awkward sibling relationships

[missabc123]

have a slightly difficult relationship with my sister, she's my only sibling and slightly older than me

we rarely see each other as she lives in France but every time I see her I find it really hard

there's some wounds going back to childhood (we didn't get on particularly well) and I always felt inferior to her as she made it clear she thought I was less than perfect (she's a yoga obsessed healthy eating clothes and expensive things freak). Although I have an interest in health and stuff I've just never been so obsessed with those things. I'm not fat but i'm not skinny like her. Every time I see her she's going on about yoga yoga yoga or some detox thing and can be downright patronising about it. She can be pretty blunt and I don't think she realises how what she says could be offensive (e.g. when I was 4 months PG she told me I looked 8 months PG).

She's completely looks obsessed and goes on and on about every beauty treatment etc and every health diet as if she's an expert on everything.

As teenagers she would say hurtful stuff about my appearance (hair, spots etc) and do things like using my books / CDs and break them etc but if I dared to borrow her clothes (very rarely) she'd go mental (she's a bit volatile) complaining about how I would ruin them as I wasn't the same size as her (I didn't and wasn't that much different).

That said I'm sure I did things that pissed her off too!

I'm not ugly but compared to her feel rubbish...I think because she holds these material things in such high regard and I have other interests yet I can feel her looking down her nose at me which makes me feel worse. Not to say that I wouldn't like to be a health freak skinny yoga bunny who looks great all the time! I just don't have the dedication to do it. Which kind of makes me feel worse...

Awkward sibling relationships are hard; I think a lot of my issues these days stem from feeling inferior as a growing kid next to her.

Anyone else have a hard time with their siblings?

Yeah, I'm no contact with one of my sisters. Life is too short to put up with sibling crap (Death By Ten Thousand Cuts).

She sounds boring. Does she ever talk about anything else?

My sister is similar, but it's an endless round of holidays and new hobbies. She gives me snarky comments like I'm obsessed with money, because I have stable jobs/businesses, a mortgage and a child. Sorry but we can't all be so "special" that we spend our lives indulging every whim with no responsibilities.

Death by a thousand cuts is right. I got to a point where even just the idea of having to see her caused me to seethe, so I just don't bother anymore.

thanks And, i don't want to cut contact with her as we still get on albeit strained at times (at least I feel strained). Do you miss her?

anyone have any advice on letting go of these wounds from childhood / adolescence? i think these sibling issues have a big impact on me, probably more than I have ever acknowledged or realised.

aussie - I guess she does sometimes, tbh we don't really see each other more than once every couple of years, so haven't had much of a convo in a while. most of it is shoes, yoga, shoes, bags, holidays, health foods! a very materialistic world view.

just find it hard to move beyond feeling completely inadequate next to her. she's pretty happy in her life of socialising, work, money, boyfriends, holidays etc.

I've had a pretty hard few years with mental health issues and things haven't worked out so well because of them. And now I feel even more different to her. I think as she's all sparkly and hyper confident about herself and a bit preachy and next to her I feel like a klutz. I don't when I'm not around her though. Strange...I guess I might be the problem here. It's just hard moving past it!

I do, but I always feel she judge me too much. Like for instant, since she left to California, one of her check came to my mailbox. She asked me to sign it with her bank account and take a picture of it (for digital disposit as she have an online bank account) I told her i can mail it to her and her respond seem to be annoyed by me not doing it and ask why? She is giving me full permission to do this. I am scared of using fake signature. I feel she is treating me that I am crazy

Sounds to me like you've got the much better deal, OP. As lovely as it sounds, if your sister's life is just yoga, holidays and boyfriends, she's probably feeling pretty empty. I'll bet she makes it sound wonderful and fulfilling in an attempt to convince herself & make you jealous - when in reality, she's likely feeling insignificant compared to you!

Yes, me and my sister don't get on at all.. I was the eldest and dad got on better with me. My sister struggled as she's not the easiest person to get on with anyway, as she holds grudges due to her autistic nature. So there is some resentment there. To be fair df did try harder with me and i got better treated because he got me and didn't understand dsis hints and ways... Plus he always said the wrong things by mistake, which really upset her feelings.

