To the females out there who have sisters - is this normal? Sorry, long and meandering

[Nevertooearlyforcake]

I've just had a furious row come off the phone with my mum. We have essentially no relationship, it's the first time I've spoken to her this year, but it is actually slightly better than it was before I had DCs as she is interested in them. She is extremely emotionally manipulative and suspects everyone as having some form of hidden agenda. I actually feel really sorry for her but she absolutely feels her view of the world is the correct one - if the world really is the way she thinks it is then it's horrible place as are 99% of the people in it.

Anyway, to get to the point. Apparently my relationship with her is so bad because I don't have a sister (as my mum did). Essentially her view is that two (or more) sisters compete for their mothers attention and therefore I wouldn't be able to 'get away with' acting as I do if i had a sister rather than a brother. I won't have this 'problem' she says as I have two DDs who will therefore compete for my attention.

The idea that my DDs would feel under pressure in that way makes me feel very sad. My DM's underlying tone was that she would have found this kind of competition desireable in some way which makes me feel a bit sick as for me it feel like a sign of insecurity in your children and not something to strive for!

My DM had a sister and she (DM) is the most insecure person I know. However she never reflects on her own behaviour or acknowledges any part her own actions may have played in any negative event. She does allocate a huge amount of credit to herself in certain cases, for example she wrote an anonomous to the local paper about an issue of pedestrian safety and at some point after this a change was made to improve this in the local village. All due to one unsigned letter - and nothing to do with the local council lobbying for it for years. I know this sounds very trivial but she's been claiming this for 20 odd years and she was waffling on about it as an example of her amazing clearsightedness which therefore meant her view about the sister thing was also correct .

I have never, in nearly 40 years, heard her admit to being wrong about anything. For decades I've made sure I'm not in a position where she can apply any emotional leverage. When my DB's DP was pregnant with her first DG, she just ignored it, for nine months (and after three years of TTC which she was aware of) even when DSIL was standing in front of her heavily pregnant. When my DB eventually tried to force an acknowledgement by asking her how she felt about it she just said "oh, I'm passed all that" and changed the subject. Then when my DB called to tell her and my DF (who has since died) that her DGS was born - at half seven in the morning and she had been told the baby was imminent - before he could say anything, if the baby was ok, she said "I'll get your father" and disappeared from the line.

My gut reaction is the sister thing, or at least the perception of it as desireable, isn't normal. Am I wrong - do you think it's a good thing if your DDs felt like this and would be beneficial to you relationship.

'My gut reaction is the sister thing, or at least the perception of it as desireable, isn't normal.'

You are right. It speaks volumes about her and none of the volumes is good. She sounds like a narcissist.

I have sisters and its a load of nonsense. Anyway, you have a brother, so it isnt an only child thing.

Finally, if kids do compete, and they do, then a decent parent doesnt react to it, let alone encourage it, as a) it cases you further problems as a parent and b) it damages their long term relationship with each other, which is disastrous.

My DH got on very badly with his sister, and was worried that our kids would have the same issue. We dont, at all. We try not to act as a go between between them, despite that being sometimes difficult, and discourage rude behaviour.

Wow. I've got a sister and we're not competitive in the slightest I luff her big time :)

I suppose she can't make sense of why you don't get on and because she's got a giant blind spot about herself she assumes it's because you don't value her because you didn't have to fight for her - as she had to fight for her mother's affection and attention when she was a child.

It's quite sad that she attributes her town's planning to her single anonymous letter - pathetic, really. Perhaps to her it was a validation and she has been short on those.

I'm not being soft about her in what I'm saying. I can quite see that having someone like this in your life is very difficult and painful. I've heard it said that people who have been abused often identify with the abuser. Maybe she tried to do things differently to her mother and the end result is that it hasn't worked, she is still moreorless estranged from you. Her latest conclusion is that it must be because her mother was right, that it was good for her to fight for her mother's attention etc.

All very sad.

Not true in my case. My sister is 3 years younger and we competed, sure, but I don't think for motherly attention or affection. We don't compete any more though and have a lovely relationship, not least because we're both comfortable now with who we are (long story and not relevant to this thread but there was a lot of unhealthy pigeonholing going on when we were younger, perpetrated by other family members but never my mum).

Have you checked out the Stately Homes threads? I think you'll find some kindred spirits! (I lurk - not got up the gumption to post yet)

I have a sister and a brother.

Sis is prob my best friend and brother is a little like my son ( I was 7 whe he was born).

