sibling relationships

Sunken Ships is a Zikoko weekly series that explores the how and why of the end of all relationships — familial, romantic or just good old friendships.

For most of her teenage years, Tofunmi* (28) was responsible for making her brothers’ meals— a chore she grew to resent.

Leaving home for university felt like freedom until years later, a visit to her older brother, Tade* (31), reopened old wounds and pushed their already fragile relationship to the edge.

What’s your relationship with cooking like?

I hate cooking. Especially when I have to do it for a large group of people.

Why is that?

I’m the second child of three and the only girl. Growing up, my mum insisted that learning to cook was essential for a future wife, so when I was eight, she started teaching me how to cook. By the time I was ten, I was solely responsible for cooking for my brothers while she cooked for our dad.

What effect did this have on your relationship with your parents and brothers?

I grew to resent my parents for it. I was expected to cook for my brothers every single day, even if I was tired from school. As for my brothers, they started to see me as their dedicated chef. They showed no appreciation for my efforts and felt entitled to them. It caused a lot of friction with my older brother, especially.

How so?

Because he’s the firstborn, he chose what I cooked for our meals. The power must have gotten to his head because as we got older, his demands became more unreasonable.

Can you give me an example of this?

My dad eats from a fresh pot of soup or stew every day. When I was thirteen, my older brother decided he would only eat freshly made food too. So I had to cook meals from scratch every day when I came home from school. It was frustrating trying to balance school and what felt like an unpaid career as a personal chef at home.

Did you try to report him to your parents?

Yes, but my mum said it was good practice for when I got married, and my husband demanded fresh daily meals. So I had to get creative with prepping ingredients to keep up. I hated it that I always smelled like food and spices, no matter how many showers I took.

Walk me through a typical day. What meals did you make?

I would wake up at 5:00 am to make scrambled eggs and tea for when my brothers woke up. Then I would cook jollof rice or yam and stew so the boys had something to eat when we got back from school. For the evenings, it was usually a swallow, and my brother chose the soups. He hated eating dinner late, so I would usually start cooking around 6:30 pm so food would be served by 8:00 pm.

That sounds like a lot. When did you have time to study for school?

I carried my books to the kitchen all the time to read while things were simmering on the fire. So even my books smelled like food.

Wow, did you ever catch a break?

My first big break came when I got into university in 2015. For the first time, I was away from home, and I didn’t have to cook for anyone. Not even myself. My free time was mine, and I felt like I could finally breathe.

How did your family deal with it?

My parents didn’t really care, but my brothers hated it. Especially my older brother. We attended the same university in the city where we lived, so he tried to discourage my parents from letting me stay in the hostel so I could continue cooking for them. I had to put my foot down, and after a lot of back and forth, my mum got a maid to help with the cooking instead.

Did your relationship with your parents improve after that?

Yes, the maid took over cooking for my younger brother and even made food for my older brother and me when we visited. As for my older brother, we weren’t close, but we were cordial. However, recently, even that polite cordiality we shared is gone.

Tell me about that.

My older brother moved to Lagos after he finished school in 2017 and has lived there ever since. I stayed back in Ibadan after getting a job and lived at home.

In May 2025, I got invited to a job interview in Lagos and needed a place to stay. I wanted to book a hotel for the night, but my brother suggested I stay with him instead. I was happy to take him up on his offer, but the visit didn’t go as I imagined.

What happened?

I arrived in Lagos the night before my interview in the evening. As soon as I got to his place, my brother announced that he’d bought some ingredients earlier in the afternoon so I could make him some soup for dinner.

How did you react?

I hadn’t even showered after the trip. I told him I was too tired to cook, but I was happy to buy him some food if he wanted.

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How did he take that?

He did not take it well at all. He started yelling about disrespect and said that I had gotten too proud. He said I could either make him a meal or get out of his house that night.

Ah, because of food? What did you do?

Right? It was so silly. I left his place for him around 9:00 pm and got a hotel room instead. I wasn’t about to cook for anybody after a long day of travelling. I was so upset at his entitlement, and I vowed that was the end of our relationship.

Did you tell your parents about his behaviour?

My brother reported me to them. My mum’s reaction was just as annoying. She said I should have kept the peace by cooking the food for him. My dad thinks I’m overreacting by cutting him off. But he agreed that asking me to cook the night before my job interview was not the way to be a good host.

Did your older brother apologise to you?

No. I haven’t heard a single apology from him. I’ve stopped speaking to him, and I have no intentions of breaking the silence. I think he’s a bully, and until he apologises or changes, I won’t be indulging him. I got the job and moved to Lagos in June, and I still haven’t visited or spoken to him.

