PATREON EXCLUSIVE: What Impact Does Growing Up With Sisters Have On Your Dating Life?

I grew up with an older sister. Basically, she was the boss and I stayed out of her way. Perhaps that along with being deathly afraid of bing made fun of for spending any time with girls at a young age made me fear women up until about 16 years old. Presently at age 31, I find myself being attracted to women with strong, but friendly personalities. I like women that display some courage, have well-educated opinions on matters, and have some degree of self-sufficiency because they like to take matters into their own hands and not be helpless damsels.

ActOnInstinct

Hey peeps. I've got 5 sisters. 4 Older, 1 younger. All the relationships are positive. Though the youngest was a pain in the ass growing up, she's gotten much better. I would assume that a lot of the success I've had with women is due to all this feminine knowledge being subconsciously absorbed. I'm super grateful, and I feel like this is an endorsement for large families. Go make babies!

Oliver Brossmann

Woah, you're actually serious about attempted murder?! But that was years ago right? What's your relationship with your younger sister like now? Would she still try to do you some violence? XD Usually younger sister - older brother sibling relationships are the most peaceful.

Ashwin Srinivas

This video helped me realize that I essentially got the full package of: - An entitled mother who put down my dad at every opportunity - A father who shamed me for showing any emotion whatsoever - An older brother who "didn't want me to end up like him" which lead to some funny situations - An older sister who took out her negative emotions on me - A younger sister the bad behavior of whom I got punished for because "I'm older and therefore know better" Kinda explains why I can't help being so mad at everything with no intent of sharing the emotions with anyone. Some of the listed relationships have either healed or are healing as we speak but the damage has certainly been done and I will definitely seek psychotherapy as soon as I acquire the money to do so, because hot damn if this isn't a bummer and a half for my 19-year-old brain to process.

I have two sisters, one older (3.5 years) and one younger (3 years). My older sister was mostly neutral/neglectful toward me, particularly in the form of verbal putdowns, though there were occasionally positive interactions growing up. Our relationship has improved a lot in recent years, though she still has a tendency toward being self-absorbed and not really seeing other people's problems (not just mine, but everyone's). She has mood swings and likely suffers from a mild case of bipolar disorder as well as narcissism. My younger sister... that's been 100% negative interactions, no exceptions. She has always been extremely hateful, violent and aggressive. It is highly likely she suffers from psychopathy/ASPD. As we were growing up, she engaged in physical violence against me pretty much daily, and has attempted to murder me dozens of times; strangling, drowning, stabbings, shootings - she's tried them all and more. One time she snuck into my room while I slept and tried to strangle me to death, but I woke up and kicked her out. There was a reason I learned martial arts from an early age, and it wasn't for entertainment. Up until I moved away from home at age 20, there were daily negative interactions, and pretty much every time we've encountered each other since they have continued, though gradually becoming less and less extreme. I try to avoid engaging with her as much as possible. As for my mother, she's a narcissist with what is likely to be various behavioral disorders and mistreated all three of us siblings as well as my father in various ways. She always turned a blind eye to my younger sister's violence and would often deny anything had happened even if it happened literally right in front of her eyes mere minutes earlier. Good luck trying to get her to admit to anything all these years later. It was all about outward appearances to her; other people couldn't know there was anything wrong with the family, but in private she was constantly harmful to everyone. Add to all that, as an adult I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, which doesn't exactly mix well with all the stuff the females in my family had going on. In all likelihood, my father likewise has Asperger's Syndrome, though he has never been officially diagnosed. So, yeah... pretty sure my family life is one of the reasons I haven't had much success with dating. I had my first relationship at age 22, and that lasted all of 3-4 months, ending when she dumped me to get back together with her abusive ex-boyfriend, to the protests of all her friends who thought I was a much better match. I had an even shorter one about a year later with a woman who lied to me in order to get me into bed (she was one of those women who couldn't be without a relationship). Though I of course attempted to date, I didn't really engage with another woman sexually again until I was... 28 or 29? I thought things were going well, there, but it turned out she lied to me in order to get me into bed for a one night stand, and dumped me the day after. While I have dated once or twice in the years since, it's never really led anywhere. I am currently 36 and I haven't actively looked for a relationship in years, though I am not adverse to one should the right woman happen to come along. And no, I am not looking for pity, though it is nice to get some stuff off my chest.

