Hi everyone,
Please bear with me for long post.
Just wondered what peoples experiences were on this. I feel that my Mums death has driven my older sister and I apart, more from my side in that I have distanced myself from her. Background is, my Mum passed away in May 2017, aged only 52 , quite suddenly and I was with her when it happened. It was quite traumatic and I wont go into the details. Two weeks after my Mum died I discovered I was pregnant with my first baby. I received counselling and went on to have beautiful baby boy in March last year. My husband and I live an hour or so away from the rest of our families and where we both grew up, but have been househunting and saving for 4 years to be closer to them and our dream/vision was always to relocate from the city to the countryside to raise our family.
Before having my baby I wanted to get our Mums house cleared out, so that when my baby arrived I didnt have to deal with the emotions that it would bring. My sister was not ready to do this so I respected her wishes and agreed to do it when my baby would be a few months old. We both agreed that we would do it all together so we could go through her things and store/separate them appropriately and anything we both wanted, we would toss a coin for as it was only fair.
My Mum was very sensible and had life insurance and her will was tied up, my aunt was executor as well and she worked for my Mums solicitor so we knew that was all being taken care of and would be finalised at some point.
Anyway just before my baby was born, my Mums estate was more or less settled (equally between my sister and I)and all that was left was her house to sell.
As soon as this transpired my sister decided she wanted to sell her own town house (that she'd just recently renovated and extended the year before as she always loved it there) and was wanting my Mums house sorted ASAP because she wanted the money so that she could buy a bigger house for her family, in the country! And she needed the money to pay off negative equity on her current house. She has 3 almost grown up children.
Obviously I was about to have a baby and said that it would have to wait until I had the baby and they were a few months so I could make the hours journey up and down to help with clearing the house out, as we had agreed to do together.
Anyway so she waited and last summer, when my son was a few months old we started to clear out Mums house. Quite a few things happened that upset me and I wont go into them all, but basically my sister did a few things behind my back and took a few of my Mums possessions without us doing it together and being fair about it (like we agreed to be with tossing a coin or whatever).Some of these things werent necessarily personal (although some were) so I didnt want to argue and kept my mouth shut (Ive always been bad at avoiding confrontation!). I was actually more hurt because I caught her out lying about what she had taken on a few occasions. To me my memories with my Mum are more precious than her things.
Because my sister was in a rush to get my Mums house on the market, we had to put a lot of Mums furniture and things into storage at my Uncles house. Anyway my Mums house was sold in August last year and my sister bought her own new house in October. She almost bought a house before my Mums house sale and as she did not have the money, my husband and I lent her the money for the deposit. It fell through and she paid us back out of her share of Mums house sale.
Since then she has taken some of my Mums furniture from my Uncles without even asking me if its ok, or did I want it or will we toss a coin for it. I just let it slide because I dont want any rows and she clearly needs/wants it more than I do. They are just things.
Even around the time of my Mums house sale, she was rushing things through with such disregard and insisted on accepting the first price for it. My Mum worked very hard to have a lovely home and we were only going to get the chance to sell it once, I wanted to do best by her and respect all that she had worked hard for and felt my sisters actions were totally against this.
I think she has changed since Mum died, she has became quite ruthless and selfish and changeable (like changing her mind all of a sudden to moving house herself, e.t.c.). She was always quite bossy and determined to get her own way. We were always close (ish) , even though we are totally different kinds of people. As I have lived away from family for over 10 years, I always visited as much as I could and helped looked after/babysit my sisters kids, go to their birthday parties, spend time with her and go out for a drink etc. Until I had my baby boy, it was the first time my sister came to visit me and had only visited a few times in the past year. It was always me doing the running, which I didnt mind as I didnt have children at the time and it was easier for me. She is back to expecting me to come and do all the visiting to her.
I am pregnant again and due soon after my sons 1st birthday and I simply cant and wont drive an hour there and an hour back, its too exhausting with a 10 month old and being 7 months pregnant. Ive pretty much told her this. When we do visit we would stay at my in laws for one night so we can get to visit all our family members (who very rarely visit us!)
Sorry I am rambling, but along with hormones, I carry hurt and resentment towards my sister on her behaviour and attitude around our Mums house sale.My aunt and uncle (who were close to my Mum)have said in few words the same as I feel.
I think my Mums death had more of an impact on her in many ways. I havent exactly pushed her away, but I havent remained in contact as much as I did before with her. And I havent made the same effort that I used to in terms of visiting her and my nieces and nephew. I have my own family now and Im done with doing all the running.
I dont know how to get over this feeling of resentment and anger. Its not as bad as it was, it was causing me sleepless nights at one point. At times I could barely look at her. I never wanted to confront her because I know she would fly off the handle and I couldnt face that and know it would upset my Mum to have her daughters falling out. Its been hard to deal with this whilst continuously grieving for my Mum and coping with a new baby and being pregnant again, sometimes I feel I am just about holding it together. I have amazing support in my friends and husband. He has really had to bite his tongue hard. He feels my sister has walked over me my entire life and been so disrespectful towards my Mums estate settlement.
Does anyone else have a similar thing happen? I feel so sad that its came to this. I am hoping the feelings will pass and I will get over it.
Thanks for reading x