to be totally sick of my parents supporting all my siblings except me?

[justwait]

I've never minded in the past. I am one of four. I am 55, happily married. We are quite well off compared to some - small mortgage, can pay all bills, run two cars. Have three children all at school (state). We aren't well off enough to have holidays every year, but everyone is well fed and does hobbies etc. We both work. My parents had a really unhappy marriage and my mum had a drink problem. My homelife as a child was unhappy. I did a lot to look after my three younger siblings. To cut a long story short, ALL three of my siblings have problems. db1 had a drug addiction and is clean now which is brilliant. He lives at home and doesn't pay my parents a penny, they pay all the bills and buy his food. H'es in his thirties. My dsis is divorced and a single parent. She gave up her well paying job two years ago and now doesn't work. My parents have just bought her a tv, a fridge and now are going to pay her garage bill.

They have never given me a penny and in fact didn't even bother to send my kids easter eggs or anything for easter this year - my mum has done this in the past - deliberately not sent a present to one of my children because she felt I didn't make enough of an effort to visit them (I live four hours drive away and they have never ever been to visit, I am expected to go there).

For some reason I've had enough. Would I be unreasonable to mention it? For once in my life I feel really cross about it. They've just given my dsis 1k to pay her car bill. I KNOW i am being unreasonable as she can't support herself at the moment but I am feeling really really fed up.

Its sad that you can get to 55 and still feel like the ignored child :-(

Justwait, you are clearly doing fantastically to me.
Your life sounds good, and uncomplicated by addiction, of lack of emotional functioning, so enjoy it.

If you feel sad about your alcoholic mother and her problems, and her decision to treat you and your sisters unfairly, perhaps contact alanon for some specific counselling for growing up and grown children of families with alcoholic parents.

Having said that, you do sound like you're doing fantastically with the family you grew up in.

Congratulations, and good luck.

Sorry but yabu
You are managing financially but your siblings aren't. Love isnt money. Your parents can choose who or what to spend their money on.
You're mixing up childhood feelings of favouritism, with their right to spend their money as they see fit. I understand it feels hurtful but only if you look at it that way.

I know I am bu.

Honestly, this has been going on for years and I've never even thought about it until now.

Not sure why its pissing me off so much. Maybe it was the lack of Easter Eggs for my dcs!!

I can't help thinking that my siblings would learn to manage better if my parents didn't bail them out the whole time.

my mum told me that she refused to give my dsis some money for something once and she threatened to kill herself

My own situation is similar so you have my understanding. My parents even bought a business to give my sibling a job for 12 years! Another sibling gets her rent paid every now and again or a food bill! I struggle every now and then but don't whinge. I cope. I don't know how to help you really - just my sympathies!! :-)

YANBU OP, this would piss me off too. I know a lot of people whose parents give them money because they have paid for something for a sibling and they feel bad about them missing out. Not saying that is the norm but it's like you are being punished for doing well for yourself.

Maybe your parents just don't see it as 'favouritism' and are genuinely just helping out their children when they need it and if you were in need of help they would give it to you. But even so, it would be nice if they could acknowledge it in some way.

I suppose I'd just say that if you could swap places with your brother who lives at home and has everything paid for him would you? It might sound nice but I bet you wouldn't - what has he got going for him? If I met a man in his thirties who still lived at home and couldn't look after himself I know I'd judge and wouldn't find it very attractive (sorry, just being honest!)

just wait

When i wrote that, it sounded softer in my head (that's the thing about tone!). You do have my sympathy. Xxxx But please put it out of your mind and i bet your DC got Easter eggs from others!

You are the lucky one out of all your siblings. Remember that every day. I am the unfavoured child, the scapegoat. I only have one brother, elder by two years. He is the golden child. Very messed up and has managed to marry a woman, who I now see has psychopathic tendencies - not a physically dangerous one, but one, without normal feelings and emotional responses. Brother very much under her spell and they are messing up their child for the next generation, poor kid.

It is hard to live with a mother or father shaped hole, to mourn for the parent you needed and still need and will never have. I know it is easier said than done, but celebrate your achievements, your life and family, the love that you all have for each other.

Counselling helped a lot for me and taught me to look towards my family and away from the pain and the past. Your parents will never give you recognition for what you did for your siblings growing up. Because to do so would be to admit to their failings. And this is perhaps why they are unable to honour you in the way that you need. It is ok to parent yourself and honour yourself. You've got everything you need inside of you to do this and you may just need help to show you the way, which is why counselling can be very helpful.

It's got nothing to do with the money though, has it? It's about effort (or lack thereof).

I don't think yabu but I think mentioning it could open a whole can of worms. Perhaps you need to withdraw a bit for your own sake?

I can understand where you are coming from. It's amazing what things can dredge up those feelings of being the least demanding (and therefore most ignored) child. It sounds like you are similar to me and DP. Both sets of our siblings will go to their parents for things as and when they need it. But for me and DP to as we would have to be pretty much desperate, and we do our very best to live within our means even if that means missing family outings or not having holidays.
But at the end of the day, if we went to our parents they would give us the same as our siblings. There are always strings attached to any help though... maybe it is the same for your siblings. Your brother may live their for free... but he has to deal with your parents day in and day out. My brother lived at home long after I left, he's older than me, but I would rather struggle to make ends meet, work 2 jobs and not have a holiday than live with my parents for free.

It's much easier said than done, but be proud of what you have accomplished (on your own) and try to be the best role model you can be for your kids.