Good on you and your brother for listening. My husband and I tried to warn my brother about his GF (now wife) but he did not listen.

Find all these topics interesting. This one helped me to understand my father more. My grandmother died when my father was seven. He was very relaxed with women, will say of every makeup. He was youngest and had seven sisters. Three of these were old enough to be his mother. He did say about himself he was spoiled. Father was playful and protective of loved ones around him. Will add friends. This was in an open way.

Domald

I am the oldest of 3. I am 22, I have a younger sister of 20 and a younger brother who is 17. My younger sister is asexual whereas I have been with one guy since I was 14. My brother who is 17 got with a girl when they were 13 and they broke up about half a year ago. He was staying over at mine one night after having an argument with my mum and walking out the house and we were talking about some stuff. He went on his phone and his face looked like he saw something terrible, I asked him if he was okay? He said his current gf kept sending him these videos of these apps and services that you can pay to see who your boyfriend has been texting to make sure he isn't cheating. I told him that wasn't okay and she is acting very paranoid and to have a calm discussion with her about it. He messaged her asking her why she sent that and she said "I dunno, why are you hiding something from me, are you taking to other girls ffs?" And I told him to demand respect and tell her that she wouldn't be comfortable being accused and that her behaviour was appalling. Long story short, this girl was really awful to my brother, he is a good looking lad and she would tell him horrible things to bring him down. He had the tiniest bit of acne and she would say that most girls wouldn't want a guy with acne but she was nice so she would let him off the hook. I said to my brother, if things were the other way round and my bf was acting the way your gf was acting with me then what would you say to me? My brother said "I'd tell you to dump him"... I said "Exactly!". He dumped her and she went psycho spreading all kinds of rumours around school about him and he was really upset about it but he is sooo much happier 6 months on and you can tell he is doing so much better. My mum encouraged him to stay with his gf because she was "loved him" but he didn't love her so I told him it is his life and he doesn't owe anyone a thing otherwise he would end up resentful. I worry me being in a LTR might have caused this problem as he was copying me. Difference is I am happy xxx

Alisha

I come from a family of 3 brothers and 1 sister, me being the second youngest and my sister being the second oldest, 4 years apart. Being the only girl, my parents were pretty protective of her and so my brothers and I learned to keep our distance. Otherwise, if we made her upset in any way, she'd go bawling to Mom and Dad. Also, if she didn't want to do something we were going to do as a family, it would get called off just on account of her. So there were times when I hated her. But it wasn't all like that, because I do remember playing stories with her sometimes and having a blast. As we got older, we reconnected and are now very close. What's interesting is that she almost acts like a little sister to me, perhaps it's because she's been so used to my parents taking care of her. Anyway, she now comes to me to tell me everything that's going on in her life and ask for advice. Also, whenever we've gone to somewhere new together, she always has me lead. But that's kind of just who I am. I see people's needs and I feel like I need to fix them or encourage them or help them. It's even happened that I've felt burdened to pick up the slack of my parents for all my siblings. Anyway, how it's affected my dating life is that I feel I shouldn't get close to girls. I still will never touch them for anything but a handshake, since my sister hated being touched. It's also still hard not to feel like girls' moods and girls in general are fragile and so will use that to manipulate you to prevent you from doing what you want.

I have a half brother who is 10 years younger than me. At 13, he walked me down the aisle when I got married (because my dad was physically unable to do so). By the time he was old enough to ask for dating advice - he was friends with and respected my husband, so he usually asked him more than me. Sadly, he didn’t listen and is married to a girl who is…. meh. As for how I might have influenced him outside of him asking direct questions/advice - I’m not entirely sure. I was so much older and not around or involved in his life very much. I see much more of my step mother’s influence in his behavior/decisions/perspectives. Also, my half sister is 18 years younger than me (8 years younger than him). I suspect being a big brother to her influenced him in different ways, but not sure how exactly. That said, I did always wonder if my getting married, his friendship with my husband, his involvement in our wedding, etc. affected him in some way because he always seemed really driven to marry even in his late teens/early 20s. He married at 23/24.

