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 lambzig so much for posting. That really meant a lot to me to read.

unchanged, may I ask you a question?

Would you like to have a child/children of your own one day?

And whether the answer is yes or no, where would you like to see yourself in five or 10 years' time? Do you have a vision at all of where you would like to be, or equally where you would definitely not like to be?

sherlock, again I reread your post several times.

I didn't go for a walk yesterday. Or today. I will try tomorrow.
I was thinking though, after I read the posts yesterday and closed my computer, something appeared - like, 'space'. So, I wasn't trying to fill up the space with distracting myself, internet or tv, or 'area of interest'. I had some time and space and didn't want to run in the opposite direction from a clarity of purpose about what I want/want to do with my life. Nor was it a far-off bubble of unrealistic hopes, but it could be broken down into tiny, manageable steps, and all of a sudden there was no reason not to.

Then my mum called me to ask for some help with her computer, and then I came back here and saw the film was on, and the whole day escalated or de-escalated, as it were, from there.

But something I was fighting inside myself -
whether it was the internal sense of obligation to achievement in exchange for love and an inner rebellion about that as above (i.e. to 'see' if they loved me when I have no achievements);
or such a crippling internal sense of obligation to achievement, coupled with time lost, degree to which I lag behind my peers, 'advantages/privileges' discarded and guilt for that - that the only way I could make up for it would be to achieve something so unrealistically massive it would just be a dream to beat myself with, and impossible to start on due to crippling perfectionism;

With just a brief glimpse into life without obligation to achieve, life was planar, a bit easier, possible to see a horizon.

I think the happy situation for me right now would be alone with no one visiting or calling and no sense of that hamster-wheel sense of affirmation-seeking. From family or strangers.
But that may be because I am so conditioned to what I perceive as the 'demands' of others, so it would not necessarily be healthy to retreat!

I do not have a job, no. The thought of being around other people, even volunteering, fills me with fear as per the houseshare post above. I know I have caused this situation myself, my poor parents probably feel stuck with me to an extent, my sister probably is trying to get me to 'wake up' or to wake my parents up to tough love, hence why she disapproves of me and I am a constant irritant to her/them.

Oh hi Talking, I cross-posted.

I have tried to avoid thinking about that. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to be in a relationship with me so I have protected myself from the thought. Also the thought of living with someone 24 hours a day where you cannot disappear to a corner of the dwelling, I imagine being under scrutiny, having to work not to offend, or to keep up an act.

I cannot imagine when people say of their partners 'I can relax and be myself around them' as myself seems so abhorrent, to say as yet unknown.

I know as I type this that I have read other people who write this and think 'get over yourself! Of course you don't think that!' but I haven't really let myself look at it, and a logical part of me finds fault with the statements, but it is 100% how I feel

Talking, I therefore thought there are things I want to work on, some things that I can do and have ideas about, but I think I have uncovered that I am chronically perfectionist, have a long history of deadline-avoidance (I never had enough sleep at school since childhood as I was always up past midnight avoiding and finally capitulating to homework) and despite scheduling, diary keeping (logistical, not personal), self-imposed deadlines, I have massive trouble.

Though the + is, after reading sherlock's post, I was, however briefly, able to identify a space, whether the key to it I correctly identified a loosened sense of obligation or not I don't know, where I could just 'get on with it', I will look to expand the limits of that space

LongtallJosie and captainmummy I was thinking on your suggestions re. living in a houseshare and I think the problem, starting with walking down the street, is what seems like the exhausting, pre-emptive navigation of Other People. I exhaust myself around other people, highly watchful for 'getting it wrong', doing something that could be misinterpreted, building up errors of judgement to replay later in my mind, opening myself to the possibility of a random verbal attack that I will spend years replaying and trying to decipher.

This suggests to me that you suffer from some kind of social anxiety, was that discussed at all with your ASD diagnosis? ASD is usually associated with difficulty reading and understanding other people, and that may be reflected in fears of 'getting it wrong' somehow missing social cues etc; but at the same time I think you spend your life trying to read and understand other people, so you're not a typical case.