I got quite upset that she now avoids me when i visit dm, especially as she went and stayed with friends when i brought ds up for the first time.

Id love to be able to get on with her, and although dm tries to mend bridges, dsis is finding it hard to get over her childhood.. I do hope as we get older we can mend some bridges.

missabc ,
I don't miss her. There is a side effect of sadness for not having the relationship that could have been, iyswim. But she won't change and I can not further sacrifice my mental health by being in her presence. It is just not possible, a pragmatic fact.

notyet - aww thanks for that. makes me feel a bit better. i think as kids she always felt a bit jealous as I really excelled at school without much effort and she had to try that bit harder to do well. So it gave her a really competitive streak - that's probably why she is so driven now on the yoga / health stuff.

In the end she did much better than me with exams and stuff as I didn't have the same discipline for academia. That said I've done alright the last few years with being self employed aand i do have a lovely toddler and am reasonably settled unlike her. would love a boyfriend though! and a few holidays to boot.

the grass is sometimes greener..... and sometimes not!!

I also think that sometimes, as (in the social dynamics of the relationship) some parents fail to recognize when/that a child has become an adult, siblings do as well. The dynamic of relating as children sort of gets locked in and it may never dawn on them to recalibrate the relationship with the respect that each adult deserves. I hope that makes sense.

andtheband - sorry to hear about the sadness but the mental health thing is much more important.

Just because someone is family doesn't mean they are compatible or that contact should be maintained despite incompatibility. I think a lot of people put themselves through serious pain as they don't know how to step back from destructive family relationships.

I recently had to cut off an old friend as she was constantly psychoanalysing me and diagnosing me as if I was a complete freak which screwed me up. Everything had to have a deep meaning behind it, even keeping my house clean (it was clean, but not THAT clean) was apparently "control" issue. Did my head in! have had to take a break and feel much better for it. Not sure I want to rekindle it right now. But sad that I have lost the good bits.

Incompatible, in a word, yes. I like to think about it in terms that I am allergic to her.
The relief when taking a break tells the tale, though. And there comes the point (besides enough is enough) when we need to stop sacrificing our feelings for the sake of someone else's feelings.

def makes sense, andtheband - totally agree on that one. Probably a bit of that going on in my family. Habits of behaving in a certain way to siblings and parents can be hard to change too; especially if it has become ritualised over a lifetime!

Good Lord, this sounds exactly like my sister. She is single, runs her own business on the internet, obsessed with yoga and healthy eating...

We don't get on. We never did! in our childhood photos I'm making silly faces and she always looks like the dog died! She was always the perfect, academic one and I just wanted to paint pictures and put on plays in the living room!

Because she runs her own internet business she rarely has a real conversation with a real person, and therefore has no idea how to talk to people. As a result she is very rude and socially... wierd.

I keep her at arms length, I am civil when I have to be, and as my grandmother used to say "do not lie, but do not volunteer unecessary information either".

It's hard not to take things personally, I did for YEARS, but if you are happy in your own skin, and she is in hers, just live and let live, and let the comments roll away - they don't matter xxx

thanks human, your sis sounds hard work!! And sage advice from your gran!!

I think a big reason I'm not always happy in my own skin (suffer from low self esteem to some extent particularly when we are together) is because of feeling inferior to her from childhood as she's always looked down her nose at me (at least it has felt like that, I could be wrong!).

That said I think maybe I need to do some work on myself as far as this goes and try to feel better about me despite the issues...move past them! Then maybe we might get on better. But maybe not; some people are chalk and cheese.
xx

I always felt inferior too, alongside an academic girl who was good at maths and computing just like my dad, who thought the sun shon out of her every orifice! I always get those feelings when I see her but it does help that my husband sees through little miss perfect and we can moan about her when she's left the building! I've long since accepted that it's chalk and cheese with us, and that actually makes it easier to deal with her xx

Actually, my dad moans about her too occasionally these days. He says she's turning into his mother (who was a lot like hyacinth bucket!!)

