Totally messed up relationship with sisters

[wild]

There has always been awkwardness in our family. My two sisters get on very well, and had a very happy childhood. Things were different for me, I don't know why, my mother lost a baby when I was little and I imagine she was depressed. I was the problem child, anyway, and even now we are adults my sisters relate to me in a critical way with lots of undertones, stop contact for ages, take offence. Anyway we are all supposed to be going on a visit to my aunts and it the thought is making me feel sick with nerves, I just can't do the vibes and undertones any more. I am struggling with a work load I can just about manage and two dc on my own. I want to make an excuse to get out of it but I feel bad that I am depriving my dc of their aunts and uncles. My dc don't see my sisters often but they are the only family we have and my ds is particularly fond of one of my sisters. What should I do? put dc first or my own sanity and just stop contact. I know it seems extreme but I have struggled to find self esteem over the years and seeing my family deflates it. Thanks for reading and sorry this isn't too coherent, it's something that upsets me a great deal and is not something I have talked about before.

was I being petty? should I have just given it to her and smiled my way through the bbcue? cos after all, it's just one more bit of stuff?

Tell her that you'll photocopy it for her DH and then say that you're not going to bbq. Seriously OP, you need to be brusque with them. They add nothing but heartache to your life, so what have you got to lose.

yy have declined the bbq
photocopy is a great idea - only he doesn't want to read, particularly - she had it for years as part of the Family Hoard, I asked for it cos ds was doing WW2 and now she wants it back again to stash away. But photocopy would show willing!
I know it doesn't seem a huge deal and I don't get why it really throws me so much.

No is a complete sentence. Remember that.

it's been a long lesson to say that
I feel like uma thurman breaking stone

I'm kinda doing that .... she's v good at excuses - 5 years, why? why the need to hang onto stuff that you know is not yours
thanks for the support everyone. mn is great for this. I have not one else I can say this stuff to

I will get it copied and post it to her as a non urgent issue. I just don't want to find them on the doorstep again.
It's not really about the diary I guess. l am much happier when out of contact with them and have only just began to see that this is a possibility, and that it's not all due to some deficiency in me.
I don't think this is how sisters should feel.

'Toxic siblings' doesn't get talked about much (all the books are about parents being toxic) but I have just, finally, FINALLY, cut off my toxic brood of siblings. (Along with my parents, but that's another story.... although it's the same story: the scapegoat story.)

It is a total JOY to get them out of my life. Your sisters are bothering you because they need you, as though their lives depended on it, to be in position as the scapegoat. It's like an addiction. If you start to drift away they panic (who can they blame/belittle/bully now??) and try to get you back onside. You have learned to be passive and they know they can tap you for that and ride roughshod over you to get things back to the status quo.

in my family it is my sisters who are the worst. The entire family is invested in keeping me in the scapegoat role, but my sisters head it up iyswim. Please do think about the effect on your children of their mother being treated like this - in my case it has had a longlasting and dire effect: I so wish I had cut my family out when my kids were young

I am currently planning to move and will not be leaving a forwarding address. I won't be at any funerals, weddings etc. I'm out this time, for good. I hope you get there sooner than I did.

Fear, Obligation, Guilt: write that up somewhere and look at it

springy you have hit the nail on the head
my parents also reacted in this way, they are both dead otherwise this whole thing would be even more of a nightmare
middle sis in particular seems to have an agenda about me. I remember quite well returning from my first term at uni to find her sitting right in front of the fire, showing my dad all this perfume and stuff she had, and me being perched on a sofa in the background and ignored, I remember feeling quite shocked at their behaviour
he promised to sell me their old car when I passed my test. In time I did - great, how much do you want for it dad? oh (embarrassed) I GAVE it to your sister, she was having trouble with someone exposing themselves to her on her way to work
even when he was on his deathbed she had to have private words, (words that resulted in her getting extra cash)
my dc love her, though.

wtf do they need me to be in this role for them NOW? they have good lifestyles! we are no longer children! but yy no more passivity
how did it affect your dc springy, if you don't mind me asking?

Well, if it helps you to wake up and see what this is doing to your kids, I'm afraid my story is that I have lost my children. They are living with the most toxic sister.

