AIBU to resent my parents focusing on my sister and neglecting me?

[ThatRareGreySheep]

For context, I never fit in at school and any time I had friends my mom would encourage them to leave town. Most of my youth was going around to my sister's dance recitals and not really making any space for me. Bullying and social ostracism were rampant and my sister even joined in on spreading lies and avoiding me so we were never really close.

When I did meet my wife in college after moving far away for it, my sibling tried to convince her to cheat on and leave me while bragging about her BF now Husband wanting to fight with me. My parents refuse to acknowledge any of this to this day and still guilt trip me about their wedding I was not even directly invited to. They also don't believe me when i say i was bullied and asked them on how to deal with it. Instead turning it into victim olympics rather than giving me actionable advice like they gave my sister and actually texting her. I've seen the novel length texts over their shoulders sometimes. It really was a golden child dynamic. I had to go behind their back with a neighbor who let me borrow their car to get my license. Just to be told "we're disappointed in you" and more concerned about insurance.

"you want more than people can give". No I want to be treated like a person. Normal people exchange numbers and message each other quickly. Rarely does it feel like pulling teeth or being told im "annoying" for messaging them once and not pushing it. Thinking they'll get around to it in a few hours, not immediately call me in a blind rage.

"so and so was asking about you." They have my number. Why can they not just text me directly like they do for everyone else? I know its not just me and I'm not alone, but I can't just get over this. My wife has helped a lot when processing all this on my journey while my parents called it "stewing or ruminating".

They even pulled some "have you tried volunteering" reddit platitudes instead of trying to know their other child. More concerned about the feelings of strangers than a child who wasn't their daughter.

Sounds awful.
It would probably be less painful in the long run for you to tell them to lose your number.

what does this off topic nitpicking post have to do with anything I've said here? If you have nothing supportive to say, don't say anything.

My dog dying of old age in their sleep really was a wakeup call to do some inventory and introspection in my life. I dont want to be around people who won't support my goals if i can help it.

I only got my license and had any sort of social life in spite of them and not because of them. My sister ended up a successful yuppie while my parents tried to shove me off onto welfare instead of ever acknowledging what happened to me and building me up. "just put yourself out there" didnt help me. It was blind luck. "just get out of your room" didnt heal the pain of feeling unsafe outside because my parents wouldnt ever defend me from bullies and would side with them. In fact, they'd rather compulsively threaten me with the police whenever they couldnt kick me out for the crime of wanting to tell them about my school day.

As early as 5 years old they were screaming at me until they were blue in the face claiming im "out of control" or would be a sex addict or addicted to drugs, when I never had any of those compulsions. Also Ironic because I've never had any trouble with the law.

Why haven't you cut them out of your life? I also think if you haven't been to therapy yet then that would be a good place to start. I have seen adults allow their childhoods to ruin their adult lives which is always such a waste. Time to take control of who you allow into your life, get some help and move forward in a healthy way.

Financial reasons mostly.

They forced me to go to therapy several times in high school and college. It was a complete waste of time and even they agreed I didnt need it, I just needed some friends and a sense of belonging in the community. one of the therapists even said that anger is a natural response to being treated like you don't matter.

Meanwhile my golden child sibling? Never had to change a damn thing. It was always "what's wrong with YOU?". Wasn't even invited to the wedding directly and they tried to guilt trip me about not going and would always run her mouth and hurt me. She learned from an early age to just act like a muppet and go "MAAAAHM DAAAHHD!" and they created a monster. Nevermind she'd constantly insult me and spread rumors about me. That's when my mom wasnt insisting i was mentally disabled to everyone who would listen.

Voc rehab was a complete waste of time just scrolling through indeed with a "job developer" every few weeks while I made a report of the hundreds of job listings i put on a google spreadsheet that I never got a callback from and my mom immediately defaults to "employers wont handhold you". Whatever the hell that means. Experiencing Workplace mobbing is very different from not doing your job.

Your focus needs to be on yourself and growing as an adult and not focusing on your sister (your sister is not responsible for the actions of your parents). I am confused as to why you have a financial reliance on your parents--are you still quite young?

It's difficult to stop focusing on it when my family continues to bring her up and compare us. I'm not the one introducing the topic.

How old are you? Are you living at home with your parents?

Your parents got you therapy. That suggests they were concerned and do care. If they felt they had something to hide, it's unlikely they'd have done that.

I do understand, to some extent, where you are coming from. My parents never helped with bullying issues, my sister was their preferred child (quieter child). I did have the activities, because my sister wasn't interested in them so much. Maybe your parents suggested volunteering because they wanted you to get out and about? She thinks I was the favourite, btw.

