Family member wants to have a conversation with me about the “wider issues” between us, which I really don’t want to have - who has the final say on something like this

[Desolate1]

We had a big argument about what was supposed to be a joint short holiday this summer.

Long story. And slightly ridiculous were I to write it all down.

This person has repeatedly messaged me about my failings (though she also upset me and I told her this and why), and I have apologised repeatedly at this point.

We have done all of this by message, and now she is saying that unless I have a face to face conversation with her in which we discuss the “wider issues” between us, she is cancelling the holiday.

Can’t tell you how much I don’t want yet another conversation about this, or to be made to feel shit about “wider issues”.

Surely the person who doesn’t want this kind of conversation gets the final say? I feel like I will be forced at gunpoint to talk, and it’s making me feel like running a mile.

I'm very late to this but wanted to share my experience.

I was in a similar boat to you, in this situation with a family member. They had been repeatedly awful so I held them at arms length but was still polite. I did things that apparently caused extreme upset but they were complete none issues. I apologised, however, to be civil.

In the end I got a series of messages - angry ones - rehashing the same thing over and over, and then requesting a face to face meeting. I declined this and went NC after months of stress and anxiety.

I have lived a fairly stress free life since then. The idea of being bullied in to a conversation for somebody to have a pop is not one I enjoy, especially when it's going over things that have already been discussed.

If I were you, I would not do this and also not go on the holiday.

@daisychain the trouble is it's never as simple as "just find someone else" - for one thing I'm totally emotionally shattered by this relationship, have no self-esteem and am riddled with self-doubt (spend a considerable amount of time especially after threads like this wondering if I am in fact horrible and abusive, second guessing everything I think and feel and say), and I'm always on my guard - I can't imagine ever being willing or able to try to be open with anyone ever again in a relationship, and obviously for me that is sort of the point of being in a relationship, knowing each other, understanding and being understood. I've lost faith that this is actually a good thing to want. And just drudging along alongside a familiar stranger scarcely seems worth the trouble just for what one saves on living costs and admin.

For another we have a child, and I'd like for her to have a sibling (because ironically I'm very close with my sister!) - and because I come from a "blended family" with all its dysfunction I would never have an unrelated man live in the same house as my daughter, or make her a "half sister" to another child who had both their parents in the home. So it's this or single parenthood to an only child, and that is so far removed from what I wanted for my daughter that I can't help but keep trying to meet in the middle of what he wants and I want. But that seems to mean I'm just standing in the middle begging him to join me and not getting any response. I am so tired and sad today, it's just been a day, and this thread hasme wondering not just if I will never get what I want but if I'm even a hateful bitch for even wanting it.

Although if @TitianaTitsling is to believed really I just think I'm better than everyone else and am stealth-boasting . As it goes one of the things my partner says is he doesn't want to talk with me because I'm better at it than him and think too fast so actually you can fuck off with that Titiana. I am intelligent and quick-witted and make no apology for it, but you'll be happy to know that it's fucking me over in my personal life.

And no, sorry, nothing "just is". It just isn't. There is a reason for everything; not everyone can articulate it, one doesn't always necessarily know until after the fact (e.g. I was miserable as sin the other week, thought I was becoming genuinely depressed and was scared, next day I got me period a week early - Eureka, hormones!). So know it's not always "a deep rooted reason that needs psych analysed", but there is always a reason. Just some people aren't comfortable or interested in exploring what the reasons are. Which is fair enough I suppose, and what we're really looking at (in both the OP's relationship with her sister and mine with DP) is just profoundly incompatible personality types.

I daresay I'm making him as miserable as he makes me. The difference is that that knowledge makes me more miserable still, and desperate to talk to him about how I could do better, but he'd just see that as me verbally invading him again. Whereas if I were to just shut up forever, and never initiated another conversation more challenging than whether we should stick a load of washing on tonight or what he'd like for dinner, he'd never give my emotional well-being another thought.

names I've re-read what the OP has posted about the holiday saga and it seems the OP overstepped regarding the holiday organisation and when she was pulled up on this by her sister she apologised, accepted she was wrong to do so and backed off - the sister cannot let that lie and keeps going back over it and how upset she was.

