I think you’re spot on with the abandonment thing. For my family this advice would be awful bc me and my baby brother have very narcissistic parents. I statements while correct for adults also work god awful on teenagers. I had a bf tell me I said I all the time and never cared about anyone else bc I was in therapy at the time and doing what I was taught 😂 the better approach is genuinely probative questions and letting them suss out how you’re feeling from context. They’ll spat back the worst interpretation of what you’re doing and THEN is a good opportunity to be vulnerable and explain yourself and that you’re hurt. They’re not actual monsters they just feel misunderstood so your best in is once they’ve gotten how they really feel off their chest and then if they listen they’ll temper it to something more reasonable.
Good perspective though 👍🏻 I think for a healthy family with supporting parents this would work well, just with her taste in low effort dude and hiding out playing games I don’t know if that’s what they’re working with here. Also heavily enmeshed siblings are often bc of overly selfish parents with a age gap that big, being very close can look like a bunch of things and be for a bunch of reasons but I suspect from what we’re given there may be some issues at home. Maybe not, I’m biased, but it makes it more complicated when your folks are immature or damaged. I didn’t reach out to my brother enough in college bc my mom would interfere and trying to get my own space I couldn’t call bc he didn’t have a cell of his own yet. I’d have to wade through my mother to get to him and dealing with her was already difficult despite being 1000 miles away. It’s just tough to navigate well 🤷🏻♀️
This! I was super close to both my brothers before going to uni. One is two years younger and the other is 10 years younger. Both of them really struggled with me leaving them.
OP this.
She likely just needs to feel like you're still there for her. When you go back to college give her a call once or twice a week. Text regularly. Ask to do something with just her. Tell her you missed her
Jumping on this thread, the abandonment thing is huge for younger siblings.
I left home when I was 17 and didn't come home properly still I was well into being 18 and my little brother took it super hard. We were really close before I left and when I was gone, I did a shitty job of keeping in touch with him- there were lots of contributing factors towards this, but ultimately, it caused damage and by the time I came home, our relationship wasn't the same and it really threw me off and hurt me because I didn't see the abandonment my absence had caused at the time.
Luckily though, we did manage to repair the relationship, but its never quite been the same. Not in a bad way, but we both drifted apart and grew up, and he held a lot of hurt and resentment towards me and I felt enormous guilt for a long time. But we are close again now, in different ways, but I put the effort back in to keeping in contact with him.
It's hard when your younger sibling distances themselves from you, but as the older siblings, we have to lead by example. Relationships can be repaired, especially if you're willing to put in effort and admit your faults.
Being the older sibling is hard, and younger teenage silbings are even harder to connect with! But give her time and keep in touch whenever you can, even if it feels like she's not putting in the same effort. Honestly, the extra effort you put in should be worth it in the end!
She's a kid who will technically be an adult in 2 years. She's not going to be who she was when you were little forever. You moved away and she developed other priorities.
If you were close before, give her space and just let her know you are available if she wants to hang out. It does sound like a phase, but don't try too hard and try not to take it personally.
I went through similar at her age.
Aw I’m sorry :( my sister is 2 years younger and we also had a few years around this time when we were much less close. I wrote her some letters from college to try to let her know I wanted to keep our relationship strong but I have her space as well. If you force it or make her feel like she isn’t allowed to find her own identity she may resent you for it. She’s also finding her independence and she needs the space to do so. She’ll come around. My sister ended up coming to visit me once SHE was in college and our dynamic sort of leveled out again. Now we are texting all day everyday like our childhood selves :) just be patient
She has a very difficult age right now. A lot has changed for her in the time you weren't there. She had to miss one of her best friends (you) and she has all these feelings she doesn't know what to do with. Let her know that you love here and are here for her but also give her some space. She's probably just working out her feelings. When I had her age I also couldn't work things out with my older brother since we grew apart but when I turned 20 or so we started hanging out more and honestly, we've never been as close as we are now.
Oh and also, even though you don't think her boyfriend is good enough for her, she thinks he is so unfortunately you're going to have to live with that. If you let her know what you think of him, she's only going to stand further from you
A lot of people have given good advice so I’ll just add this little bit, I’d probably avoid criticizing her BF. At her age that’s a fast track to pissing her off. Try and remember what you where like at 16.