Do you think you’d be open to settling this issue with your brother if he apologised?

Sure. I’m willing to set aside any past resentment I have about cooking if he shows he doesn’t feel entitled to my labour. I’m not his personal chef, and I won’t let him treat me like one.

Hey, if you’d like to share your own #SunkenShips story with Zikoko, fill out this form!

Demilade* (27) and her older brother Olumide* (30) have always stood on opposing sides. After tempting her brother into a shady investment scheme, she’s now wondering if the revenge she sought was justified.

You get to decide at the end, did she fuck up?

This is Demilade’s dilemma, as shared with Betty

I don’t know why, but my older brother, Olumide*, and I have never seen eye to eye. For as long as I can remember, he acted like he was constantly trying to win a competition I didn’t know existed.

If I said I wanted something, he’d suddenly “remember” he needed it more and try to have it first, even when he didn’t care about it before. If it wasn’t something he could take, he would rubbish the idea. The most annoying part was how my parents always seemed to take his side because he’s the firstborn.

Once in 2018, I asked my parents for a loan to start a business while I was in university. As soon as Olumide heard about it, he shut it down and said it would affect my grades. He convinced them to use the money to buy him a car instead, and they did.

He doesn’t stop at big things, he also blocks me from having even seemingly small things. When his cousin got married in Abuja* in 2019, he said he couldn’t attend because of a work trip. I was still in school and wasn’t sure I’d be able to attend either. Since we were both unavailable, my mum bought aso ebi for just herself and my dad. When the material arrived, she realised she’d already used the exact fabric for a dress and didn’t need it.

My school went on a strike around the wedding, and I suddenly became available to travel. I asked my mum for the material since she wouldn’t be using it, and my brother immediately said he needed it because he had “changed his mind” about attending. I suggested we split the material, but he insisted his style needed the full fabric. Our parents told me to let him have it since he’s older. He never sewed that material or went to the wedding. He packed it along on his work trip just so I wouldn’t have it. I found it odd, but that’s just one of many examples.

At first, I thought we’d outgrow the rivalry, but it only got worse. The last straw came during my service year.

After school, I wanted to leave Ibadan and serve in another state. Olumide shut that down again because he didn’t get the same opportunity, and he didn’t think I deserved it either. It made me upset, and I was determined to get my revenge. I didn’t know what form my revenge would take, but I found the opportunity in 2023.

An acquaintance advertised a cryptocurrency investment scheme on WhatsApp that promised to double the investment in six months. The whole thing looked shady, but I also knew my brother well enough: if I showed interest, he’d try to edge me out.

So I forwarded the guy’s contact to him and told him I wanted to invest but needed his opinion first. As expected, he dismissed the idea, saying it was foolish and that I’d be better off saving in a bank. But he still went behind me to speak with the guy and invested around ₦500k. I only found out because he confided in our mum.

At first, I thought I had made a mistake because he suddenly had cash three months later. But I was happy to see that when the six months ended, everything crashed. Whether the investment collapsed or the guy ran away with his money, I’m not sure. All I know is that his investment went up in smoke, and I thought it was well deserved.

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When he realised he was never getting that money back, he came back to insult me for showing him the business in the first place. I innocently told him I took his advice, and I didn’t put any money in it. He was upset for months after, and I didn’t feel bad about it at all.

When I told a friend everything, she said what I did was wrong. According to her, even if my brother and I had our differences, we were still blood, and I shouldn’t have set him up like that. Now, I’m starting to wonder, did I take things too far? Am I the bad guy for using his ego against him?

*Dayo, 26, never expected his biggest competition in love to be his own brother. But for years, every woman he’s liked has somehow ended up with him instead, leaving Dayo confused, hurt, and questioning their relationship.

In this story, he shares how his brother’s charm created a silent rivalry, why it’s affected his trust in relationships, and the one question he’s scared to ask: what if his brother has always known what he was doing?

This is Dayo’s story, as told to Adeyinka

People say older brothers are meant to protect you. But what happens when your older brother becomes the reason you can’t fully enjoy your relationships? That’s what I’ve been quietly dealing with for years, the fact that my brother has a habit of getting close to the girls I like, and somehow, he always gets them.

We are just two years apart, and we’ve been inseparable since childhood. From nursery school to university, we’ve attended the same schools, lived in the same hostels, and moved through life like a duo. It’s never felt like the typical older-younger brother relationship. If anything, people assume we’re twins because of how tight we are. Same jokes, same friend groups, same routines.

