Sister or partner. Who is behind her unpleasant behaviour to me. + red flag query

[unchangedname]

Hi guys.

Sorry I started writing this about red flags but it has become about my relationship with my sister, and whether she is instigating her attitude towards me (and my parents) or whether it is indeed her partner.

Here are my old threads:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2169105-Is-generally-not-believing-always-double-checking-a-red-flag

A bit more background:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2153440-Dont-get-on-with-future-BIL-Will-it-get-better

(Please don't reply to the latter thread though as I'm hoping it will stay buried due to some identifying details! I think traffic is higher in chat and am paranoid )

What might be a red flag sometimes only occurs to me days or even weeks later.

The latest that I would like some advice on is that they have moved into new rental accommodation for 6 months while their house purchase is going through. They moved about a month ago.

My sister is refusing to give us the landline number. This is very out of character for the old sister I used to know.

Basically, whenever he answered the phone to us in the old house it was a 'oh, you again' tone. From my sister, if we called during dinner (which was not at a fixed time so we weren't to know) we would get summarily and crossly chastised and rung off. If we accidentally called during their favourite TV show she would either answer angrily or they would simply not answer the phone.
[Old sister pre-relationship if rung during her dinner would happily have a quick chat, or very civilly we'd arrange to chat later, or just natter while she ate. Also I would always ring her landline and she would ring mine and there were no problems].

We have all been trained off the landline now and only call her mobile as a result.

She texted the new address. I replied asking for the landline and received no reply. I've never not received a text reply from her, ever. A few days later I texted to ask again and nothing. When we next spoke I asked for the landline and she said 'we've decided not to give it to anyone'. When pressed for a reason, she said 'it came free with the broadband and we didn't really want it'. I said I thought it would be good if we had it for safety reasons - we would only call it if we couldn't reach them by mobile for an alarming amount of time. She came up with a number of reasons which one by one she admitted weren't valid, and eventually got in a huff with me so I dropped it.

After an incident where she called as I was serving a dinner that I'd been cooking for my parents for 2.5h, about a pretty trivial organisational matter, and called back four times in immediate succession, which called each of us away from the table in turn for 5-10 minutes at a time, then chastised me in an email for being mean in not wanting to sort it out there and then, I was minded of what happens when we call her when they are eating dinner.

I am now confused as to whether, actually, her dislike and disrespect of me is authored by him or her. As I say in my long thread, her sense of humour became very cruel and dismissive when they got together romantically, and she lets him act however he wants around us, and has got to taking on his criticisms of us as her own, starting to corner me about things I do wrong or unlikeable traits I have, or my bad taste in TV, or how shallow and materialistic I am, or whatever. I am trying to untangle whether she has always basically looked down on us (me and my parents) a bit and his presence just sharpens it, or whether he is the author. I don't know anymore.

Our whole lives, she has pretty much made out she is the saviour sister that has put up with me, and that I have consistently been a needy, selfish, emotionally bloodsucking, errant person. I have consistently been told for the past 15 years (probably implied further back than that, as well) that I do nothing for her, am incredibly selfish and self centred, am a let-down and a worry, untrustworthy, irresponsible, self-centred etc.
She treats me more like a pet that can be wheeled out for amusement, as I suppose I am quite eccentric, a bit young-at-heart, used to have an interesting/unusual career and lead a slightly odd life. This makes me a good auntie as I can be very silly with her baby and possibly a good topic of conversation with her friends? ...I have no idea what she gets out of having me around when I reflect on how she treats me.

In a personal review of my life over the past week, I have realised she is the only one who has really had this message towards/about me and I never thought to question it.

Her partner treats me like this but his style is different - eye-rolling and passive aggressive. She is direct and rude, or analyses me under the guise of psychology, telling me my faults: 'it's actually really sad, because you're so selfish you can't see that...' 'i'm really sad, because I feel like I can't trust you to be there for me... ' etc. This latter is because six years ago she had(?) to go to the pub for drinks with a group of people, one of which was the best friend of a man she had been dating for a few months, and wanted me to go with her for emotional support. I was in a pretty bad place, hadn't left my house for months, but even so would have gone had I realised what a big deal it was to her and that it'd be brought up every few months for the next several years ('see, I know I can't rely on you, and that makes me sad...')

The result is I can never do enough for her. Nothing I do is good enough, no amount of gestures can convince her that I am not terminally selfish, I am scared to talk to her in case I 'slip up' and 'reveal my selfishness' - accused of turning the conversation back to me, not asking about her enough. (As per my long thread, I looked after the baby day and night for four days and got accused of being 'the most selfish person in the world', and told I was only looking after him because I wanted to). I have just realised it and I am really tired of it.

I will say I have massively moved on from my old thread - I can't believe how unsure of myself I was at the start. Rereading it is what made me start to question the dynamic with my sister.

