It’s just me, my older sister and her DD, my niece. Niece has three young DC’s, they are a handful, of course, but I love them.
My sister is in her late 60s (she’s quite a bit older than me), she’s single and doesn’t work now.
Her whole life, literally, is taken up by her grandchildren. She is at her DDs house every single day. She is enmeshed in everything that my niece and her husband do and complains about it constantly without doing anything to change the situation. It’s really frustrating for me to observe all of this, I feel that she is totally being taken for a mug (she also minds her DS’s young kids once a week while he and his partner are at work. )
I ask my sister to come out with me all the time, I get that money is tight for her so I offer to buy tickets to things, coffees in a cafe when we’re shopping, stuff like that - I want to do this for her but she will often turn me down, all the time complaining about her life.
A few weeks ago I was really ill. I had a bad ear infection that triggered an episode of vertigo which lasted a few days. I don’t have any support at home as I’m a full time carer for my adult disabled DD. We tried our best to muddle through as she can’t make her own meals, wash herself etc, we managed but it was tough.
My niece had asked for my help with something that I agreed to before I was ill but I had to say sorry, I wouldn’t be able to do it after all. The reaction of her and my sister was to ignore me for several days - not ask if they could help or anything - and to freeze me out.
I feel like the one time I say ‘no’ to them, I’m ostracised.
Our relationship hasn’t really recovered, I’ve had a couple of texts from them since and I’ve been ignoring them if I’m honest.
It really drove home to me how alone DD and I can be sometimes.
I feel like I want to have it out with them and let them know how shitty their response made me feel.
Would you bother or just leave it ? How do I move past this ?
Thanks for reading this far !