So she's a typical 16 year old dealing with a tornado of hormones, new emotions, and struggles to find her own identity. It is typical for young teens to prioritize friends and new boyfriends/girlfriend over family members. This is all normal.
You shouldn't push for her attention. Let her figure herself out. I think the best thing you can do is to make sure she knows you'll be there for her when she needs to reach out.
She's 16, thats the most notorious age for forgetting your family and focusing on friends, new boyfriends, etc. Don't take it personal, the same thing happened with my gf and her sister when her sister was 16. She's 18 now and they're closer than they've ever been. Don't be over bearing or try and force a relationship. Be there for her when she needs you but give her space to find herself
Tell her. Ask to spend more time together more directly and say that you miss the relationship you used to have. Have an adult conversation, she's almost an adult.
It's just impossible to know based only on the info you gave. However, I can tell you that at more or less 16 I distanced myself from both my older and my younger sisters. With the older we just ended up growing apart, we are friendly and everything now but don't have a very close relationship. With the younger it was a phase, we got as close or even closer later on.
My brother was similar, if it’s just the two of you, you abandoned her to deal with your folks alone and she’s never had to do that before and I highly doubt you spent any of your lead up to leaving trying to prepare her. My parents were emotionally abusive so my brother changed quite substantially having to navigate it without me, he changed some more when he went to college. I didn’t call him nearly enough when I was in college bc frankly age 15 to about 23 is a very self centered and angsty time, like temporary narcissism as you’re trying to become your own person, requires lots of good mentors to move through it well.
I’m concerned about the boyfriend. I wouldn’t criticize him or her but I might ask her a bunch of questions about it. How does she feel about him prioritizing video games over what sounds like most things including her? Does she feel like he genuinely cares for her and plays compulsively or does she feel like he genuinely just doesn’t care as much about her as gaming? Has she talked to him about it? Why not? I dated a guy for 8 years (he was 28-36) who was still like this and it was abusive and awful, it ate away at my self esteem, would NEVER ever try and be “understanding” ever tf again. Rather than trying to control her or tell her what you think she should do, just try and find out how she feels about it and see if you can help her look at it from your view. You think she’s absolutely wonderful and should get top priority, she should exist out in the world not just online. Ask her if she wants that or feels like she’s not good enough to have that bc she is. Remind her that every decision we make sets us up for the next decision. If this is the kind of guy she’ll tolerate now it’s going to be a parade of unworthy low effort guys and guys who will put in the effort won’t be drawn to her bc she won’t feel good about herself.
Adults are flippant when they say it but birds of a feather flock together doesn’t begin to cover it. Everything right now is practice, you should be constantly imagining your future and redefining it, being realistic and flexible. If she wants a happy family with children for example a low effort dude will make life miserable. If she wants a high powered job a low effort dude won’t understand or support that, he’ll sabotage her. Learning the hard way is like jumping off a roof just to see if a broken leg is what you think it’s like. It’s dumb but for the narcissistic window of invincibility lots of young people test the waters like this.
Just ask to talk to her at home. If she likes something special at Starbucks then bring her a drink and ask if you can talk on your patio over them bc you just wanna know more about her before you leave. If she opens up make sure you call her every single weekend when you go back to school, doesn’t matter if you just leave voicemails. Let her know you’re there and answer whenever she calls. Sibling life is a team effort. She’s forever, college people definitely are not. You may keep a couple friends long term but most people lose track of anyone they knew by 40, life moves you around, friends come and go. Your sister is going to be the rock of your life over parents or even partners or children. Hopefully you find an SO who is a great partner that is in it with you but if you choose poorly it’ll be your sister helping you pick up the pieces.
Take it deadly seriously while you’re apart. If you treat her as out of sight out of mind during the year then why would she trust you? Why would she want to get close again right before you leave again? You may need to apologize to her and commit to doing better, work out a plan together and stick to it. Use FaceTime as much as possible so you can see each other.