The advice I received was like water in a desert of confusion, so as I cannot discuss this with anyone in real life, nor seem to get any perspective no matter how hard I try and think it though, I would appreciate any other points of view, even if I have to be told off or visit my own culpability in this situation.

Thank you Ingrid. Thank you
How do you rebuild yourself when you have never had a self

You said this about a conversation you had recently with your Dad about a room in his house I pointed out a few logical reasons why he could go back there and then we could tidy everything away for when she comes and she wouldn't even know. The point is that she should know. She should know that it is unacceptable for her to take over rooms in someone else's home. She needs to know this and to know that it is going to stop. With immediate effect. You and your parents should not have to sneak around pretending that you haven't been in the room.

WRT your sister being 'in your corner' when you were staying with your uncle. She did that because she feels that she owns you. You belong to her, therefore it is ok for her to abuse you, but not for anyone else to take on that role. It was about control.

It happened that I was badly treated by my exH and within a year, by my ex-employer. My ex was indignant at my boss behaving badly - it didn't mean that he was any better himself. Sometimes it takes one to know one.

If you feel you're treated badly by a few different people, it's natural to notice that you're the common denominator - are you bringing it out in them? Sometimes a bully can scent someone who is eager to keep the peace. Sometimes it's just shitty luck.

It's very confusing when you can't work out whether someone is on your side or not. From time to time, your sister has given you the impression that she is. But it's always when it's been pretty easy for her, hasn't it? When she's perhaps enjoyed herself playing the wise, concerned older sister. Has it ever been at a cost to herself? Has their ever been a single time when it's been her interests against yours and she has put yours first?

If someone is in your corner 1% of the time and in the opposite corner 99% of the time, they are still abusive. If you stay in the ring with them you will get knocked out.

She will have taken offence at your uncle's behaviour on her own behalf as much as yours because it could have happened to her.

Has anyone recommended the Freedom Programme?

I think it might help you.

Thank you Agatha. I cannot imagine the scenes if my parents were to reclaim their rooms. As in, I literally cannot imagine what would happen. It is so beyond the realm of imagination.

I see what you and ingrid are saying. This is pretty enormous stuff to deal with, it sits so heavy in the chest. Last week she was my -loving but causing me endless amounts of pain for my own good- sister. Today it is very scary all of a sudden.

Thank you bibio. I am racking my brains here. I am going to keep racking as I hope to find at least one example

It may be why I have been looking to ASD to explain some emotional naiveté rather than be scented as a bully-target. I have always been under the impression from my sister and, to an extent, my parents that I am difficult, obstreperous and childish so thought bullies would be scared by me. Hence I could not make sense of things.

Twinkle I have read the book in looking for patterns in her OH's behaviour. If I buy the workbook would that be a good enough next step, then maybe after that I would do the online program?

My circle of friends has diminished to 0. I wondered if this was an ASD thing. I pushed all my friends away over the years and it is just me, my parents and my sister (and baby nephew) in my world now. I don't know why I did that. If I look deep within I can probably find out why, but no doubt that magnifies things.

"Don't know why I am posting all this stuff. It is somewhat tangential. Actually I do know - it is like springy said, do I, not deserve this, but is there something so off with me that people cannot help but respond in this manner"

Well. I don't know you so I can't comment on whether there's something "off" with you.

However lets say there is. Let's say that there's something really really really "off" with you.

So what? My son has Aspergers and there are definitely aspects of him that are, for want of a better word, "off". Would it be acceptable for anyone - ANYONE- ever, to treat him like your sister treats you? Like your other relatives did??

No. Never. Never EVER.

And of course people can help responding in this manner!

No Ingrid, of course not, never.

And I would never bully anyone with something 'off' about them, I would see, especially if they were my family, that perhaps they needed me in fact more than average.

I remember saying this to my mum to countermand her argument - I said, if [boy cousin] was living at home in his 30s and was unemployed and came to stay with us, do you think we would have treated them the way they treated me?

I think she shrugged and said something about everyone being different.
Her brothers can do no wrong in her eyes, and by extension their families

Twinkle I have read the book in looking for patterns in her OH's behaviour

I'm not talking about her OH's behaviour, I'm talking about patterns in your sister's behaviour: she is abusive, you are her victim. Her OH may be abusive but he's not your problem: she is.

As regards the friends issue, I expect you've lost confidence over the years and that's why you cut off from friends, and stuck with your family. I think it's highly likely from what you've written here that your toxic family situation has caused you to lose confidence.

