Please help - I can no longer deal with my sister

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lovedance4ever

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Hi all. I hardly know where to begin with this one; all I know is that I just need to get these feelings out of my head.

First of all, I am an eighteen year old girl. My sister is twenty-three years older than I am, and she has three daughters and a husband who is a Methodist minister in the air force.
Ever since I was three, I remember being terrified of my sister; not in a physical way really, just because she was so nasty to me at times. I was not a perfect child by any means, but I know I did not deserve the treatment I received from her. For instance, one day, she brought over a tray of chocolate chip cookies, and we each had two. My oldest niece was just a little thing at the time (just old enough to toddle and grab at things), and she walked up to the hot tray of cookies and began reaching for the last one. Knowing that I was expected by my sister to be the “responsible aunt” I gently took her hand and said that she could not do that, otherwise she would hurt herself. Well, out of the blue, my sister storms over and starts yelling at me, telling me that I was selfish for wanting the last cookie….which was not even close to the truth! She went on and on about this, and I remember being too frightened to say anything. And this is one of many stories. It got worse as I grew up; there were even times where she would slap my arm. One might say she was joking, but honestly, I think it was way too hard to be a joke. My skin would sting and turn red for a while after.

Fast forwarding a little bit.

By the time I was in my early teens, I knew how to behave with my sister so that I would not get lambasted too often. There were even times when we got along. When my grandma passed away, she flew from where she and her family were living at the time, to my house and stayed with me and our parents for three days. It was amazing, and we did all the things normal sisters would do. For the first time, she was a big sister to me…she did my nails, gave me advice, and giggled with me as we painted my father’s toenails while he was asleep. I actually felt love for her at the time. But then she went back home and it was never the same again.

We had started growing closer, but that ended after a while. I know she was a busy wife and mother, but she would go months without returning my calls, e-mails, or anything. However, I did begin to grow closer to my now older nieces and discovered how wonderfully funny, and intelligent they were; they were the light of my life.
So when I was fourteen, I decided (after talking it over with my parents) that I wanted to write my sister a letter, expressing how I felt, and that I would like to have a closer relationship with her. I did mention how I wished to be treated with more respect, but it was not harsh by any means, and I continually repeated how much I loved her. Initially, she responded saying that she had no idea I felt that way, and that she would get back to me in a day or two. Fair enough.

Three weeks passed; all calls and messages from my nieces ceased, which was HIGHLY unusual, as I hardly went a day without at least speaking with them for five minutes on the phone. I also began to break down and went into a deep depression, as I believed that my sister had no intention of writing back to me, which would have confirmed my feeling that she cared little for me.

So my mother took it upon herself to call my sister on the phone to ask her what was going on. My sister answered, and after a long and bitter argument, she simply stated to my shocked mother, “My non response is my response.” My heart was broken; I do not think I have ever cried that hard before in my life. I could not believe how easy it was for her to throw out a relationship with her little sister who only wanted to patch things up. However, one night, I was surprised to receive a phone call from my second oldest niece. Something was very different about our discussion, though. She kept on insisting that she would never stay married to a man who was physically abusive to her……which is quite a strange topic for an eleven year old, if you ask me. Finally, she finished by saying something that led me to believe my brother-in-law is abusive (physically) to my sister. Unfortunately, this did not come as much of a surprise, as we have always known that he was a mean and spiteful individual. One time at a family event, he shoved my father. Now, my dad is a very capable man, but because he did not want to cause further trouble for my sister, he remained silent about it. Many other things have happened, that are too many to list, but they are highly disturbing, and when I found all of this out, I felt so guilty about causing added stress for my sister, that I immediately called and apologized for complicating her life! Not one apology came from her; only a simple “I forgive you” and then she proceeded to compliment me for being so mature by seeing the error of my ways. I felt so humiliated.
 
