To really struggle with how my sister dealt with my mothers death (TW)

[Erandie]

So first of all, trigger warning as I will be mentioning suspected suicide.

Some context, there is 15 years between my sister and I, we have different dads, were mostly raised in different countries and have very little in common. I also know we had very different relationships with our mother. I’m going to try and be a little vague but I know this might still be identifiable to those who know us.

My sister is now 25, 3 years ago in July our mother passed away, it was officially classed as an accident but we both have our suspicions that this was not the case. Prior to that I hadn’t lived with my mum since I turned 18, so almost 20 years. I know in that time she changed dramatically.
My mother had always struggled with her mental health, this wasn’t foreign to either of us but ultimately she was a good mum, at least to me anyway. Around my 27th birthday my mum moved back to her home country (somewhere I have never lived) and took my sister who would have been 12 at the time with her. My sister recounts the teen years in a very specific way, highs where she would be spoiled endlessly, followed by lows, alcoholism, pill addiction etc. My mother also had a tendency to have new boyfriends all the time. I tried to visit frequently (about every 8-12 weeks), we tried to reach out for help but ultimately you cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
My sister would have been 22 when my mother died, for the years before that my sister had modelled for a while and had good prospects but ended up giving it up to be with my mother more consistently then she enrolled in university and would call her daily and check on her often.
My sister went through a break up and dropped the visits and calls the 2 weeks before my mother passed. I continued calling but she was notorious for being less honest with me than my sister so it was hard to tell.
After her not answering my calls 2 days in a row I managed to get a hold of my sister who went to visit and unfortunately she found my mother already having passed. I took the first flight and was there by that evening, I took on the majority of the admin side as obviously my sister had a very complicated relationship with our mother and I never held that against her.
I remember very vividly my sister did not cry once, she barely wanted anything of our mother’s possessions, took a very low level interest. I wrote this off as being a mix of shock, guilt (I don’t blame her at all but I know she has been to therapy and to some extent blamed herself for not visiting more) and a consequence of their complicated relationship.
However recently I have discovered that my sister was actively going on dates (including her first date with her now boyfriend) in the 8 days between our mother’s death and the funeral. I don’t know why this has impacted me so much, as I fully understand we all grieve differently and we had very different mother daughter relationships. I try to remind myself of that but in all honestly I just feel a little bit heartbroken to think she kept moving like nothing happened.
I think it’s also one of those things where my sister was clearly my mother’s favourite child (the pretty one, the smart one, the one who modelled) but I was left to do all the really emotionally taxing stuff while she just went on dates.
She has also jokingly told me that she slept with someone the night of the day we found out. I can’t help but think I was in bed crying that night and I find the difference in our responses quite staggering.
I try to maintain a close relationship with my sister now as I know she has very limited family left but I find this response colours my view of her, even though I rationally know it’s just grief looking different on different people.

AIBU to feel like this? Is there anything I can do to get over it before it ruins our relationship?

Her grief response is understandable, your reaction to her less so. She’s very young, had an unstable and emotionally unsafe childhood (which you expected her to have the ability to address by reaching out or asking for help- she was a teenager), and was then controlled and treated poorly in adulthood. She’s been through so much and will likely be in shock. Take her as she is, not how you expect her to be, and learn who that person is without such big expectations- it’ll bring you closer.

I was inclined to feel my sister was the favourite as I was forever being told she was already smarter than me, was always prettier than me, she quite often told me she had another child as I didn’t live up to her expectations.

Jesus. I've only got this far.

Lady, I think your mum was a whole lot worse mum than you realise.

On Mumsnet, especially AIBU, a lot of people put the boot in. Please read @GarlicPound 's post at 06:02 - there is far more understanding of how people tick than in most posts.

All I can say is that grief is entirely personal, that it can hit people in the strangest of ways and there is a very high chance indeed that your much younger sister has 1) had to separate from your/her mum already and 2) had a lot of conflicted feelings, more than you in a way. As @TryingToFigureItOut2 said, she may also be putting her front on her grief too; 22 is very young to loose your mum, and it's ... complicated ... when your mum is really not a very good one.

but I guess I struggle with the “you should have been there” comments when I had no idea how bad it was for years. If I’d known I’d have been there but I didn’t know. I’d always visit when my sister was with her dad

On reflection do you think your sister feels rejected by you OP? Why would you only visit when she wasn't with your mum? It seems like you avoided this girl for years and now judge her as you didn't want to be alone after the death of your mother.

So now she's being judged for coping in the best way she knows how after giving up a career to be near your mum to care for her through addiction, she dealt with God knows how many strange men (some expressing a sexual interest in her) just appearing in her home when her mother was passed out not able to protect herself or her daughter, dragged to another country at twelve away from school, friends, routine and safety only to be neglected and not protected. You really need to give this young woman some grace, it will be years before she understands the impact of her upbringing on her emotionally.

It’s an awful situation for both of you to be in, but it might help to think of it as you had different mums; you’re mourning different people. Being hurt because she’s needing to take a step away while you’re devastated is like your neighbour being upset with you because you weren’t as upset as her when her dad died.

She’s got to have spent years building up defences and becoming insular from everything she had to deal with and anger and resentment are likely to be what she’s feeling more than grief. That might hit her ten years down the line, or maybe not at all. but if she’s built a shell around herself to protect herself against your mum failing miserably in the mum department, that’s not just going to crumble away; it could take decades. She could be feeling completely numb about it, or have a sense of relief, or anger, or such a complicated mix that she couldn’t describe it if you asked her to.

Re her needing to be alone; I know it’s so hard for you as well, but families are such complicated relationships and even though you would have benefited from her being there, she probably felt the need to just clear her brain of anything to do with anyone she was related to, just for 24 hours. That is what was behind her being with some random bloke that night; she just didn’t want to think about it. It’s not a reflection on her love for you.

And same goes with her being angry that you weren’t there to make things better for her. Grief and anger and resentment very often isn’t rational at the best of times. You’re looking at it from the pov that you were in a different country and she never said a word. She’s looking at it from the pov that she’s still that 12 year old who needed someone to come and rescue her. So even though she’s now old enough to understand the very valid reasons you didn’t, she’s not going to be feeling an adult’s rationale about it.

I think that the best thing you could do is to try and separate your grief and your sister’s grief in your mind. You’re not grieving her mum and she’s not grieving your mum.

Your sister has done nothing wrong. I started dancing when my granddad died. He was a horrible man. I would have gone to a club if we hadn't been in the middle of lock down. My mum judged me because i wasn't upset. She tried to pressure me in to getting counciling to deal with his death. Yet he was abusive when he was alive and his behaviour was swept under the carpet when he died.