The closeness extended to our social circles. If I had a new friend, it was only a matter of time before my brother became their friend. He has this cool appeal that makes people gravitate towards him. I’ve never minded sharing the spotlight with him. If anything, it made life easier. He’d help me navigate situations, give advice, and sometimes even hype me up. But things always got complicated when it came to women, specifically, the ones I liked.

I noticed it for the first time in secondary school. I had a crush on a girl in my class. I told my brother about her, just gist between brothers. Nothing serious had even started, but I was excited that I liked someone, and she seemed to like me too. A few days later, I noticed my brother talking to her in the hallway. Not just a casual “hi” but a full-on conversation, laughing like they’d known each other forever. At first, I thought maybe I was overthinking it. But the pattern repeated itself. Every time I told him about a girl I liked, he’d find his way into her life, sometimes subtly, other times very directly.

It didn’t bother me much back then because nobody was dating. They were just teenage crushes and school friendships. But when we got to university, things got real.

There was this girl I liked—a law student whose hostel was two blocks away from ours. She was quiet and friendly, and we’d shared a few brief conversations. I told my brother about her one evening. I even mentioned that I was thinking of asking her to hang out properly. He nodded like he was just listening.

The next time I saw her, she was in our room with him. She acted like we were all close friends, but I could barely look her in the eye. Apparently, he’d run into her on campus and invited her over. He didn’t think it was a big deal. I wanted to confront him but didn’t even know how to start. Was I going to accuse my brother of hijacking a girl I wasn’t even dating yet?

They started dating a few weeks later.

That moment shifted something in me. It wasn’t the relationship that hurt — I barely knew the girl — but he’d inserted himself again, like he always did, and didn’t see anything wrong with it. When I brought it up, he acted like I was being dramatic. “You didn’t say you were serious now,” he said. “You only said you liked her.”

But that’s precisely the point. I liked her. I trusted him with that information, and he still made a move.

It didn’t end there. It became a recurring pattern. If I had a female friend I spoke about often, he’d find a way to befriend her. Sometimes, I’d see him texting them or making plans to hang out without telling me. It felt like I was always one step behind. The most frustrating part? No one else seemed to notice. Not our friends or my parents. Whenever I hinted at it, people would laugh and tell me I was being overly sensitive.

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I started holding back. I stopped telling him about women I found interesting. I became cautious around him, especially concerning my personal life. But even with all that, the paranoia didn’t go away. It’s one thing to deal with jealousy from strangers. It’s another thing entirely when it comes from your brother.

Right now, I’m in a relationship. But to be honest, I don’t feel secure in it. Before I asked her out, I made sure there was no way my brother could cross paths with her. I kept our interactions lowkey. I didn’t introduce her to my friends who were connected to him. I didn’t even post her. I’ve been managing a private relationship, not because I want to, but because I’m afraid.

I keep thinking, what if she meets him one day and they click like he always does with the others? What if I become a third wheel again in a story I started? It’s exhausting. I’ve thought about bringing it up properly. Sitting him down and laying everything out. But how do I do that without sounding petty or insecure? How do you say, “Hey bro, can you stop stealing the women I like?” without creating tension? And what if he genuinely doesn’t realise he’s doing it? What if he’s just being his usual friendly self and I’m the one projecting?

But then again, what if I’m not?

What if he knows? What if a part of him enjoys having the upper hand, even if it’s subtle? I hate thinking like this. It makes me feel small and bitter. But these are the thoughts I carry. This whole thing has started to affect how I see him. I find myself pulling away. I’ve built a fence around myself, and even though he hasn’t said anything, I know he feels it too.

Sometimes, I imagine what the future will look like. What happens if we both fall for the same woman? What if I get married and start worrying that my wife will prefer his company to mine? What if one careless moment with the wrong woman drives a permanent wedge between us? I’ve asked myself if I should speak to our parents about it. But what would I even say? “Mummy, I think my brother keeps stealing the women I like.” It sounds ridiculous. They’d probably laugh and tell me to focus on my own game. Even my friends don’t get it. They say things like, “You dey reason am too much.” But they haven’t lived through it like I have.

I don’t hate my brother. I still love him. He’s been my closest person since I was a child. We’ve done life together in ways most siblings never get to experience. But I won’t lie, something is breaking.

Maybe one day, we’ll talk or maybe I’ll keep navigating life like this, always guarding my heart, not just from heartbreak, but from my own blood.

