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.

It sounds like she's pigeon holed you a certain way and now you've started having kids and living a more settled life she feels like you've somehow encroached on her niche in the family. Or she's annoyed you got to do both travelling and being carefree and having kids.

I agree with @youalright above that you're life choices aren't that wildly different. If you wanted to be the bigger person you could just flip it around and say "oh well you're so lucky you'll have the freedom to travel once the kids are independent, we have years to go now!" I have a few people in my life like this and once you refuse to play the one upmanship game they usually get confused and back off!

I don’t know anyone who had babies in their 20s who is jealous of someone having babies late 30s/early 40s. Bil did this, travelled then settled and I’m happy for him, and my nephew is lovely, but exhausting. We’re in a different stage. Op definitely seems to imply her way was the right way so I wonder is ds is jealous or just fed up of ds perpetual smugness. She may be sad her marriage failed - I wonder how op supported her during that. I think there’s probably 2 very different sides. Overall, I’d say something fairly blunt if my sibling was making rude comments.

Hmmm I think I’d have to have heard these comments myself to decide on this one. The delivery changes the whole tone. Her saying “ about time” could be affectionate and teasing or judgemental so those aspects are hard to decipher. It does seem like you have been blessed in life… you met your partner on day one so no relationship angst there and you and your partner were both gifted large sums so you didn’t actually have to graft that much to live. She has gone through a divorce and I wonder if that was a really tough time for her. The things that are a question mark about you OP are the details you include about speaking fluent Spanish and the water birth etc which didn’t really add anything to the OP but paint a picture which is perhaps unflattering about you. I may be entirely wrong but it’s possible that you come across as horribly smug and your sister is a little ground down by it.

I agree. I wonder if OP is feeling sad about having her children later and trying to make herself feel better about it by getting others to agree what an amazing time she had travelling.

She went through a divorce with young children. I wonder if she wishes you had been there for her a bit more then. It must have been fairly traumatic yet you dismiss it in a sentence.

I wouldn't have left it till 36+ to have children unless I had no other choice tbh.

I doubt it's envy at travel, she'll be able to do that once her children are grown up

I wonder if maybe you’re projecting your regrets on to her? It may be she will have a level of financial stability that you will not. She has two children, you have one. She had kids when she likely had more energy. She will have more freedom soon to travel as her kids are older. She will be a younger grandmother. She will be able to pass on more wealth to her kids that may give them options that includes your choices.
It may be she is jealous, but that may well go both ways. It’d be worth reflecting on tone when speaking to her and whether you are as joyous about her choices as your own.

She might be feeling a bit disappointed that the future retirement travel plans she had with her sister are now going to be looking different because you'll still have a young family?
If it's just an undercurrent you're feeling, then maybe she hasn't realised she's doing it?

This my interpretation as well. I don’t think she sounds jealous, more that she is looking down on you and your choices.

She sounds jealous! I had my second baby at 40, he’s 14 now and we’re all fine, loads of people have children later, my first was when I was 37 … DH and I met at uni, we both did postgrad studies and got our careers underway before kids … that also fine … ignore her, or just tell her to stop being judgemental, you’re doing things different to her but that’s fine

Yes, this. I had a version of this from people I didn’t know that well. Like the OP, DH and met young, spent a lot of time studying and travelling, and married and had our son just before I turned 40. For a particular type of person, that’s ‘unfair’ because I somehow gamed the system, and had a lot of fun while ending up with a child, husband and professional job etc too. It would have been ok if I’d stayed childless, because they could have felt I’d ’lost out’ or ‘left it too late’.

Just respond in the most breezy way possible to all digs. “Oh NOW you want to settle down and have kids?!” “Yes! It’s great, isn’t it? Can’t wait!” etc. Showing her she’s getting to you with her comments adds fuel to the fire. Deflect with positive energy (and seethe afterwards).

Exactly!

Some indicators of a big ego going on here e.g still fluent in Spanish (Like that’s relevant to the relationship with her sister!) and giving exact job titles for her and DH.

I agree.
i think the birth choices part is a flag that OP needs to look at herself in the mirror a bit when navigating this problem.

I might be completely off base here, but reading the OP gave me a bit of a “the sisters from Outnumbered” vibe, just from Angela’s perspective. Is it possible she feels she ended up carrying responsibilities that should’ve been shared while you were away travelling? Maybe caring for elderly or unwell parents? Or perhaps her divorce was particularly difficult, and she expected you to be around for support?

