Ungrateful, bullying sister - long post, sorry

[Mummy369]

I have just had the most awful day with my sister, 10 years younger than me but definitely the domineering, bullying, volatile one. She uses me to slag off to about everyone - friends and family. She spent 5 hours doing this today mostly about our brother (btw - both of us helped her move house today, brother and I each driving 100 mile round-trip - me collecting her and her 2 children, collecting the keys for the new place and fixing the central heating for her! Brother and his son doing the heavy lifting, then when he turned up she switched allegiance and started on me! This culminated in her virtually throwing me out of the house - throwing down the kettle and various other things I had taken for the children (juice ..etc) by the front door!

I've been trawling mumsnet discussions for over an hour and wanted to start a thread but didn't know what to say! I've been home for 7 hours and have been so angry and depressed and in tears that after 27 years she still has the ability to reduce me to a quivering wreck. My emotions are already all over the place due to miscarriage 3 weeks ago (neither sibling know about this).

The worst of it is that she is just so ungrateful all the time. Our brother and I have each had an awful year, yet we still re-arranged our weekend for her, spending time and money, hiring vans, I bought lunch for everyone (I drove round the whole town to find a chippy that was open because she wouldn't eat anything from the pizza place down the road!) Our children (aged between 3 - 9 yrs) finally ate lunch at 3 o'clock!

I so want to say my piece to her but she'll just lie and manipulate and twist it to her own ends. Our mum is on holiday 'til next week and I am horrified at the reception my sister is going to give her. Mum so needs a break from the lousy, ungrateful way my sister treats her. Basically Mum is always getting her out of trouble, is always used to mouth off at about how terrible my sister's life is, is always dipping in to her pocket to pay my sister's debts, and now has been conned in to being guarantor for my sister's new tenancy!

A few months ago my sister's ex-P applied for an emergency residency order to try and gain custody of their daughter. He did lie to get it, but the basic reasons he used i.e. house filthy, children not being sent to school (apalling 64% attendance last year!) and strange men in bed with my sister were all true! It took 2 whole days for Mum, her partner, me, my sister-in-law, and my sister (who did very little) to get the house cleaned and tidied to look presentable for social services to do a home visit to assess the situation. My sister got her daughter back - this would never have happened without our support. Again, time and money - including lost earnings for Mum when she attended the family court hearings with my sister.

We do these things because we want to help her, to get back on her feet, to get a job, to feel better about her life. We offer our help and support - we don't give it grudgingly. She is just so unappreciative and ungrateful.

HMMM

Well, firstly I think you need to seperate-
What your mum does and what she does or doesn't give your sister is none of your business. I learned the hard way to stay out of it. parents will (unfortunatley, and in most cases) never have it all in equal parts (especially when it comes to the "big stuff").

In regards to your relationship- well, you need to stand up for yourself and decide what you want to do. If you stand up to her and tell her off- you say that she'll twist things around- don't let her! face her with facts. "you said X and you did Y". but sometimes we have to realise the (awful, horrible, annoying) truth that just because someone is biologically related to us it doesn't mean they are good people. I see that with DH's sister- we give her TONS and LOADS and she is just a cold hearted bitch that keeps on taking and taking and still complains of not getting enough (god, I hate her). It's a difficult thing to come to terms with, but sometimes it's in our best interests- just to protect ourselves.

big (((((hugs))))) you sound like a lovely person and a great sister and you shouldn't ever feel like you do now.

It too shall pass.

Thank you. I know you're right but it means so much to mum if we 'get on'. And Mum agrees with me about my sister's behaviour! You can never 'reason' with my sister - because of course she's in the right and everyone else is out to get her/blame her/she's the victim ...blah blah blah. GRRR!

The cousins all get on well together, too (when they're allowed to!) but my sister also uses them as an excuse not to do things / go places. For exmple, today kids not allowed to run in the house (sounds fair - new home ..etc). but when i suggested they could all run around in the garden for a while (bearing in mind they'd been cooped up on the train/in the car for nearly 2 hours) she was horrified! What could i possibly be thinking of - fresh air!?! she said they had colds (she also used this excuse to school for non-attendance this week) but not a cough/sneeze or snotty nose in sight all afternoon!