READ THIS TOO: I’ve Had Sexual Dreams About My Siblings for 15 Years, and It’s Haunting Me

I was talking to someone last week when the topic of sibling violence came up. It got me thinking about people whose parents gave their older siblings the power to discipline them— and how that played out. In this story, Tomiwa*(33) opens up about how her sisters’ bullying and abuse of authority have strained their relationship beyond repair.

As Told To Betty:

I have two older sisters.

They’re 14 and 11 years older than me, and so my parents gave them full permission to discipline or punish me when they weren’t around because they were older and “knew better”. From as early as four years old, I hated being left alone with them because it always ended in beatings for the littlest thing. If they weren’t hitting me, they’d be verbally abusive, saying the worst things about my body and how I look.

Though childhood memories are a bit foggy, I clearly remember them making fun of the shape of my nose and how dark my skin was. I became hyper-aware of my features from a young age because of them.

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Fast forward to 2011 when I was 19, the pattern still hadn’t changed. That year, I visited my eldest sister for Christmas — the first time I’d ever spent the holidays in her home. Not long after I arrived, she asked me to switch on the water pump. She described it as a grey box with a black lever, but all the flats in her apartment building had identical pumps, so I was confused. When I tried to explain my confusion and ask for help, she slapped me instead.

By 2012, she had settled down and had a baby boy. So, I paid her another visit. One day, while babysitting him, I looked away for a minute, and before I knew it, he had gotten into his wipes and pulled them out of the container. I arranged them back neatly, but I couldn’t find the lid. When she found out, she insulted me viciously, calling me fat and lazy. I still don’t understand what my weight had to do with a missing wipe cover, but this was how she was. She body-shamed me so often that I started wearing a waist trainer at 20. I became desperate for her approval. Whenever I lost even a little weight, I’d run to tell my sister, hoping for some sort of validation, but I never got it. This went on for years.

My other sister wasn’t any different. She was equally as troublesome. I remember a time when she went through my phone without permission. The minute she found out that I was sexually active, she went straight to my mother to report me. , I was livid. I knew she only wanted to get me in trouble, and she succeeded.

When it was time to apply for my master’s, I deliberately chose Europe instead of Canada because I didn’t want my parents convincing me to live with either one of them. I needed distance, and it was only after I moved that I knew peace and finally felt free of their constant judgement and criticisms.

I haven’t spoken to my eldest sister in almost three years and I don’t really have a relationship with the other one either. I just couldn’t keep up with the verbal abuse and their belief that they had the right to hit me anytime they felt I had done something wrong.

My parents have tried to get us to reconcile, but I don’t feel like I have space for them in my life anymore. Over the years, I’ve replaced them with friends who actually make me feel safe. At some point, my dad would call and badger me about reaching out to them, but I started avoiding his calls, too. Now, my parents know that if they want to keep me in their lives, they can’t bring up my sisters.

I didn’t come out of that experience unscathed. I realised early on that I don’t rely on my family for emotional support. Whenever my sisters beat me as a child, nobody ever asked, “What happened?” it was always, “What did you do?” That kind of upbringing conditions you to bottle everything inside. I’ve had to unlearn that with my friends, but when it comes to my sisters, I don’t see us ever having that kind of closeness. That ship has sailed.

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Tell me about your relationship with your sister

She is the second, and I am the third of four children. Ironically, we were the closest siblings when we were children. I guess it was because we were only two years apart and had similar tastes in games, TV shows, and music. Things were pretty great, but we started growing apart after our little sister was born. I’m not sure if it was because I was the only boy in the family or because we developed different interests, but by our mid-teens, we were not on the same page.

What do you mean?

During my childhood, starting around age nine, I can’t remember a nice thing she’d ever did for me, but I can recall countless instances where she would try to pin things on me just to see me get punished. My father is a pastor, so when I brought it up with him, he would say I should forgive and forget because we’re siblings. I really tried to, but her behaviour was just too much.

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Can you tell me one of those instances?

Sure. When the Samsung S8 came out, I had just brought home stellar results from school, and my parents gave it to me as a gift. I was very happy with it because I love gadgets. After a week or two, she was attending a friend’s wedding and asked that I lend her the phone so she could take nice photos at the event. I was happy to oblige her. Long story short, she didn’t come back home with the phone. She said she forgot it in the cab on the way back home, but I’m very sure she lost it on purpose.

Ah.

In 2018, my penultimate year at university, I came home from Ghana to visit my family. Chinasa had flunked out of her university program earlier in the year, so between the pressure at home to get back into school and seeing her mates progress without her, she was pretty depressed.