Honestly, what else can the OP say or do? She has accepted she was wrong and apologised repeatedly what is there to analyse? What answer would you want that you would consider reasonable? What is to be gained by constantly going over and over this? To keep on about this suggests to me that the OP's sister wants OP to don sackcloth and ashes and chant mea culpa, the sister is gaining some macabre satisfaction out of continually berating the OP and making her feel bad.

It does sound like you are incompatible, Names, and I can also see the reasons why you want to stay with him anyway. Instead of trying to make him fit a mold he doesn't want to fit and then getting upset and resentful of that, is there a way you could accept him as he is, and find another place to get the closeness you crave? Like a support group or through other friendships?

Then again I look at the messages I have just written and take in what Titiana says about "intensity" and I think - is there something wrong with me? I write the way I think. There are a lot of words, they happen fast in my head, my ideas flow very fast but not very neatly, metaphors and similes and analogies spring up in the stream constantly, my thinking feels very live and 3D to me and intuitive - the idea of having to "stop to think" is one I just don't understand. Partner says I don't give him time to think. But when the question is about what one feels, surely you just know?

Maybe it is completely abnormal to think like this. Maybe it is oppressive and is hurting me as well as stressing him. Them I think maybe I should take these thoughts to my counsellor tomorrow. But then I think, rather uncharitably but in a way that has a horrible trueness in my head, that maybe a large part of why I'm going to counselling is to allow me to continue to obsess on my own thoughts?

I look at this stuff that's coming out of me right now and wonder if it reads like someone in a state of mania. I wonder if, inside the heads of people like the OP and my DH and Titiana, there is a sort of muffled calm, or a stately progression, where only the salient facts and important information ever actually consolidates itself into an articulated thought, in a way that is completely different to how my mind feels to me.

Apologies OP for this utter ramble and please ignore it but I will start another thread specifically asking people with a manic illness if any of this sounds familiar. If someone could medicate me to be more mentally straightforward and more emotionally self-contained and most of all less miserable then I'd gladly take it right now, even if I had to become a different person.

names I'm not actually offended by your 'fuck off' it does sound that you are a very deep thinker and you have got yourself into a vicious cycle at present with your partner and the more you're 'pushing' to talk in depth the more he pulls away, which just makes you push more? I'm definitely not a self contained person but I've started recognizing in myself when I'm heading into a time of over thinking after doing some CBT.

Hi @sonjadog thank you for that. I try so hard to expect nothing from him in terms of closeness any more. I just want us to get through the day being kind to each other. But he is always angry about something, but then says he is not angry or won't talk about why - not usually me, just life - building site noise, this weekend, rain when it rains, just... I always feel like I'm waiting for him to get angry either at me or near me. When he's nice to me I don't feel happy, I feel relieved, like I've lucked out somehow. When I ask him wh he's angry (when he's huffing, stropping, muttering under his breath, being incredibly short with me) he says he wasn't but now he is because I'm saying he is and that's annoying. This was the row we had today which ended up with me crying my guts out because he'd been away for three days, I'd really missed him, lovely messages back and forth about what he was up to and funny stuff the toddler was doing, he'd been home just less than 24 hours and we'd had a massive row about nothing at all as far as I could tell and I realised it's just never ever going to feel nice and safe and kind, never mind a deep mind to mind connection. There's no trust either side, no basic assumption of good intentions.

I know I need to try and numb myself to the anger too, if I'm going to stay in this - to just not take any readings of his mood unless he explicitly TELLS me he's cross or needs help or whatever, just try not to feel the clench in my gut when he starts slamming around in the kitchen going "for god's sake" etc. Hence the counselling. Trying to disentangle my emotions from his. Trying to work up some self-protrctive indifference. But again that is such a sodding miserable goal to aim for and so much less than I wanted for my child - parents who just try to stay out of each others way and not antagonise each other. It's crap and I've given her a crap life to work with. But now there are only bad options, and it's just trying to work out what's the least bad. Dismal.

Hi @Titiana thanks for your reply and sorry about the fuck off - just had that one thrown in my face too often so I snapped! Not warranted so I'm sorry.

