My sister can be a bit odd

[Ritascornershop]

My sister is unfailingly helpful and really does her bit for family. However, like all of us, she can be a bit odd.

Imo she’s got fixed ideas about how people ought to behave and any deviation from that is met with shock and disbelief. Recent things I’ve done that she’s been shocked about; not taken a book on a long flight (planned to read articles on my phone, watch onboard tv, and nap), ordered Thai after said long flight instead of shopping for food and cooking, killing an ant in my car “but you can’t do that. We are kind to animals”. I don’t care if people eat meat, but I haven’t for over 30 years. She eats meat, so I found that schoolmarmish telling off a bit peculiar. I said “you eat meat” & she said “sometimes, but I’d never kill an ant”. (I’m not saying I have a great excuse for it, but ants creep me right out and I don’t think they feel pain or process emotions in the same way animals do).

Am I being unreasonable to find it a bit annoying that a middle-aged woman can’t imagine someone has different habits than she does. She’s also shocked that I like wind, watching telly, and occasionally wearing high heels: ie, am a different person to her.

I think it’s a sign of insecurity; almost as if living differently to them is a covert criticism.

Are her habits a resampling of your parents' habits? And your habits are different? In that case then I would say she's reading the subtext of your different ways is because your critical to how the family has always done things. It's almost like "where did you get that from, we would never do that growing up..." It's an insecurity.

YABU to kill ants. They are much smaller and pose no threat to you, there's literally no point to you doing so. How would you like it if someone 300ft taller than you just decided to kill you because you creeped them out?

In all other respects from what you've said, your sister sounds really annoying.

I could have written this post. My sister is exactly the same. She looks genuinely confused when my approach is different to hers. She can't understand why anyone would want to do something the 'wrong' way. It feels like my every move is being catalogued. She's not doing it in a nasty way at all but it does wear thin.

@Iknowthis1 yes, it’s the confusion (& a bit of judgement) that I do some things differently. Mostly we are quite similar, but we’re not twins, in fact there’s a 7 year age gap! We also had different dads, so some difference may be put down to inherited nature. She’s often shocked that her kids do some things differently to her. We live in a city, she’s worked all her life, you’d think she’d have noticed that it’s a wide weird world out there!

I hadn’t thought of it as insecurity, I’ll bear that in mind. She’s definitely more rule-bound than I am and I think that makes her nervous at times.

My mother can be like this, not with everything, but a great many things. She simply can't grasp that I don't like everything she likes. She takes offense to it, actually. As though because I'm her daughter I should think exactly as she does. It's very wearing and very tedious.

It does get a bit wearing as I think “how on earth can you be shocked that not everyone likes herbal tea; Billy Joel; summer weather; playing Scrabble; etc?” I am shocked that at her age she’s still so easily shocked 😂 She’s quite affronted that people have different tastes and habits to hers.

I know (by her own admission) that she didn’t have many friends as a child and teenager and I wonder if it’s a reaction to that? I was far from the self-defined in crowd, but had lots of friends so maybe more exposure to other ways? She has been married 4 times, so I would have thought that would have been enough to show her various ways of navigating life, but nope.

She’s such a lovely person, but I know (for example) that I couldn’t travel with her, she’d drive me mad with being constantly surprised and disapproving at a hundred little things.

I gave a friend who cannot/will not accept that other people have different preferences to her. If your preference is different to hers, you are wrong.

My favourite time of the year is spring, but apparently I am wrong and the best time of the year is winter.

I don’t like to have my bedroom windows open at night, but I am wrong, the windows should be wide open.

My mother is exactly like this. I just smile and point out politely that ' I am not you mum and you are not me. My life is mine.' Haven't had to say it for a while. The message is slowly getting through

Mines the same. She has a very narrow spectrum of behaviour that she finds acceptable in others, and can’t really process that other people can be different but that doesn’t make them rude/offensive/insulting. She’s very thin skinned and has to make everything work to her advantage or convenience. Yeah, it’s exhausting. But family and that 🤷🏼‍♀️

My Mum went on and on about the fact that I chose a partner who can’t drive. She said it makes him less of a man, why won’t he have lessons, she would only ever be with someone who can drive etc etc. We live in London, I don’t drive myself and I couldn’t give a toss if he drives or not. Of all the things she could have chose to obsess over, that was it. I found it so weird.