I convinced her to come back to Ghana with me because I had an apartment that our dad had furnished, and I had some money saved up. She was reluctant to come with me but promised to come through for the Christmas break. When the time came, we spent three weeks together at my place in Ghana. She had a blast. We tried out all the hottest spots, went to the park together, rewatched our favourite shows, and it was great. I was even thinking that our relationship was getting better because of how well we bonded when she was around. She even extended her stay and went back to Nigeria at the end of January instead of when school started.

On Valentine’s Day, my father was at my door in Ghana for a surprise visit. I was so happy to see him, I didn’t think his visit, so close to Chinasa’s return home, was connected. He was supposed to be in the UK for an event, but he said he decided to spend four days with me before going.

I showed him around my school and took him to some of the places my sister and I went to, and we generally caught up. The night before he left, he called me aside and told me he had come because he was worried about me. He said my sister came home from Ghana in tears, talking about how I was spending money recklessly, that I was a cult leader, and that I never attended classes. I was confused. This was the person who was with me the entire time during the holiday and when school resumed. She even attended some of my classes with me. I was very hurt but also very confused. It damaged my relationship with my mum for a while because she was so convinced I had become something else at university.

Did you confront her about it?

Yes, I did, but she said, that if I had nothing to hide, why would I be offended by the lies she was telling? That made me angrier. I decided to keep my distance from her. Then, of course, my mum and dad stepped in, saying they didn’t want to raise children who wouldn’t love each other. They didn’t want it to seem like they were playing favourites because I was the only boy, but it was clear that I was constantly at the receiving end of my sister’s anger, even if it had nothing to do with me.

That same year, she colluded with an ex-girlfriend to lie and try to pin a pregnancy on me. It wasn’t until a DNA test proved my innocence that she stopped telling random people that I was a deadbeat dad.

Omo. Did she ever apologise for anything she did?

Not once. Whenever it involved me, and I tried to explain my side or show her how she hurt me, she’d start crying and try to paint herself as the victim. The cycle of forgiveness and deeper cuts got exhausting for me, and I started to withdraw from her because I just wanted to avoid the wahala. But her last stunt was the final straw for me.

Tell me what happened.

A female friend and I made a joint investment into crypto late last year. It didn’t pan out, and we lost the money, but I promised to reimburse her because it was her first time, and I didn’t want her to be discouraged from investments. When it was time to pay, I didn’t have the cash. I promised to contact her later, but my phone broke. My friend somehow got my sister’s number and called her to ask after me. Thinking that it was safe to talk to my family members, she told my sister about the investment and the money I promised to give her back.

As soon as my mum saw me when I got back home that day, she threw herself to the ground in tears. She started screaming in Igbo that the evil day had finally come. Meanwhile, my sister was sitting in one corner, smiling smugly. I was confused as to why she would be smiling when our mum was in that state. After calming my mum down, she started saying how Chinasa had said I owed people all over Lagos money, and that I was into crypto fraud. I instantly felt tired. She’s going to be 34 years old this year, but she has the maturity of a ten-year-old.

I almost exploded in anger at her and told her I never wanted to speak to her again. It took weeks before my mum believed my side of the story. I had to call my friend to tell my mom the truth before things calmed down a bit.

I secretly made plans and moved out of my apartment, and no one in my family knows where I live now. I don’t want to tell them because they might tell her. I also blocked her number everywhere. She’s an unrepentant liar, and I feel like if I keep forgiving her, she’ll do something that will actually harm me one day.

Do you think your relationship with her can improve if she changes her ways?

No. At this point, I have seen and heard enough. Even our lastborn told me that she thought I was a cultist for the longest time because that’s what our sister had been telling her. Who knows what she has told strangers and people I’ll never be able to tell my side to? I just want to live my life in peace. If we must be completely separate for that to happen, so be it.

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I was looking to speak with someone who has experienced sibling rivalry caused by their parents when I found Abimbola*.

She’s her mum’s first child, but years of favouritism have left her feeling like an outsider in her family. This is her story.

Image by freepik

As told to Adeyinka

My mum had me when she was 20 and still in university.

It wasn’t an easy time for her. My father didn’t want anything to do with the pregnancy, so she moved back home to my grandparents. They were disappointed and constantly reminded her of it, but they still tried to support her. They made sure she graduated, even though life wasn’t easy. I remember overhearing their arguments about money and responsibilities as a child. My grandma would say things like, “It’s not the baby’s fault. She didn’t ask to be here.” Those words stuck with me—they were the only reassurance I had as a child that I wasn’t the problem.