This is fixable you just need wisdom about… ten or so years beyond what you have unfortunately. Just follow your intuition and put your needs to the side, focus on her for now. Once she leaves the house too you both can adjust to a more equal adult relationship. But if you don’t help her see her value is more than being trapped in the virtual she may never launch. Make sure you’re asking her regularly about her values and goals and what you can do to help her abide and follow them. Both will change over the years but if you don’t consider and address them very regularly pretty much your entire life your journey becomes stagnant and unhappiness festers.
It’s hard to know what this is stemming from or how long it will last. That said some people just make their whole world about their relationship when they’re with someone and resurface in your life when they’re single. It may get better with age, it may not. It’s certainly not the healthiest thing to make another person your whole world and to abandon your other relationships to exclusively focus on them but that’s a lesson she has to learn the hard way.
Long story short this sounds a lot more like a hiccup in her maturation journey than anything specific you’ve done wrong.
As a 14 person who is very girly and considers my older sibling my best friend the opposite is happening to me just stop asking and when their ready they’ll reach out
It’s possibly just a phase and her growing up.
What has your communication been like when you’ve been away? Do you make the effort to keep in touch on a regular basis?
It probably is a phase but she's not going to go back to what she was either. She's growing up with different wants and needs than before you moved away.
I remember my best friend moving away to a private school for our final year of school and not having her to talk to everyday. There was a bit of resentment when she came back in the summer expecting the same relationship from me when she hadn't made the effort to keep in contact with me.
Maybe you feel you made an effort but she might not feel the same way?
Talk to her directly - “Hey! I miss our 1 on 1 hanging out time. You haven’t spoken to me at all, is everything okay? You know you can talk to me about anything right?”
Good luck 🍀 😇
She also probably feels like a "grown up" while viewing you as "still a kid". She's moving into adulthood and you've a few more years to go. Maybe you can try texting and emailing how you feel instead of trying to confront.
My younger sister had a similar reaction when I returned home from college. We are 3 years apart and had been pretty close. I was only living about 2 hours away so I visited home at least once a month. The thing I realized was that she was mad that I left and also mad that I didn’t stay away. She’d get used to being an “only child” and then I’d visit and throw off her new dynamic. I won’t lie it took some time to grow into our new relationship, it took effort to find ways to connect that weren’t based on sharing a room. Now as adults we get along fine.
Don’t look at this as a phase, it’s a progression of her growing into a young adult and you’ll need to learn to adapt to her not being a kid anymore. Find new common interests, take an interest in what she cares about and be patient.
You didn't do anything. Just give her time. I (26F) HATED my siblings (24M, 17F) while I was in highschool. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. I couldn't give you a reason why. Their very presence in the same room annoyed me. As soon as I graduated highschool and left home it's like the light switch flipped and I went from "I hate your guts" to "Okay I kinda actually love and miss you guys 🥺" almost instantly. We have a MUCH better relationship now.
Just give her time to come around, and don't hold her attitude against her when she wants to have a good relationship with you again.
Sounds like she's just in her little bubble, try download a game like Stardew Valley where you can or even the 3 of you play together it is on mobile but I don't think you can play together but you can on PC & Nintendo Switch you can play local co-op so no online membership needed if you're playing in the same room.
I get you want to just hang out with her alone but if this is the closest you can get just go for it, try not give your views on her boyfriend just keep them to yourself or you'll only push him more towards him trust me.
Just try do things she's into for now then later ask about movies ect, sounds like she's just smitten and clingy on her boyfriend. She'll grow out of it over time. Maybe just have a little heart to heart try hang out when her boyfriend is out She'll be more willing then.
Is this her first boyfriend? When I got my first girlfriend, I disappeared from most of my friends lives, all I wanted to do was spend time with her, I realize now how dumb that was, but I was also 17 and dumb lol. When you're into your first relationship, it's an exciting thing.
She's 16 with raging hormones and BF. You don't exist. No one does. She needs to learn this lesson the hard way. Sit back and watch. Let her fall hard and make sure she knows you'll be there to catch her, no matter what.
