Going to my sisters tomorrow - and dreading it.

[ClareL]

My sister and I have always had a close relationship but over the last 6 months it has slowly disintegrated. I am 6 yrs older than her and our relationship has always been a good one - but mainly down to the effort of visiting/phone calls that I have made (that I didn't mind making). She is the youngest and I have a bruv inbetween. My sister was divorced a year ago (she has 2 children) but has since met somebody else and moved away (one of the reasons why our relationship disintegrated). The 2nd reason why our relationship has disintegrated is down to my mum. My sis had the 1st grandchild that my mum adored. I went onto have the 2nd gc - my bruv the 3rd and so on until there are 7 grandchildren. My mum has always preferred my sisters children to mine/my bruvs. She has had them so my sis and ex hubby and now new BF can go on holiday untold amounts of time - weekends away - their birthdays - everything (she has never once had my children on my bruvs for the night). This has been going on for 9 years - and in the last 6 months I had just had enough. Had a very hot headed moment and told my mum what I thought of her - and now my relationship with her is over. I never blamed my sister for the fact that my mum preferred her children and that she preferred to spend time with my sister for sunday lunches etc. - never wanted to visit me and DH or my Bruv!! My bruv switched off from their relationship years ago and said to me recently that he was surprised that I had taken to long to get to this stage. But my mum still visits to see the kids every 6 weeks or so - but hasn't seen my children for 3 months now. My sister was always perfect - fantastic looking, beautiful figure, brill personality had children in her early 20's. I have never managed to fit in to all those categories - I married at 30, had children in my 30's. I never seemed to dot all the 'i's' in her book. Always felt a failure and then felt she was treating my children the same as she did me and decided that enough was enough and that I didn't want anything to do with her anymore.
I haven't seen my sister for 6 months which is a very long time for us. Mainly because of how I'd been feeling about my mum and that I didn't want my children to hear my niece's talking about nanny this and nanny that - which I know my DD (7) is going to find incredibly hard to cope with. My DS is only 3 - so is none the wiser really. I had watched my DD begging her nanny to take her home with her etc. untold amounts of times and she'd never take her. But tomorrow will be the test and I am absolutely dreading it.
I am not sure I can talk or listen to my sister mention our mum or hear my niece's talk about nanny without feeling so sorry for my DD. Other than never seeing my sister again - I just don't know where to start.

I love my sister and my niece's.

Have you ever asked your mother directly, why she has had your sister's children to stay o/n but not yours or your brother's?
If so, how does she justify it? If not, why not ask her? You have nothing to lose now, do you?

call your sister up and tell her .. now

its not her fault its your mothers and you've already had it out with her

why take it out on your sister now? its not her fault is it?

tell her what you're afraid of (your kids getting hurt) and ask if she can help you by not mentioning it .. changing topic ..

I did once try to tell her how differently she acted with the children. I told her that my DD had said 'why does nanny love Grandchild No. 1 more than me'. My mum said that wasn't true and that she'd have a talk with my DS. That never happened. Myself and my bruv have asked my mum on untold amounts of occasions to look after our children but she always said no. I think we were always so hurt at the time that we could never ask why. The relationship is over now anyway - have not heard or spoke to her for 3 months.

I am not taking it out on my sister. I have avoided seeing her for this reason - but I think the best thing to do is say to her that I'd rather not speak about mum etc. as I don't want my children to get upset.

How much she loves each grandchild is subjective, but whether she has looked after each child overnight is a matter of fact. You say she has NEVER done it for your children, not just that she's done it less often (which could be argued over). You could write or email her and ask (a) if she agrees it is true and (b) if so, why. That puts her on the spot. I would be interested to know how she responds to that.

Replying to Elasticwoman - maybe my feelings are subjective - but I've watched my DS begging my mum to take her with her when she knew that my mum was going to meet my sister and children.

I've been to my sisters now and it all went quite well. She didn't ask me for any reasons and even though she was mentioned a few times it wasn't anything horrendous. Found out that my sis has arranged a party for her partner but that she wasn't inviting my bruv (because he can get a little bit too loud when he's had a drink) and she also didn't expect us to go because of my mum. I wasn't too bothered actually. Things are good between me and my sis and I now know that we can prob still have a half decent relationship - but at a distance as we now live a long way apart.

ClareL - I wasn't referring to your feelings, but to your mother's. I meant that although she can deny her feelings to you, it would be harder for her to deny facts.

Glad things went well with your sister.

I feel a little bit more relaxed about the whole thing. I didn't want to lose touch with my sister knowing how close she is to my mum. I think we will be fine. My mum - I'm not too bothered about. Maybe in time to come I will be. We shall see.