I don't think 'other people' would be anything like as exhausting and stressful as your family. And worrying about getting it wrong and all of that is something that everyone goes through, usually earlier in life, and comes out the other side with a sense of balance with other people. It sounds like you haven't yet gone through that phase, presumably because you stuck with your family.

May I ask OP, and feel no obligation to answer, you talk a bit about your earlier life. what actually happened? Did you go to that university you got into? At what point did you retreat into your family? Have you ever worked?
I ask without judgement, just to build a better picture so as to be able to advise you.

Another thing that stuck me from you latest posts is that while I understand your fear of talking to someone one on one, and preference for the impersonality of forums, actually you of all people need a person to talk to. In large part because you need to find a new paradigm outside your family. A new person to replace mother and sister as key poles in your sky. To talk to a person for whom you are a blank slate. You need an anchor outside your family. That will be a very powerful experience for you, and will be a first step to freedom.

Hi OP xposts...

Volunteer work will at first fill you with fear, because you live quite a reclusive life.

I suggested in my pp you might have some kind of social anxiety or and that would fit. But it may be a more general anxiety.

Feeling fear is not a reason not to do it though.

I think if you feel like this you may find you need some therapy first to prepare you and then ongoing to support you through your experiences.

If you don't address the fear at some point, then the implication is that you will have to stay at home for the rest of your life and that would be a gerbil shame given your intelligence and engaging personality.

A gerbil shame LOL a terrible shame, thanks autocorrect.

Have you ever come across the girl with the curly hair you might just find some of what she has to say helpful.

Hi Twinlestein and mummytime,

Just wanted to clarify that I don't actually have an ASD diagnosis (nor have I sought one yet), springy pointed out upthread that I may have incorrectly found myself attracted to it but that some things did not necessarily seem to fit. I am very unsure how to proceed in this area, as having done all the online tests and had my parents do the ASSQ (without them knowing what it is) it would come back as an unequivocal Yes, yet I have begun to see how often with some aspects of myself there could be two ways of looking at the 'symptom' if that is the correct word.

I am going over to look at that right now mummytime. I have read John Elder Robinson who they mention and also Rudy Simone and someone else, I am a perfect fit with Rudy but the aetiology of what has made me 'me' and makes me fit who she describes may not be developmental but perhaps more 'nurture' in origin, I am going round in circles looking for the exact point sensory difficulties began, for instance. There is a growing body of literature on how the diagnosis presents differently in women and girls, so the parameters are evolving as we speak.

Twinkle, I read your post and ran, as I didn't want to think about it.
I realised i've told myself one story of my life, and the reality might be another.
So, yes I did go to the university, and that may be where my isolationist tendencies came to the fore, very present from the off, but by the third year I was spending all my time in my room, living a very low quality of life, the couple of friends I had made (they were lovely) did try and help me emerge but I did not, and basically I found the whole university experience quite traumatic.
I went to 2 counselling sessions, and the lady was falling asleep in the second (in her defence it was a warm day and a stuffy room!), I think I took that as indictment that I was not really worthy of counselling and I think both were in the third year so that was the end of that.

I moved back home and to be frank it was such a relief. I was living at home for the 6 years I had my career, but was hardly ever home.

Since I was looking at ASD i have been, correctly or incorrectly, reevaluating just how popular/liked I have been in my life, including during my career, was I just tolerated as I was good? Did anyone actually particularly want me around? As I say my visit to States family shook me to the core as the things I thought could be relied on as constant were not, and it also shattered my faith in my judgement of people, I mean if I thought people loved me for around 30 years, then was proved so magnificently wrong, what hope?!

