Season 7: Episode 168

In this episode, host Wendy Green sits down with author and sibling relationship expert, Fern Schumer Chapman, to dive into the challenges of family estrangement and the journey toward reconciliation. Together, they uncover the impact of estrangement on family dynamics, identity, and self-esteem, and share personal experiences that shed light on the complexities of rebuilding relationships with estranged siblings. This episode is a candid exploration of sibling relationships and the power of resilience in overcoming estrangement.

Guest Bio

Fern Schumer Chapman's childhood was filled with loss and trauma, as her mother, a Holocaust refugee, struggled to cope with her own past. Raised in a home where she and her brother fended for themselves, Fern's experiences shaped her understanding of family dysfunction and the impact of trauma on relationships.

Her mother's inability to model a successful relationship or navigate differences led to estrangement, a common response to family dysfunction. Fern's personal experiences have informed her work as an author and advocate, and she is committed to raising awareness and understanding of the complex issues surrounding estrangement and family dynamics.

Episode Overview:

In this episode, Wendy Green engages in a meaningful discussion with Fern Schumer Chapman, author of "Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation," as they explore the emotional complexities of sibling estrangement. Fern shares her personal journey of rebuilding a relationship with her brother after decades of estrangement and offers valuable insights into the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and familial trauma on sibling relationships. The conversation delves into the challenges, emotions, and valuable lessons learned from the process of rekindling a family bond.

Episode Takeaways:

1. Sibling estrangement is a commonly experienced yet stigmatized issue, affecting approximately 1 in 3 people, and can have a significant impact on family dynamics and individual well-being.

2. Rebuilding a relationship with a distant sibling requires patience, face-to-face communication, and a willingness to acknowledge and set aside the pain and anger of the past. This process can be challenging and time-consuming.

3. Trauma and mental illness, such as PTSD, can be common risk factors for sibling estrangement, and it's important to understand the impact of these factors on family relationships.

4. Parents can play a role in preventing sibling estrangement by avoiding favoritism, modeling conflict resolution, and negotiation skills for their children.

5. When managing a relationship with a difficult sibling, options range from complete estrangement to limited, superficial interactions, requiring careful consideration of safety and personal well-being.

Call to Action:

Connect with Fern Schumer Chapman:

- Website: https://fernschumerchapman.com

- Email: fernschumer@gmail.com

Join the conversation and share your thoughts about sibling estrangement with us on social media using #HeyBoomer.

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And welcome to Hey Boomer. My name is Wendy Greene, and I am your host for Hey Boomer. And at hey, boomer, we are changing the conversation about getting older. We are not looking at at Looking at it as declining, we see it as the opening of a potentially exciting new and vibrant chapter. A time for exploration, self expression, and learning. And happy New Year to everybody. I hope everybody had a good holiday, and I have missed you all. And I've also used this time to not only rest and rejuvenate, But also to do some planning for the coming year.

And today, I am kicking off season 7 of Hey Boomer. And for the month of January, we are going to be doing a deep dive into family dynamics, Relationships and communication. The show I did a couple of months ago with doctor Joshua Coleman about Parent child estrangement had more downloads than any show we've ever done before. And that showed me That there's a lot of interest and a lot of hurt and a big need to talk about these things. And since I announced today's episode with Fern Schumer Chapman about sibling estrangement, I have received a lot of comments and emails from people who are struggling with similar situations. So I know this is going to be a well received, episode. So are you someone who loves your family members, but maybe you don't really like them? Well, you're not alone. We don't get to handpick our siblings, our cousins, our aunts, our uncles, even our parents, and we don't get to choose The family that we are raised in.

Yet the dynamics of these interactions shape us and can influence the relationships Beyond the family. For those of us with siblings, we understand the the bonds formed through, you know, childhood squabbles childhood games and some of those family jokes that only resonate with people with inside the family, and and the shared history Becomes an integral part of our identity, and and we often romanticize Family sibling relationships from storybooks and TV shows and movies where brothers and sisters Embark on these great adventures, and they always seem to have each other's back. Yeah. Maybe they have a little argument here and there, but They seem inseparable by the end of the show or the end of the story. However, real life dynamics, We know can be remarkably different. I mean, modern day, take for instance the royals, prince William and Henry, or the decade long estrangement that Julia Roberts and her brother Eric had. And even Hollywood legends and sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Paviland remained at odds for over 4 decades. Reconciliation with an estranged sibling is is also fraught with challenges.

