Morning.
Backstory is....we suffered bad child abuse as the hands of our mother. I came off worst. Brother and sister complicit, father absent due to divorce. I left when young and never went back. I have become a charity working guitar playing no country walking music loving sort. No kids, lovely boyfriend, own small flat.
Last year, after not seeing her for years, my sister made contact and we have been seeing each other. I was delighted at first. It had been so long that I'd set to rest much of what happened and built a good life. It was lovely to see my sister again and find out how the family are all doing. Not very well mind, but still.
The problem is that my sister and I seem to be very different people with different values. She uses words like common to describe people. I would be fired for that language. She grimaced at the African name of my artist friend. I took this as her making fun of his name. She say things like 'Mwahahahahahaah, were SO different, I wouldn't be caught DEAD walking in the woods!!!' And this makes me feel like shit.
Regarding men, she is 42 and like a teenager I feel. Just split up with one philanderer, has a wealthy ex hanging about who regularly pits large sums of money into her bank acct so that she can buy Jimmy Choos. She earns slightly less than me but because of this man is able to have things like that. She looks me up and down and it is obvious that my second hand cool clothes are not to her standard, everything she has is designer. We have totally different looks. On Friday she said about a builder doing some work 'Imagine only earning £120 a day!!! I mean R warns £500 an hour!' I could hardly stand it. Meetings are boring for me, they are all about me listening to her boyfriend problems and comparing man against man. Now I can analyse but seriously! She doesn't see any depth to life, it's all surface stuff and she glosses over things that I think are important.
But I think mostly what is getting to me is that I have wilfully gone back into the lions den. My family were very abusive, lots of physical abuse such as drownings, lots of naked humiliation etc and they all laughed at me a lot. I feel that when she says things about not liking waking, not liking the country, finding it boring, she prefers Harrods, how can people earn such a small amount of money etc she is making fun of me. She has said she feels sorry for my life because I don't have much luxury. In actual fact, too many belongings make me anxious as I don't need them. I have a lovely pretty flat and love it where I live.
Anyway I would like advice on how to negotiate this relationship going forward. I don't want to hurt her as she has the right to live her way, but so do I and I won't put up with being belittled.... There is currently contact several times a week.
Thanks for listening.