There's not much competition and we have a good relationship apart independently from my mum.
In fact we often support each other regarding her. :)

Your mother could have actually have been worst with two children, as they might not need it as family.
Or she could have played you against eachother. :(
So, bad parenting.

What she is saying is that she wants people fighting over her and doesn't care what that does to them as long as it makes her feel special.

My mum once stuck a newspaper cutting of a 'Far Side' comic on our fridge that was a cartoon drawing of a mother snake surrounded by hundreds of identical baby snakes with a caption that read 'No really Mum, who do you like the best?'.
She said it reminded me of my sister and I.
Ignore your Mum. I am ignoring mine at the moment. She is a constant reminder of how important it is to me to build a great relationship with my daughter.

Reminded her, not me.

Wow, thanks for all your replies! I had a pretty good idea I knew what the flavour of the response would be but sometimes DM will assert the most outrageous things that I feel like I can't quite believe my ears (although really this is pretty tame for her, she can be downright peculiar when she puts her mind to it!).

In a lot of ways, I feel quite lucky as far as my DM is concerned because she always appeared to dislike my brother and I equally which actually helped us bond as we're not very similar as people. I've lurked on MN for long enough to know my problems are small beer compared to what so many people have been through.

My parents had a terrible relationship but for a variety of reasons, never divorced. There were positives and negatives to this - my parents were very unhappy and my DM, seeing that my DB and I had a better relationship with DF that she did and than we did with her, it must have been galling for her. The reason for this was because he didn't try to bully us - DM wasn't able to see this and until DF died, she always said our relative closeness was because DB and I were intent on keeping on DF's good side to preserve our inheritance. Nice.

Anyway, upshot was at least her behaviour wasn't reinforced by my DF who, while not perfect by any means, was supportive and extremely caring. One of his reasons for not divorcing was that he was afraid DM would be awarded custody and I think in the 70s/80s, he was probably right. TBH when I was younger I probably would have though there was no other place I was supposed to be but with my DM and when I was really small I though I had a nice mummy who was a bit funny sometimes, I probably would have said I'd live with her if asked at that time. This is despite the fact I used to spend hours running over arguments to work out where the trigger had been each time and what I'd done "wrong". In most cases I'd say don't stay together for the kids but if my DB and I had been living with just my DM I really think it would have been even worse. On the other hand, I'm not sure how my DF would have coped with two young kids either.

I phoned her the other day because I felt sorry for her. I know as her friends are becoming quite elderly they are starting to leave the area and drift towards their DCs. I know she is thinking about moving and having been out of contact for a while and her having been on good behaviour last time I saw her, I was vaguely thinking it would be ok if she moved near me and I could keep an eye on her. Have realised what a stupid thought this was, both for me and the DDs as I don't want them in more than limited contact with the weird "all your friends are using you" chat that I grew up with.

My DM has never said a bad word about her own DM and I remember her as a lovely gentle woman. DGM did have 5 DCs (one with SN) and a job so there was probably limited time to go round. I don't remember my DM's father - DM is quite defensive about him but her brother (my uncle) was highly critical of him to me. DM's sister is slightly older, much more extrovert and doesn't seem to take things to heart - the polar opposite of my DM. My dad once told me a story of my DM buying DGM a surprise gift that she hadn't wanted and had refused to accepted. DM seems to have done this in response to her sister buying a series of things for her own house and passing the items being replaced to her mum. DM bought her mum a new kitchen appliance which would have meant DGM doing something a different way - I can think of several different reasons why her mum could have been annoyed by this if she hadn't been consulted. It makes me feel sad for DM that she felt the need to do this, such a pathetic gesture (I'm not sneering when I type this), then to have it rebuffed. I don't think my DM even told my DF about it at the time ( and this was before their relationship went truly down the toilet).

DM develops theories then looks for evidence to back this up and this is no different. Years ago (20ish!) she decided one of my best friends would be a great match for my brother. She mentioned this the other day and said I'd told her I wouldn't like this because of the competition. I had no recollection of that emotion but then thinking back some more, I did remember something - that I'd been thinking about losing some of my DB's attention to my friend and some of my friend's attention to my DB! So not quite as my DM read the situation...

Sorry - another epic. Thanks for taking the time to read, I appreciate it.

great post OP.

What was the relationship like between your parents? You say it was appalling - what do you mean?

As for DGM (and DF?) being lovely: some people save all their poison for just the one conduit, and it's always done in private; the public face is usually faultless, often astonishingly sweet.

By that, I mean you never can tell what has really gone down. One thing's for certain: your mother is one fucked up lady. That's either congenital or something/s have happened to fuck her up?