I went to a wedding recently of a childhood friend where our parents have stayed in touch but we have not. A couple of other of us were there and they wanted to exchange numbers but I found myself making all sorts of excuses, as I did not want to i) let them down when I inevitably failed to keep calling ii) be a burden, as I really do feel, what have I to offer, what can I say about my day, etc, as I was starting to with my last friends. I feel I can't stand the pressure of friendship, of keeping up an act or correctly anticipating their need of who they want me to be

One theme I have really been given from my family throughout my life, and I'm not even going to hedge that I'm not sure, because they have, is that I am a non-finisher, faddy, obsessive, doesn't see things through, and by God I believe it, from friendships to careers etc. They say 'you do 95% and then bale before the last 5%' and I totally believe it.
I made a mistake in my career, sticking with one project I shouldn't have for a long time, just to prove to myself I wasn't a non-finisher. Now, I beat myself up for it being a waste of time, which career-wise I suppose it was.

Re internet, mostly I am just browsing or researching an area of interest. This is the first forum I have posted on apart from 2 hobby forums where I have posted 2 or 3 technical questions over the years on each.

I also felt I was quite vibrant and popular at school, but in retrospect I know I came off very intense, and am not sure whether people actually liked me! Whether I just involved myself with people and things, or was actually either welcome or invited

Hi I did not want to read & run. A lot of what you have said has struck a chord with me OP. You sound like a very thoughtful person. I know what you mean about feeling like you 'get it wrong' I often feel like that, my father often flies into rages & it's like walking on eggshells, this has effected me my adult life with confidence & socialising. My relationship has broken down which means I have to move back in with my parents & I just feel like a complete failure. Hope you can find a way forward, I will be following your progress with interest [hug]

Thank you quirkycutekitsch. I really appreciate that.

Am feeling quite down tonight. Having the whole relentless pointlessness of my life typed up in front of me will do that. And my repeated ineffectuality to change it.

I have had runs at it, I thought about it and I have periods where I feel hopeful and set myself the things to work on that I want to achieve, and within a few weeks I get swallowed up in the nihilism of it and 'prove' again to myself that I can't stick at anything. I seem to have never given up if I think about the patterns since I stopped work, and I don't have nothing to show for it, so that is something positive.

I am always doing my best every day, mostly I go to bed everyday full of hope for the next day, recently though it is hard for my brain to get traction on anything.

I feel like I've been lying, that I have just been this watery multivariate thing personality wise in my life, especially during my career, such that I haven't spent any time in the world as 'me', so I have left no footprint in the world whatsoever.

Just the trivia of finalising some arrangements for the holiday with my parents just now, and it is clear they really just want to spend time with the baby

I was feeling clean and strong upthread, but I am feeling like a small piece of other peoples' puzzles right now, sort of invisible and inconsequential, which I know in practical terms is true

I think one does swing about, emotionally, in the early stages of discovery/recovery. Actually, later on, too!

It is a momentous thing to entirely change the blueprint. You have a lot to face and work through here, give yourself a break - it's going to follow its own pace, up to a point; you may as well enjoy yourself along the way.

I'm so sorry you had a poor experience of counselling. I feel so sad about that, especially as you have walked away from it with yet more erroneous beliefs about yourself. Actually, I'd prefer to say you had a poor counsellor as I think that is more accurate. A good - no, half, quarter decent counsellor doesn't drop off to sleep during sessions FFS

Thank you springy [heart]

You've given me a little lift and I will get stuck back into one of those books that arrived today.

Am going to try and focus on the bigger picture and remember that what I feel about myself tonight and have been feeling about myself over my life is not necessarily who I actually am.

So easy to slip into old way of being a handmaid in my family's life, and not even a particularly liked one at that

Hello op

You remind me of my own younger sister - though I really hope I am not like your older sister! She too is a perfectionist, she has always felt like she does not fit in anywhere and, in the past, struggled so hard to get things right. She always gave herself a far harder time about things than anyone else ever did. Eventually she backed herself completely into a corner and had a breakdown. Once the crisis had passed She took the step to access some counseling, which she should have done a long long time ago. It has been transformative. Hard, painful, she has had to face up to her relationship with our parents and to find the courage to make changes there. She still struggles with some aspects of life, but for the first time she has a partner who loves and respects her, she has allowed herself to put her own needs above the expectations (real or imagined) of others and she is closer to happy than I have ever seen her.

