I have invalidated my DS's lived experience by having a different opinion on things...

[afishcalledbreanda]

That's it, really. There's been a death in the extended family and my sister and I were reminiscing about our parents (dead a while now) and various aunts and uncles. I lived in the same region as several of my mum's family and kept in touch and visited them (often with my DM) and got to know them quite well when I was in my 20s and 30s. My DS went abroad to study at 18 and was gone for six years, married on her return to the UK and lived 250 miles away from the main core of the elderly family members, so only saw them at weddings and funerals.

She says that these older aunts and uncles cut her out of their lives and now says she feels angry and hurt by their behaviour. I can't remember her mentioning them for years at a time. If she'd wanted to send them a Christmas card or visit them I'd have happily put her in touch. I said to her pretty much what I've said here — that they never really got to know her because she wasn't around, that they always asked about her and her DH and DC, I kept them up to date with the basics of what was going on in her life and I didn't see any ill will or cutting out. I was polite and not argumentative.

She's responded with an angry message saying that I am 'invalidating her lived experience' and that it's not for me to deny her truth. I'm not denying that she feels what she feels and I certainly haven't told her she's wrong. All I've said is that I see it differently and explained why.

She has fairly recently started counselling/ therapy after falling out very badly with her daughter, who's gone NC, and now she's started using what I think of as 'therapy speak'. Ideas, please, for a cheery response that acknowledges that's how she feels but that I'm allowed to see things differently. I can't quite find the words without sounding insincere or without an eye-roll showing.

This seems crazy to have a falling out over. It is EXTREMELY common for siblings to feel differently about relationships with family members.

It is also extremely common for the sibling in your position to dismiss the experience of the sibling in your sister’s position.

If every single one of your relatives is dead as you say, then why would you want to ostracize your remaining relative, your sister, over this craziness of just having a different experience? You sound very rigid and you sound like you despise her. I don’t understand this whole thread.

tbh the longer the thread goes on the more I see you as the problem, dictating how she should see things, how she should feel. that denying how people feel and telling them how they should feel is a real bugbear of mind.

No, I didn't tell her how she should feel. She can feel how she likes and I acknowledge this is how she feels. I just don't agree with her on this specific thing.

You both have to accept that you have different experiences of your family. I came to this conclusion about 20 years ago when one of my (many) siblings tried to tell me my memories were wrong. There’s really no argument to be had here - and she’s no more wrong or right than you are. Just acceptance that you have different childhoods and experiences of your shared family.

It’s tricky though.

"Lived experience" is just an obnoxious way of saying "my opinion," and her opinion about a situation is no more valid than anyone else's. I don't think there's an easy, cheery reply here. I'd tell her to get over herself right quick or she won't have a relationship with you either. She sounds impossible.

I would gently ask her to elaborate, maybe she contacted her Aunts/uncles and they refused to speak to her, there may be a whole issue that you don't know about? She may have done something that older relatives disagreed with, the same person can be very nice to one person and horrible to another.

Im not saying this is what happened, but for her to feel cut off and rejected then surely something must have happened?

I'm not stupid, I know that two people in the same family can have totally different experiences even though those experiences were shared.

I don't want to ostracise her. I came here asking for suggestions for wording a cordial response that cut through the therapy-speak.

My sister can feel how she likes about anyone in the family and is quite open with her opinions. Some of them I share and some of them I don't. She tells me in no uncertain terms when she doesn't agree with me. I was very non-confrontational when I told her that I couldn't agree with her. No 'I'm right, you're wrong', no expectation that she'll agree with me.

Did you send your elderly relatives a Christmas card every year, OP?

Did your sister send them Christmas cards every year?

I don’t like therapy speak either. Maybe I would suggest you probe a bit to find out exactly why she feels the way she does. If it were me, I’d be curious and ask where all this stems from, to go into more detail. Something has made her feel like this.

I'm going through something similar with my late teen aged children.
My parents ring and ask after them. They never contact the children directly.
I don't think this shows any particular interest. It's a basic courtesy or something to say. If they were really interested in the children then they would contact them directly.

Of course my children could also contact their grandparents directly, but I think if you are a younger person who's spent most of the relationship as an actual child it's much harder for you to get in contact with your adult relative than the other way round. So I understand where your sister is coming from. I too would have expected the older relatives to make more of an effort, instead of not really any effort at all.

For some reason the " invalidating her lived experience" hit me with a tsunami of extreme irritation.

You haven't "invalidated her lived experience", you've challenged her on her nonsense and she's got the arse about it.