It's it's a journey rife with Risks with reasons to reconcile and reasons not to reconcile and, you know, lots of confusion and emotional pain. So today, I'll be talking with Fern Schumer Chapman about her estrangement and reconciliation with her brother And what she has learned not only through her own experience, but also through the research that she's done in writing the book, Brothers, sisters, strangers, sibling estrangement, and the road to reconciliation. You can see I've done a lot of marking up and marking pages in this book.

But before

I bring her on, I wanna let you know about a new way to engage with Hey Boomer. I call it the Boomer Believers group. I know you love what we are doing on the Hey Boomer show, the inspiration and the learning that is being shared, The growing awareness that we're all on a journey to age in healthy and meaningful ways. And you wanna support the continued growth of this podcast. I I know that you do. You keep sharing it out. You keep commenting, But you also wanna go deeper. You want to talk with some of the guests.

Ask them questions. Engage them in conversation. When you become a Boomer believer, you get to have a monthly Zoom meeting with one of the Hey Boomer guests from that month. You'll also get access to the monthly Boomer banter virtual meetings that meet once a month. You'll receive a hey, boomer ball cap that we all love. You will get recognition during the Podcast when you become a new Boomer believer, and you'll get special recognition on your birthday if you'd like. You can join by going to buy meacoffee.com/heyboomer 0413. Our 1st Boomer believer for 2024 is Leon Mott.

So thank you for your support, for believing in Hey Boomer, and I look forward to seeing more of you on the 1st Boomer Believer Zoom On January 30th, the last Tuesday of the month. Hello, Fern.

Hello. Hello, Wendy.

Good to see you. Let me do a real quick introduction. Fern Schumer Chapman is the author of several books, including the one I mentioned, brothers, sisters, strangers, sibling estrangement and the road to reconciliation, and the sibling estrangement journal, a guided exploration of your experience through writing. She's also the author of a memoir called Motherland. It's a story about a trip she took with her mother to visit the small town her mother came from in Germany. Her mother was sent away as an unaccompanied minor when the Nazis were moving in. As a journalist and reporter, Ferne's work has appeared in many publications, including the Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Washington Post, US News and World Report, Fortune, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. And Fern offers Private 1 on 1 coaching sessions to those who struggle with sibling estrangement.

So you'll want to stay tuned for How to reach out to her at the end of this podcast. So, Fern, briefly, Can you tell us you know, from the beginning of your book, you talked about your mother's experience a little bit. Can you tell us how Her experience and and your experience in the family contributed to the estrangement.

Estrangement is typically an expression of family dysfunction and The family system's way of relating to one another. And my mother was a Holocaust refugee who was sent at the age of 12 as an unaccompanied minor from Germany to America. She was placed with a relative, and it was a rather unloving Placement. She had so much loss and that she really didn't know how to parent herself. And When she had my brother and me, she couldn't model a successful relationship. She couldn't model how to navigate differences. And so my brother and I were raised in a home where we were fending for ourselves. Trauma is a risk factor for estrangement, and my childhood, sadly, was filled with that as my mother was trying to cope With all of the losses she had endured in childhood.

Yeah. And so when you became adults, you and your brother were estranged for About 40 years. Is that right?

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And how long have you

that is a long time. How long have you been reconciled? About

15 years now.

Oh, you're not a psychotherapist, and you did not set you did not set out To be a sibling estrangement

specialist. Okay. No. I was pretty overwhelmed myself with the problems. So, this has all been kind of a, trying to to to build the airplane as I'm flying it. Wow.

So tell us about the journey of writing this book, of doing the research and living through it.

