Needing help with sisterly relationship

[5659bsbk]

Hello catholic answers community,

This is going to be a fairly long post, and I hope someone out there can bear with me, but I really need help.

I am a young Catholic girl (21), and I am posting today with a heavy heart and an worried mind. I am currently facing a struggle with my relationship with my older sister and I am in need of advice and counsel.

My older sister, 24, is my best friend in the world and I love her in the deepest way imaginable. She is kind, generous, loving, affectionate and everything that a truly wonderful person can possibly be. I want to preface this entire post with the fact that she and I share the most impossible love for each other, and all of my comments do not come from a place of anger or resentment but of simply not knowing how to move forward.

My sister is a beautiful, but very complex person. She and I differ very greatly in temperament and it has proven to be the biggest problem between us throughout our young lives. While I am someone who will talk through a conflict, I, nor anyone in my family can come to her with anything without it turning into an explosion of an argument. It can be absolutely overwhelming sometimes, and I find screaming very difficult to handle. I simply am not that way and it has resulted in me always going to my parents when I have been upset with her because when she is told she is wrong it explodes. We now live together, and have for the past 3 years. Now that we live alone together I feel a strain on us without our parents there as a referee. It truly is difficult to communicate with her unless she is being told exactly what she wants to hear and doing what she wants to do. Much to my own fault, I will admit, it has made me simply not say what I feel or be completely honest with her because I always get shut down and don’t know how to stand up for myself against the power of her anger.

To this day, when it gets really bad, the reaction I get almost makes me dizzy. I still often call my mom in the middle of an argument because I am at a complete loss. When she and I aren’t disagreeing on anything, we are thick as thieves, but in even the slightest glimmer of disagreement I feel like we are miles apart. I don’t think she and I have ever fully resolved an argument on our own, and I am ready for that to stop. I want to know how to be able to speak my mind and really communicate with her. I want our relationship to be full that way, but i just don’t know how to get there. My mother gets the same reaction, and has the strength to take her on and discipline her, but I don’t know what to do without my mothers constant interjection.

Another issue that we are facing is that she has a very difficult time going out in the world on her own. She has a hard time meeting new people, doing new things and going places, near or far, by herself. Doing new things alone is obviously nerve wrecking for anyone, but she and I differ in that I am excited to try new things and go places far away and be independent. I am highly focused on my education and career ambitions and I work very hard, often spending long hours at school or going to the city for internships. I don’t mind being by myself. I love my family to the deepest depths of my soul, but I have reached a point now where I don’t feel scared of growing up and taking my final steps towards independent adult life. I often feel really guilty about this because my sister has a lot more trouble with this and needs me to come along with her to things or wants me to be back at the apartment because she can’t be alone. When I try and explain why I sometimes can’t, I am faced with the same overly emotional reaction that makes it impossible for me to fight back. She and I already spend a lot of time together, and while I love spending time with her, I want to be able to carve out a life of my own.

I will be soon applying for a masters degree, and she saw that I have been googling a certain degree at a school in the states. This particular school is an ultimate dream school for me. When she reacted I felt very guilty for even wanting it. I told her I would never get in anyways, and she was deeply relieved by that. If the tables were turned, I would be rooting for her, no hoping that it wouldn’t happen.

I am not sure what to do. I love my sister. I accept my sister. She is who she is, and I don’t want to change her. I don’t want to abandon her. I want to treat her with compassion, kindness and understanding, I want to know how to communicate with her. I don’t want to at all act selfishly. But amidst this struggle, I am having a hard time knowing what is actually selfish of me and what isn’t. I will never abandon my family, but I want to have my own life, as a young adult. I want to follow my educational and professional passions, which may end up with me leaving the province or the country for a little while. Is this wrong of me?

Catholic Answers community, if you have stayed with me this long, I truly appreciate it. I feel lost. If you have any advice, any thoughts or similar experiences, I would absolutely love to know.

God bless all of you and hope to talk with you soon.

 

[St_Francis]

You are not at all wrong to want to carve out a life for yourself, even to the point of going to your dream school.

It seems that you might be “enabling” your sister, sort of providing her cover so she doesn’t have to deal with some of her own problems. I find it surprising that she cannot tolerate being alone for short periods of time, so that you have to join her.

Does she ever criticize you? Could you use that as a basis from which to start a conversation about her behavior when contradicted?

 

[St_Francis]

You are not at all wrong to want to carve out a life for yourself, even to the point of wanting to go to your dream school.

I would like to suggest that your kindness to your sister may be allowing her to not realize some of her problems. I think her fear of being alone and doing new things is keeping her from doing those things and making her life more difficult. These are things she should feel are keeping her back and sge should want to do something about, but that doesn’t seem tk be happening.

Does she ever say things to you which are the types of things she would blow up over if said to her? Maybe you could use one of those times as a basis for discussing this problem with her. Or perhaps you could work with your parents and come up with alternative ways of telling her things, like email.

 

[Lorelei12]

I think you need to move out. It is not wrong of you to want your own life, and it would be healthy for you to take more steps to get there. Right now she is inadvertently controlling you and holding you back.

It sounds like you being there is also holding her back. If she expects you to go everywhere with her, if you were to move out she would have to learn to do things on her own. She could get a pet, or another roommate. It also sounds like she could benefit from therapy to help her overcome her anxiety and inability to be alone.

I don’t really know that there is a good way for you to remain living with her and have peace in your own life. She is not amenable to an adult conversation, and you won’t be able to help her with that, she should be seeing a specialist. You are not selfish to want to be on your own, and if I were you I would take whatever steps are necessary to find a different living arrangement.

 

[JackS79943]

I think you need to let the butterfly develop its wings,
Have you heard that story where a person sees a butterfly struggling
In its caccoon and it struggles for some time, now the person in pity and kindness
Takes away the caccoon matter and thinks they are doing a good job. Alas, the butterfly needed that struggle to develop its wings.
I can’t help to think this story applies to you and your sister. Let her struggle so she can
Over come her fears of going out by herself etc.
Hope it helps God bless

 

[mountee]

You have my sympathy as this is a difficult situation that has gone on a long time with someone you love very much. I am certain that you can resolve this but it will take a conscious effort from each of you. In any relationship learning to communicate, especially when you disagree, takes practice. If you refuse to stay or listen when she starts to yell you might get her attention. If you tell her during her rage that when she calms down you will be glad to talk you might make progress. But, letting things continue as they are means nothing changes. I will pray for you to find the way to work things out in peace. God give you the strength and the wisdom you need.

 

[Sunbreak]

You are not wrong or selfish to want to move out on your own. Your sister may not like it, but she needs to get the help or take whatever steps are necessary to become a fully functioning adult, which means not leaning on you so much for everyday aspects of life. I think she may need to build her own self esteem and overcome her insecurities so that she doesn’t need someone to agree with her to feel secure.