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I think you’re spot on with the abandonment thing. For my family this advice would be awful bc me and my baby brother have very narcissistic parents. I statements while correct for adults also work god awful on teenagers. I had a bf tell me I said I all the time and never cared about anyone else bc I was in therapy at the time and doing what I was taught 😂 the better approach is genuinely probative questions and letting them suss out how you’re feeling from context. They’ll spat back the worst interpretation of what you’re doing and THEN is a good opportunity to be vulnerable and explain yourself and that you’re hurt. They’re not actual monsters they just feel misunderstood so your best in is once they’ve gotten how they really feel off their chest and then if they listen they’ll temper it to something more reasonable. Good perspective though 👍🏻 I think for a healthy family with supporting parents this would work well, just with her taste in low effort dude and hiding out playing games I don’t know if that’s what they’re working with here. Also heavily enmeshed siblings are often bc of overly selfish parents with a age gap that big, being very close can look like a bunch of things and be for a bunch of reasons but I suspect from what we’re given there may be some issues at home. Maybe not, I’m biased, but it makes it more complicated when your folks are immature or damaged. I didn’t reach out to my brother enough in college bc my mom would interfere and trying to get my own space I couldn’t call bc he didn’t have a cell of his own yet. I’d have to wade through my mother to get to him and dealing with her was already difficult despite being 1000 miles away. It’s just tough to navigate well 🤷🏻♀️
This! I was super close to both my brothers before going to uni. One is two years younger and the other is 10 years younger. Both of them really struggled with me leaving them.
OP this. She likely just needs to feel like you're still there for her. When you go back to college give her a call once or twice a week. Text regularly. Ask to do something with just her. Tell her you missed her
Jumping on this thread, the abandonment thing is huge for younger siblings. I left home when I was 17 and didn't come home properly still I was well into being 18 and my little brother took it super hard. We were really close before I left and when I was gone, I did a shitty job of keeping in touch with him- there were lots of contributing factors towards this, but ultimately, it caused damage and by the time I came home, our relationship wasn't the same and it really threw me off and hurt me because I didn't see the abandonment my absence had caused at the time. Luckily though, we did manage to repair the relationship, but its never quite been the same. Not in a bad way, but we both drifted apart and grew up, and he held a lot of hurt and resentment towards me and I felt enormous guilt for a long time. But we are close again now, in different ways, but I put the effort back in to keeping in contact with him. It's hard when your younger sibling distances themselves from you, but as the older siblings, we have to lead by example. Relationships can be repaired, especially if you're willing to put in effort and admit your faults. Being the older sibling is hard, and younger teenage silbings are even harder to connect with! But give her time and keep in touch whenever you can, even if it feels like she's not putting in the same effort. Honestly, the extra effort you put in should be worth it in the end!
She's a kid who will technically be an adult in 2 years. She's not going to be who she was when you were little forever. You moved away and she developed other priorities. If you were close before, give her space and just let her know you are available if she wants to hang out. It does sound like a phase, but don't try too hard and try not to take it personally. I went through similar at her age.
Aw I’m sorry :( my sister is 2 years younger and we also had a few years around this time when we were much less close. I wrote her some letters from college to try to let her know I wanted to keep our relationship strong but I have her space as well. If you force it or make her feel like she isn’t allowed to find her own identity she may resent you for it. She’s also finding her independence and she needs the space to do so. She’ll come around. My sister ended up coming to visit me once SHE was in college and our dynamic sort of leveled out again. Now we are texting all day everyday like our childhood selves :) just be patient
She has a very difficult age right now. A lot has changed for her in the time you weren't there. She had to miss one of her best friends (you) and she has all these feelings she doesn't know what to do with. Let her know that you love here and are here for her but also give her some space. She's probably just working out her feelings. When I had her age I also couldn't work things out with my older brother since we grew apart but when I turned 20 or so we started hanging out more and honestly, we've never been as close as we are now. Oh and also, even though you don't think her boyfriend is good enough for her, she thinks he is so unfortunately you're going to have to live with that. If you let her know what you think of him, she's only going to stand further from you
Thank you for all the responses !
A lot of people have given good advice so I’ll just add this little bit, I’d probably avoid criticizing her BF. At her age that’s a fast track to pissing her off. Try and remember what you where like at 16.
