Always second fiddle

[Sorrynotsore]

Bit of a dramatic title but I wonder if anyone else feels like this.. (sorry it's long)

I have a sister and 2 nieces who I adore and see regularly. She's just separated from her husband. He was awful and at times abusive (emotionally and financially).

He's been a nightmare and very demanding through out their marriage. I've regularly felt my parents prioritise her, the kids and him. Even now they are separated I still feel he's calling the shots and she's trying so hard to make things ok for the kids she is kinda letting him.

What's caused me to post is I've supported her through the 2 years of separation and we are very close. But she and my mum want him to come to my parents for Christmas lunch as he'd be alone at Christmas. (fam out of the country) It will also mean they aren't splitting the day with the kids going to him for a bit of it. So I get it I do.

But I'm just having a bit of a what about me moment. And this really is the first time. Like why am I always last to be considered? So yeah it's easier for her and the kids and him. But what about the fact that if I go to my parents I have to have my Christmas with my sister's abusive husband. Or miss out on lunch with my family. My grandparent it old and I always worry it will be his last Christmas. I'm not sure how my parents overlook her husbands behaviour so easily either.

It's about this specific Christmas issue. But it's also about all the millions of concessions and compromises they make for the sibling with children. That juat are never considered for me. Does anyone else feel like this?

I don't have an amazing relationship with my parents and we are very different. I have anxiety and definitely felt very inconsidered growing up. So I'm definitely bringing all this to the table too.

I just feel like a bit of a breaking point in how much I give and never get back and I do feel my child free status comes into it.

Yeah @Sorrynotsore I hear you. I have no answer for you because it is truly complex but I think your family’s boundaries around this man are off and it is horrible that it affects you. FIL was an abuser, it was horrible having him around but for years I accepted it because of DH wanting family. Tiptoeing around abusers is soul destroying. I’m sorry you are being affected by it too.

Unfortunately, this is the way it works in so many families (mine included) and no one is going to change the pattern unless you do. Stop hoping that your relatives will wake up and see the unfairness: they won't, because they don't want to.

You have to carve out space for your own needs. Could you go to your parents for supper or in the morning, and swerve lunch?

You will be guilt-tripped but stay strong about doing what is right for you.

I think if they had asked I probably would do what I will do anyway. Either miss out on lunch with them or suck it up and go to lunch. I think it's the assumption that I'll not mind as always that hurts. @floorprotector

Thanks for the replies and just getting it!

I've started to push back a bit. I'm going to the little family I have left for bucks fizz and presents Xmas morning and then back home. As others in the family have had babies I just seem to disappear into the background - I don't think anyone actually cares whether I'm there or not these days. It's all about my nieces or the baby, or the bloody dogs. Plus I'm on a 2-week cancer testing pathway and really don't want to wear a fixed grin on my face when I don't actually feel like doing so. So home it will be, to a walk, nice evening dinner, and bottle of bubbly.

@PauliesWalnuts im so sorry to hear you're on the testing pathway. Hope everything is OK for you.

I do get what you mean about pushing back I think I've done bits of that and do continue to. But I suppose what gets to me sometimes is the having to. Having to make it nice for myself because I'm never going to be my family's priority or even much of a consideration.

I know this all sounds a bit what about me! But I'm in my late 30s and have had so many years of this, it just chips away.

@Waynesplanet you're right tip toing around an abuser is fucking awful.

Fair enough question! So I think while they were together and not seperating I was concerned about alienating my sister by talking about how demanding he is and how we pander to him. They had a very up and down relationship so she did aknowledge how he is though. But it felt self involved to talk about howw it affected me.

Similarly with the kids, I adore them and really it's not about them as I give them tons of attention too! And definitely place their needs first. I think it's about how as she is a parent it seems her needs and relationship is more important.

With my parents I don't really talk to my dad beyond very surface stuff. The times I have have not been pleasant. My mum I think is aware she gives way more support to my sister as we've talked about it in a round about way before. But she sees her as needing the support. And again it would feel really kinda bratty to be like can you just consider me please!

But then I probably now at a point where I'm struggling to take much more.

She absolutely does need the support and I've been doing that for 2 years plus through our their marriage.

I suppose I feel like it's not a short term thing. I was always last before the separation. And while she needs the support so I'd expect the effort to go into that, it would have been a small amount of effort to think about the impact on me and just aknowledge that.

But I do think you are right in th I need to peace with it for now at least.

Fourth fiddle here 👋

So far down the playing order I’m not even in the orchestra. Only useful when they want someone to get them their interval drinks 😉

@floorprotector Sorry - edited my post after you replied since I felt a bit ‘exposed’

I was supposed to be going to theirs but not any more 😟

I'm not so sure it's that your parents are making you play second fiddle to your sister and her shitty ex husband - it sounds more to me as if they are doing whatever they think is in the best interests of their grandchildren. Splitting Christmas Day is rubbish for children even in the best case scenario, and they are no doubt far better off with their extended family around them, than being alone with their horrible father for part of the time. I'm afraid your role here is to be part of their loving extended family and to help to insulate them from their father. Christmas is about children, not about adults.

Bollocks to this! "Christmas is about children, not about adults" 😡How to put the childfree in their place eh? You don't matter because you don't have children.😡 You realise this is the MNers without children board so you're just told all the regular posters that they don't matter at Christmas?!

@Sorrynotsore I don't think you're being in the slightest bit unreasonable. I would be kicking off big time and refusing to spend my Christmas with an abuser, and I'd be pretty unimpressed that the rest of the family were even considering it. He abused your sister. End of. So what if he's alone on Christmas Day? Maybe he can use that time to reflect on why he's alone. I wouldn't be condoning his behaviour by interacting with at all. If the rest of the family insist on maintaining this bullshit facade, I wouldn't turn up until after he had left.

@floorprotector it was when I was doing all the cooking and running around so they didn’t have to leave their house and travel anywhere.

And why the aggressive tone?

@floorprotector That’s correct. Which bit of it is perplexing you?

Oh I really feel for you. Could he go to theirs in time for dinner, but you go in the morning, so that you don't have to see him? I would rather make a nice dinner for myself and enjoy it rather than sit opposite him and stew. Does he have to go there for the full day? That gives mixed messages to the children, I think.

I worry that your sister doesn't dislike him enough right now and may well end up going back to him.