Well, estrangement affects every family member. And my mother my father was had passed a while ago, and my mother Was caught in the middle of this thing. My brother had struggled with all sorts of issues, Alcoholism and depression for a long time. And my mother had a limited relationship with him and stayed in contact, but he really did not want to keep a close connection in part because he was hiding his vices. And so one day, my mother called him and discovered he sounded horrible. And She then didn't know what to do, and so she left a voice mail on my phone and Ask me to step in and intervene. Now this seemed like a preposterous request to me because I had not had A civil conversation with him in decades. I saw him at funerals and weddings, and they sort of eyed each other across the room, but that was the extent of

Yeah.

And the book actually starts at that moment. What do I do? What are my responsibilities in A relationship that I haven't had for decades, what do I owe my mother? What do I owe the family? And these questions really Play me. I didn't know how to think about what I really needed to do. So I did what Probably many would do, which is I said thought to myself, okay. Fine. You know, he's not gonna answer the phone anyway. So I will just Charge my obligation to my mother and move on. Well, this was 2014, and I Called him, and, of course, he did not answer the phone.

And I thought, great. Off the hook. I did my part. And 5 later, The phone is ringing, and it's his name, the phone. Yeah. And that began this process of Reintroducing ourselves to each other and my trying to help him through a very dark period in his life. I should also mention that Holocaust refugees and survivors are the 2nd largest group to suffer with post traumatic stress disorder behind war veterans. So what that means is Holocaust families Holocaust families often have PTSD as a characteristic.

And if you live with somebody who has PTSD, which my mother did, you will have a lot of erratic behavior, And so the PTSD is ultimately transmitted to the children. And I had come to understand that much earlier than this reconciliation and gotten treatment for it. And when I reconnected with my brother, I immediately identified that he too was struggling with PTSD.

So is that a common risk factor of estrangement, Some kind of PTSD or trauma?

Trauma is a risk factor for estrangement. Mental illness is a risk factor for estrangement. So to answer your question, yes. I and PTSD was our situation.

Yeah. So you must felt an awful lot of anxiety when you picked up that 1st phone call of like, oh my gosh. What do I even say to him after 40 years? I did. How did yeah.

How did you get started? Hearing his voice and realizing how Deeply, he was into the depths of depression absolutely frightened me. And, my first response when I Recognize that, and I do portray this in the book, was, oh my gosh. Forget the estrogen. My what can I do to help? Because nobody wants

to see anyone, specifically a sibling, go through that kind of darkness. So, Fern, you have mentioned in the book, and I see this on a lot of the chats, People feel abandoned, or they feel like they're not good enough, or there's all these Things that come out when you're feeling estranged. Mhmm. Can you can you talk about that

little more? I think that's a really important question. Sibling rejection ripples through life and identity. Because if your Brother or your sister tells them why I need to date with you, it makes you question, who will? It affects self Esteem and who you are, how you see yourself, it affects friendships, other social relationships, Your well-being and your ability to trust others, and so it's almost like a cancer that metastasizes. And if you think about it, if you have really low self esteem and your sibling sibling isn't talking to you, Then you're carrying that into all of these other relationships. In addition, it affects every family member because, ultimately, they are going to be Put in a very uncomfortable position of having to choose sides.

So what about like, your brother was the one that Chose not to speak to you or speak to the family. Mhmm. How does it affect the one who's making the choice? Did you get to talk to him about that?

Yeah. I I think there are a lot of misconceptions about why somebody chooses to cut off. And One of the problems is the person who is actually shunned has no information And is essentially rendered voiceless. If I did something wrong, I don't know what it is and I can't take responsibility for it and apologize because you're not talking to me. So I'm in an untenable situation. In the case of the, there are lots of reasons people cut off. And I think it's really important right here to say that there are some Relationships that are simply too toxic to sustain. If there's abuse, if there's violence, if there's chronic hurt, it may not be A good idea to pursue a relationship with this person, and that's something each sibling needs to evaluate For himself or herself.

But there are all sorts of reasons. The reasons I thought that my brother Cut me off had nothing to do with why he cut me off, and I carried that burden for decades. Every morning, I'd wake up, I'd look in the mirror and think, what did I do? How can I fix this? And by the way, ruminating is a very, very Common response. So people get caught in this loop thinking and blaming themselves. And, really, It can be based on something that's not even there. And in in the case of my brother, there were a lot of reasons he cut me off, and they had nothing to do with me.