Yes, and you figure rationally, someone must be culpable, and the weight of evidence, if no one else is identifying or calling out the abuser, falls on oneself, to oneself

It sounds so stupid and when I have read a EA or DV thread here it is so obvious it is not the poster's fault or anywhere a million miles near it, but... I just think, maybe I am world-class annoying, so as people can't help themselves', you just bring out the worst in people or whatever - it is so different from inside the soup

Hi Twinkle, yes, it's just that bizarrely I bought the book to check his behaviour and as I went through it, it started to occur to me about my sister

Yes I don't know what has happened here re. my wider life situation

It never even occurred to me that anyone apart from me and my failings was responsible for where & how I've ended up

It will be good to see if I can give myself a little break

I think the incredible support and wisdom on this thread will start to marinate in me and I will start to see all the areas of my life that have been affected by this

Not that I would blame anyone else. But just give myself a break, like, maybe it wasn't all my fault

Your mum should have told her SIL to go fuck herself.
You have been let down time after time.

The impression I had is that growing up I was the one who everyone had to navigate around, hence my feeling that I am responsible for the sister I have

Unlikely to be true. It is much more likely that some faulty dynamic between your parents and your older sister was already in place, and having you made it more difficult for your parents to continue navigating it with obsessive attention to your sister or whatever it was. Don't accept fault alone (or at all) for where your family finds itself.

And as for your sister's habit of engineering crises and terrifying you all-has she ever actually come to harm? I'm betting she hasn't. Try and fight the conditioned response of being frightened for her as she abuses you and get in touch with your anger over how you are being treated by her.

I can see why you might have lost touch with friends. When you are being ground down by abuse and encouraged to think of yourself as worthless and vile it becomes very hard to keep relationships going. For that you need trust, confidence, affection. All hard to hold onto in your situation.

You don't come across as worthless or vile though, unchanged, far from it.

But listen, you HAVE GOT TO GET OUT OF THERE. Your family interactions are probably beyond your power to change on your own. Your parents are stuck. Just get the hell out as soon as you can. Keep a relationship with your parents, but from a safe distance and without your sister.

Ahh I see, yes absolutely your sister.

You could try this book: The Empathy Trap: Understanding Anti-Social Personalities by Dr Jane McGregor

Thank you bleedingheart
God it does my heart good to hear you say it
Everyone has been so insistently shoving me to reconcile with them I was certain I must have been the bad one, and looking for pathology in my actions when a house guest

AbbieHoffman'sAfro

Gosh I needed to hear that too

I always assumed I was the demanding child. I sat there and thought about it a minute. I know she was seriously ill as a baby, and after that a terrible eater as a child - my mum had to drive to her school every lunchtime to bring her a meal so she would eat; and a terrible sleeper - they would have to go through hoops to get her to sleep. She always was and is incredibly clever and ahead of other children.

I bizarrely can retrieve about ten concrete memories of her up to the age of about 16. How weird is that?? We went to the same school! Lived in the same house!

I remember sitting there at dinner on holiday with my friends, the year before I 'left' them, crying, and saying 'I don't know why you are friends with me, I offer nothing'.

The rest of the time I think I was in the same role with them, as the offbeat cocksure eccentric, and just felt a bit like a prize monkey; they were all so normal, just progressing normally, careers, partners, and I was, like, stunted

I think I felt 'I don't want to play anymore' as I knew I couldn't play to their standard, and also felt fossilised in that role in our friendship group

So one day, I just 'disappeared'

You are doubtless right Abbie

It would be a massive step for me though. I feel like the wisdom of this thread is beginning to repair me from the inside out, it will be a slow process but if I can be a person who will not be abused any more, that is enough of a start for me

Just reading the thread back, I have realised there is probably nothing I can say that is ever going to be the correct response to her
Politeness would be 'glib'
Intelligence would be shot down
Feigning idiocy would be ammunition
That in itself is liberating

Thank you Twinkle, I am having a serious look at that right now with a view to order

Oh but God she is my sister

I will let it all marinate, my internal truth will eventually come to the surface as it did in my fBIL thread

It's very hard & very painful to realise a close relation is abusive. For some it's their partner, for some it's one of their parents, for you it's your sister.

I understand how hard this is. But you have to choose here between your sister's wellbeing, who wants to carry on torturing you, and your own wellbeing. You need to put yourself first.

Thank you twinkle

I don't need a response to this from anyone, just wanted to log it as it popped up and it is useful for me to get it out

When she was living in her first house, if she needed a workman to call round, she would insist my then recently retired dad go there at 8am and sit there all day to wait for the person. This happened multiple times, as there were always things going wrong with that house or its appliances, plus it was still being renovated bit by bit. On my mum's days off she would have to go too

If they didn't want to go or tried to put up resistance she would accuse them of not caring about her and throw an almighty strop

So by the time you were born, your parents were already in the habit of jumping through hoops for your sister - to get her to sleep, eat. Scared, no doubt, that she would become ill again. Month after month, year after year, decade after decade that wall of learned behaviour has been built by your parents. I suspect you weren't the difficult one at all. It's just that they were probably putting all of their energy into keeping your sister happy, so that when your utterly reasonable demands occurred (and all children make demands on their parents, that is what being a child is about) you were seen by them as the tipping point, the extra burden they probably couldn't cope with.

