I feel like my twin sister hates me, or at least that no matter what I do, I do the wrong thing. We have a long history - we’ll be 39 next month - and our relationship has probably always been a real love/hate mix but lately I feel like there’s not much of the former.

As children, she was my best friend yet also someone I could never come up against. If we didn’t agree on something, she would never back down. It was always her way or the highway. It’s much the same now. I guess I learnt my place back then and she learnt hers.

It’s reached a point where I feel rather uncomfortable around her and I don’t know what to do because I’d like to have a positive and close relationship. I’d like our children to spend time together, but she’s always upset with me for something and I never intentionally try to upset her. She also never shows much interest in me; she never asks about my life or shares anything about herself (even though I do ask about her). When we see each other at family or mutual friend events, she may give a bit of a fake hug or make comments like “oh my god, I knew you were going to wear that” (implying I always wear the same thing and I suppose trying to embarrass me in front of others), but doesn’t engage with me much beyond that.

Most recently, I arranged to have lunch with our older sister the day after her birthday because it was a day we both have off each week and we catch up on this day from time-to-time. It was not a big deal - just lunch. It wasn’t supposed to be instead of the three of us doing something on another day we all had off. My twin blew up at us both calling us cruel for not inviting her - but it was a workday for her and she wasn’t able to come anyway.

Prior to that, I tried to arrange for my whole family to spend time together before Christmas as my partner, myself and our baby were going overseas to spend Christmas with his family. My sister never responded or tried to make any plans when I suggested it in our family group chat. Actually, none of my family did (other siblings plus my mum), so I then suggested everyone come to my place for a breakfast. My sister came late, didn’t speak to me the whole time, didn’t eat any of the food and made her family leave quite quickly after making it clear she didn’t want to be there. She also blocked me on instagram the day I suggested everyone come to my place and although she’s unblocked me now, she never re-added me and neither of us have mentioned it.

There’s actually been many stories just like these and reading through what I’ve written makes me sad and I know anyone reading this would be thinking “well, what’s the other side to this story?”… of course there is one but I actually don’t know what it is myself. I wish I did. I actually text my twin after the Christmas incident and asked her if I’d done something to upset her and if she wanted to talk about it. But her response was that not everything revolved around me. So, I left it at that.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to have this relationship with her. But I don’t know what I’ve done or how I can fix it. As I mentioned, these aren’t isolated incidents. They’re just recent. Our relationship has many stories like this but usually we still end up getting along in between. As we enter the deep waters of adulthood though, I feel the distance growing greater and far less able to be rejoined.

Can anyone relate? Perhaps to my sister and give me another perspective? What approach could I take so that we could both feel better about our relationship and somehow start to repair and change our relationship to be something new and healthier than ever before?

Thanks for reading this long post. X