Do you have a sibling in another country and if so do you have frequent contact?

I have a son in another country. We talk on the phone every few weeks and I see him once or twice a year.

My brother did live abroad for many years too and I would see him when he came to visit my folks.

I don’t, but my sister has not lived in the same state as me since she was 14 and I was 16. I’m not sure why it matters whether it is in a different country or not, except maybe the flight is more expensive? International flights have gone up a a lot, so that would be a definite obstacle. It takes me the same time to get to Mexico as it does to get to NY, and the same time to get to parts of Europe as it does to go to the west coast of the US. Asia is a different story, it takes forever to get there and would make travel very difficult not only for travel time but jet lag time as well. Back when I was a teen and in my 20’s communication was more difficult because long distance phone calls were expensive, forget international, but now that is not much of an issue. I used to talk to my sister about once a week back then, and then finally phone plans were unlimited calling and we talked more like every other day, sometimes for hours, although in spurts there would be a little bit of a despot with less communication and then it would ramp up again.

I see my sister about once a year, sometimes it stretches to once every two years. When my grandmother was getting very sick I saw her two or three times a year for a couple years, because they lived in the same city. Same when my aunt got sick.

Often if the sibling is an expat with a company, the company pays to fly them home periodically. Sometimes they allow the flight to be used for relatives to come see them instead. Especially a spouse not living with them, I don’t know about other family members for sure.

I know quite a few people with siblings living in different countries and they stay in reasonable touch. My husband’s family all live in America, sometimes we live just 20 minutes away, and he and his siblings rarely seem to feel the need to communicate much or see each other. I think it really depends on the particular siblings.

My brother was stationed in Korea for a while.

I didn’t even find out about that until a couple of weeks before he came home.

** eyeroll **

@Seek you thought he was where?

I didn’t even know he had joined the Army.

@Seek so you thought he had gone off somewhere to seek his fortune!

No.

I stopped talking to my mother, and by extension my siblings, in late 2007. My brother and I have only in the last year and a half gotten to where we are communicating regularly-ish again.

@Seek really hope you clear issues out and get closer to each other as much as you can. It’s tough to be cut off.

I have siblings in this country and we never communicate!

My sister is stationed in South Korea right now, and she’ll be in Turkey next year. We’re in touch pretty often through facebook, but it would be way better if she were here. :( We have cousins in Turkey, so I’m going to try to save up some money and visit everyone out there all at once.

Scype! I love it. I talk to them probably once a week. I’m saving madly to try to visit in their summer but we’ll see it’s super expensive to fly there. Or anywhere from here except maybe to bali or something.

I don’t even contact my sister in the same state.

I have a sibling in a different country. I have seen him a couple of times in many, many years. Every now and then we’ll have a flurry of emails. That’s about it.

@ZEPHYRA
I hope it’s tough for my mother. She deserves tough.
Been the best seven years of my life, though.

I have a sibling in Alabama and that is kind of like another country.

We stay in touch by phone about twice a month. She posts crap on FB daily and we get together once a year most of the time, occasionally twice.