Yes, from the time I left home. My DM had a vast and close hinterland of siblings, cousins, in-laws and unrelated friends whom we called aunts and uncles. They were an interesting, close-knit group and part of our childhood and I would send many of them birthday and Christmas cards each year and they would reciprocate. I would also, because I ended up living in the same general area as quite a few of them, go and visit those nearby every so often. We'd have a group day out or a Sunday lunch every month or so. Some of my aunts and uncles were very interesting and taught me a lot. One was a fairly eminent botanist, one aunt had been a social worker at the start of that profession and another a university lecturer at a time when not many women were. As they grew older I helped them out with more practical stuff — acted as occasional chauffeur, took them to hospital appointments, did some shopping or cat-sitting. Not every week, but I'd see one or some of them every month. They always wanted to hear about DS's adventures abroad but understood that she was too busy to visit when she came over. They gradually died off, DM with them. I feel the loss of them. I understand that DS, not having that relationship with them, might see them differently.

That was a lot more than you asked for.

I'm going through something similar with my late teen aged children.
My parents ring and ask after them.They never contact the children directly. I don't think this shows any particular interest. It's a basic courtesy or something to say. If they were really interested in the children then they would contact them directly.

Did they send birthday and Christmas cards and presents when the children were younger? Did the children write or call to acknowledge them?

yes and yes.
But now my parents never contact my children directly - only ask after them when speaking to me. Which is becoming awkward as I don't think it's my place to share too many details about my adult children's lives.

This sounds similar to my family, I maintain close relationships check up on family members and have close loving relationships. My sister endlessly plays victim only appears if she thinks there's money and constantly claims rejection when the opposite is true. Honestly once my parents are gone I will probably give up on her completely which makes me very sad but she will never be happy and I'm sick of mediating.

Before my sister went off abroad (with my DM accompanying her for the first few weeks) to college, there was a big family party that included many of the people she now thinks cut her off and everyone took down DS's contact address and sent her good luck cards and notes. We didn't know whether she'd got them because they were never acknowledged. This was the 80s when communication wasn't so easy. And for some years she moved around fairly regularly because of her work and so there were periods where even my parents had no idea how to contact her. The generation of people whom DS interprets as having cut her off were around 30-40 years older than her and I know some of them assumed that they were of no interest to someone of her generation. I was the younger person who 'did' family, my sister was the one who was career-focussed. There was no rancour, no ill-feeling, they understood that not every younger people appreciates hanging out with the older generation.

But do the children contact their GP directly? Presumably they all have phones/ WhatsApp etc? Possibly the GPs are sending messages and getting radio silence or one word responses.

There's no difference between 'lived experience' and simply 'experience'.

Her child has gone NC with her, so now she’s looking to find a way to pass blame up the chain.

Sounds like she is the problem if she’s got family issues on all sides, and now she’s falling out with you

Sounds like she wants to feel unloved.

I'm your sister in this scenario. My sister is much closer to extended family as she's lived more locally and is more social than I am. It's just circumstances.

I get a bit fed up my DM doesn't realise I actually don't know people she's talking about & I can see why your sister feels left out. But really she's looking for a fight with relative strangers, she would be better sorting out her immediate relationships.

I'd swerve the drama & just listen, nod & eyeroll when on the phone. Distract her to onto safer subjects.

My DS's recollections of our childhood is dramatically different to mine too.

Really, and I think you know this, this isn't about you or the elderly relatives or indeed probably any of the wider family. This is about all the other stuff that your sister has going on in her life, perhaps the stuff she's seeking therapy for. She's angry about something (maybe feels unloved? ostracised? lonely? forgotten? distressed about her DD?) and she's found a way to make it the fault of other people instead of looking at herself.

That's her choice. She will have her reasons. There's nothing that you can do or say, other than agreeing with her 100%, that will make her happy. This isn't an argument or conversation: she's telling you what she needs and you can't/won't give it to her. That's okay.

Her situation is what it is. It's a take it or leave it situation as far as you're concerned. In your shoes I'd say "let's agree to disagree" and move on. She won't be happy with that, but that's her problem to deal with.

The purpose of therapy is not (necessarily) validation but to face reality and thereby get better.

Plus I am losing contact with my DNs as relations are strained. I'd never contact them directly as I don't have their contact details. Asking for direct contact would probably cause issues.

No, right thread ?
you said your sister was having therapy after falling out with her daughter. I would guess this has forced her to question her own support network.

Out of interest, has there been inheritance involved anywhere along the line. That can cause I’ll feeling.