Reading this as an outsider, it doesnt appear to me that her problem is with your choices - her problem is with your happiness. Which is kind of mean and shitty. She seems to be stuck in a constant treadmill of comparing your two lives. It kind of smacks of some deep rooted insecurity or regret at the choices she herself made. If you can find it in you to feel compassion for how unhappy with herself she must be to focus so much on you in such a negative way, that would be awesome, otherwise just ignore. Shes an adult and should come to terms with her own life without reference to anyone elses. I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe she spent all those years looking longingly at your successful relationship and adventures travelling, but consoling herself with the thought that you will have missed the boat for children, homemaking, career etc.....and lo and behold you managed to have all those things as well. It sounds like its absolutely consuming her. (She sounds pretty spiteful and petty to be honest)

@TheAgileOP From your point of view, I can see why your sister is irritating you with her comments, but I would need to hear her side of the story too before I could say whether she is jealous of you, or whether you have similarly annoyed her over the years with your own comments about her life style.

I may be wrong, so I do apologise if I am, but there is a suggestion in your post, from the way you have written it, that you have also been judgemental over the years about the choices she made, which were clearly different from yours? Maybe you just need to accept that you are two very different people and have had different views on life since you became adults and that neither of you really understand where the other is coming from?

It sounds like judgement goes both ways OP... Neither of you come off great in this

Sounds as though she thinks you made better choices than she did and she's envious. I'd point this out to her next time she is snarky.

Me and my sister have very different lives and life paths. I got married at 18 and she just got married last year at 31. We have three children before 30 a she has just got pregnant. I sometimes get the odd dig that I wasted my 20s and that’s fine. 1) I didn’t, we still did loads of fun stuff and 2) I partied HARD as a teen and did DH so got all the fun stuff out the way by 19.

I find the best way to address a rouge comment from my sister is “(Dsis name) you’re being weird” or “what a weird thing to say (name)”. Also I use her Sunday name so she knows I’m serious because that’s what our mum does. Honestly it works with most people, because these out of pocket comments are often made under the assumption you won’t call them out. I think some people genuinely don’t know there being rude.

I love my sister and 98% of the time she’s fine but the other 2% she really pisses me off in a way only my sister can. My brothers can be annoying, but there’s something about having a sister that means they just know how to get under your skin in a way no one else can 😭. Call her out and move on, but I think bitchy comments from your sister is possibly part of the deal of having one.

As the eldest child I can relate to your sister. Not to say that she's not being out of order. But I really think this aspect is so overlooked in family dynamics.

When you're the eldest, you do feel such a weight of responsibility to do everything by the book - get the grades, get the uni place, get the good job, get engaged, buy the house... While your younger siblings get to just dick around and live the lives they really want. My younger sibling didn't leave home until aged 30! I left for uni at 18 and never went back.

I suppose when you get to middle age and you look back at your life so far, it can sting a bit to have to confront the realisation that your opportunity to be carefree and young was robbed from you by the pressure of parental expectation, never to return.

That doesn't mean you have to put up with the judgement and the digs from her. But if your life is as good as you say, why is it getting to you so much? She obviously feels resentful, and it's been misdirected towards you when I imagine it's really your parents who she should be angry with.

You can't change what she is like towards you, just how you react. If that's ignoring her, taking a step back from seeing her or telling her that she's out of line, that's up to you.

She sounds jealous, judgemental and well, a bit boring and negative. Not my cup of tea to hang around with. And wow, sounds like you had some really interesting times, flipping great and glad you had fun!

That was my first thought, especially as they were close. There must have been some catalyst as they have both obviously made free choices. The sister can also do her traveling etc now her children have grown like many do.

I agree, it pisses me off that we can't share positive birth stories for fear of offending people. Why only share scare stories? Are we trying to put women off?

What an ahole your sister is. How narrow minded is she to say that travelling isn't real life? I'd have done exactly the same as you if I'd had the money, it's living a full life. But aside from all that, it's belittling & insulting behaviour from her & presumably you don't want to be treated like that. It's just not acceptable or healthy & I've blocked my sister for similar behaviour. She wasn't going to suddenly be a nice respectful person. My life is more peaceful now. We don't have to tolerate disrespect.

I’d just say “you do you babe”.