Things started to look up when my mum graduated and got a job. She moved out of my grandparents’ house, started dating again, and eventually married my stepdad when I was around 10. In those early years, he was cautiously kind. He wasn’t overly affectionate, almost like he didn’t want me to get mix signals about his role, but he treated me well and even started calling me his “daughter” occasionally. For a while, I thought we were finally building the family I had always dreamed of. I felt I didn’t have to call my grandfather my dad anymore because I finally had one.

However, that dream ended when my mum gave birth to twins five years into their marriage. At first, I didn’t mind the shift in attention. They were babies, and I understood that they needed extra care. But as the years passed, it became clear that the twins weren’t just getting more attention—they had become the centre of my parents’ universe, even some family members. They’d visit us, and I was always the afterthought, the one they only remembered to ask after when there was nothing more to discuss.

I remember winning an award for academic excellence when I was around 16. I came home that day, a certificate in hand, expecting my mum to celebrate with me. Instead, she barely glanced at the certificate and said, “Well done,” before returning to help the twins with their homework. A week later, when the twins brought home handmade Mother’s Day cards, she couldn’t stop gushing about how thoughtful they were. She even hung them in the living room. For some reason, that moment stuck with me, and it sort of set the tone for where I felt I’d been placed in her life.

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Fast forward to years later, the twins had picked up on these things and also started to treat me like I didn’t belong. When they were younger, I was like a second mum to them. I helped with their homework, babysat them, and even broke up their little arguments. But they mimicked my parents’ behaviour towards me as they grew older.

Now that they’re teenagers, it feels like a full-blown rivalry. They roll their eyes when I speak, exclude me from conversations, and sometimes make snide comments about how I’m “not really part of the family.” One argument still sticks with me. One of the twins said something along the lines of, “This isn’t even your house.” I gave him a good beating and made sure I got my pound of flesh. But it didn’t stop me from pondering over what he’d said. Deep down, I knew he was repeating what he’d picked up from my parents.

It’s hard not to blame my mum for everything. I understand that my stepdad might never fully see me as his child, but my mum? She’s the one person who should always have my back. I’ve tried to talk to her about how I feel, but she always brushes it off. The last time I brought I tried to have a conversation, she said, “You’re an adult now and you’ll be the only mother they have when I’m not here. Why are you still bothered by this?”

That question hurt more than anything. I’m 25 now, but how am I supposed to let go of years of being sidelined? It’s not about being an adult—it’s about feeling like I’ve never truly had a family.

These days, I avoid going home unless it’s necessary. I only visit for major holidays, and even then, I try to stay out of the way. The twins don’t even hide their dislike anymore. Last Easter, my sister asked me why I bothered coming home when I could have just spent the short break in school. Something about that comment felt off. I wanted to be home so I could spend the break with my family like everyone else. My mum overheard and laughed it off, saying, “You know how teenagers are, she didn’t mean it like that.”

It’s taken me years to accept that sibling rivalry isn’t only about competition. Sometimes, it’s the parents who unknowingly create the divide. My parents’ favouritism set the tone for my relationship with the twins. They see me as less important because that’s how my parents treat me. It’s not their fault, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I’ve decided to focus on building my own life. I have a good job, great friends, and a sense of peace I never had growing up. But deep down, I still wish things were different. I see friends who are close to their siblings and wonder what that must feel like.

I love my mum and the twins, but I’ve learned to love them from a distance. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling like an outsider in my own family, but I’m determined to break the cycle if I ever have children. No child of mine will ever feel like they don’t belong.

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Fawas*, 29, has been dealing with a complicated relationship with wet dreams since he was a teenager.

Now an adult, he finds himself still struggling with vivid dreams that make him feel conflicted and embarrassed, especially when they involve his siblings.

As told to Adeyinka

I’d just completed JSS 3 the first time it happened. We were taking reproduction in biology class at the time, and terms like ejaculation, sex, and wet dreams were flying around. They were new concepts to me, and the idea of my penis passing out something other than urine sparked curiosity in me. Some of the boys in my class who were older wouldn’t stop talking about the excitement they felt after ejaculating and how they also had wet dreams.

I must have been 13 or 14 then, but I knew I hadn’t experienced any of that, or maybe it was just a part of my body I’d never explored. I come from a strictly Muslim background, and sex was a taboo topic in our household growing up. Everything I learned about it was from biology class and the exaggerated tales from my schoolmates.

