Hi sorry, this is a huge post but I just need to get it all out of my head. Not sure if posting it on here is something I should be doing but here goes anyway.
My sister was born when I was nine years old, she was my mothers child but not my fathers. My parents had split up two years previously and were now divorced.
I had longed for a brother or sister for years, so when my mother announced she was pregnant, I was overjoyed.
As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for or it might come true.
My sister was adorable, up until the age of two and then she started becoming the selfish, egotistical nightmare that she is today.
God knows how young she was when she learnt to manipulate people but it is a skill she has honed and is fully capable of using on my mother whenever she wants.
She knows exactly how to use a dab of honey in the right time and place, meaning she can get away with a total pain in the arse for the rest of the time.
Meanwhile, I am straightforward and honest, try and say it like it is, don't ask for much but my simplest demands are seen as impositions.
I am quite sure that my adolescence would have been a lot better, if it was not for the fact that my mother had to include her in her life. My mother likes going out partying and with my sister around she couldn't, at least not as much as she liked.
I think of all the times that I was sent to my sisters childminder, in order to pick her up at her collection time at six and I wander how many of those, were because my mother wanted to stay out and have a drink.
I guess I was lucky I didn't have to grab her from school.
The first time my sister met my stbex-h, she wangled her way into going on a shopping trip with him. While they were out, she saw a pair of shoes that she liked, she told him to buy them and her mum would pay him back.
They arrived back from the shopping trip and my sister did not mention the money or the shoes and I doubt she ever had any intention of doing so.
She was eleven at this point.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I was staying at my mums for a few days, I had to go in my sisters bedroom because where my mum lived only had two bedrooms, my sister was given a mattress on the floor.
When I am pregnant, I get dog beat tired, the most tired I've ever been and since I suffer with fatigue anyway, that means very very tired.
My sister decided that she wanted to watch tv as I was going to sleep. Did she go and watch it in the lounge?
No, she put the tv on in the bedroom. I did go a little bit mental on her arse.
When I was in labour, my mother and my step-father came down to the hospital to support me.
They phoned up my sister (who is now fourteen) and asked her if she would walk the dog, as they wanted to stay.
She refused and so they had to leave to get the dog out, the dog that had been gotten because my sister wanted it. The dog that she had promised to take care of.
After my DD was born, when she was about three months old, I went for a meal with some of the other women I had met in my NCT group. The first time I had been out for a social since her birth.
Half way through the meal, my sister rings me up in tears because she is having a terrible time with one of her so-called friends.
Did I put her off and say I'll ring you back later.
No, I stayed on the phone for half an hour, counselling and consoling her, while my food lay getting cold.
The number of times, that she has asked for support and I have given it to her. Nowadays (when we are on speaking terms), if she wants to moan at me, I make mm-hmn noises and nod but I let my attention wander, as I don't see why I should offer her support, when she is never there for me.
A few years ago now, she got a parking ticket, she phoned me up "Please pay it for me, I'll pay it back ASAP, I dont want Mum knowing about it.
I knew it was going to end in tears but I did.
A couple of weeks later, in the run up to christmas, I go to stay with my mum and ask her about the money, she doesn't have it.
I go into her room and I find a brand new bloody pair of gieger shoes. So she can afford designer shoes but not to pay me back when I have done her a kindness?
hid the shoes and when she asked me about them, I told her I would tell them where they were when she had paid me back.
She found them anyway and lo and behold, my mother was drafted in to pay me back, for the parking ticket, that she didn't want mum to know about.
Recently, she asked me if she could borrow twenty pounds off me, as she did not want to ask mum (!). I had a tenner and said she could have that.
She then went to my mum, in front of me in the kitchen, 'Mum can I borrow a tenner?"
I had a art show a few weeks ago and I said I would appreciate it if her, my mum and my stepdad would come along to support me.
Her response?
"Oh no, I'll be sleeping that afternoon because I got up for work early"
A couple of years ago, she told me that she had been abused as a child, by her childminders son.
I don't believe her, I believe she was abused but I think it was probably my step-father, as I don't see any other reason he would acquiese to her demands so easily.
If she asks for a lift, she gets it, if she needs some cash, she gets it, if she wants a new pair of ugg boots, she gets them.
I want to ask her about it but don't know how to bring it up.
It makes me furious inside though, because if my suspicions are correct, then she is letting a child abuser near my children, with nothing that I can do, apart from keep a very close watchful eye on my kids when he is near, so that she can carry on using her blackmail tactics.
I do also wander if that is me being crazy paranoid or over sensitive but my gut tells me that it isn't :(
Anyway the latest reason, we are not speaking, I needed to print something out and had the audacity to ask to use the only printer in the house, which is in her room, at half ten on a sunday morning, when she was getting ready for work. It wasn't like she needed to do anything beyond let me use the computer and printer for a couple of minutes but apparently, I was being unresonable and I should have asked the night before.
I know my behaviour to my sister over the years has not been perfect but I have always apologised when I felt I have done something out of order. She hardly ever has.
I know I am bitter towards her but I just feel terribly terribly let down. 