If your dc 'love' her then that is the greatest possible indication that you need to get your kids away from her. She is poison, protect your kids (and your family) from her. She will separate them from you. Just as she separated your parents from you. if she's anything like mine (and she sounds like it) nothing will stop her.

springy how dreadful for you. I am so sorry! are you in any kind of contact with them? this must hurt like nothing I can imagine. x
I don't think my sis would want my kids, she is very houseproud! but she certainly dislikes me. And she is very manipulative and determined. Her husband agrees with whatever she says and my other sis also. She sees herself as Head of the Family i reckon.

springy daffs has said (better) what I was going to advise.
Having come from a dysfunctional family, where I was the scapegoat, thanks to a few events over the last year (and with a marvellous counsellor) that I realise that while I was being scapegoated ('so difficult' 'impossible to reason with' 'spolit') my siblings were not actually enfolded in the family bosom either. And while to me it looked as if they were all playing Happy Families and I was outside, with help I can see that actually see they were also being twisted.

From here, I would have thought that if you start to separate from them and are less of a pawn in their game, they will intensify their efforts to 'put you back in your place'.
So your sister may be now insisting on the diary, not for any value on the item but as a test of whether you are still being hers to dominate. If you dont bend on this matter, they will probably increase their efforts to get you back in line. Resist for your own and your children's sakes....and in a few years, you may be able to re-establish contact on your terms.

that's exactly it. I stood up to her about the trip to aunt's and now the diary thing is some bizarre kind of test. Cos there had been no contact, and now a million texts about this darn book. Her husband can't be that desperate to read it, surely? I've never seen him read a book!
I am fairly straightforward so I haven't seen through this stuff before. Basically I just accepted I was the crp one in our family.
She was going on about my birthday. I hope she doesn't turn up for that. She is v big on birthdays etc.

increase her efforts to get me back in line
that does sound ominous!
Families, huh.

Please don't think she is too houseproud to take your kids. My sister is probably saying something along the lines of 'well, I would never have wanted this but there was nothing else I could do in the circumstances [implied: springy being what springy is]'

Don't underestimate her/them. I did, and look what happened to me.

(yes, it's agony)

It's not a game. They aren't within the normal run of things but a bit OTT. They are poisonous and until you get that they will gobble you up at every turn. They have already wrought staggering damage to your self-worth/esteem and they are dead set to continue that.

re the diary. ffs, they don't even bother to cover what they're doing, are totally open about it.

YY to accepting that you are the crap one in the family.
Sometimes I even lived up to the label (not proud of that) ; I also learned that it is often the one who is strongest in the family or who most clearly sees or tells the truth that becomes the scapegoat

She can turn up but you can have a lovely birthday planned with people who love you for the real you.....can you plan a restaurant that wont be able to accomodate extras close to the time or a weekend away....

Increase their efforts doesnt have to be ominous if you understand what they are doing- just stay detached and polite but regretful that you cant visit aunt with them/forgot the diary/are just going out as they call to visit/whatever

y I really struggle with self esteem, it has taken all this time to connect it with my family though. I guess when you see it, you can start to feel better about yourself?
as a teenager I was in a mental health unit for eating disorders. I remember my mother being really angry that the psychiatrist had 'blamed' her, and refusing to go to any more sessions. I had to go, though.
The visit from my sis and texts wrecked the end of the half term tbh, but I can see it for what it is and the support I've had on this thread has been amazing. Maybe I can be free of the self loathing and lack of confidence at last.

weekend away porridge! that sounds like a plan!
so sad to hear that others have been through this too, it seems so uneccessary

Y the thing with self-esteem I have learned over the past couple of years, is that you can choose to believe what others tell you....or you can make up your own stories.
For instance, now, if I start to beat myself up about anything I stop and throw it out of my head. I tell myself its Ok to have not done something perfectly, that I will get better at it. I keep a diary that only has positive stuff in it- I never record bad stuff any more.
Your brain cant hold 2 opposing thought at the same time. So instead of 'I'm a disaster, why wont anyone love me' try 'I am just a good as everyone else and I love myself warts and all'. bit wooo woo but it works

actually i've really started to get my life together since my parents died. I've been on a teaching course and my confidence has improved so much. It must be more fragile than I thought to get knocked by a few texts. I can cope in other areas of my life. I haven't managed to sustain a relationship but I'm OK with that. Have friends, a job and am pretty happy, usually.

Can you photocopy the diary 'for her husband to read' - and you keep the original?

Ah but the texts are from people who are suppposed to be your dearest and most supportive family. Once you realise that this isnt the case, it frees you up to see who you really are and to take your self esteem from your who you are, what you do, who is truely there for you.