My sister, too, is a cold-hearted bitch - just out for what she can get from everyone else in life, and drains them utterly and completely.

BTW - I'm not at all jealous of money going to my sister from Mum. Our Mum is brilliant and has also helped DH (made redundant november) and I financially and paid our mortgage in december!

Mummy369, It sounds to me like your sister is actually jealous of you. You sound like a lovely person and she would probably do anything to be like you and have what you've got, including the love and support of your Mum.

I am from a family of 5. 3 of us are very self-sufficient and the other two aren't. One of the other two has recently been diagnosed with MS at the age of 25 and understandably, Mum and Dad are helping her out financially as much as possible as she has a 9 month old baby and can't work due to her illness.

The other, we assumed, was just selfish and money-grabbing as Mum and Dad have had to pay out around £30k in the last few years on clearing her debts and paying her rent due to several adulterous situations which culminated in her nice (but lazy...) DH leaving her and filing for divorce.

Unfortunately, we now think she is Bi-polar but it hasn't actually been diagnosed yet so it could be that she is selfish.

But when I look deeper into her situation, she is just very unhappy and envious. I am married to a lovely DH and have an 8 month old DD. Even though we have a mortgage, we cope financially and are self-sufficient. Everything that she would want.

So, in all honesty, I would think yourself very lucky for what you have and whenever your Dsis is spiteful or selfish towards you, try to tell yourself that she's probably just of your life and try to turn-the-other-cheek. I know that it's not easy, but it sounds like you're too nice to be confrontational. So don't be. Deep down, she will be torturing herself a lot more than you could torture her, the behaviour certainly suggests that to me anyway...

xxx

DawnAs Thank you so much for your kind words. I am sure you are right about my sis being envious. I have been married for nearly 11 years and over the course of my adult life (I'm 37) I constantly see my sister trying to emulate what I have. For example, I became engaged Jan '99 - by the time we married that summer my sister had booked herself a register office and fraudulantly signed our mum's signature - she was 16 yrs old! We found out about it and cancelled everything - I don't think her boyfriend even knew! I had my first child in 2000 - within 12 months she was pregnant by a guy she knew for 3 weeks and had already broken up with. 4 months after my 2nd child was born she was pregnant again; And a few months after my 3rd - you guessed, pregnant yet again! She terminated her 3rd pregnancy, I think even she realised single parent, 3 children, 3 fathers - not the easiest situation to cope with.

I don't know what I have that my sister thinks is so important that she needs to have it, too. Both my husband and I work full-time (though he was recently made redundant and is now supply-teaching). We have a mortgage but are forced to rent that house out because we were unable to sell due to the housing market crash - and had already relocated 180 miles away. The tenant who had lived there for 13 months has just been evicted - hasn't paid us any rent since she moved in. We are currently paying out hundreds of pounds to repair, clean, re-carpet and re-decorate the house. We live in rented accommodation and 75% of my salary goes on childcare payments. We struggle financially and the stress impacts on our relationship.

By contrast, my sister is in receipt of housing benefit, income support and child tax credits (since 2002) and until last weekend had lived in council accommodation for 9 years. She worked for 7 weeks until she realised she was pregnant with her 2nd child, then worked for 5 weeks until she went to visit her father in Australia in 2008 (paid for by him). She spends her money on trivial things and then asks Mum for money to top-up her gas and electric. She buys frozen food from a high-end-of-the-market delivery service for herself and buys tesco-value range beans and sausages for the children. She does buy fresh fruit and veg, too. And probably her children are less fussy eaters than mine!

Obviously it's her life and she gets to choose how to live it. But I just don't understand why she thinks we 'have so much' when clearly she is living the life of riley whilst we're working hard and are barely able to put food on the table and replace worn out clothes and shoes for our children.

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