I'm probably being unreasonable but wanted to get either sympathy or a virtual shake and someone to tell me to get over it!
My sister lives in the US and is undergoing a very acrimonious divorce and custody battle over their children with her ex. This has been going on for 3 years and has taken a real emotional and financial toll on the whole family. The ex is extremely spiteful and has trumped up lies to try and win custody of the children. She won but he appealed successfully and now there will be a whole new court case. As you can imagine, it's been incredibly stressful for her and has taken a real emotional and financial toll on the whole family (the legal fees have run over $100k and counting so we have all tried to help where we can).
Over the past 3 years we've all visited to provide moral support (sister's mental health has been damaged and we've been worried she'd have a breakdown) but my DM has been to her main source of support - visiting more than us as she's retired; calling her daily, sometimes several times daily; answering all her emails asking for advice on how to deal with ex's latest nasty email etc. I have a job and kids so haven't been able to visit as much. I call her but we're not super close and she has always leant more on DM.
My issue is that DM has little left to give me and my family after dealing with sister. That probably sounds selfish and I know when your child is going through hell, you try and do whatever you can, but it feels like she's forgotten she has another child and grandchildren who live in the same country and would like to see her/talk to her. In the past 6 months, I've seen her twice (she lives less than an hour away) and she'll never call me to chat. When I look at our messaging, it's me who invites her to meet up (normally she can't), sends her a hello message. I tested this by not messaging for a few weeks - nothing. She doesn't message my kids either, which makes me sad as they love seeing her.
DM is worn down by it and I've tried to help by saying I can take some of the load off by calling and supporting sister to give her a break. She won't do it though and even when on holiday still called sister and emailed, even though she'd previously agreed to leave it to me for a few days.
The legal stuff is likely to run and run, so we could be looking at several more years of this. AIBU to think DM should remember she has other family as well? I don't like feeling resentful, so if I am being unreasonable I can try and stop!