To feel sad that my sister wants little to do with me

[Pr1vateone]

My sister and I used to be close. We fell out for a year or so over 20 years ago (because she was cheating on her partner, I found out and called her out on it, she didn't like it) but I thought we had sorted all that out. She can hold a grudge whereas if I have something to say, I have to say it. If I ask her if I have done something wrong she always denies there are any issues.

We both have children - my niece and nephew are a few years older than my DC. Before I had my DC I would babysit for her weekly, we went on holidays together and were generally really close. Things have gradually changed since I had my DC and now I barely see her. She has been to my house about 10 times in 10 years. She never invites me to hers but always says yes if I suggest visiting her. I have zero relationship with my niece and nephew, really, which makes me so sad as we were so close when they were small. I message them sometimes if I have something to say/ silly meme or something to send them and I get a few words back. I always send presents/ cards/ money for birthdays - my kids might get something via my mother two months after their birthday.

We have a group of mutual friends - more her friends, I guess - my sister and two others were all in the same class at school and our parents became friends, then the siblings (ie me and two others) became friends too. We have all known each other for 35 years. My sister meets up with the two of her age regularly (the three of them are very close) and otherwise we meet up the 6 of us every couple of months.

I do a yoga class with one of them (a sibling) every week - I hear more about my sister's life from her than I do directly from my sister. It is embarrassing (ie I had no clue she was going away for half term but this friend knew all the details and was invited along too).

I don't know what I have done wrong. I feel sad I hardly know my niece and nephew and that my kids don't know their aunt/ uncle/ cousins. I try to organise get togethers but it never happens - she is always too busy but never suggests another date.

It has now started that when the 6 siblings go out she won't go if I am going. Before Christmas we had tickets to a show booked months in advance, my sister could no longer make it so someone else bought her ticket. On the day, I had flu so cancelled - suddenly she could go and took my ticket - the other 4 were overjoyed. My sister is definitely more outgoing/ fun to be around than me but I am not a horrible person, just quieter.

We had a date in the diary for tomorrow - usually we go out for dinner/ round someone's house. I made some suggestions in the group chat earlier in the week and offered to host but got absolutely no response. I guess I am being phased out there too.

I basically only see or speak to her if my mum is involved now (I haven't seen her since last November - Christmas got cancelled as my mum wasn't well). When I did last see her I thought we got on ok? I get one word answers or a thumbs up if I message her directly but she is perfectly normal with me on the group chat with our mum.

For more context, my sister lives 45mins away but I still live near where we grew up, our parents and 3 of the other friends. My sister will come up to visit them but never suggests stopping by for a cup of tea. She has no interest in my DC and even had to message to ask how old my youngest was when buying a Christmas present.

I have asked whether I have done something to upset her before but she always just says no. She is always "busy" but always has time for her friends and husband's family. She doesn't work and her kids are now 16 & 18.

I feel she does the things she "has" to do for show - Christmas and birthdays but really doesn't want to. I suspect once our mum has gone I will never hear from her again.

I don't know why I am posting really, just feeling sad about it all.

Yes - her two best friends but not sure about the other two siblings.

i have changed and I have done so many things to rebuild our relationship but if she doesn't want it then fine.

I never ever say anything to her now that I worry will upset her - keep everything light and superficial.

Yeah I disagree with all the posters essentially saying it's your fault because you called her out. She was very happy to have your babysitting services all those years and after you called her out, wasn't she?

She's just not a very nice person OP, sorry. I would try to move on from the friendship group too if she's Queen Bee. You'll never win.

Not sure it was a drip feed just didn't think I had made it clear earlier in my post.

We made up just before she got engaged - no way in hell I was going to completely destroy my relationship with my sister and tell him. It has barely been mentioned since but I thought it might be relevant to why she keeps me at arms length now. My DH does not know about the cheating. I always wonder what she told my BIL about us not speaking for all that time?

You did nothing wrong calling her out for cheating . Hard as it is I would stop trying with her and see what happens . You don’t have to drop your friends but I would look for others.

Hi OP these days it can be lonely to stand up and do the right thing although from your sister's point of view she may have been unhappy and got caught up in an exit affair. I think those situations can be so difficult and traumatising for the people involved and maybe your sister is reminded of those days when she us around you.

As she has pulled away, I would do the same and would try and nurture other relationships but I know how difficult that will be and there will be sadness. I'm not sure you have much choice. Maybe your sister needs to miss you and this may happen if you get on with other things.

Thanks everyone - it has been good to have some perspective as I don't have anyone I can talk to about this IRL.

I am going to stop contacting her and will no longer initiate any contact with the friendship group. I still have nothing about tonight's plans and feel that is message enough.

Thanks again.

The rift occurred since you had children so maybe it’s because of different parenting styles. That can be a difficult subject to deal with but shouldn’t cause her to distance herself to the extent she has.

I’m wondering if around that time you said something indiscreet about her affair, or even something she might have misconstrued as being indiscreet about her affair. Especially if you have form for ‘telling it how it is’. If I thought there was a chance someone would expose such a dreadful secret I would want to keep them as far away from my family as possible and I definitely wouldn’t talk to them about it. I’d behave exactly as your sister is - making a show of all being well in front of others so no one starts wondering what’s wrong, telling you everything was fine so the affair never gets discussed again and you have no idea how worried I am that you could spill the beans. And I would definitely avoid you.

Your conversation about that all those years ago might be as fresh in her mind as it is yours so you probably won’t be able to resolve the problem and recover the close relationship you had and for your own peace of mind it might be time to let go.