I smiled while I read your post because it was very nostalgic for me. I have a brother who is 1,5 years younger than me and we foguht a lot too, even physically. We stopped beating each other when he became undeniably stronger than me in his teens. :D Although we fought as siblings always do, we always deffended each other against others. I think I'm lucky that I have a brother with such a little age gap because it made it easier for me to relate to men. We are still close to each other and he doesn't live far away so we can see each other frequently luckily. I hope you will be able to have a family reunion soon. :)

Liandra

Did his advice help?

Alexander Grace

I guess you might need practice being friends with the opposite gender as children before sexual feeling develop?

Alexander Grace

Woman have feeling what they like, but usually they omit and dissmiss a lot of things as making them look bad or superficial.

Ignas

I have a younger sister who is 9 years younger than me. I am 23 and she is now 14 and only in the last couple years did I notice and affect on my dating life. When she was smaller I didn't really have a hand in her upbringing and because of the age gap there wasn't alot for us to do together but she is slowly maturing in a way where it felt relevant for me to give advice and set boundaries and be part of making her an adult and it has had a significant effect on me understanding what healthy masculinity is. Our relationship is really good and I really naturally act towards her with a protective caring energy and I'm not afraid to set boundaries and tell her when she did something wrong. So much so that when I was trying to figure out how to act around women (in the past) my friend (who watches this channel) out right said just act like you act to your little sister.

Tomer Shamay

As someone who grew up with no sisters or female cousins, I think this negatively impacted my ability to form female friendships. I've only been able to be friends with my friends' wives. I tried to take AG's advice and make female friends after my divorce, but the one single woman I thought was a friend was actually an orbiter. I found out when she got mad at me and stopped talking to me when I told her I went on a date. We had been chatting for 6 months, and met each other twice. This makes me still have a hard time believing men and women can be friends when both are single. My girlfriend agrees with me, and I don't think it's a coincidence that she has no brothers or male cousins. All of her male friends are married. So from my experience, it seems the reverse situation is true for women with no brothers.

Shameless self promotion: I was the one who asked the question! Thanks for the answer AG! I started thinking about how things have affected me psychologically and consequently shaped me into what I am today and this was obviously one important aspect of it so I'm glad I got AG's opinion on it. As for my personal example, I have a sister who is about 14-15 months older than me and I think she has indeed shaped the way I see women and what traits I find attractive. So, first of all, we always fought right from growing up and I mean, we fought physically, we would watch WWE together and traded blows and we were equally matched as kids. But as time went on, society told me that it's wrong to hit girls or whatever so I just kinda stopped...hahah. But the impact this has ad on me is that I view women as equal to men and any notion of inequality and why women were complaining about being seen as less and problems like "mansplaining", "being afraid to go out at night" etc did not properly register until my early 20s! But the remnant of that still remains in that I do value equality in ability among other things in the woman I would be attracted to. Secondly, she was pretty loud and bellicose. Growing up, I got used to it and developed the ability to brush off nagging and come back with witty replies to put her in her place and hence I found that these women that would be dismissed by other guys as "too masculine" did not really repel me as much. For reasons still unknown to me, she would get really triggered whenever I tried to wear her clothes! We had somewhat unisexual clothes growing up. So, overall, I feel like she made me more tolerant of these relatively masculine traits in a woman in ambition, competitiveness, trading insults like guys do etc. In fact, I would mainly be attrated to that higher achieveing and ambitious woman. This might be another reason why I was slower to catch on when AG and other dating/relationship coaches advised guys to look for that nurturing femininity. Had to think harder than usual about that. But it's been 2.5 years since I've seen my sister because we've been on different continents for a while and lockdown isn't facilitating a family reunion! hahaha. Oh well, I'm glad I got to introspect about this.

Ashwin Srinivas

I have three younger sisters who are all married and in the child rearing industry. Never wanted any of that, having grown up the oldest of 6. All of their husbands make more money than them, and some are now retired. All basic lethal traditional suburban lifestyles. Never thought any had anything to share.

Roger Hayden

I remember asking advice from my sisters and everything they told me was oh, show her you care, show her you want her etc and it always failed ThAts when I learned never take advice from women because they don’t even know what they want, now here I am at 24 years old, all my sisters are promiscuous and single, one of them is in a toxic relationship but is to blind to see it and anything we tell her she gets upset and leaves with him