And that that's part of what made it so hard for you from what what I was reading. You're you're like, I I don't know what I did, But he also wouldn't talk to you, so you just kept making up these stories about what you think it was.

Right. The brain is a problem solving machine, and we're trying to connect the dots. And, of course, if you don't have many dots to connect, you're gonna Filling it. Filling in. And that's what I was doing.

Yeah. Which is common. I mean, we do that in in most relationships that are important to us. Right? So if If it's there's a problem, we make up a story to try and fix that problem. So There's a difference, right, between, like, sibling rivalry and and sibling distancing, which is what my brother and I do, and sibling estrangement. Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay.

So you did mention some of the risk factors. Is sibling rivalry, I mean, that's normal. Right? We all have sibling rivalry if we have siblings.

There's rivalry and then there's abuse. And, you know, there there are there's parental favoritism. There's all sorts of Risk factors that start to play into this. Yeah. Their competition is normal and natural between siblings, But it has to be managed particularly by parents and I'm often asked, you know, what can parents do to prevent sibling estrangement? Well, number 1, stop favoring 1 child over another. Number 2, model how you negotiate differences Because if kids don't have that training as children, they get to be adults. They have no way of bridging the abyss.

Yeah. So if I came to you as a client and said, you know, I I I can't manage my relationship with my brother. Every time I see him, he's he's poking me, egging me on with these political Differences. Mhmm. I don't think he's capable of having a conversation. How would you Advise me. What would I I mean, how would I even start?

You have, several choices. I mean, the estrangement comes in all shapes and sizes. You can completely cut off and have nothing to do with Which, by the way, is very difficult to sustain because there's a lot of family pressure to keep these relationships going. You can have an a limited relationship, which is where you are largely functioning or discussing very superficial topics. How about those cubs? You know? Right. Where are you traveling? You know? Yeah. Let's look at the weather. Where you are.

Yeah. Exactly. You just Keep it on this really superficial intimacy, as I would call it. And that's something that I think a lot of us do. We all have our fingers on the dial of intimacy anyway. So how much are you gonna let in? You know? And you have to assess, is this person safe for you to open up to? And maybe not. And so, you know, that's another possibility. A lot of times, I say that I think You need to factor into the children.

What is best for the children? There are cousins involved often, And it's important to think about if you cut off completely from the sibling, what happens to your children? You know, one of the things that was so painful to me is I was no longer a sister. I was no longer a sister-in-law. I only have 1 brother. I Had no nephews because my nephews were cut off from me as well, and my children on my side had no cousins. And so the loss is enormous. It becomes a whole branch of the tree.

Yeah. And and you talk about the fact that your Kids had different reactions about you even bringing your brother back into the family even in a limited way.

Right. There was a lot of I I mean, just because I was willing to try this, that didn't mean they were willing to try it. They felt Betrayed by him. They were furious, and they wanted to protect me. And, so this created its own problem. And as one of my children said to me, you know, you can't expect us to to stop and turn around on a dime.

So

it's a very complicated experience to try to reconcile. So let me I want there are a couple things I wanted to interject here. You know, you think what if you're considering your reconciliation, you have to ask yourself some important questions. So one is, why is this relationship important to me? And not to my family or anyone else, but to me. Does my family member want to resume this relationship? Because you can't do it alone. You know, you may want it, but he doesn't. So that's another set of problems. Can I set aside the anger and the pain and the resentment that led to the break and change this pattern of relating? Do I want to resume the relationship even if we can't change it? And that's another complication.

And do I really have the time and energy and emotional resilience and support of the loved ones To reconcile and rebuild the relationship.

Yeah. And I think all of that's important. One of the people that reached out to me was talking about visiting her brother And how he was constantly berating her the whole time she was visiting, and she's you know, she immediately slipped into this defensive mode. So the cycle continues. Right? So what if 1 person decides I mean, she's She still sees him. I still see my brother. But what if 1 of us decides, okay. We're gonna handle this differently, not get hooked in, not feel defensive, not respond.

I mean, how how do we do that, though? They push our buttons.

