Relationship with Cousin

LegacyUser

Hey all.

I've never paid any attention to this until recently and it's starting to get me down. There is absolutely no relationship between me and my cousin. We live under the same roof and we havent talked to eachother in years and never really paid attention to eachother. Basically she does her thing and I do mine and its not that we dont get along or annoy eachother its just we dont communicate at all. The worst part is we have alot of mutual friends and they wonder why we never talk to eachother.

whats your thoughts on this? have you had a similar relationship? and how you went about changing it?

thnx

leggo

My first thought is thank god this topic isn't what I thought it'd be about!

These things are a day by day process. When you live with someone, though, it's generally easier to push the reset button as you see them on a day-to-day basis.

So since you're the one who's identified the problem, I'd say you should be the one to make the first move. It can be something as simple as, "How was your day?" and asking them simple, straightforward questions out of nothing but curiosity that can get the ball rolling. Try that and see how it goes.

Btw what age are both of you? If you're in your teens then not talking to anyone else in the house is fairly standard and not something to really worry about. But it's good that you're still deciding to try and re-build the bridge here nonetheless.

Aibreann

hm, when I saw the title thought was something else .

I have some cousins too that are not the best friends of mine. We were the same year in high school and we were never close, just some hello on the school halls ... it happens sometimes

LegacyUser

haha after i posted,i realised the title was abit ''misleading''. Ye we're in our teens,we used to be fairly close cousins when we were younger but my family moved for a couple of years and we lost the connection then when we moved back its been like that. I don't know,feels like an ordinary 'wats d craic,wat are you up to?' would be abit out of the blue.

cafecolour

I think the best way is to wait until you have something relatively minor but that you really want to talk to someone about (ie some ****ty thing that happened at work, or the cute guy in the shop). And just start talking about it to her at home.

That way, the energy of the anecdote sort of carries you past the awkwardness, and ideally you can ask her for a little bit of advice or something. It doesn't have to be long, but just to start getting back into the habit of sharing with each other.

If you try and start a convo without having something specific to talk about, besides the idea that you want to talk, it might just end up being stilted.

cherryred

i used to be the same with my sister, try a small jesture.

For example if you're cooking something, make too much and shout to her "hey I've loads of this left help yourself" or "do you want some of this?" and bring her a bowl.

Or if you're going to the shop as your leaving shout "do you want something?"

keep at it, when your making tea/having a biscuit/having icecream ask her if she wants one, even if you're shouting through a wall.

Be brave, if she's in anyway nice she'll start doing it back.

mobilecore

Op,
are you irish?
this story sounds familiar.