I'm in counselling - maybe once I've finished disgorging my messy head out on the treatment room carpet she could think about giving me some CBT tools to try and get some sort of mental or emotional continence going on!! I think reflecting on my (million word) reaction to this thread I really need it.

Not filial. What’s the word?

Sororal

names it sounds to me as if your husband will not do what you want because he thinks that you are setting traps for him to fall into, whatever answer he gives will not be the right answer, you will challenge what he says wanting a further explanation, you will turn what he has said back onto him and maybe he finds it all draining.

More often than not things are as simple as: Sorry, I allowed myself to get a bit carried away/was overexcited/wasn't thinking/didn't think/was feeling a bit grumpy/tired/distracted. If someone keeps coming back with but why? are/were you one of the above I need to know and I'm upset and unless you explain it more fully I am going to keep on and on, it rapidly becomes tedious.

Sorry names just read your latest update, your problems with your husband go far deeper than I had realised before I wrote my previous post. His behaviour actually sounds awful and I think is a far cry from what we were discussing in respect of the OP and her sister.

I am not talking about the constant anger your husband is displaying, that is something entirely different to what I was discussing and I agree that is very damaging to you and also your child, the atmosphere in the house must be dreadful and you sound as if you are walking on eggshells which is extremely worrying.

@RedDogsBeg

What you describe is pretty much exactly what he would say I think. But... When you say "some things are as simple as...." I struggle I do. For me anyway they aren't! There's always a reason for everything, and things are interconnected. There are patterns, and causes. And if for example you've had the same row 400 times almost verbatim, or the same uncontrollable thing fucks you off massively every single time it happens (e.g. it's raining and he wants to go out but he'll get wet, train gets stopped because of person on the line, traffic jam) surely if you want to be happy it's worth exploring that stuff a bit and trying to bottom it out and find solutions, if not to the problem then to one's reaction to it? Not just keep repeating painful or upsetting patterns every single time?

And yes also he has never given me an explanation for anything as fulsome as "I was a bit grumpy". And never any apology unless it is when we have got to that point of "oh fine fine, you're clearly never going to stop going on at me, you're right about everything, sorry!" type apologies that basically just mean "shut up and fuck off". His POV is he should be able to say and do whatever he likes, react however he wants to anything, and I have to not react to that at all or expect any kind of apology or reflection or self-control and just act like it hasn't happened. Until the next time it happens. Like with the row we had today - I still feel like shit and am hiding from him in my room (after playing nice all day when the toddler was awake) because I can't bear to be in a room with him and have to completely ignore the fact we had a huge argument today that ended with me crying and him walking off and it must never be discussed or resolved because any mention of it will be automatically designated "me haranguing him". I just don't know what the right thing to do is apart from basically try to completely ignore him unless he asks me to do something. What kind of a relationship is that?

RedDogs

But that's the thing, that's my version of events! What you described in your first post is far closer to his version of events. Maybe I'm just neurotic and oversensitive? I don't even know any more. Maybe he really wasn't angry and I was just imagining he was snapping, maybe it IS annoying to have someone ask what the matter is if as far as you're concerned there isn't anything the matter. I really really wish someone could watch us together and tell me if I'm mad or he is; we can't both be right! But he doesn't behave like this in front of other people... He is really shy and very diffident and quiet, no-one would believe how cross he will get over nothing...

names I agree with your last post, the more you say about your husband the worse it becomes, I am not advocating his behaviour at all, it is so far removed from what I consider acceptable and am trying to articulate in respect of the OP and her sister.

I couldn't live the way you describe, you are right it is not a relationship.

Desolate1 - I think you've said the most important thing you need to say to your sister on here already.

'I would be happy with settling on trying to be kind to one another'

(my sister and I are like chalk and cheese, I get it completely)

I'd skip the holiday, OP, and in future, if you have to deal with your twat of a sister, just cheerfully mock her - 'Oh still whining on about that, are you? Why don't you get a hobby?'. People like this are tiresome bullies, and shouldn't be given an inch. One apology is sufficient, if you've upset someone. People who want you to 'open up' are, again, tiresome bullies - you have every right to keep your thoughts to yourself. No one is owed anything more than civility.

