My sister is a year younger than I, and we generally get on well. We have some mutual friends, and we do quite a lot together such as travel, go to the cinema and events and so on. But there are some things that really bother me about her, and that seem to bother me more and more for every day that passes. I should mention that us siblings (we aren't just her and I) spend a lot of time together at our parents' house, so we see a lot of each other (under normal non-pandemic circumstances).
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She's really rude and defensive for no reason. She perceives general comments and questions as personal attacks, so rather than give comments back or answer the questions she's being asked, she goes into rude defense mode. I constantly have to tell her that my comments and questions aren't directed at her, but are merely general comments and questions. She could often just reply yes, no or I don't know to my comments and questions, and that would be that.
It's gotten to a point where I don't even want to make a comment or ask her a question anymore. I just don't want to trigger her. I'm not the only one who feels this way, by the way. When I have complained to our parents about my sister, they have agreed with me that she can be very rude and defensive, but they advise me to just let her be.
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She's not very willing to help or lend things (despite always asking me for favours and using my stuff). For instance, she often calls me and asks me if I can pick her up from train stations, or drop her off at places. She also helps herself to my things without asking me first. I never say anything, because I don't mind her using my things. But I once made the mistake of using her dental floss. I didn't know it was the last bit left that I had taken, and she went balistic on me when she found out the same evening. She demanded that I buy her some floss, and told me to get my own floss. The few other times I have borrowed something from her, she's gone mad and told me I have to ask her before I borrow her things. I only take her stuff without asking, because that's what she does to me!
Not to mention that the few times I have asked if she could pick me up or drop me off somewhere, she has always sighed and moaned about having to do it. So, again, I don't want to ask her for any favours anymore unless it's absolutely necessary. Just because I know how she'll react to being asked. She never does something for others happily. Our parents have the same experience of her as I do. I mentioned to our dad the other day that I don't want to have to ask my sister for help with something and he replied, "yes, I don't like asking her for help either".
She also always has a dumb excuse ready for not doing the simplest things. Not too long ago, I asked her if she could please turn on my computer. She was upstairs, as was my computer, and I was downstairs. She sat literally 6ft away from my computer, but claimed she couldn't turn my computer on, because she was "super busy with work". Too busy to walk 6ft, press on a button and get back to your work? I could understand it if she was in a meeting, but she wasn't. This isn't even her dumbest excuse for not doing a simple task.
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She gets aggressive when you confront her. I have done it a few times, and when I do, she always denies that she does the things that she does. She always demands that I give her exact dates of when she's supposedly done things. Even when I tell her I'm not talking about specific incidents, but about her general and normal behaviour in certain contexts.
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I always have to be the one who puts thought into our parents' birthday, Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts. And purchase them, too. I always give them gifts on behalf of myself and my siblings, because I know our parents wouldn't get a thing from them otherwise. I don't want my parents to feel like their other kids can't be bothered (although, I have since learned that both of my parents know I'm the one who thinks of and buys all of their gifts). I don't mind doing this, and I don't ask my siblings for money. My sister will mostly ask me to send her half of the bill when she learns I have given a gift. Which is nice of her, of course. But she's not been part of looking for the gifts, thinking about what to get our parents and so on. Yet, when it's time for them to actually receive the gifts, she wants to be part of the gift giving session as if she's had a major role in picking out the gifts. She recently went mad, because I had given our mum her birthday gift in the morning. In the country I live in, it's tradition to give birthday gifts in the morning so the birthday girl/boy can enjoy their gift for the rest of the day. My sister is NOT a morning person, and can in fact sleep until it's lunchtime. She gets angry if she's being woken up, so on my mum's birthday, I decided to let my sister sleep and give our mum her gift in the morning. When my sister woke up, she was really pissed off about it and started yelling at me. How I had been thoughtless and selfish by giving our mum her gift without her. Because, apparently, she wanted to see our mum's reaction. I was so angry at that point that I yelled at her, "well, if you are so bothered about gift giving, how about you actually take part in thinking of a gift and buying it yourself, for ONCE, then?!". She got really upset, started crying and locked herself in her room. My mum's birthday was completely ruined. But the worst part of it is that she still relies on me for gift giving. She just makes sure to remind me to not give the gifts without her.