(continued)

Two years passed, and they discovered that (and here is the air force part again) that he was being transferred out of the United States, which was shocking. We went to see them before they left, and her husband was nothing but miserable to all of us. My sister basically ignored me after we left, and for reasons my parents and I still do not know, she seemed to stop almost all contact between me and my nieces. I was not even able to say goodbye to them when they left. She seemed to go back to her old, miserable self again.
Now, I admit that this may have been a rash, stupid decision, but I wrote a final letter to her, letting her know how hurt I truly was (things that I had left out of the previous letter), and that I had no desire to have a relationship with someone who treated me so horribly. She never responded as expected, but two years passed, without me ever hearing from my nieces. I would send them birthday letters, cards, and gifts and they would never, ever respond. I was so depressed my parents became concerned that I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I finally could not stand it any longer, and sent an email asking to hear from my nieces again. She wrote back (surprisingly) and told me that I was a liar (I had stated that I knew that her husband was abusive), and vicious and she would never let me speak to my nieces again until I apologized. And so not wanting to humiliate myself again, I told her in no uncertain terms that I would not apologize, as I am the one who deserves an apology. We left it at that.

My nana was then diagnosed with stomach cancer (she is fine now, thanks be to God), and she asked me to please contact my sister to let her know how she is. It was hard to do, but I sucked it up and IMed her. Well, she acted like nothing had ever happened, and we began talking again.

Which brings me to the present. She has told me I am free to speak with her daughters; the only thing is, they do not want to speak to me. I write, and they still do not respond. Her oldest daughter, who has given her so much trouble over the years (very curious sexually…just inappropriate) will write to me and be nasty. She is a little liar…I know that is a horrible thing to say about my niece, but she is just like her father. Because they a Protestant and we are Catholic, there have always been issues there. My oldest niece once told me she wanted to become Catholic, but after tricking me, turned on me and started mocking the Church. When my mom reprimanded her, she began crying and all of the adults who were around yelled at me and told me to apologize (I had not done anything!!!)…which I did. Again, this is one of many similar stories. My oldest niece, sadly, is manipulative and not someone you want to get too close too. Oh, and she just told my mom the other day that she wants to convert to Catholicism.

Now, my sister goes months without speaking to me, and then acts like it is okay that our conversations are only on her time. I know she is either still holding my nieces back, or she and her husband have brainwashed them or something. When it is my birthday, she and her husband will sign, but for my nieces, she will only sign “the girls,” while for everyone else, they sign their names. This may sound petty, but after knowing how it used to be, I know that they do not want me as their aunt anymore.

Well, I am as angry as ever at all of them now; all of the hurt has built up, and it peaked when I discovered that they are moving back to the States, only a day’s drive from where we are. My sister said that they are coming to visit us this summer, but honestly, I do not think I can handle that. She has everyone (outside of myself and my parents) tricked into believing that she is this nice, “pastor’s” wife, while she has been so hateful to me and my parents (she has been horribly disrespectful to my father, but that is a whole other story).
I need prayer. Desperately. I know there is such a thing as righteous anger, but this has turned into hatred. I hate the pain they have caused me…I cannot see their faces if they are here, otherwise I am afraid I might act in a way very much contrary to my Catholic beliefs.

What can I do to feel better about this? Do you think it would be completely awful of me to spend a few days elsewhere while they come to visit? Then I dread holidays…they are sure to come to my other relatives’ houses….and I won’t want to be there. My sister writes to me on Facebook occasionally, but I am afraid to say that I have begun ignoring her, almost hoping that she will somehow get the hint…or sadly, that I could give her a glimpse of the hurt she has caused me for so many years. You have no idea how I long to say to her, “my non response is my response.”

So I ask for prayer. And advice if you can give me any……I am willing to hear if I have acted in an inappropriate manner. I think I just need a different way to look at this situation. They will be coming in a few months.

Thank you all for taking the time to read my blathering.