My curiosity increased as the class continued over the weeks, and we got deeper into the topic. One day, I called over a male classmate who seemed the most versed on the subject and asked how I could experience this ejaculation—and that was the first time I learned about masturbation. He told me to stroke my penis repeatedly when it’s hard, and I’d know I’d orgasmed when I produced a whitish, pap-like liquid. He also suggested watching porn to make it enjoyable or thinking sexual thoughts in my head. I didn’t even own a phone and hadn’t had any sexual experiences to aid my imagination, so that wasn’t an option. The closest thing that came to mind was half-naked models I’d seen on posters or the occasional sex scenes in movies.

So, I took his advice and started masturbating, but it yielded no results. I didn’t release the whitish pap-like liquid, and I didn’t feel anything either. The only thing I felt was pain in my penis from tugging too hard on the skin. I tried it a couple more times and finally gave up when my penis started hurting from friction.

Fast forward to the long break before resuming senior secondary school, I had my first wet dream. I woke up feeling confused because of the sticky wetness in my pants and thought I’d wet the bed. When I checked, the bed wasn’t wet, except for a little patch formed where the liquid had seeped through my boxers. I went to the bathroom, pulled off my boxers, and sniffed them. There was a weird smell I couldn’t understand, but I knew I’d finally experienced a wet dream. The situation only confused me more because I tried hard to remember my dreams from the night before, but I couldn’t.

The next day, I went to bed, willing myself to have another wet dream, but nothing happened when I woke up.

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At the time, my siblings were home—two boys and a girl. They’re all older, and I guess because of that, they were comfortable stripping naked around me. It wasn’t a big deal; even our parents did the same. I always found the sight disturbing and would look away whenever they stepped out of the bathroom or pulled off their clothes to change. Yes, I’d let my eyes linger on some occasions out of curiosity, but I never thought anything sexual about it.

So, it was jarring the next time I had a wet dream and found myself getting intimate with my elder sister in the dream. I didn’t think much of it then, but it happened again. This time, it wasn’t just my sister—my brothers were there, too, and we all touched each other. The experience made me extremely uncomfortable, and I tried to avoid them whenever they showed up naked.

These wet dream episodes involving my siblings continued throughout my time in secondary school and even into university. The dreams were sometimes so vivid that we’d do things that felt disturbingly real to each other. It also puzzled me that my brothers appeared in the dreams, especially since I’ve never had romantic or sexual feelings for people of the same sex. At one point, I thought about talking to our eldest sibling about it but couldn’t find the right words. I only mentioned that I was having wet dreams, and he told me it was natural and would stop eventually. He doesn’t believe in anything spiritual, so he dismissed my deeper concerns.

As an adult, the wet dreams have significantly reduced, especially since I’m now sexually active and intimate with my partners as often as I can be. But the dreams involving my siblings still happen occasionally, and sometimes, I don’t even ejaculate. I wake up feeling a deep sense of secondhand embarrassment because of how real the dreams feel.

Sometimes, I want to blame it on those few moments I saw them naked around the house, but it’s been years since we all moved out, and we aren’t in each other’s personal space anymore. Yet, the dreams still happen.

I’ve continued to pray about it, and the prayers help. Sometimes, I go for months without dreams, only for them to return quickly and out of nowhere. Maybe one day, I’ll have the courage to talk to my siblings about it, but the thought of how that conversation would go makes me dread the idea, at least for now.

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Siblings are meant to be the closest people in your life, but what if you’re not lucky enough to have that? What if every attempt to build that bond falls flat?

That’s Demilade’s* reality. He shares how years spent away at boarding school, the introduction of stepsiblings, and his mum’s attachment to him as the last born may have fractured his relationship with his brothers.

As told to Adeyinka

I’ve never related to people who call their siblings their best friends. With two older siblings and three steps, that’s never been my reality, and I’m not sure it ever will be.

Watching the twins and siblings on the recent BBNaija season made me wish I had that sort of bond. The way they stood up for each other, completed each other’s sentences and had fun together always got me thinking about my situation.

Our relationship wasn’t always this way— There was a time when “best friends” could have described our relationship. What went wrong? It’s hard to pin down, but I’ll try to explain.

My dad married two wives. The first wife has four kids while my mum, the second, has three. Both wives get along well, probably because they live in different locations. My dad also found a way to manage his time between them so things were fine on that front.

While the wives aren’t exactly best friends, they are cordial. My dad tried to get them closer but eventually accepted that things wouldn’t be as perfect as he wanted. However, he insisted we, the children, spend time together. He didn’t want the divide between the wives to affect us. He’s always going on and on about when they, the parents, are no longer here, we’d only have each other left.

