AIBU to think my sister is projecting her regrets onto me?

[TheAgileOP]

DH (40) and I (40) have been together since we were 19 we met on our first day of uni. From the beginning we always said we didn’t want to rush into settling down and wanted to travel first, and that’s exactly what we did.
After graduating we spent about 18 months in South America volunteering, doing odd jobs, teaching in schools etc. I learnt Spanish (still fluent now) and we had an amazing time. We tried coming back and doing the whole city job thing but it just wasn’t for us, so we carried on travelling on and off for years.

We were very lucky financially I inherited about £300k from my grandad at 25 and DH had some money from a trust fund so we had the freedom to live like that.

We ended up getting married at 36 and had our first baby last August. I absolutely love being a mum and I’m so glad we had our son, but I’m also really glad we waited. I feel ready now and don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything.

My sister is 3 years older than me and made very different choices. She also inherited a decent amount from our grandad but chose to use it to buy a house with her ex-husband. They got married at 27 had two children, and then divorced. She’s now remarried to someone who is genuinely lovely, so it’s not like she’s in a bad place now.

But over the years there’s been a definite undercurrent from her towards me, and more recently it feels like constant sly comments. When we were travelling she’d say we were “running away from real life”, when we came back and didn’t settle into careers she’d tell us to “grow up”, and when we got married later she made digs about it being “about time”.

Even during my pregnancy and birth she was quite judgemental. I chose to have a water birth with no medication (all approved and it went completely fine), but she made comments about that and about my age which just felt unnecessary.

Recently I mentioned we might like another child and she rolled her eyes, laughed and called me selfish, saying “you and him have had all this time just having fun and now you want to take things seriously?”

What I don’t understand is where this has come from. Growing up and well into our 20s we were really close genuinely close, no big fallouts, nothing bad between us at all. That’s why I find this shift so confusing.

Now it just feels like there’s a lot of judgement from her, and the only way I can make sense of it is that there’s some resentment there about how differently our lives have turned out. She had the same financial opportunities but chose a different path, and I do wonder if she has some regrets, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
I know I’m not completely innocent (I did say years ago she could have travelled before settling down, which she didn’t like), but this feels like more than that.

My sister is far more successful than I am and than I’ll ever be. I’m unsure why it seems as though she resents me.

DH and I are settled into our jobs. I work in policy in civil service and DH is head of maths at an independent school, we are so content with our life. My sister thinks I need to be more ambitious and says I seem lazy, she is on a very high income but seems quite judgmental on DH and I.

Jealousy is a disease girl and she's riddled 😭😭

Just enjoy your life and leave her to it - you sound like you did the right thing for your family

Fwiw I had dd at 27 - I dont wish i'd waited to be older but I wish i'd done my living! I didnt do any, I should've had dd a decade earlier for all the living I did 🥺🙄

I'm doing it now - no reason why your sister can't!

Yanbu at all x

I think you would be well within your rights to say what's your problem. But I don't really understand the resentment in a few years when her kids are adults she will be able to travel as much as she wants if thats what she wants. Your lives don't sound that different you just both did them the opposite way round to each other

I’d challenge her and say “do you mean to sound so rude?” Or “you sound really judgemental when you say things like that”

id assume she feels like you think you are superior because you had an exciting life and she didn’t. Or she’s jealous

She really does need to fuck off, doesn’t she! Your life and experience sound wonderful, no wonder she is jealous

You sound great and if I can be frank, your sister sounds like a total pain in the arse.

Shes bitter, jealous and insecure; no other explanation for it. She belittles your choices to validate her own because deep down, she didn’t have the balls to do what you did. If she was confident and comfortable with her own choices (which are perfectly valid ones), she wouldn’t say anything.

I’d call her out on it or even just tell her to fuck off, when she raises it.

Well what is your response to her when she says these things? You are independent and decisive about what fulfils your life at any given point. Do you just meekly let her say these things without challenge?

She doesn't sound very nice to be honest.

Your time travelling sounds amazing. Now you're ready for children and steady jobs. Also good.

I had my first child at 37 and my second at just turned 40. There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have another child. It's not exactly uncommon to have children at those ages these days.

I'd say briskly, 'Do you deliberately make judgemental snidey comments about all my life choices, Sarah? Because it certainly feels like it. I wasn't aware I'd asked for one of your many little digs'.

If she takes offense that's her issue. She doesn't seem worried about offending you, does she?

Can you have a calm conversation about what is going on with her? Express some concern she seems uncharacteristically judgemental at the moment?

I think families often fall into the trap of pigeonholing a person into their "role" as the sensible one, the career one, the clever one, the joker etc and don't evolve that as people grow up and change.

You do sound rather pleased with yourself OP.

Anyway there's no obligation to get along with your siblings. People brought up in the same family can be dramatically different.

Count your blessings but stop expecting her to like you.

“Stop being so hateful or get out of my life, your choice.”

Sometimes people find it hard to get their head around the idea that others can make very different choices and those choices are fine.

do ask her if she means to sound so judgmental.

are there any things you enjoy doing with her? Theatre or long walks or something a bit separate from kids etc. that might give you a different way to connect

Your sister clearly thinks you've been frivolous and immature, because you chose to travel and didn't settle down. She on the other hand chose to marry/have children at a younger age and she found herself a career before you too. In her mind, she's 'better' than you because she followed the 'right' path and you chose to live a more freer lifestyle. She looks down on your choices, and now you are married and have had a child, she's making digs because she feels you wasted your younger years going off on 'jollies'.