Well, these are complicated relationships because they are rooted in childhood, and so there is a tendency to regress. And it's very important to identify your triggers before you even go into this situation and try to anticipate What buttons are gonna get pushed? Which is it's a very challenging experience. And as you know from reading the book, I struggled with this all the time, and I was constantly overreacting to things he said and did because I have this long history with him and a lot of anger. Yeah. So, you know, and and and I think what's interesting about reconciliation is that you are trying to rebuild a relationship in the wake of betrayal and mistrust. No. That is not easy.

That is not easy. And I think setting the expectation for what it could be is probably important as well. Right? You're probably not gonna be best friends again.

No. And, you know, you and I were talking about this before. It's These relationships wax and wane whether you're distant, in a regular sibling relationship, or, If you're trying to reconcile. And my brother and I have now been reconciled for over, well, for 15 years, and It's not smooth sailing. There are certainly moments when we lapse back into the same old patterns, But the difference is we're both committed to sustaining the relationship. And what I'm saying here is we've had our fights, but 1 of us, usually him, comes around and says, okay. Let's sort this out and move on.

Yeah. So the the concern or question is, as we age And our parents are aging or passing on, maintaining those relationships Through the caregiving stages, through the will, and, you know, after I mean, that's gotta be an an additional stress on the relationship.

So there's some social science on this topic. Although siblings were largely disregarded until the last 20 years ago, so all the science I'm going to talk about now is is based on studies from the last 20 years. Sibling relationships are most vulnerable during certain life stages. So the most perilous points are when there's a big role change. So for example, during adolescence, when a teenager sibling will go off to college and starts to create their own identity, Maybe gets a job, and the dynamic changes. When 1 sibling gets married, you are suddenly incorporated, and this is a whole other topic, A new in law into the family, which somebody may or may not fit in, and that can be a very difficult transition. The birth of a baby. Well, suddenly a sibling is focusing on his or her family and spends less time with the family of origin.

When there's divorce or illness, the physical, emotional, and financial responsibilities of helping a sick or divorcing family member can be overwhelming. So oftentimes, siblings kind of put throw up their hands and say, yeah. I can't do this. Yeah. And, of course, you just identified the most Challenging moment in the lifespan of siblings, and that is parental illness, death, an inheritance. And siblings stage a last ditch competition For power and love and family loyalty at that moment, and all sorts of issues arise over health care And payment for the elderly, and then, of course, you get into the inheritance, and you're dealing with the fights over family treasures and assets. So It is a really bumpy moment in the life of siblings. And, actually, many people who contact me had lost the sibling relationship because of this moment.

And there's no parent any longer to provide Glue or requirements that we're gonna have a family.

Exactly. Yeah. That's the That's the scary part that I see. And, you know, I know my mother has done a very detailed job of Spelling out who does what and what who gets what. So hopefully, that will be a smoother path, but, I know You're dealing with some of your mother's illness right now too. Right? And just trying to negate that is

I'm I'm in the thick of it. The caregiving for the elderly. Our mom is quite ill and, he and I have gone rounds As we've been trying to find care for her.

Yeah. It's always a challenge. So and now that you have reconciled, are there family dinners or family traditions that you're trying to Reignite?

It's really hard to remit after decades loss, and, we tried in the beginning to get the kids together and to try to Create some family cohesiveness. Not everybody's receptive in the family. So he and I have independently carved out a relationship. And we meet for coffee, and we get together for lunch here and there, and we go over my mom's together. And that's Pretty much what we've been able to reestablish. If you don't Create the bond with children when they're young. It's very hard to create it when they're older, and that's what we've encountered.

Yeah. That's gotta feel sad for you. Yeah.

It is it is sad. And, actually, I had A very intense conversation with my 2 nephews recently and told them how not being able to be a loving aunt to them what Has been one of the most heartbreaking aspects of my adult life. And I told him, you deserved me as an aunt, and I have wonderful children. And you could have had great customers and it's, it is heartbreaking. I don't know that there's enough interest to try to re knit it, but, I wanted them to know how I felt.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you did that. So when I think about, You know, the siblings and the pain that you're feeling, how many And did you feel comfortable talking to your girlfriends about this or, you know, having conversations with other people to see who else was going through something like this?