Blessings,

Lovedance4ever
 
I’ve read over this. I don’t think that I can give you much advice based on my own experiences. I can say, however, that you should avoid allowing the anger to build up and avoid spending unnecessary contact with your sister. Pray to Christ and ask for saints on your behalf to pray for you. And consider talking to your priest. I do sympathize with you and I will be praying for you.
 
We had some family situations that would come up over and over. Eventually, my husband decided to cut ties - it may sound mean or sad to say, but he seems much happier and less stressed. I don’t know if this will go on forever but for the time being, if it effects you so much as to make yourself sick (you mentioned fearing a nervous breakdown at one point) - I would say drop her - I wouldn’t even keep her on my facebook - I would (instead of unfriending her) I would seriously consider doing another name - one that you can tell everyone else about. or you could just put her on ignore. This is too much of a roller coaster for you - yet off and let your stomach get back to normal before ever considering getting back on…
God Bless and Good luck - you’ve got enough to contend with - if she ever comes to you repentant and balling her head off about what she did, then you can decide what to do. Sadly, it seems she and her husband’s ways have rubbed off on your nieces - maybe one day when they grown up they’ll tell you what happened.
Rye
 
I am sorry but I am quite skeptical that things will improve. My suggestion is to leave all of them alone, and stop trying to communicate. They have major issues and you should avoid getting harmed by toxic behaviors.
 
lovedance4ever said:
Hello, I am eighteen now.
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Your sister has personal problems that are not your fault. There is nothing you can do to resolve them or even understand them. You can love her and your nieces and your brother inlaw, and pray for all of them.

Let things be. Time will bring change.

In the mean time you can develop your own interests in life. Grow in faith and virtue.

The best thing you can do for them now is for you to grow in grace and closer to God and send blessings their way. You can let your nieces know you are there for them if they need you and then back off.

From the sounds of things, your sister is a very unhappy troubled soul and has been for a long time. This is not your doing, and you can not undo it. Chances are there are some very difficult times ahead for her.

If you are happy in your personal life, growing in grace and love, it will be apparent to your family and nieces. You can be there for them when their storm strikes if you are needed or called upon.

God bless you.

.
 
Sweetheart, some people have issues that cause them to act badly whether or not you are kind or less than kind. You simply provide an outlet (a punching bag) for their own unhappiness. It is an excuse rather than something deserved. Please don’t remain a victim of their inability to cope because of unhappiness and conflict. If you remain angry with them understandable though it is, you are letting their actions and treatment win.

You are 18, and you have your life ahead of you. Please begin to prepare for a happy future.
I pray you will find a good, generous, kind person with whom to share your life.
Be respectful and Christian to your sister and nieces, but as they seek to hurt you, you need to cultivate some emotional detachment…not spiritual, as you need always to pray for them, for their healing and salvation.

You can’t expect of them what they are unwilling to give, kindness, respect, and unconditional love. You can only pray that they will accept grace to grow into these virtues.

You can pray that your sister and nieces will heal from the effects of family life that is discordant and often hurtful If you have feelings, let it not be hate, but charitable pity for the spiritual and emotional damage that cripples them and their relationships.
You cannot change them, even, it seems, through your years of faithful kindness, but you can move forward to a healthy and happy future if you do not allow their inability to love to cripple your life.

May God bless you, and our holy Mother pray for you.
:grouphug:
 
Lovedance4ever, I am very sorry to hear about what you are going through and I will pray for you. I know a little bit of what you are going through. Also I think there are a couple of things going on with your sister’s situation that you should consider.

First, it seems that your sister has a lot of sadness and frustration in her life. This does not excuse what she is doing or has done to you, but sometimes when we try to see what causes the pain individuals endure we better understand why they act as they do. It is very sad indeed if she is enduring abuse from her husband, and it is even more sad if it is at the hands of a minister, because this would probably also have consequences for her faith. It would be very hard to live with someone who spreads Christ’s message as a profession that in turn cannot do this in their own life. This may be causing a lot of hurt in your sister’s life including separating her from faith in God.