In our last blow out she listed all the littlest of things I’d done wrong and I apologised for everything (even if I didn’t think she was being reasonable). When I said she’d hurt me too she wanted a list of every time she’d done something hurtful - something I didn’t think was useful/would only make the situation more toxic, but she insisted. After three of my examples were denied/refused to acknowledge them because she couldn't remember them (I felt like she was gaslighting and trying invalidate my feelings) I gave up.

This is exactly the same with me and my sister @Cloudyapples

I do love my sister, she is kind, funny and incredibly generous just not towards me.

And this too @Landlubber2019

I think many people on this thread have very little idea about how abusive siblings can be.

@dodgeballchamp

You sound like someone I would find quite unpleasant - being cold and defensive as you admit you are

You sound quite unpleasant actually, @dodge, not the OP.

The OP said it's her sister's opinion that she is cold and defensive, she didn't 'admit' that she actually is. Nuance, dear.

"The wider issue here, and it's an ongoing one, is your inability to move on, to let things lie. We're done with that conversation, apologies have already been made: there will be no grandiose scab-picking session."

I've only read half the thread, but your sister sounds like my brother. He is incredibly intense, bombards me with nasty texts, he assassinates my character and is generally abusive (while calling me abusive), he brings up things that happened years ago, and recently demanded we meet in person to talk about something. I said no as he shouts and is bigger than me, doesn't listen to my point of you, and quite frankly, I do not like him, because of his aggressive haranguing.

We don't have to get along with our siblings (but I certainly wouldn't go on holiday with him)

OP, you really do have the right to set emotional boundaries that you feel comfortable with. Especially when you are quite fragile.

Some of the things you have mentioned are quite revealing about your sister. You are 'irrevocably changed' for the worse? That's quite a powerful negative assumption to make about another person.

I’m with name and itssosunny. I absolutely disagree that wanting to explore deep feelings and discuss them in detail is bullying, controlling or any of the other things said. Like others have said I am in the camp that thinks refusal to self-analyse or talk openly about issues is a character flaw and I don’t think it’s a healthy way to live. Sometimes it is necessary to point out people’s flaws to them if they’re affecting not only someone else but the person themselves. Providing you’re willing to have someone do the same to you - I would absolutely want sometime to explain to me in detail how my behaviour may be upsetting them and I would welcome the opportunity to think it over. Refusal to do that just indicates to me that the person is unwilling to ever take any responsibility for their behaviour. I couldn’t have a romantic or even platonic relationship with someone like that. Not sure how I’d deal with a family member, although my dad is similar, but he is hostile as well as defensive. We’re now NC.

But that's you, and your dynamic. It absolutely is possible for the OP's sister to be bullying in her behaviour.

My parents have always referred to me as a 'cold fish' because I don't share stuff. I never have done. That doesn't make me flawed, or somehow lesser, or unhealthier than my more emotional family members.

I'm this way in part because growing up in my family was quite fraught at times, opening up and saying someone hurt you would often lead the counter accusations that you were being unreasonable, or rude, or hurtful. So I don't share much with my family, I do so with my husband etc. That doesn't mean I'm not close to my family, but I have emotional boundaries.

I'm certainly not unpleasant in any way.

OP, I've read all your posts but not all the replies. It looks like you've had some helpful and some harsh ones (to be expected in AIBU, try Relationships next time!)

One thing that strikes me is that you haven't mentioned your parents at all. IMO sibling relationships, especially difficult ones, are heavily influenced by parents. Did they treat you and your sister differently? How did/do they manage competing demands from each of you? How did/do they react to disagreements between you? My guess is that they treated you differently and they failed to enable a good relationship between you. Of course as adults it's your responsibility now (yours and your sister's, I mean) but the foundation of your relationship is built on the dynamics from your childhood which were largely down to your parents.

You've mentioned "issues" and it seems that there might be a whole can of worms that you're not interesting in opening. FWIW I think this is all or nothing. Either you want a relationship with your sister and you open that can of worms - but you will probably need the help of a family/relationship therapist - or you don't want that and you just keep her at arm's length (but in that case I really wouldn't go on holiday with her).

"I absolutely disagree that wanting to explore deep feelings and discuss them in detail is bullying, controlling or any of the other things said."

But surely that's fine if you apply it to yourself?

As soon as you expect others to do the same & they don't want to...