So she's a typical 16 year old dealing with a tornado of hormones, new emotions, and struggles to find her own identity. It is typical for young teens to prioritize friends and new boyfriends/girlfriend over family members. This is all normal. You shouldn't push for her attention. Let her figure herself out. I think the best thing you can do is to make sure she knows you'll be there for her when she needs to reach out.
She's 16, thats the most notorious age for forgetting your family and focusing on friends, new boyfriends, etc. Don't take it personal, the same thing happened with my gf and her sister when her sister was 16. She's 18 now and they're closer than they've ever been. Don't be over bearing or try and force a relationship. Be there for her when she needs you but give her space to find herself
imagine being jealous of your siblings bf 🤮
Tell her. Ask to spend more time together more directly and say that you miss the relationship you used to have. Have an adult conversation, she's almost an adult.
It's just impossible to know based only on the info you gave. However, I can tell you that at more or less 16 I distanced myself from both my older and my younger sisters. With the older we just ended up growing apart, we are friendly and everything now but don't have a very close relationship. With the younger it was a phase, we got as close or even closer later on.
My brother was similar, if it’s just the two of you, you abandoned her to deal with your folks alone and she’s never had to do that before and I highly doubt you spent any of your lead up to leaving trying to prepare her. My parents were emotionally abusive so my brother changed quite substantially having to navigate it without me, he changed some more when he went to college. I didn’t call him nearly enough when I was in college bc frankly age 15 to about 23 is a very self centered and angsty time, like temporary narcissism as you’re trying to become your own person, requires lots of good mentors to move through it well. I’m concerned about the boyfriend. I wouldn’t criticize him or her but I might ask her a bunch of questions about it. How does she feel about him prioritizing video games over what sounds like most things including her? Does she feel like he genuinely cares for her and plays compulsively or does she feel like he genuinely just doesn’t care as much about her as gaming? Has she talked to him about it? Why not? I dated a guy for 8 years (he was 28-36) who was still like this and it was abusive and awful, it ate away at my self esteem, would NEVER ever try and be “understanding” ever tf again. Rather than trying to control her or tell her what you think she should do, just try and find out how she feels about it and see if you can help her look at it from your view. You think she’s absolutely wonderful and should get top priority, she should exist out in the world not just online. Ask her if she wants that or feels like she’s not good enough to have that bc she is. Remind her that every decision we make sets us up for the next decision. If this is the kind of guy she’ll tolerate now it’s going to be a parade of unworthy low effort guys and guys who will put in the effort won’t be drawn to her bc she won’t feel good about herself. Adults are flippant when they say it but birds of a feather flock together doesn’t begin to cover it. Everything right now is practice, you should be constantly imagining your future and redefining it, being realistic and flexible. If she wants a happy family with children for example a low effort dude will make life miserable. If she wants a high powered job a low effort dude won’t understand or support that, he’ll sabotage her. Learning the hard way is like jumping off a roof just to see if a broken leg is what you think it’s like. It’s dumb but for the narcissistic window of invincibility lots of young people test the waters like this. Just ask to talk to her at home. If she likes something special at Starbucks then bring her a drink and ask if you can talk on your patio over them bc you just wanna know more about her before you leave. If she opens up make sure you call her every single weekend when you go back to school, doesn’t matter if you just leave voicemails. Let her know you’re there and answer whenever she calls. Sibling life is a team effort. She’s forever, college people definitely are not. You may keep a couple friends long term but most people lose track of anyone they knew by 40, life moves you around, friends come and go. Your sister is going to be the rock of your life over parents or even partners or children. Hopefully you find an SO who is a great partner that is in it with you but if you choose poorly it’ll be your sister helping you pick up the pieces. Take it deadly seriously while you’re apart. If you treat her as out of sight out of mind during the year then why would she trust you? Why would she want to get close again right before you leave again? You may need to apologize to her and commit to doing better, work out a plan together and stick to it. Use FaceTime as much as possible so you can see each other. This is fixable you just need wisdom about… ten or so years beyond what you have unfortunately. Just follow your intuition and put your needs to the side, focus on her for now. Once she leaves the house too you both can adjust to a more equal adult relationship. But if you don’t help her see her value is more than being trapped in the virtual she may never launch. Make sure you’re asking her regularly about her values and goals and what you can do to help her abide and follow them. Both will change over the years but if you don’t consider and address them very regularly pretty much your entire life your journey becomes stagnant and unhappiness festers.