Would you have been happy for this person who could have exposed your secret to babysit your children for many years? Because that's what has happened to OP.

And only now she's not useful, decide to drop her? I think that's very mean.

@LeBonBon I agree with you, if her sister had no reason to drop her having benefited from the babysitting, then she was a user. But if she believes OP has done something since then that she doesn’t want to tolerate she doesn’t have to just because OP had babysat prior to that.

it’s the timing of whatever OP might have done that I was getting at, which I read as being after they both had children

Yes, I wonder whether I have done something else in the past 10 years. I really can't think what though. It has been a gradual detachment since I had DC - I didn't have so much time and didn't initiate things as much and now we are at the point where, other than these joint friends, we see each other a couple of times a year (from weekly).

My sister would also write:

"If I have something to say, I have to say it."

But I would say about her:
"She is so rude and has no filter. Just says whatever she wants as it's "her truth". She talks to me like we are still kids or teenagers, not like adult friends." *
*
I recently went low contact with her because of this OP. She refuses to see she's doing anything wrong and I've just concluded that we are not compatible friends.

Hmm I am really measured with what I say to her now and I have for a long time - we do not have a deep and meaningful relationship at all and I don't seek that either. When we meet up we seem to get on just fine, we have a laugh - we do not do serious conversations.

I have asked her in the past if I have done something wrong and she said no, she is just busy.

Like I say, I will just leave her to initiate any meetings from now on as I have clearly done something/ am a horrible person.

You haven't said if you're the younger or older sister but it doesn't really matter.

All I can say is that in my own family, if any of us siblings decide to take any moral high grounds, attempt to tell one another off, it never ends well, regardless of who is right, so we don't. And we get on okay because none of us tries to parent the others.

On the other hand, my DHs slightly older brother did just that as did his wife to a lesser degree. They started small scale. They had a key to our house in the early days so would let themselves in when we weren't home. Little suggestions on how he/we should do things. Then throwing things away in from our own house he decided was rubbish! Deep cleaning things for us without asking. Then we dared to have a child before they did and it really ramped up the opinions and advice! Telling us we shouldn't be doing it like that, raising 'concerns' about our dog around our then toddler DC.

DHs mother emigrated and the advice and suggestions escalated. Despite my DHs job/young children making it hard for us to drop everything and go abroad to see his DM, the brother wouldn't have it and took it upon himself to give my DH a really hard time about us not regularly going abroad to see their DM.

All the brother achieved was the opposite of what he wanted...we detached more and more to live our own life away from them and their 'advice and opinions'.

The final crunch came after we hoped was a reconciliation (a very sad family issue involving a death which we hoped might put things into perspective for BIL), he started again and this time my DH came close to thumping him. That was it. They never spoken again and that was nearly 10 years ago.

You might see it as wearing your heart on your sleeve. Your sister probably sees it as you thinking you're superior to her and frankly that's just fucking annoying coming from anyone let alone from a sibling.

Sorry that it has come to this but if you're anything like my BIL, I would be wanting a sincere apology from you backed up with, I am going to stop belittling and patronising you. ALAS my BIL will never ever back down off his high horse so I doubt they'll ever speak again.

Agree with this

This popped up in my notifications so I thought I may as well update.

I have completely stepped back and not initiated any contact. We had one trip out in May with the sibling friendship group which had been booked for months (theatre) - some of the others went for dinner first but she didn't, she messaged me on the way to see if I wanted to go for a drink just the two of us first. I went along and we got on well. I realise now it is just for show. I didn't hear from her afterwards.

Our birthdays are both in July and so our mum planned a spa day a couple of weeks ago - I took her a birthday present, she did not reciprocate (which is odd, as she has never not got me a card/ present even when we fell out). However, she has since messaged me a couple of times about some things we talked about at the spa day (I am having some decorating done and she sent some pictures of things she thought I would like).

So, I don't know. I get such mixed messages from her - when we are together she doesn't act like she hates me, quite the opposite! She makes suggestions about meeting up in the future (never comes to fruition though). I really struggle to see that this is all linked to something that happened 20yrs ago.

To the poster that asked, I am the younger sister, I was 21 when we fell out, she is 4yrs older than me.

Why so melodramatic? Continue to see your mutual friends and see her at family occasions - it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

I find being in the mutual friendship group hard. I am being frozen out. My sister is best friends with two of the others and, in turn, they are close with their sisters. I am the odd one out, the spare part, and feel increasingly unwelcome/ awkward.
I do see her at family things, not that we have many, and she is really friendly which confuses me - it seems to me that it is for show. We know very little about each other's lives and she hardly knows my DC. We may as well be strangers.

You still sound very all or nothing. There’s no real indication I can see that you’re being ‘frozen out’ of the group, though you acknowledge they are more her friends than yours. If you only all meet every couple of months, surely you don’t need to cut yourself off from it all, just because you and your sister have drifted apart over time.

Really? Interesting.

I don't feel that way. Part of me feels that maybe if I leave the mutual friendship group she will come back to being my sister again. I wonder if the group confuses things. I would give up the group if it meant having her (and my niece and nephew) back in my life.

It's upsetting if you used to get on better. I'm the youngest of a number of sisters. We aren't as close because of some awful behaviour from one that has affected everybody. It's sad but what can you do.

But why would you feel it’s the friendship group causing the distance, if you’ve all been friends for 35 years and the distance has only become an issue much more recently? You do sound as if you have rather fixed ideas about what ‘being your sister’ is like. This is what ‘being your sister’ is like at the moment. I’m fond of both my sisters but we aren’t particularly close. People do drift apart.