All sorts of defense mechanisms arise when we speak of how our sibling relates to us in different social contexts with them. One that is seldom discussed, but tends to happen to some of us is what’s called ambiguity. As we’ll come to see, ambiguity can be a power play that our sibling may further use against us, as a means of weaponizing the relationship in yet another way that can leave us bewildered.
Our siblings can say all sorts of things about us and to us, when it comes to their defense mechanisms being activated. Many of us are familiar with the diatribe and the hurtful words coming from them. Other times, it can be a pulling away that leaves us wondering just what we’ve said and done to have caused this. And as we’ve seen before, the silent treatment can be used as a weapon.
But for others, it can be about the ambiguous nature of what they bring up that can cause awkwardness and blame to arise. While it’s true that silences can be deafening in sibling relationships, ambiguity can further serve to create more obscuring of what’s actually at play.
Whenever something we hear or see is ambiguous, we tend to fill in the gaps with our own conclusions. Think of the familiar experiment where we see partial numbers or letters, and yet still are able to read and make sense of what is conveyed. The same goes for ambiguity, only by its nature, those gaps can be filled with something worse.
If a sibling uses this defense strategy, it can come off as something that happened, which was never talked about, but that the other person, usually us, are supposed to know about. And when this is mentioned, it brings up an insinuation that we did or said something wrong that was never corrected or repaired. Usually, people around us that hear this ambiguity tend to step away, and give credence to what our sibling said, while respecting the confidential nature of what this implies.
And herein lies the trap. By backing away, other people may not realize it, but it further solidifies the apparentness that our sibling is denouncing an unjust action, when in fact, they are making use of ambiguity to get further lost in their feelings by feeding the estrangement through their defense mechanisms.
Because primitive and neurotic defense mechanisms can be irrational, questioning them further on ambiguity may bring about the house of cards effect, where it all ends up falling apart when put under the light of scrutiny. This is why baseless assertions need to be denounced by asking questions such as “what do you mean?” Or “can you give an example of this so I can understand?” This can serve as a way to bring this falsehood to light.
And special attention needs to be said of matriarchs or patriarchs in families that choose to say nothing. When you don’t actively speak up and denounce this type of behavior in your family, being the parent, you’re actually enabling this power play to continue, because ambiguity wins over when nothing is said or brought out in the open. Or worse, siding with the apparent hurt sibling only further feeds into triangulation with the other sibling who may be waiting to clear the air by simply talking openly about the hurt.
So let’s be careful about what ambiguity can do in sibling relationships. Leaving it to fester will only strengthen ego defense mechanisms and further divide us into estrangement. And for those of us going through it, asking questions can be good, but let’s recognize that our sibling’s defense mechanisms may be too strong for a conversation to be had. This incompleteness is often what we are left to work through. And if we can’t work directly with them on repairing this, we may be left to do the indirect work on this through disowning this and recognizing that it was never about us, but our sibling’s entanglement into their own unhealthy experience.
Ali-John Chaudhary is a Registered Psychotherapist with offices in Ontario and Quebec. He helps clients from different parts of the world going through sibling estrangement issues, and produces YouTube videos on the same subject, with Author Fern Schumer Chapman. He also hosts a twice-monthly online support group, thematic sessions, and immersive workshops, each on Zoom (see groups), for those looking to empower themselves with this rarely discussed subject.
Sibling Estrangement 