Dynamics

Advice Request

Hey! I know this is mainly focused on parents, but I’m wondering if any of you have navigated and had to sort through challenging sibling dynamics as children of AP who constantly had triangulated the children into who was the preferred or ‘good’ child of the hour. My parents swung back and forth on who was a good child and the other one was cast away as an example ‘never be like her!’ and it was completely arbitrary who was the preferred or ‘good’ child for any given day. That created a mindset of competition and comparison between my siblings and I - with the promary focus is to not be considered the ‘bad child’ and face hours of being cast as a dumb idiot. By the grace of God, I was able to break out of the family unit and I had many positive uplifting influences in my life that made me realize my parent’s worldview was depraved and sadistic (due to their own unprocessed trauma). My sibling who I used to be close to, never got the outside influence, and sees my choices in life risky or ‘bad’ due to my parents influence. Yet, now that I’m flourishing, she is unhappy because in her mind, that would make her the ‘bad’ child because our parents approach is so binary- you cannot have two children both be amazing in their own right, and she has really integrated that mindset in how she perceives me (unconsciously). We are no longer close and it’s been painful because we grew up together and I always tried to encourage her to break out or get some other influences, but she was always more stuck in my parent’s orbit than me. Has anyone else been faced with a similar dynamic? Are your sibling dynamics broken due to your parents and you have broken out while the other sibling has stayed within the AP toxic dynamic? Were you ever able to have a functional relationship with that sibling or do you treat that sibling as an extended version of your parents? How do make space for that sibling who may be somewhat aware that the dynamic is toxic but still in that toxic cycle without you getting pulled into that yourself?

Posted Aug 13, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC

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