Of course, your sister has grown up in that circle of her being the most important, the only important person within your family. She learned to play on it young and has continued to hone those skills in her adult life. To your detriment. To your parent's detriment too, although they made those choices early on, and continued with them to the present time.

Your sister works - what sort of relationship does she have with her peers at work? Does she rein in her outrageous behaviour at work (I assume she has learnt to in order to keep her job), or is she a bully at work too?

Agatha,

You know, that makes a lot of sense.

I don't understand why I can't remember and go back in my mind's eye more clearly. I know her demeanour to me through those years but can't visualise her. It is so odd. Maybe it is just because I have only let myself into this space literally over the past couple of days. Maybe it will come back.

I was thinking about how deeply unpleasant she is when we are with the baby, me, my mother and her. She is unbelievably rude to us. She barks orders, makes sarcastic comments about what we do, will sit there on her iPhone and watch us and commentate. Last visit, we were together caring for him and we got to giving him lunch and he seemed tired. She starting making cross passive aggressive comments about how he should have been fed earlier so he could be put down earlier (or something to that effect) and I actually said, incredulously, but you have been here with us all this time? You could have said something? Crossly: 'Yes but I wasn't technically in charge of him, you were' - typical of the headknotting legalese that ties us in knots - logic says one thing, but she's saying another, and she's always right, so..?

There have been too many incidences of this to mention, but, when she does something, it becomes like an army general barking orders and if one of us is split second late we are in for it. So if she has decided to feed him, she will carry him into a room with a bottle and start barking 'bib. BIB. BIB'. Increasing in frequency with an air of almost controlled panic as we buzz around like puppies looking for this bib. Once I said 'you wouldn't talk to __ like that (her partner's brother's wife - another of the baby's aunties) and it was immediately 'ah but she doesn't have the relationship [baby] has with you,' etc until I felt special that she was being rude to me

This isn't right is it, I have countless of these reversed things

I made the baby a sensory tent in the garden [i do have mug written on both my arse and forehead, right] and hang up jingles in the trees etc. Neither her nor partner said anything about it when they got here, they went out to look as my parents took them out to show them, and they smiled and said nothing. When I took the baby out and invited her to come play with us in the tent 'No.' 'Oh come on' "NO I have no interest in your bloody tent'. She sat in kitchen on iPhone

Two weeks later she went on a weekend away with friends and 'Oh I was telling [friend from uni also a newish mum] all about the sensory tent you've build [baby] in the garden and they all want to come and use it (little chuckle)' - perfomance-sister-ing, on Skype, with said friend and other friends in the background.

She does work.
She is getting near the top of her game.
She is both highly competent, and able to 'do' workplace politics
I feel like I have zero idea about her work life - I am not sure why. I mean I know the technical details of what she does, but actually I have very little concept of her 'in the workplace'. She has told me about people in her work place, about their lives. I will have a good think on it.

I wanted to dump more of the stuff from my fucking Aunt.
Felt good to say that

Age 12 'oh you look exactly the same as when I last saw you. You haven't even grown'

Age 13/14 sits me down one on one and tells me in detail how my grandmother is evil and has ruined all her children, how she has apparently made my uncle's life a misery

Age 20 something about how her dog knows when she has had sex with my uncle as it attacks him

Age 30 telling my mother that my other uncle (their brother)'s wife only married him for money and it is an arrangement, and apparently 'if [other aunt] doesn't get her pay check, she walks' [they have been married for 16 years now and are skint, so...]

May out me, maybe not, but she was a hairdresser and before my other aunt's wedding, as a favour 'doing her wedding hair', convinced her she should cut off her bum length blond hair, to a cut that could not quite be described as 'Pixie'

Age 30 how she settled for my uncle and now knows she could have done so much better than him, uncle was a couple of rooms away

Loads more, this is what cropped up, it is like purging myself and it feels better out than in

Why the eff did she tell me this stuff

It's hard to put into words really

There is much more in implied looks, little comments, anecdotes told, times they're told, people present when comments are made, people absent

I've known her since I was 4 and really thought she loved me,

I mean she must have hated my guts from day 1

Another

Telling me, 'the thing about your parent's house, we do like staying there, it's just so small'

It isn't

Telling me repeatedly - from childhood to adulthood - about how shocked she was at how spoiled I was, as my mother once ordered eggs for me when I was 4 and I wouldn't eat them so my mother ordered another dish

When I was in their house their 15 year old daughter would scream 'WATER'. If five seconds passed she would scream louder 'WATER' and her father would say 'I'm coming sweetie' and bring her water

But all this is done in such a masterful, friendly, co-conspiratorial way

That really made me question my judgement