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She always feels like she has the right answers, and her ways are always the best ways of doing things. She always questions the way other people do things, and feels a need to give her input on how she'd do things. For instance, if I tell her I've driven somewhere on a specific route, she'll ask me why I didn't take another route as she believes it's faster. I drive way, way more than she does, so I would better know which routes are best to pick at certain hours of the day. She actually hardly ever drives!
Also, the last time we travelled, we ran into a problem at the airport on our way home. I just needed a minute to think things through before making a plan, and she kept asking why I didn't do this, why I didn't do that, what the Hell I was doing.. all while I was trying to think. I was under pressure, and I snapped at her. She got so mad at me that she walked out on me at the airport. I didn't see her again until we had boarded our flight. Because her seat was next to me. And she only talked to me just as we were about to land, because there was a lot of turbulence and she was scared. She pretended like nothing had happened so I did too. But she does this all the time: Push buttons, questions every little thing and feels a need to mention how she'd do things, as if they're naturally always the best way to do things. It's driving me mad, and I have told her many times to only give me her input when I actually ask for it!
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She demands a lot of praise for the things she does. At first I thought she was just trying to to be pompous as a joke, but she consistently has to mention the things that she does, expecting praise for them. And if she doesn't get it, she will ask why no one has acknowledged how well she's done something. For example, just before lock-down we had a family barbecue. I had prepared all of the meat and vegetables, another sibling had done all of the shopping and prepared the chicken wings, my parents had cleaned the garden furniture and the barbecue, and my sister had seasoned the aubergines. Only seasoned them, she didn't do anything else. I had washed and sliced them (naturally, she thought her way of slicing aubergines would have been better). While we were eating, she kept mentioning how delicious the aubergines were. When we had finished our meal, she said to us all, "why have none of you mentioned how well the aubergines were seasoned? I think I deserve praise for them". I just looked at her and said, "well, we have all prepared and cooked the entire meal and set the garden up for you, where's our praise from you?". That shut her up. But it's really tiresome to always be reminded that we owe her praise. We all do things for each other, and we say thank you all the time. That's what families do for each other, so I find her wanting some kind of royal treatment and excessive praise really annoying.
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As mentioned, we have mutual friends. She never invites me along when she does things with people I know, which is fine. I'm more of an introvert and homebody while she's very extroverted and hardly ever home. Only to eat, shower and sleep. The few times I can be bothered to meet up with friends she also knows, I do often invite her along. And she always ends up embarrassing me when she does come along. My best friend and I have a dark sense of humour, and we have a lot of banter. We insult each other, say really inappropriate things and have a laugh about it. My best friend doesn't know my sister as well as she knows me, so she mistakenly assumes we're quite similar. So when she makes the kind of jokes I'd normally laugh and enjoy, my sister always reacts to them with aggression. She takes them personally, answer back to my best friend with utter rudeness and overall embarrasses me in front of her. She comes off as a really stuck-up cow. Even if she didn't like my friend's jokes, there's no need to be rude to her, I feel. My best friend seems to like my sister despite her behaviour, but I'm not sure if she's just being kind for my sake lol. My sister even treats my friend (and me) like this on Facebook. My best friend will sometimes comment on my sister's posts, making a joke, and my sister will just not get it and be rude to her. In the past, when me and my best friend have commented on the same post of my sister's, we end up joking with each other. My sister would get extremely mad about it and delete all of our comments, as well as write to us privately to, rudely, tell us to stop commenting on her posts. She's previously been involved in various leftist communities so she has a lot of friends that easily get offended. I guess my sister tries to keep her Facebook page really PC and clean, because she has to see and work with the people that might not like the things my friend and I write (which aren't even bad! It's not like we joke about serious topics like racism, homophobia and so on).
There are other things, too, but the things I have mentioned are her consistent behaviour. I know I'm in my right to react to her behaviour, but I can't help but feel like I sometimes stoop down to her level. Is there any other way of dealing with such person? Because she gets so defensive when you try talking to her like a civilised human being, I feel like she only responds when I speak to her in her "language". With aggression, bluntness and rudeness. But it's not how I would ideally like to deal with her..