Growing up, we spent holidays between both households. But I spent less time at my stepmother’s place. My mum was very attached to me as a child. Some say it’s because I’m the last born, and I’ve come to accept that because no other reason makes sense. She would let my older siblings go, but I always stayed back with her. At first, I felt like I was missing out—my siblings would return with stories of all the exciting things they got up to with our stepsiblings—but over time, I realised I enjoyed my time with my mum. My siblings realised it too and didn’t bother to ask if I was visiting our steps’ because they always knew what my response would be.

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My dad didn’t like this. He and my mum argued a lot because he felt she was isolating me and making me soft by spending so much time with her.

As a way to get back at my mum, and maybe teach me a lesson, he sent me to boarding school, even though all my siblings, including my stepsiblings, attended day school. It caused a major fight between my parents, but my dad didn’t budge.

If spending time with my mum drove me away from my siblings, boarding school only made things worse. Whenever I came home, I always felt like a stranger. Because my siblings were older and in the university, there were long stretches where we didn’t see each other. The only time we were all together was mostly during public holidays, but even then, my brothers preferred spending time with our stepsiblings at the first wife’s house.

By the time I finished secondary school, I had become sort of grown into my own person, thanks to my boarding school experience. So, it didn’t bother me much that my siblings weren’t around because I’d gotten used to absence.

My parents never addressed this, and I suspect my mum wasn’t keen on the idea of spending so much time with my stepsiblings anyway, so she was more than fine having me stay back.

I gained admission in 2012 and the university only strained the relationship with my siblings further. I rarely saw them, except for uniform holidays.

During the ASUU strike that rocked 2013—probably one of the longest stretches we spent together—I began to wonder if we were really related.

Our interactions were cordial, but they just always felt so distant. I could have sworn I had friends in school who would have easily passed as my siblings if we ran along with the lie.

They’d give short responses whenever I tried to engage them and they didn’t really seem interested in any goings-on in my life.

At some point, I thought maybe it was the age gap since my eldest sibling is four years older than me and the immediate is three years older, but then I saw how they interacted with my stepsiblings, who are closer in age to me, and realised it wasn’t about the age. They just didn’t like me.

After we all returned to school when the strike was called off, I made up my mind to let things be. My mum didn’t have a great relationship with her own siblings, so I chalked it up to a family pattern.

Fast forward to present day, things still haven’t improved. In fact, they’ve probably gotten worse now that we’re full grown adults who feel like we’ve got our individual lives to care about.

But still, it’s hurtful to that I have siblings, yet I always feel so alone. On several occasions, I’ve seen my siblings and stepsiblings hang out on social media, and I’ll wonder, “When did this happen? Why wasn’t I included?” Although, I’ll admit that I hardly feel the need to ask– It’s sort of like lobbying to be included where you aren’t wanted.

My mum has tried to step in. She’s had talks with my brothers, stressing the need to strengthen our bond first before bringing in our stepsiblings but they don’t see her point. They always say, “As long as we share the same dad, we’re all one,” so my mum tries not to push too hard.

I’m grateful for friends who’ve become like family, but I still think about the situation with my siblings a lot. I worry about what will happen when our parents are no longer here. Will I be the sibling who’s cast aside by the rest of the family? Will my kids have cousins they can spend time with?

I’ve tried talking to my siblings, but I’m not sure it’s helped. We’ll get along for a while after our conversations, but then everything returns to the way it was.

I’ve heard these things take time, so I’ll keep trying.

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What’s your relationship with cooking like?

Why is that?

What effect did this have on your relationship with your parents and brothers?

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How so?

Can you give me an example of this?

Did you try to report him to your parents?

Walk me through a typical day. What meals did you make?

That sounds like a lot. When did you have time to study for school?

Wow, did you ever catch a break?

How did your family deal with it?

Did your relationship with your parents improve after that?

Tell me about that.

What happened?

How did you react?

How did he take that?

Ah, because of food? What did you do?

Did you tell your parents about his behaviour?

Did your older brother apologise to you?

Do you think you’d be open to settling this issue with your brother if he apologised?

This is Demilade’s dilemma, as shared with Betty

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This is Dayo’s story, as told to Adeyinka

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Tell me about your relationship with your sister

What do you mean?

Can you tell me one of those instances?

Ah.

Did you confront her about it?

Omo. Did she ever apologise for anything she did?

Tell me what happened.

Do you think your relationship with her can improve if she changes her ways?