Your. DPs are different people - probably one takes after DM and the other after DF.

She DOES sound a bit different. Doubt she’ll change at this point though.

Still,

killing an ant in my car “but you can’t do that. We are kind to animals”

♥️

I spent a while wondering how you killed an ant in your car, imagining that you had driven over one (how would you know?) but you mean it was inside the car, don't you? 😭

Anyway, we all have our quirks and it sounds like hers is a lack of imagination as to how other people live. My MIL was just like this. I tended to say mildly "I'll have to give that a try" every time she remarked that I wasn't doing things how she would do them.

One of my DHs mates is like this about everything and it’s so wearing, we went on holiday with him & his wife and god I was done by the end.

Every little thing, if not how he’d do it, was ‘wrong’, no concept that people just have different ideas, ways of doing things, none of it was hurting anyone, he’s just incapable of understanding that people have their own minds, it’s quite bizarre.

YANBU for finding it exhausting although some people really do struggle to consider there are other ways of doing things, or other things people might like. I've got better at this as I've got older but I'm not sure it's something that comes naturally to me.

It is a self-esteem thing, ultimately. If someone does something differently, or doesn't like something I love, does that make me wrong? I must be wrong. God, if I'm wrong about this, what else am I wrong about? Fuck, I'm wrong about everything! I am a piece of shit that doesn't deserve room on this earth!

Ok that's a slightly exaggerated timeline/thought process but for people with anxiety, low self esteem etc, it can be hard to have their way of living 'challenged' by the existence of other ways. I have got a lot better at shrugging this off as I've got older.

Also she's right about the ants! Let her deal with it if you don't want to.

Doesn’t sound like a big deal, to be honest, unless there’s more you’re not telling us.

My DH can be like this, can't understand that I've got my own brain and own way of thinking / doing things.

I'm pretty sure he has undiagnosed 'something' but as I'm not a psychiatrist I don't know what - just further up the spectrum (not based purely on this trait, there are many other 'tells')

YANBU sounds very wearing. I have family members like this and it drives me insane. I feel like l should make a recording on my phone saying “everyone’s different, it would be boring if we were all the same”. Then play it all the time

My mum has poor theory of mind and is a particular culprit of this. She just can’t get other people’s perspectives. She was moaning about her neighbour not doing enough gardening and her front garden looking a mess (looked fine to me by the way). I pointed out she had 3 children under 5, worked full time and probably didn’t care. The not caring bit blew my mums mind but then again she only had 2 children and worked part time so quite a different set up

My mum is like this and it took years to realise she has very low self esteem. She comes across as quite bolshy and domineering which is why it took me so long to recognise.

Anything I did that was different to her really seemed to offend her, as if it was a huge rejection of who she was (as opposed to just being a different person in a different generation!) She gets on much better with my sister who is much more like her and has followed in her footsteps much more.

I've learned to brush it off cheerily. Though this is after many years of feeling like a terrible disappointment!

I don't know if there is anything you can do. Low self esteem is ingrained and can't be easily fixed, especially if the person does not recognise that is the issue.

I have 2 sils (sisters) who are both a bit like this. One is likely autistic, I have an autistic son and she was the initial driver for going to get him checked out and the other has significant anxiety. It is absolutely exhausting but like your sister they are really nice people and we get along well but we limit our time with them to make it work.

I think unless you’ve been around someone like this for a significant amount of time it’s perhaps difficult to understand quite how irritating being ‘corrected’ for your own thoughts and ideas constantly is.

YABU for making a big issue out of this when it just sounds like she’s making conversation.

Surely she is just making conversation. ...