Verified by 
Understanding Twins
Why It Is Hard to Be a Twin
Too much closeness, sharing, and competition is the underlying difficulty.
Posted February 27, 2023 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
Key points
- Competition, jealousy, sharing, and expectations make twinship a hard relationship to navigate.
- Twins are sometimes confused as to who they are in relationship to each other.
- It's important not to make twins feel guilty or ashamed if they don’t get along.
I have been told by countless twins that twinship can be the most beautiful and harmonious relationship. Ironically, twinship is also a profound struggle for understanding, potentially filled with anger and heavy resentment. Twinship can be looked at as a roller-coaster ride: Going up is fun, but coming down is scary.
Twins have a unique attachment, unlike the mother-child attachment and the sibling attachment. I have said that twins are "born married" to hopefully explain this unique attachment. Unfortunately, that description is still inaccurate. Twin closeness is even more profound than marriage, with different emotional dimensions and expectations related to the shared twin identity that begins in the womb.
Twin closeness is an untold story, according to my own twin sister, Marjorie. And by the way, this is one thought we agree upon. The reality of twinship can be hard for twins to understand and perhaps impossible (probably impossible) for non-twins to imagine or comprehend.
What is unique about twinship is the level of conflict between twins, which can come after harmony, almost instantly. Conflicts over differences of opinion—what belongs to whom, or who is more favored or entitled—are ongoing discussions that create intense unhappiness and confusion. Harmonious happiness can easily be totally wiped out by a superficial fight over a dress, toy, or sweet treat. Profound fights about the best college to go to or the right man or woman to marry can become ruthless and hateful, and often cause nonstop fighting and alliances in the nuclear and extended family.
Sharing friends and family members can be an unending war of who "belongs” and who is the "damaged one," the "outsider," and who should "stay home.” So in-home fighting extends to new family relationships. Sad as it is to say, some twins cannot get along after they leave home and create new families. For example, Aunt Tina does not invite her sister's children to Christmas because Tina and Genna can't agree on how to discipline Genna’s children, if and when they break a rule.
Is Twinship Ideal?
So, what is ideal about twinship? Developing your own identity as you measure yourself against your twin is very complicated if not impossible, in my personal and professional experiences. Competition, jealousy, sharing, and expectations make twinship a hard relationship to navigate. Often, I use the analogy that a roller coaster ride is similar to how twins get along. A lot of twins call me to talk about this relentless "on-off" connection phenomenon.
Knowing and understanding that other twins suffer in this way is a relief for lonely twins who cannot get along with their sister or brother but desperately want to be understood in a twin way. I think that twins who are riding the twin roller coaster feel crazy and want to get off. Knowing that others have this experience is calming and comforting. In other words, twins know it is hard to be a twin because their conflicts bring anger and resentment when previously there had been such beautiful harmony.
Twins actually know that their relationship is different than the relationships that siblings or other people who are very close share. I am not sure that twins can explain what is different to other people, but the unspoken understanding is apparent when I say to twins who have sought my expert advice, "Twins are over-identified with each other." What I mean by this is, twins sometimes are confused as to who they are in relationship to each other.
For example, when I was in kindergarten, my twin got paint in her hair and I could not stop crying, thinking that I would be in trouble. The teacher called our mother to ask why I was crying and not my sister. “What is this about?” the teacher asked. Mom said, "Oh, this behavior is normal; they always react like this. Margie gets in trouble and Barbara thinks it is her problem to solve." Of course, the teacher was concerned, but not my mother. Decades later, the paint spill motivated me to understand the unusual long-standing behaviors that twins see as normal.
In this example, I was over-identified with my sister because I thought that I was in charge of her. What Marjorie did wrong was my mistake, not her mistake. This identity confusion had many facets and goes on and on. In today's world, my sister is a writing professor at Stanford. If I make a grammatical mistake on a paper I am writing, she is sure that she will be shamed by her “smart” colleagues. We could have a serious down-and-out fight about where to place the commas or the best word to use. She thinks she is me and I know who I am. Her horror of someone else's red pen correcting me prevents her from having any real interest in what I am trying to communicate.
The questions of “who is right," "who is wrong," and "who is responsible for the problem of the moment" are what psychologically make twinship hard. Of course, there are many other extreme challenges that twins face in a non-twin world. But as I evaluate what I have heard from other twins, psychological issues revolving around identity defenses are the most profound to hold onto and difficult to let go of and move on from.
Conclusions and Recommendations
If you are a twin or close relative reading this post, try to understand that too much closeness, sharing, and competition is the underlying and also visible difficulty of being a twin. As a twin advocate, avoid the following common reactions to twins.
- Twinship is not a relationship to be idealized. Do not say, “You are so lucky to be twins.”
- Do not ask comparative questions when you are socializing with twins, such as “Who is prettier?" or "Who is smarter?” You would think that no one would ask such questions, but they are common.
- Accept that twins have issues getting along. Don’t make twins feel guilty or ashamed that they don’t get along.
- Twins who share friends have conflicts and confusion. If you want to be friends with a twin, establish that you don’t want to be friends with both twins. Stay out of this dangerous middle ground.
- Think about how twin relationships are closer than sibling relationships. Being a twin in a non-twin world is hard for twins of all ages.
