Jealous

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EqualinHim

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Hi guys,

I don’t know how to explain it, but here goes:

I am facing issues with my family. My brother and his girlfriend live out of state. Sometimes, when they visit, I often feel like my family forgets about me and I have to play second fiddle to my brother. My older brother is much more socially adept and outgoing. I am on the autism spectrum. He has moved out and I am still at home. I’m posting this because this weekend I am supposed to be going on a camping trip with my brother, his girlfriend, and my parents. I often feel like my parents would rather have her as their daughter rather than me. She is crafty and I am not. I am the religious/intellectual type, unlike my mother who is into every single art/craft in existence. My brother’s girlfriend is also healthy/skinny, whereas I have struggled with my weight since I was a teenager. My brother and I share a birth month and my parents had the idea to do a joint birthday celebration while my brother was in town this last year. During the birthday celebration, my parents seemed to shower them with loads of attention, whereas they didn’t even bother to ask me where I wanted to go for dinner or what I wanted to do for the day. It was all planned without me, and that hurt a lot. I know that my parents love me, but I cannot help but feel that whenever she is around, I play second fiddle to her and my brother. Would I be wrong to insist on a separate birthday celebration this year? And how should I navigate future family get-togethers, like this camping trip and the others that might come up? I feel like this jealousy that I’m experiencing is getting in the way of what could be a great friendship between my brother’s girlfriend and me.

Also, kind of related to a family issue: my mother got very concerned about my weight and made me weigh myself in front of her. It was more than a bit humiliating and disrespectful. I am 24 years old and not morbidly obese, but not perfectly skinny either. I know I can stand to lose a few pounds. I’m very self-conscious and sensitive about my appearance. These actions did not help things between my mother and I. My mother is a great listener and loves me very much. It’s just that sometimes, her concern for me causes her to do things that are emotionally hurtful.

Please pray for me, and my emotional healing. I don’t want to feel jealous, or angry. It’s eating me up inside. I just feel so isolated because I have so much difficulty engaging with people and socializing, even with my own family.
 
You can’t really stop feelings, except to replace them with a different point of view.

You might try looking at it as you getting your parents’ attention most of the time and your brother only “getting” them when he is at home.

You might try feeling grateful that your parents aren’t distracted from you because your brother has a good marriage.

Also, start right now to feel grateful that your parents are forging a good relationship with their daughter-in-law. When it comes time to take care of your parents because they are failing, you and your brother might be very grateful that she is so close to your parents.

It is quite OK to ask your mom not to combine birthdays. You can just say, “Let Bob’s birthday be Bob’s birthday. He’s almost never here. Let’s just have a big thing for him.”

“Actually, I’d really like to celebrate my birthday once with just you and once with just Dad. I feel so comfortable when I have a one-on-one dinner out with just one of you. There isn’t all the social stuff going on for me to keep track of. I can just feel I’m paying attention only to you and you’re only paying attention to me.”

You’re going to find it easier to cope with everybody paying attention to your brother and girlfriend if you feel as if you are willingly giving up attention to them. It feels better to be generous than to have something taken from you against your will.
 
Easter Joy Sumed it up perfectly ,
Nothing much could be added to it, I can surely sympathise with how you feel,
You seem to be living in everyone’s Shadow , and finding it hard to get in the sunshine ,
I had a very similar upbringing,it does get better,
 
I am truly sorry you feel the way you do. It can be very difficult to feel detached from one’s family.

Your description of your brother’s homecomings seems a little bit like the Prodigal Son, and you’re the son who stayed home.
 
Wow, I hear you.

I’m a middle child, and middle children are often ignored. I could disappear during family get-togethers, and nobody would even notice I was missing.

As for birthdays, apparently I was born at an inconvenient time. Why, how dare I have the audacity to be born during tax season! And how dare I allow my birthday to fall on Easter every once in a while!

One time my birthday was pushed off for four months. When we finally all got together, my family handed me one card with a check inside. That was it. No cake. No ice cream. No going out for a meal. They’d had four extra months and that was all they bothered to come up with.

It was more than I got the next year and all the years after that, which was nothing. My birthday wasn’t celebrated again until I started dating the man who would eventually become my husband–and by his family, not mine.

As for what you can do about your situation–can you approach your mother about this? Can you tell her how you’re feeling left out? Would she be receptive to listening to you?

If not, I’m afraid you can’t change the behavior of others.
 
I’ve seen this dynamic several times and experienced it in my own family where there is a child who lives far away and the rest of the family is just expected to be available and fall in line with their plans whenever they visit. You can understand the parents being excited to see their visiting child but it’s not nice when they make it so obvious you come second. I don’t think you are wrong to want your own birthday celebration either and your mum making you weigh yourself like that was wrong even if it did come from the right place.

Would making plans directly with your brother make you feel more included when he visits?
 
I hear you. I have an older brother. Some parents have the mentality once their boy becomes a man, he is now above their daughter. I can tell you right now, chances are, your parents won’t change

Your 2 options are
1- pray for acceptance
2- find other avenues to spend your rime

Sadly, there really is no easy solution

Angie
 
The older I am, the less I believe in the expediency of giving people something to understand between the verses or trying to read their behaviour. Consequently, what I’m going to say is you might as well talk to them openly, just narrate it as your feelings rather than their wrongdoing or neglect, but here’s the tricky part: don’t overdownplay your concerns, don’t overapologize etc. or else it will tempt them to dismiss your concerns citing that you, yourself allegedly don’t consider them legitimate, so why bother (this sucks, but people often choose that kind of reaction as the easiest way to limit the quantity of stuff that gets on their plate).

Try to listen to them and accept verbal assurances as reliable unless they very clearly are not. Like I said, interpreting body language, undertones and overtones of speech etc. is all lamentably unrealiable, so verbal statements are about the only way people can communicate reliably provided that thy are honest.

Next, perhaps trying to understand their position could help mitigate your pain through rationalizing their behaviour. The charm of novelty would be a good place to start, as well as hospitality etc.

Finally, you and your parents may have some differences in so-called love languages, i.e. express actual, real love in different ways, some of which pass unseen. You can’t fix things solely on your side, so don’t blame yourself when you realize that; it requires effort on both sides. The goal (not ‘trick’, but goal, as in we aren’t doing anything gimmicky here but the opposite) is to motivate your parents to at least care to find a solution. Naturally, I hope they do care like that, at least sufficiently.

And yes, I realize the pain’s awful, I’m not downplaying it by just being a little matter-of-fact-y. I’ve experienced it too, which is one reason I’m trying to keep it contained.

Saying a prayer or two for you.

Actually, one more thing: I can’t guarantee I’m right, but jealousy is bad while justified requests aren’t really a horrible thing to make. Hence, looking from an intellectual perspective, it might be a better idea to recognize one’s limitations, admit the need (for attention or something else) and make the request, as opposed to putting oneself in occasion of jealousy. ‘I don’t want to develop feelings of jealousy, which is why I’m making this request of you,’ is perfectly sound logic, not that everybody will immediately agree with this observation.
 
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