Childhood can be difficult and parents can't solve every issue. That's different to being unsupportive though. I get that. I have feelings about how unsupportive my mother has been over my life. That hasn't changed.

What you can do is focus on living your own best life. What do you want to do? How can you achieve that? Focus less on them and more on building your own world. Therapy does sound like a good idea so you can work through some of these feelings.

I think if you are expecting your parents to acknowledge they treated you unfairly then you are just building up more hurt and disappointment for yourself. You need to focus on healing without relying on them. You know what they're like and they're not going to change. It's not fair but you can find your own strength.

You are an married adult now by the sounds of things, so time to cut them off and move on.

Sorry to hear that things were so hard for you, OP. You’ve received some good advice on here, but you have to actually want to move on, for things to get better. Don’t stay in victim mode forever. You’d benefit from good therapy, to unpick and make sense of everything that happened (particularly before having children of your own, if that’s the plan). I agree that cutting off your family would be a good step forward. You’re a grown adult now, with a supportive wife. But you seem to be going round in angry circles.
Good luck.

For context, I never fit in at school and any time I had friends my mom would encourage them to leave town.

Can you give more context around this - are you saying your mum would encourage your new found school friend's parents to move town? And they would actually move away? How did your mum achieve that?
Or did you mean to say your family would move when you made friends?

Leave your past behind. Focus on creating a better future.

Go ultra low contact. It sounds like whatever value they are adding to your life, they are taking more away. Net result: not someone you should remain in contact with other than superficially.

Respond to messages in a surface level meaningless way with bland pleasantries and they should get the hint and stop contacting you very often. If you aren’t in contact then they can’t guilt trip you. If this doesn’t work and they keep pushing nastiness your way, reduce it down to just responding to Happy Christmas or Birthday messages and if there is a very important event like a death in the family.

I found this very odd too. I’ve read about abusive parents preventing child from maintaining friendships, going out to play, parties etc. however them encouraging those friends to move town is something new and not sure I believe. I believe OP may believe it so, but I don’t think the parents did this.

"you want more than people can give". No I want to be treated like a person. Normal people exchange numbers and message each other quickly. Rarely does it feel like pulling teeth or being told im "annoying" for messaging them once and not pushing it. Thinking they'll get around to it in a few hours, not immediately call me in a blind rage.

Who are you talking about here OP, is this still your family or other people you've met, as you talk about exchanging numbers?

I would hazard a guess given some of the ridiculous things you wrote in your op, your response to a poster that noticed the way you respond on other threads, and the way you are so so negative and a victim ‘they forced me to di therapy’ , not ‘they kindly paid for therapy to try and help me’ - that their side of this story is very very different. Self reflection time.

For example you have detailed about ten different examples of their negative response to something you’ve done, but totally omitted from your example what you actually did to cause this reaction. Ie your 5 years old story of screaming at you that you were out of control is the start of your story. Go back a step. Why were they saying that?

Op, do you have autism? Or have any of your brushes with psychology suggested a diagnosis at all?

Whatever that 5 year old did, it does not warrant being screamed at about being a sex/drug addict.

of all the examples you could have picked this is the one where the parents were clearly abusive.

Sometimes parents don’t know how to meet the needs of their DC. I saw it in my own family. A child who isn’t responding to the ‘typical’ parenting methods of the time can leave the parents at a loss to manage.
Then there’s an entrenched situation where child struggles, parents fail to help/Parents try to help, but their help isn’t understood or appreciated by the DC.

In my family it was my brother they struggled most with. Then when my son was born, DM struggled with him as well- very similar. After a dodgy start, I learned how to manage DS and he’s absolutely fine now, age 30. ND, but fine.

When the offspring is still a child, I absolutely blame the parents. It’s their job to find parenting methods that work, no matter how hard it is.
Once the child is an adult though, they share the responsibility for changing the dynamic between them.

I shouldn’t have chosen the 5 year old example in hindsight, I should have picked any of the others.
my point was in each of his examples the start of his story is their toxic reaction to his behaviour. But that isn’t the start of it. The start of it is his behaviour which he not once detailed. There seems to be absolutely zero self awareness going on.

How would your sibling have acted if they’d been treated as you were?

I had similar in my family but my mother was scared of my sibling. Not only scared of her anger but of losing her if she got too upset. So she spent thirty years pandering to her whilst I was, at times, treated like shit by both of them but expected to get over it. My mother couldn’t cope if I reacted differently to this.

I eventually went NC with both, but I should have done it long ago for my own MH. Is this possible for you?