The key was for her to lift her gaze from her books and her immediate circle (of people who were too close to or part of the problem) and to seek help from outside. Like you, she had lost all perspective of what was normal, she'd spent so long trying to live up to what she believed others expected of her, that none of us could help her work out what was normal for her. She is very academic and - like you. - tried to read her way out of the situation for years. But it was only when she found a good counsellor and opened up to them - a neutral, skilled person, with no emotional baggage or vested interests - was she able to let the immense weight fall from her shoulders. She stands tall now. I am so proud of her.

Your situation is magnitudes more challenging, because you have been living this way for so long op. my sister took a long time to realize that she could not read or intellectualise her way out of the place she was in. That no matter how many self help books she read or how much she analysed why people behaved in certain ways, she couldn't make other people change. The only person she could change was herself, and she needed outside help to do that. The biggest realization for her was that it wasn't her job to be responsible for other people, that her needs and wants and interests were as valid and important as anyone else's,

I applaud your progress op. To move away from 30+ years of conditioning takes real strength. I hope you are able to lift your gaze from the books and seek qualified help from beyond your family circle. Baby steps, op, you'll get there.

Books have their place, though!

I say that as one who has been there, has experienced this. Theory has its (important ) place.

But yes imo and ime it is in relationship that the theory comes alive. Ie relationship with a trained professional who kept me safe as I stepped out into the new/real world.

I haven't read through the whole thread but Unchanged, if this was happening to another person what advice would you give them? Your sister sounds most unpleasant , this may be the influence of her DP? As you said it hasn't always been like this? However, I personally would go NC, of course it's very easy for me to say that when I'm not emotionally tangled up in the situation. But ask yourself, what I do get out of this relationship? Sometimes we need to think about our own well being

I think the books are incredibly helpfull. They can help undo the brainwash you've been subjected to.However don't get so caught up in analysing the situation that you fail to take action. I suggest that alongside the reading you formulate a plan , maybe just baby steps at first , but a plan that will eventually see you out of your parents house and taking steps to build a life of your own.

"Am going to try and focus on the bigger picture and remember that what I feel about myself tonight and have been feeling about myself over my life is not necessarily who I actually am."

You are so right here. The feelings you have about yourself are not who you really are at all, but they're the feelings that somehow you were brought up to feel were the real you. (Ok, I know my syntax is shaky there, but the point stands!)

I think you're extremely brave to be facing up to this. It's doubly (triply, quadruply....) hard because you're still living under your parents' roof.

I hope the support you're getting on here is helping you want to fight for yourself, helping you believe that you do indeed deserve better than being a handmaid in your family's life (you're spot on there, too). Because to us it's so apparent that you do deserve a lot more.

You come across as so caring, loving and thoughtful, not to mention intelligent and really quite passionate about life despite this awful hand that's been dealt you.

I too hope you can begin to formulate a plan to get out of that house, because I don't see how you can really move on until you do... But in the meantime, I hope you're proud of yourself for what you are doing right now. It really does take courage.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Talking, your post is very timely and so very very needed and appreciated. I am physically feeling wibbly inside and utterly exhausted. I can't even be chirpy as I normally think I am at home! I just want to sleep.

I think what I am realising as this thread develops and I get all this priceless input is that I cannot remodel my exterior, recoat or revarnish it any more.
What rudimentary self I have may be underdeveloped, may be whatever it is relative to what it should be but I can't change it.