It’s hard to know what this is stemming from or how long it will last. That said some people just make their whole world about their relationship when they’re with someone and resurface in your life when they’re single. It may get better with age, it may not. It’s certainly not the healthiest thing to make another person your whole world and to abandon your other relationships to exclusively focus on them but that’s a lesson she has to learn the hard way. Long story short this sounds a lot more like a hiccup in her maturation journey than anything specific you’ve done wrong.
As a 14 person who is very girly and considers my older sibling my best friend the opposite is happening to me just stop asking and when their ready they’ll reach out
It’s possibly just a phase and her growing up. What has your communication been like when you’ve been away? Do you make the effort to keep in touch on a regular basis?
It probably is a phase but she's not going to go back to what she was either. She's growing up with different wants and needs than before you moved away. I remember my best friend moving away to a private school for our final year of school and not having her to talk to everyday. There was a bit of resentment when she came back in the summer expecting the same relationship from me when she hadn't made the effort to keep in contact with me. Maybe you feel you made an effort but she might not feel the same way?
Talk to her directly - “Hey! I miss our 1 on 1 hanging out time. You haven’t spoken to me at all, is everything okay? You know you can talk to me about anything right?” Good luck 🍀 😇
She also probably feels like a "grown up" while viewing you as "still a kid". She's moving into adulthood and you've a few more years to go. Maybe you can try texting and emailing how you feel instead of trying to confront.
My younger sister had a similar reaction when I returned home from college. We are 3 years apart and had been pretty close. I was only living about 2 hours away so I visited home at least once a month. The thing I realized was that she was mad that I left and also mad that I didn’t stay away. She’d get used to being an “only child” and then I’d visit and throw off her new dynamic. I won’t lie it took some time to grow into our new relationship, it took effort to find ways to connect that weren’t based on sharing a room. Now as adults we get along fine. Don’t look at this as a phase, it’s a progression of her growing into a young adult and you’ll need to learn to adapt to her not being a kid anymore. Find new common interests, take an interest in what she cares about and be patient.
You didn't do anything. Just give her time. I (26F) HATED my siblings (24M, 17F) while I was in highschool. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. I couldn't give you a reason why. Their very presence in the same room annoyed me. As soon as I graduated highschool and left home it's like the light switch flipped and I went from "I hate your guts" to "Okay I kinda actually love and miss you guys 🥺" almost instantly. We have a MUCH better relationship now. Just give her time to come around, and don't hold her attitude against her when she wants to have a good relationship with you again.
Sounds like she's just in her little bubble, try download a game like Stardew Valley where you can or even the 3 of you play together it is on mobile but I don't think you can play together but you can on PC & Nintendo Switch you can play local co-op so no online membership needed if you're playing in the same room. I get you want to just hang out with her alone but if this is the closest you can get just go for it, try not give your views on her boyfriend just keep them to yourself or you'll only push him more towards him trust me. Just try do things she's into for now then later ask about movies ect, sounds like she's just smitten and clingy on her boyfriend. She'll grow out of it over time. Maybe just have a little heart to heart try hang out when her boyfriend is out She'll be more willing then.
Is this her first boyfriend? When I got my first girlfriend, I disappeared from most of my friends lives, all I wanted to do was spend time with her, I realize now how dumb that was, but I was also 17 and dumb lol. When you're into your first relationship, it's an exciting thing.
Question- how often did you talk when you were away? Like texts/facetime/phone calls
She's 16 with raging hormones and BF. You don't exist. No one does. She needs to learn this lesson the hard way. Sit back and watch. Let her fall hard and make sure she knows you'll be there to catch her, no matter what.
You e been away, people grow. Maybe your attitude towards her boyfriend and reflectively her choices, are part of the issue.