I have a sister who is 17 years younger than I (half sister actually). I have tried to get in contact with her to see her when I am in town. I send her birthday and Christmas gifts, as well as periodic emails. But for the most part I do not hear from her these days. My two biological siblings have little contact with me. My brother is a busy college student and my sister is in an unstable drug addicted life. It is frustrating to want to reach out and have loving contact with people we should be close with but who do not reciprocate.

Closer to your situation, I have been estranged from my father for over ten years. He was not a good parent before my parents divorced. I have learned very little of what I know in life from him, and I know going forward I don’t expect much from him. Yet there has been something nagging at me for over nine months to write him a letter to let him know how I am doing and to let him know that I do not harbor any ill will toward him and hope that he is well. I sent this to him before Easter and have not heard back yet. There is a chance I might have to see him in a few weeks time and I have been very concerned about it. In the letter I made it clear that for the time being I thought written communication would be the best way to talk. But if I see him, if I am in a situation where he is present, I will be kind and sincere. I do not need to act like things are perfect, but I cannot allow frustration with how he has treated me in the past to manifest itself in my acting out in some way. That is not productive, and ultimately, not in Christ. But I will not go out of my way to see him at this time, because I do not think the timing is right for me to make this happen.

I know you are experiencing a lot of hurt feelings. I know a lot of what these feel like. They are not your fault. You have tried to be available to people, and what they do with that is up to them. Christ teaches us not to retaliate, so even though you feel like you want to tell your sister that your non-response is your response, this is not something you will ultimately do if you search your heart. We are called to be living examples of love, and we are called to forgive people for what they do to us. This does not mean things will be perfect. Pray for them. Because they have hurt you your prayers are very meaningful. Pray also for God’s guidance in what you should do. He will help to show you the way. If you feel like it would be too much at this time to see them maybe skip it. However, if you think you can be a living example of Christ’s love in front of them, knowing that you cannot create a balanced relationship going forward because that is on them at this point, then I would be there when they visit. I think God sometimes uses us in ways to help others in ways we do not understand. But the timing associated with this is also hard to understand. At present it might be most helpful to detach yourself without being totally unavailable. To a certain extent this is what I have done.

God Bless.
 
Hi, I also have a sister who is very spiteful at times and would hold grudges against us for years and we had no idea why, and kept her son away from my parents and I. She lived down the street from us, literally about 7 minutes away, for almost 10 years, but I never even saw the inside of her house until she left her husband and her son and moved 45 minutes away.

The only advice I have for you is to just let it go. There isn’t much you can do about family that doesn’t live with you and you don’t see on a regular basis. I never got to have a relationship with my sister and didn’t see her for several years even though she lived 7 minutes away. Before, I didn’t get to see my nephew either, but since she’s left them I get to watch him every other week for my brother in law while he goes to seminary school (a Methodist seminary coincidentally).

I’ve never had any ill feelings towards her about her lack of sisterly feelings towards me, but it is hard to forgive her for what she’s done to my nephew and his father. I know her actions have hurt my dad so deeply, and I cry for him. I try to make up for her by being the most loving daughter I can be toward my father and a loving aunt to my nephew, since his mom left him after being a stay at home mom for 11 years. He has had the motherly influence suddenly torn away from him. I cry for him as well because it’s not fair.

I see my sister a few times a year at family parties, which she comes to sometimes now for some reason. We talk a lot at those, but that’s about it. And that’s fine.

So that’s my advice to you-be a loving daughter to your parents, be cordial to your sister and her family if the initiate contact, but otherwise, forgive and let it go.
 
I’m sorry for all your hardship and pain. it is so difficult when those who are our own flesh and blood behave in such unloving ways 😦

I’d make contact with them minimal. I’d be courteous and polite, but not open yourself up to them emotionally. Don’t hope the relationship will get better, accept it as it is. Do not put your trust in untrustworthy people. Don’t see them if you don’t want to, don’t talk to them, email, or IM if you don’t want to. Simply be polite in declining if they ask you directly. I would still send them birthday cards, just to wish them well, but that’s just me.