What clusters around me is me addressing myself internally with the voices of what I have grown up with as messages. justwondering72, I don't know if it is something inherent in me, most probably there is some genetic personality modifier in there, but see this has always been my null hypothesis, I have been working 'at' myself an awful lot over the years to try and be 'better', I have tried many things, some that could in retrospect be classified as 'cult-like' as I perhaps am a little naive and ripe for that type of organisation, this includes things very allied to CBT, albeit with no professional present. But now I have this immense relief, to have you all listen and believe and validate my experiences and, more than I could even hope for, come out still believing in me and graciously taking the time and care to find positives in me. Instead of absorbing the effects of the personalities around me and just internalising them and their message, as I said above becoming their voices, and being unable to distinguish myself and my attitudes to myself from what I have absorbed; this incredible consensus has started to allow me to distil some concepts of normal behaviour; some blessed crumbs of absolution, of seeing this nascent idea of myself emerging as separate, and not bad, not indicted, just worn down.

Today I have whispered to myself, 'be gentle, unchangedname', when I launch into tiny internal tirades and reprimands of myself; all the things I got wrong today, all the 'idiotic, fad-like, childish' enthusiasm I was starting to feel for potential new hobby (which to be honest might actually be a distraction from big picture), starting to goad myself about how adjunct I was to others' lives, my reflexive responses designed to keep me as un-choppying-of-the-waters as I can at home; shhh, be gentle, unchangedname. Be tired, sleep, drop the act, become the rudimentary unformed thing, breathe.

I have packed my umpteen books and we go tomorrow to this holiday park. I am not going to put any pressure on myself or have any expectations. I will try and dress how I want, curl up with my books, sleep, not be afraid, see if I can enjoy myself from the inside out, not contingent on my family's happiness

Crikey my mum is on the phone to my aunt (upthread aunt) right now telling her Funny Stories about how crap I am at changing the baby's nappies and having a right proper heart to heart

They have been on phone for half an hour now, I did not realise it was her

Crying like an idiot!! Can see how hurtful and wrong it is now and it rips right through me.

Gathering myself now and trying to see it positively (in a new light where I am not going crazy and it is NOT okay) given what I have learnt in, my God, only a week

How upsetting for you Op.

I am always doing my best every day, mostly I go to bed everyday full of hope for the next day, recently though it is hard for my brain to get traction on anything.

Sorry OP - I've been on my hols and come back to read this. This in itself must be utterly exhausting...if it was a relationship you were saying this about, they would tell you that it was abuse. And it seems all your family are up to it.

How about just be yourself, and screw the lot of them?

Gosh, you really are wonderful.

See, part of me thinks that relentless suffering can actually distill a soul. Rather like a fine wine: bruised, crushed, kept in the dark, unnoticed, hidden. But all the while maturing, crawling toward quiet brilliance - watch out when its day comes!

I would say this, of course (cough). Before I'm accused of a messianic complex, I do believe that I'm referring to the quiet brilliance of humanity, rarely seen. If it suffers enough, perhaps? If it is stripped of all power.. kept in the dark, washed up (and believes it). Perhaps these are essential components. Perhaps it is not the curse it appears - as long as it isn't permanent? A certain naivete is also, perhaps, essential? Yy the world will exploit naivety, of course it will - it doesn't mean all is lost; far from it on a personal (though not corporate) level. I'm reminded of the Weimar Republic, the explosion of brilliance - intellectually, creatively - in the wake of a merciless and severe crushing. But we know what happened next.

So, a balance, then. How to achieve that? Nelson Mandela, a crushed man, hidden; but transformed (the world gasped, and gasps still), at the right time, for great good; his long wilderness training steadying him in the face of greatness? I'm not suggesting all suffering/crushed sorts are destined for global greatness, as he was - but i can't help thinking a key ingredient that was the final stabilising influence for him was: relationship. Community. Relationship - even virtual, with us - is proving transformative for you. And is for us all, if we have the essential humility to absorb relationship at its best. Ie books have their place, can certainly transform; but perhaps enduring, whole, transformation takes place within relationship.

That, and you just are wonderful. Which may be for any number of reasons but you seriously must take the credit - you wouldn't be wonderful without making choices; which is down to you and nobody else

I hope you have the fabbest hol, op. (I'm not going to call you unchanged because that's a misnomer if there ever was one!). Take care of your sweet self xx