I didn't. This is a really not much. This is a really stigmatized Topic. Now, ironically, 1 in 3 people suffer from a syringe yet. So it's a very Common experience and, actually, I can't tell you how many emails I get that start with the same line. And the line is, I thought I was the only one. I believe this is a little bit like a Me Too movement that nobody wants to admit to it. And even on my surveys, People don't wanna fill it out and put it on the page.

They do not wanna see it in black and white, but they suffer with it and struggle with it. And, people tend to dodge and avoid admitting because somehow it's a fundamental failure. So, you know, I use this example in the book. If I were to tell you that, you know, I can't get along with my mother, you'd just Probably roll your eyes in agreement. If I were to tell you that I'm divorced, you probably wouldn't blink. But when I say to you, I can't get along with my brother. It raises fundamental questions about me and my ability to be, trustworthy and a and a companion. And and, you know, there's it's like, what do you mean you can't get along with your brother? It's not accepted.

And so, we suffer and struggle alone without support. And that's why I wrote the book, by the way.

Which is what's so interesting about it too, Fern, because if 1 in 3 people are experiencing it, The people that you you might say something to probably have something in their family like it. They just don't wanna admit it. This the shame. Right? It's the shame of the

Deep shame connected to this. And, It's especially shameful in in some of the immigrant cultures because there's more of an expectations for family cohesiveness.

You mentioned in the beginning of this conversation the PTSD and and the work that you and your brother did. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I think that would be helpful to people listening.

So when I was Diagnosed with PTSD, I researched to try to find innovative ways to address the problem, And I discovered neurofeedback. Neurofeedback doesn't care whether you're depressed or anxious Or, you have PTSD. What it does is it has this enormous database Of what normal brainwave patterns look like. And the brain is almost like a muscle Where you can change your brainwave pattern. And so through neurofeedback, and we can talk if you want about in detail about this, You retrain your brain to match the norm and, therefore, reduce the PTSD symptoms. And This treatment was extraordinarily successful for me and ultimately successful for him as well.

Yeah. But it wasn't easy to get him there.

Well, he was fairly desperate, at the point where I got him. So he was willing to try, and he did. You know, he and I are very different people, And that's something that siblings who are distant have to accept. And I cannot place expectations on him, that he's gonna be as Curious about this as I was and willing to do what I was willing to do. You know, I have had a lot of therapy, which has benefited me greatly. I've had this neurofeedback treatment. And honestly, I do still have some triggers, But they are extremely well managed, and I am not terrorized by them, which, originally, I was.

Yeah. So did you go to counseling together to talk through stuff?

Mhmm. And you

do you think you can reconcile without that?

Oh, I see what you're saying. We did not go to ongoing counseling. We did some sessions together. I certainly think going to a therapist or a coach together is helpful because, it it kind of keeps things, Less hot. So, but he and I actually went to a few sessions, and then we met. And, one of the things, as you know from the book, that helped us tremendously, because we are of different genders, I think, is when we did things together. So we did a lot of bike riding together and that seemed to give us the opportunity to get some exercise And to talk freely. Whereas, I don't know if it would be the same with sisters, although I suspect so.

I think if you can actually engage in some activity as you rebuild, it helps.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I know that, even with my daughter who, does not like to have face to face conversations, It just it stresses her out. So so we can be riding in the car. We can be walking side by side. Anywhere that she doesn't have to look At you while she's talking to you, it just works better. So that's that's a real important trick or whatever you wanna call it To find you know, maybe it's not sitting in a coffee shop. Maybe it's not talking on the phone.

Find a way. Something that Right.

Yeah. And recognize, as I was saying earlier, that we're very different. And I have to be respectful of his Ways of communicating and not roll over his mind, which he felt, as you know from the book, He often would say, back off.

Well, yeah. You were trying to fix him. He was broken at the

Right. Right. And and that's a tricky thing too because, really, you can't fix anybody. They need to fix themselves. I was trying to facilitate offense, but it was often misperceived as AFIX.