As for your wounded heart, you must work very hard to forgive them. Sometimes if I have been hurt repeatedly by someone, I picture them as sick. I know that sounds weird, let me explain. Suppose a person had a physical disease that made their behavior erratic and hurtful-- like Alzheimer’s, or maybe a disease that caused them so much pain it effected their temperament. They wouldn’t be culpable because they had a disease-- they couldn’t help it.

Sometimes it helps to view people who cause a lot of turmoil and destruction like this. When you remove the culpability from them, it is easier to forgive. You don’t know why your sister is the way she is, you don’t know what has gone on inside her marriage that might have helped make her this way, so maybe in some way, she is not fully responsible, or fully able to help being the way she is.

If you don’t forgive you will end up in a prison of your own making. Cliche, but true. You must ask God to help you be willing.
 
These people have caused you and your family serious pain. If you don’t want to see them, go away for a few days.
If you can bear to be at home when they visit, be calm, courteous, and polite, but don’t be drawn into the drama.
I feel for you. What suffering they must have caused you over the years. You have a wonderful future; don’t waste it on these relatives.
I will pray for you.:o
 
(((lovedance)))

I, too, have problems with my family, in some ways similar to what you are describing.

I’m the older sister by many years and there has always been trouble between myself and my much younger sister. She has done some really unpleasant things, things designed to humiliate me in front of other people, throwing things at me, telling me repeatedly how to be a better person, what she thinks I’m doing wrong with my children, how I’m not up to snuff in one area or another…the list goes on. She believes, of course, that I am the problem and is upset that she and I are not close, and if I would just quit doing all the things I supposedly do to make her life so difficult…

Now, I’m not saying at all that you are doing anything to your older sister, but rather, I’m tossing out why things got like this between me and my younger sister. I believe it backs up to my parents–an alcoholic father, a mother who stayed in an emotionally and sometimes physically abusive marriage–and the dynamics of alcoholic families. There’s always a scapegoat, and in recent years as I’ve delved more into it, I’ve understood so much more of things that happened even before my sister was born. I was considered the problem child in the family. To put things in perspective, to this day (I’m in my 40s), my mother regards me not as a daughter who was always on the honor roll and in advanced classes and accomplished in the arts, but as the daughter who ‘refused to learn her multiplication tables’ in 3rd grade. (We moved in the middle of the school year, the problem was not me ‘refusing,’ but the school being way ahead and no one helping me catch up.) The point being…this is how my parents choose to filter what they see about me. And this is what my sister learned from the time she was quite young.

By the time she was three, she knew that she could push and provoke as long as she wanted, and the only time my parents would react was when I finally snapped. When I would ask them to stop her, they’d say, “She’s just a little girl. Why are you getting so upset?”

My second point is, knowing this about my sister makes it easier for me to forgive her and be at peace, rather than hating her and angry. I feel she is as much a victim in this as I was. I know she is hurt that she and I don’t have a relationship at all, and it’s because my parents taught her to behave in ways that were guaranteed to destroy our relationship. They taught her she never had to look at her own part in it.

At the same time, I have finally had to walk away from her and the relst of my family, and the abusive, critical words and attitudes.

As others have said, your sister has been hurting and angry for many years and taking it out on you. You’ve tried several times to repair the damage and establish a good relationship. You can’t force her to have a good relationship or be nice. Pray for her, have compassion for whatever it is driving her, but take care of yourself.

Do you have friends, hobbies, interests, college or a new job and a future to look forward to? Focus on those things. Focus on living your life with integrity and kindness while understanding you can’t do a thing about those who refuse to accept and return the kindness.

I personally also found al-anon helpful in dealing with my situations. You may not have an alcoholic family, but al-anon’s principles are good for dealing with anyone who behaves in those ways; good for learning to focus on living your own life positively and worry less about what others choose to do with their time on earth.
 
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