It's a difficult one, OP. Ultimately you don't NEED this help and although a lot of that is down to you and the way you've managed your life (well done!), some of it is also down to luck / opportunities / a supportive spouse etc etc - perhaps some things your siblings didn't get/

That said, I do understand why you feel that way. My family is similar in that my brother NEEDS a lot more help and support than me, practically, emotionally and financially. I don't get the same support from my parents because I don't need it - but they do regularly remark on it (the financial side at least) and apologise for it. Which I always say is unnecessary but I wonder if I would be resentful if they hadn't always done so?

Anyway, ultimately I would rather be me - independent and happy - than my brother - dependent and miserable - even if he does have a nicer car than me and still get his washing done! I'm sure you feel the same way.

Ha. I have just this minute namechanged in preparation for posting something remarkably similar! I hear you, OP.

YANBU to be upset. YABU if you expect it to ever change, I think, but then you know that already.

For some reason I've had enough. Would I be unreasonable to mention it? For once in my life I feel really cross about it. They've just given my dsis 1k to pay her car bill. I KNOW i am being unreasonable as she can't support herself at the moment but I am feeling really really fed up

YANBU.

It's the "eldest child is a coper" syndrome. Welcome to the club!

I imagine many posters will say you are unreasonable and grabby and all that stuff. But you're not unreasonable. Our parent are our parents all our/their lives. And giving is a symbol of regard and position. That your parents don't give to you must feel shit.

Of course you don't need their help, and I hope you are proud of not needing their help. But ... one's parents shouldn't respond simply to their children's dire needs; it would be nice if they recognised that you work hard & are capable & self-sufficient, and give something because you don't need it - simply to show their love for you.

It's hard to live with, isn't it? And you feel rude & grasping for even daring to be upset thank goodness for anonymous internet forums But you are upset, and you're not unreasonable to feel so. Sometimes, being the eldest, I've felt that I'm an interloper, a changeling in the rest of the family.

Love isnt money

But in families, money is often symbolic of love and connection and your importance in the other person's life. So the OP might feel less important than her siblings in this respect ...

Think of the way people feel about wills or the possessions of a loved one, if they are cut out of a will or not able to have a token of the person who's died.

YANBU. Its not about wanting the cash value that you "dont need as much", its about wanting something to show that you exist and you matter too, isnt it? No-one wants to be the invisible child, no matter how old you are.

Thank you all so so much for your lovely messages. They really mean a lot. I think I have a lot of unresolved issues and sadness about my childhood and every now and again it crops up like this. It makes me feel that I have done something wrong - my mum in particular seems to resent my life - often talking about how my dh is 'loaded' (he's not!) .

I never ask them for help. Except one time when I had quite bad PND after the birth of my dc2. I broke down on the phone and begged my mum to come and visit and help me. She said she would. Then she rang the next day and said she couldn't come after all (for some made up reason which I can't remember). I felt very very hurt and foolish after that.

I bought my dcs eggs, I bought them one every day of Easter so they had four each :-) MIL and PIL gave them some money. I just feel so crap that my parents don't even bother with them! Dc3 asked if she would be getting an egg from grandma it made me feel shit to say oh I don't think she bothers with things like that (fake cheery voice).

I think blood worries makes a good point. Sometimes money gift does bring strings. I'm not talking normal healthy aware families nor reciprocal gratitude of helping each other out stuff, that a money gift would engender, but maybe ....

Would it help you to see it as maybe difficult and humbling that your DB and DSis need to ask for financial help as adults from their aged parents? You have built yourself a fantastic life independently and don't need their help, through better -or luckier- choices earlier in your life. And that was after the same difficult experiences in childhood. I'd be proud of that and try to stay sympathetic with siblings x

There is a possibility that your Dparebts feel that they have limited spare money to help out with and are targetting it to their DC who need it, whilst worrying about having enough for their well earned retirement plans? You don't need financial help.

Insightful /aware parents might realise it could seem odd /favouritism and explain it to you, but maybe they haven't thought about it like that. It is after all their money and future cushion.

If you feel ignored or forgotten, is there a way to Skype/phone your parents regularly inbetween visits, so that they know you do need their love and (non financial) support ? I'm just asking, not assuming, as it may be you do all of this already xx, But sometimes people don't realise what they can't envisager and genuinely just deal with the pressing problems they see in 2 of their adult DC that are immediately obvious in front of them.

I think a huge amount of it hinges on acknowledgement. When I try to look fairly at the huge differences between the parenting I received and the parenting my younger sister received, I can see that my mother learned from some mistakes, and that my sister has always been there at a time when my mother had more resources (of all kinds) to give. But there is no acknowledgement of that. In amongst every hurtful comparison, and indeed in amongst every occasional reference to her own mother's favouritism, there is no acknowledgement that we both got (and continue to get) very different levels of support and love from her. It makes me feel like I'm going mad, sometimes, the dissonance in what she says.

Stupid things which shouldn't hurt do, sometimes, because they stoke unhealed old pains.

I can understand the hurt and the ridiculousness of the situation with your mother not coming up after the birth of dc2. That stinks and I get how that feels. I really think you need to mourn the loss as I already said.

changechange
It was the other way round for me. My brother is the eldest and male. Mother believes males are superior. He was her pfb. You see it even now how she learnt on him for support after my stepdad died. It was his funeral last week and she could only really release her pain and cry his shoulder, not mine.