You need

to be fixed. And, you know, I I mean, this is why this stuff is so tricky.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are several Facebook groups around sibling estrangement. Right? Are there any particular ones that you're a member of that you think are Good.

I belong I belong to 2. I belong to okay. I hope I'm gonna get the words right. Sharing, coping, and connecting, And I also belong to estranged siblings. And, actually, I write a a blog for psychology today .com. And, I'm always posting those posts about sibling estrangement on those 2 groups. Okay. As you mentioned in the beginning, I do 1 on 1 coaching.

I actually find that quite Fascinating because I get a broader picture of some of the issues between siblings. And, You know, a lot of people say to me, I've gone to therapists and they don't seem to take this as seriously as I feel it needs to be taken. And so they look for somebody who specializes in sibling relationships.

Well, the book I found so many things that resonated with me, brothers, sisters, strangers, sibling estrangement, and the road to reconciliation. Tell me about the accompanying journal that you have that goes with this.

So, actually, the accompanying journal is a Compilation of some of the blog posts along with prompts so that you can process your grief and your relationship, understanding your relationship, Through writing. There is a lot of research that proves that writing from the heart, in other words, not crafted writing, but simply putting down your emotions is extremely therapeutic. And so that was the reason I wanted to create this journal Specifically for siblings and and their relationships. And, You know, I think it's extremely beneficial. It's been well received, and, it's a nice companion. If you're not gonna learn so much about my own sibling relationship, but you will learn more about the social science of siblings.

Yeah. And I think it will help you resolve you as the individual resolve your own issues by thinking about them and writing about them. It always helps me. So some people maybe not. But, before I let you go, can you give us 2 or 3 takeaways about Either rebuilding a relationship or expectations on a relationship that you can have when you're trying to rebuild a relationship Yeah.

I think rebuilding a relationship requires several things. The first is you have to sit down together face to face. You have to listen without interrupting and without Challenging each other's stories. You have to acknowledge with empathy the other person's hurt or anger or alienation. You really need to stress your willingness and your desire and your hope to recreate A mutual bond. And the last thing I would say that's so important is to let go of the anger, which is not not easy.

None of those things sounded easy to do. So

No. It's I mean, it takes and I think that's a good point, Wendy. It Takes a real determination. And just so you know, I when you read brothers, sisters, strangers, you realize that this Took place over the course of a year just to rebuild this relationship. So, wanna say a couple things to you, Wendy. Thank you so much for tackling this topic, which is shameful and stigmatized. The more of these podcasts that are done, I think the better for all of us who are suffering with this issue.

Yeah. Well, that's my hope. So thank you, Fern, for what you've brought to us today. If you want to find Fern, you can find her on her website. It's Fern, f e r n, Schumer, schumerchapmandot com. This will all be in the show notes, and that's where you'll find her blogs as well. And she also graciously is sharing her email with us, And that is fernschumer@gmail.com. So let her know, Your thoughts on this topic and what you took away from this.

I appreciate your willingness to be on the show and your Honesty with all of that you put in your book and all of this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. And and I love it when I hear comments too, so certainly let Ferne know let me know as well what you thought about this, The value you took from this, leave the comments in the chat if you're watching live or you watch the recording later or in the podcast when you listen to it on a podcast. I also hope to see you all become a boomer believer And have the opportunity to interact with 1 of our guests, you can do that by going to buymeacoffee.com /heyboomer0413. So try it out. And next week next week will be, historical as well as focused on strained family dynamics. I'll be talking with, renowned author Dean King about the Hatfield and McCoy Feud. That is a very famous feud, but we'll learn some of the history, and then we'll also talk about Family feuds today, how they look, some of the challenges that they bring to us. So hopefully, We may even have some ideas on how to resolve any of those feuds that you may be involved in, just like, hopefully, you took away some ideas Based on what Ferne shared with us today.

So continue to embrace this time of your life with exploration, Self expression and fulfillment. And the Hey Boomer show is produced by me, Wendy Green, And the music at the opening was written and performed by Griffin Hanrado, a student at the North Carolina University School of the Arts, and my grandson. This has been Hey Boomer. Thank you for listening.