Having siblings can be fun. Right from having someone to play with, to that one person who is always ears to your issues. However, there’s more to this than just fun. Siblings face a lot of compatibility issues and that only multiplies with twins. Here’s a look at five issues that twins face as a part of growing up as well as later in life.
With the prevalence of fertility drugs and older mothers giving birth, parenting twins has become an issue that is frequently addressed in the media, online and in popular books about child development. In contrast, an understanding of the lives of adult twin relationships is almost entirely ignored except for dramatic portrayals of deep entwinement or confusing and horrifying conflicts of good and evil. This form of neglect is unfortunate for twins and for those of us interested in the ups and downs of close interpersonal relationships.
Twin identity creates the deep attachment that consciously or unconsciously twins long to share throughout their life span. Individuality creates competition, anger, frustration, and resentment. Sharing parental attention can create deep insecurities and a sense of inadequacy.
Twin relationships can over time help curious adults understand how to value intimate emotional relationships.
Twins are born relying on one another and experience and learn to respect closeness. Gradual separation is encouraged by parents and also seems to take place in a somewhat mysterious way in childhood.
Adolescence is a time of great drama for twins. Differences between twins come to life in full color as twins grow into their twenties.
One twin is more of a risk taker with new relationships, while his brother or sister is overly careful. One twin is more interested in financial success while the other twin is interested in artistic self-expression. One twin wants a family and the other twin chooses to not have children. Interests and new friendships that serve as twin replacements are visible to close family and friends.
Cementing the countless separation experiences and unique identities that have been established in baby steps and giant leaps in childhood, the teenage years and early adulthood entail the stressful and difficult ongoing developmental chore of adulthood.
In order to truly separate from one another, adult twins consciously and unconsciously seek out twin replacements–people who express an inclination to be close and understanding in emotionally charged relationships.
Emotionally driven twins in early adulthood have a need for identity that is stronger than any intellectual understanding of separation. The intensity of motivation for unique avenues to explore and new significant others is very different from what non-twin siblings’ experience when they go their own ways.
The primary attachment that twins share is being added to – rebuilt and restored to a more up-to-date mature attachment. The “remodeling” of the twin bond is a necessary but long-range problem that adult twins have to work through alone and together. The quality of the attachment that is shared shapes how much independence is actually achieved in adulthood.
Twin closeness and harmony provide peace and confidence. Twin fighting, which can turn into twin estrangement, is very common, painful, and troubling for twins. Fighting too much, alongside too much sharing, causes confusion for twins about who is responsible for what in their own twin-ship and with other people.
In general, ego or self-boundary confusion is normal, understandable, and predictable with young twins because they don’t have a clear sense of what is appropriate to take care of in new relationships or with their twin. But as twins grow up and develop their own sense of self, they need to learn how much to expect from their twin and others who are close.
Without sensitivity and acknowledgement of what is possible in interpersonal relationships, twins can become disappointed in their twin or in others.
Too much closeness, which is related to fear of being separated and on your own, can emotionally strangle twins who are enmeshed.
Twinning issues:
Identity crisis
Although onlookers might think wearing similar dresses is cool, most twins detest this. “I would hate wearing the same dress like my sister’s on most special occasions. This would add to the confusion, and would get extremely annoying,” says Nistya Singhal, a BMM student.
Identity crisis is one of the biggest issues that twins face; they are often mistaken as the other one. This creates a lot of rift between the two, and in most cases, stays with them even after they grow up.
Peer pressure
It usually happens with twins when they are in schools and colleges. Their aptitude in studies and the choice of friends is very closely noticed and monitored. If one has better grades and good camaraderie, while the other turns out to be a vagabond, everyone seems to be eyeing their moves. In fact, friends and relatives start questioning the weaker twin about his whereabouts and constantly pressurise him to follow the better twin.
Coping with competition
Most twins are characteristically different from each other and have complete unique qualities. However, if one is better than the other, it creates a lot of problem for the other one to cope with the constant competition. Parents, teachers and friends start comparing the two in terms of good and bad, which worsens with age. “In fact, there are times when this competitive feeling makes either one dominating or suppressive,” says Girija Nair, a counsellor.
Career choices
Although they look similar, most twins are poles apart when it comes to making choices in life. “For me, it is always the funda of ‘To each his own’. If one is a brilliant student and chooses to be an engineer and the other one, an artist, it doesn’t mean that they lag in any way whatsoever. Career choice is a major issue among identical twins as people think they have the same aptitude,” adds Nair. Nonetheless, twins are subjected to constant advice from people about the choices they make in life, especially about their careers.
Who gets better with age
Although competition and envy take a backseat with age, what creeps in are ego clashes, concerns if the other one looks better with age and end up having a better life. “A lot of these issues are never surfaced; it’s only the twins who experience these internal conflicts. It bitters their relationship further, and hence what looks like the ideal pair of siblings, gradually turns into people who hardly extend a hand to each other,” says relationship counselor Sadhana Patil.
Non-twins are very different kinds of partners
Adult twins are eager to find new partners to build their lives with. Unfortunately, they do not have as much emotional experience with non-twins – singletons – as they need in order to separate without the risk of traumatic consequences.
Lack of lived experience leaves twins at a disadvantage because they have too many expectations for deep understandings that are verbal and non-verbal. Still to this day I often imagine and wish that the other person could read my mind or finish my sentence.
Even adult twins who have had some experiences with other partners are blindsided by the lack of input from their new partner and the hard-to-take reality that non-twins are very different kinds of partners. New partners might love them but not understand them as quickly or deeply as their twin.
Sad but too true, in new relationships twins can be lost and wild at the same time. Confusion on the part of the new love object is bound to appear and be extremely disruptive to the future of a relationship. In other words, new boyfriends or girlfriends can feel totally overwhelmed by the expectations of a new twin partner.
The search for emotional intimacy and loneliness
Real differences in lifestyle will spark competition. One twin is richer, more successful at work, or healthier in comparison to their brother or sister. Resolutions of differences are hard to predict but they are always based on understanding how twins are different from one another.
Changing the childhood twin identity into an adult twin identity that is mature and pragmatic takes a lot of devotion and work. In most instances one of the twins is more outgoing and stable than the less stable and more negative twin. The stronger twin usually initiates the maturing of the twin attachment and the use of psychotherapy.
Profoundly accepting that once a twin always a twin is what it is. Twins can’t get divorced. The twin relationship, often a mystery and difficult to understand in words, is undoubtedly a source of wonder, contentment, loneliness, anxiety, and an enduring part of identity.
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