There may be some jealousy but I think she believes she's superior to you because in her mind she made sensible choices.

Can you just say that you are happy with your life and you hope she is happy with hers. Neither of you can change the past (and you wouldn't want to) and, as adults, you don't feel the need to tell her how to live.

You are both entitled to make different life choices. Whenever she says you are lazy / it's about time / you should be more ambitious just say "Thanks for your input but I'm perfectly happy the way I am".

You do sound a bit smug and perhaps she's picking up on that attitude. Especially if you have made comments to her in the past, perhaps she feels OK to make comments back now.

(The worst part of your post was about your birth choices, you are very lucky that all worked out for you. I can see why your sister commented on that.)

she just sounds like a bossy older sister. she has probably built a narrative in her head about how lazy you are so that she can justify her own life choices.

i have a similar thing with my older sibling even though I am the more responsible one on paper. the narrative is that i am antisocial and weird and uptight. Im just a normal person in reality. Some older siblings never grow out of feeling that they have the right to boss their younger siblings around and put them down to make themselves feel better.

I wouldn’t bother trying to change it, it’ll be so engrained you won’t get anywhere. just drop her.

When did you notice a change in your relationship OP?
Were you living in the same country when she went through her divorce?
This may be a reach but could it be that she didn’t feel you were there for her when she needed you? Maybe she made sense of this by thinking of you as not serious or not capable of handling real life and now that you obviously are and can, she’s having trouble adjusting?

Sounds like you’ve both had nice lives on the whole. I don’t know why she’s behaving like this now. It may come from genuine beliefs that if you wanted kids you should have prioritised them sooner. I do get that point of view, but at the end of the day it’s your life and your choices. Don’t let it get to you. Some people are just never happy.

Some people are so insecure that they have to sneer at the life choices of others when they differ from there’s…

most of us live and let live and accept that others do things differently and that that is ok!

when I had kids i was very much the baby if my friendship group as i had them in my 20’s and everyone I met at baby groups and became mum friends either had there’s in their late 30’s and early 40’s. Didn’t bother any of us as we all just accepted we did some things differently

my mil was very like this. Anything we did that was different to how she patented (ie we didn’t smack, she did, I was a sahm, she worked, she had her kids when quite old, I had mine young, we chose a faith school, she chose a comprehensive school) was commented upon repeatedly and in very negative terms. It seemed that anything that we did that differed to how she parenting - she took as a personal affront to what she chose to do. Frankly I didn’t care a bit what she did or didn’t do when she had her kids, I made my choices based on what was right for me and my kids - but she took that indirectly as a criticism. It is crazy - WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT AND THAT’s OK!!!!!

i. know it’s tedious and annoying her belittling your choices all the time but just keep on telling yourself that this is a ‘her’ problem and born out of insecurity and jealousy.

ignore as much as you can. You’ll never change someone like this.

Being so judgemental about someone else’s lifestyle always comes from a place of insecurity, whether she’s envious of the kind of life you and DH have led, or unhappy with her own choices, probably a bit of both. I had a few years of travelling and working in my late 20s/early 30s (in my case I was envious of friends who were settling down then, but I didn’t have a partner), and remember a friend saying similar about it not being real life ‘you can’t just change jobs and countries every year!’ And I thought- but I literally can, it’s fab! She also used to say smugly I’d regret it if I put off meeting someone and having kids (as if it’s that easy!)- and then when I did meet now DH, marry and have 3 children in my late 30s she was almost furious about it! Harder when it’s your sister as I just phased that friend out! I don’t have any regrets at all- but also when I see friends with their now late teen/early 20 something children have their lives back- I can see the benefits of that too, so I’m not smug about things and I don’t think you are either! I would call her out on her comments, ‘I know you’ve never approved of our choices, and you’re entitled to your opinion, but we’re very happy with our lives and would appreciate if you’d stop commenting negatively on everything, we don’t do that to you!’

When you seem happy and content with your choices, it sparks envy and jealousy in some people. They are hiding their unhappiness and discontent but it comes out when they compare themselves to you. I've had this a lot in my family and also when starting a successful business, it's amazing who started nasty rumours, gossip etc about me just to try to bring me down to their level.

What exactly is wrong with a water birth? OP says I chose to have a water birth with no medication (all approved and it went completely fine),
I took no medication as no pain relief -

What is wrong with that ?

When we were young, my brother and I were very competitive. After an issue last year it became apparent, to my astonishment, that he’d been carrying that on in his own little head for all these years - he’s over 50 now 🤯

I should have known really. When I started driving, he started taking lessons in secret so he could pass his test before me. I just thought we’d left that behind 30 years ago but apparently not!

It’s a her problem not a you problem. I would tell her that you didn’t ask for her opinion - you’re very happy, thank you very much - and you’ll continue to live your life as you see fit.

Comparison is the thief of all joy, as they say. Why anyone would want to constantly compare their circumstances to their sibling as some sort of marker stick defining how well they’ve done is beyond me, but I have seen it for myself.

Not your circus, not your monkey.

It sounds smug AF. "look at me with my no medication and perfect water birth". She's incredibly fortunate it all worked out well for her and there were no complications. It could very easily have been a different scenario. OP should be gracious about that because there are many women out there who would feel judged and inferior when told that story.