But while it appeared that history was repeating itself when, after falling out spectacularly with her father, who had controlled her finances and life for years, her own two sons publicly shunned her, criticizing her parenting skills and refusing to even respond to text messages. However, the frost is reportedly beginning to thaw after a Mother’s Day phone call between the troubled singer and her boys Sean (18) and Jayden (17), has led to the possibility of a reconciliation. Family feuds are not exclusive to the rich and famous and as everyone knows, a simple argument can spiral totally out of control and result in siblings not speaking to each other or adult children refusing to speak to their parents.
It can lead to months, years or even decades of hurt on all sides, with one or both parties refusing to make an effort to patch things up. Sheila McBride* knows only too well what this is like as she has been in the midst of family arguments for the past five decades. “My husband has four siblings and it was clear to me from day one that he was the black sheep of the family,” she says.
“His sisters have always been dramatic, bossy and self-centred, while his younger brother moved away to America at the first possible opportunity. When I got married, we moved into the home house and together, took over the running of the farm. “But, over the years, there was always an argument about something or other relating to how it was being run and how we were looking after his parents.
The sisters didn’t do anything to help, but they had an opinion on everything we did. “Then when my in-laws passed away, within two years of each other, things got very bad as my husband inherited the farm. There were family meetings where his older sister took charge and said that everything should be split up between them all as it was totally unfair that they were only ‘left a pittance’.
“The three girls were all very well off, either in their own right through their careers, or had married into money and we were hardly scraping a living, so it really didn’t make sense for them to be so livid about everything. “Legally they didn’t stand a chance as it was there in writing, but my husband, who had always been a quiet man, was very upset about it and was made to feel like he was cheating his siblings out of their fair share.” Following the reading of the will, several months of unrest ensued.
This led to the cessation of family communication and this, says the Tyrone woman, made life very hard for her husband. “He was devastated by the whole thing and wanted to try and make things up to his sisters,” she says. “But apart from selling the house and the farm and dividing up the proceeds, there wasn’t anything we could do to appease them.
I was more angry than upset as I couldn’t believe that they actually felt they were owed anything — he worked day and night there for his whole life, while the rest of the swanned off abroad, only coming home once a year and being treated like royalty by their parents, while we footed the bill for all the food and drink they consumed during their trip. “The fallout with the siblings has filtered down to the next generation and none of the cousins speak to each other, which I think is really sad. They used to play together as kids and now they are all grown up, they have no time for each other at all.
I don’t know what they have been told, but it’s as if they see us as being greedy or evil or something, when in actual fact we did nothing wrong at all. “I know my daughter tried to build a bridge with her aunt and cousins, but it didn’t end well and when she met up with them, things quickly escalated as when they were asking about us, there were some bitchy comments thrown in and my daughter decided that she wasn’t having any of it, so she told them what she thought of them and left. “I think it’s very sad that people can decide not to talk to a member of their family and then carry this on for years.
My husband died two years ago and none of the sisters came to the funeral — so, for that, I will never forgive them.” Michael Harrison* has also experienced family feuding and says that when people don’t talk to each other and close the lines of communication, it just makes ‘what could have been a small situation into something huge’. “My mother and my aunt don’t speak to each other and haven’t really done so for decades,” he says.
“They are both very feisty and opinionated — but as sisters-in-law, they got on well when they were younger. However, after an argument over two decades ago, no doubt fuelled by too much wine, they fell out. “My dad and his brother tried to keep things normal, but as they (the aunt and uncle) lived abroad and men aren’t great at keeping in touch at the best of times, several years went by without the two couples really talking.
They would meet at Christmas or family occasions, but the two women were always quite stilted with each other. “Then my sister went out to visit one summer and I’m not sure what happened as there are always two sides to things and we only heard one, but she apparently fell out with my aunt — and this made an already delicate situation worse so my mother wrote a very harsh letter to them, which really was the nail in the coffin for the relationship.” The 45-year-old, who lives in Belfast but is originally from Scotland, says that he worked hard to reconcile with his family members and succeeded in getting his father and uncle back together, but only for a short time before his dad sadly passed away.
“It was so great that the two of them spent time together before my dad died,” he says. “My uncle was living in Germany (where my aunt is from) but he came back on several occasions, both on his own and with her and everyone got along fine. It seemed like it had taken an impending tragedy for them to bury the hatchet.
“Then after the funeral in 2018, things were good for a while between both families, but it didn’t take long before my aunt and my mother fell out again. I don’t know, why but my mum says my aunt has just ‘returned to her old ways’. I don’t want to get involved because I want to keep the relationship open.
“So now, we have a situation which is completely abnormal and stressful as I keep in touch with my aunt and uncle and their sons, who are a similar age to me. My mother and I have fallen out over it as I went to visit them last year and she was furious about it. “She says I have to decide where my loyalties lie, but I think it’s ridiculous as I don’t have anything to do with whatever it is they have fallen out over.
I told her as much and she said that it was up to me, but I would be putting my relationship with her and my sister in jeopardy by being disloyal to people who ‘only think of themselves and what they can get out of others’. “Obviously I don’t want to add more fighting and drama into my life and my mother is very stubborn so I know that it wouldn’t take much for her to snub me as well, so we just don’t discuss it. I still keep in contact with them, but I never mention anything about them to my mother and vice versa as it’s not worth the fallout.
“ It is a stressful situation and really quite ridiculous, but I am being asked to choose between my dad’s only brother and my mother and it’s not a choice I am willing to make.”.
