We are now in our 40s. I was the black sheep / the wild one / the one who never seemed to get it right. She was the good one / the one whom Mum could rely upon. I don’t think other people saw me like this btw. I was never in trouble at school. I always worked hard. Tried to be polite and considerate etc but whatever I did that was good counted for nothing and if I got drunk once, then the narrative was that I always got drunk.
I stayed the black sheep for about 30 years though. When I’ve been hurt and I sometimes asked my sister to console me by just acknowledging what had just happened, she never would. She was witness to it, but she’d either turn her back or join in condemning me.
The main problem was obviously with my mum but I thought we resolved that two years ago when she apologised for what she’d been doing. I was not 100% convinced that she meant it for more than a few minutes, but I took it and held onto it, and we’ve never mentioned it again. Things have been much better between us since.
In fact, they were so good, I agreed to go for a weekend away with her. My sister then asked if she could come too, and we went away last weekend.
Things were ok at first, but then my sister started saying critical things about me half-jokingly, but Mum took up the bait. Then, it was just like old times. I was being scolded for everything: my driving, when the milk jug slipped and I nearly spilled it and for my (apparently, ill-informed) views. I even had things that my sister had said attributed to me, if my mum did not agree with them.
On Sunday evening, we were having dinner together and my sister started talking about how we each had our fixed role in the family and nothing could ever be done to change it. I was the wild one and she was the good one, she said. She acknowledged that she had played up to it.
Then things got worse and Mum and I had a big row. She was calling me stupid and ill-informed when I just suddenly had had enough. I told (not begged, more ordered) her to stop and to “shut up”. So, we are back at square one, but this is about my sister.
Later, my sister tried to tell me off for how I had spoken to mum. Her view was that I could have handled it much better. I thought about it, and quietly told her that she also had to stop believing the untruthful version of who I was. I said that it was never true in the first place, but now I am in my 40s its just beyond ludicrous. I said if she didn’t, then I would cut her out of my life. If she stopped then, I’d be glad to have her as my sister, but only if it stops now.
She seemed really hurt. Just before we parted, she asked me to say that I’d been over-tired and angry and I hadn’t really meant it. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t answer. (I just started to cry.)
I honestly don’t understand what is happening. It is as though she cares, even though she spent most of her life making me out to be some sort of dissolute waste of space whom she was ashamed to be associated with.