Sounds like my sister, who is insufferable. Really, no1 could be better than her and her spangling, sparkling life. I tried and tried and TRIED to have a relationship with her but there's only so much sniping and sneering I'm prepared to take. I was thinking the other day that she has never said a kind, decent, ordinary thing my entire life. Whatever is wrong with her - and it is her with something wrong! - I am no longer interested and went nc some years ago. Bliss! It's sad bit what was sadder was what amounted to sustained emotional abuse throughout my childhood. I never made the grade and
and she treated me like I was 6. Well she can go fuck herself with her art collection and her house/s that are so perfectly stylish they could be in interior design mags. Shame she's not as beautiful inside.

Allegedly I have a better living standard as compared to my elder sister. But I know my struggles. My sister is happy in her life but has her guard up in my presence. Sometimes I love her simple lifestyle. We both don't accept it and it hurts equally not to have a good relationship with my sister - whichever end you are on.

Hi folks. Just been calming DW down after her sister cancelled on us again.

They were over at Xmas, but SIL made sure they were gone before DW got off shift. They were supposed to be coming for Easter Sunday, but whaddya know, Dniece's birthday party has been moved to clash.

We think it's because DW and I managed to repair our marriage some while back, and also because of DD's recent personal achievents: big weight loss, academic success, turning into a lovely young woman. Now she can't berate DW for bringing up a fat thicko, offer me false sympathy "Oh, she's been impossible since we were girls" and snipe at her for keeping the accent.

Cah.

"We don't get on. We never did! in our childhood photos I'm making silly faces and she always looks like the dog died!"

This made me laugh.

I'm the oldest sister. I have two younger sisters and the best way I can describe the relationship that I have with them is 'not close'. We haven't fallen out, but I haven't spoken to one for five years and to the other for seven years.

I'm typical eldest in that I was pushed a lot academically, and expected to do very well - at the expense of learning to have fun and enjoy people. I became a high achiever because that was what was expected of me.

Additionally, my parents didn't parent us well and allowed cruel teasing between us all. I think if my middle sister and I had a conversation about our childhood, she would say that I bullied her. I was probably insufferably superior, but I don't think I'm a bully. My Dad, however, is, and that was the family culture. None of us knew any better.

Fast forward to now and I am alone and very lonely. I don't know how I appear to my younger sisters at all, and I feel sad that we are so distanced. I think that they look to me as the strong one, but in reality, I have collapsed.

OP - perhaps you had a similar family dynamic. We can get stuck with the roles and identities our parents gave us.

So sad!

Our family was - still is - characterised by a bully father. Siblings have resorted, in adult life, to being the bully or the bullied. Clear demarcation. I was the bullied but the worm turned and I did an about-turn, got into therapy and explored the family dynamic that had set me up for it. My family, for various reasons, are not prepared to explore this dynamic, prefer to stay in their roles as bully/bullied. In fact fight for that dynamic to stay on its wheels. I am not popular, shall we say.

If my [shocking bully ] elder sister acknowledged she has been bullying towards me that would go a long way with me. If she took responsibility for it, instead of blindly insisting on perpetuating the family poison, that would be something. I can only conclude - and I don't want to sound snooty here - she hasn't suffered enough to need to plumb the depths to change what is intolerably painful for her. As it is, it suits her well and she is not in a hurry to change it.

I do bridle a bit at the term 'teasing', especially if it has 'cruel' attached to it. Or the chilling, and wholly accepted, notion of 'sibling rivalry'- as though it is not serious, just one of those things, let's not be sensitive. It minimises what was, simply, abuse. Extremely damaging abuse in my case, with disastrous, lifelong, consequences.

You may not want to accept you are A bully, tormentil, but can you accept you were bullying? It was the family system, as it is in my family; but taking responsibility for our behaviour, however schooled we were in it, goes a long way to unlocking a dynamic that destroys, whatever end were on it.

My sister has her issues, certainly, and I do have compassion for her on that. BUT not at my expense. I am not saying that the way things went was your fault, tormentil, but you are suffering as a consequence of what was a toxic family system. They probably are, too (your sisters). I have been a shocking bully in the past - like you, it was all I knew - and I have had to accept what i did and apologise, if appropriate. I know i was innocently bullying, if you like, but i did it nonetheless.

Actually, we have all been the victim and the bully, switching between those roles. Eg I was bullied and I bullied elsewhere, while still being a victim of bullying myself. When I got into therapy I could see how to step out of that dynamic, how to be neither the bully nor the bullied.