Sister Argument- advice

[sisterHelp1]

Looking for advice, however harsh, although would appreciate some less harsh advice too.

I am one of three siblings- me (age 43) brother (41) and sister (38). Brother and I very similar; forthright, academically capable and have done well, work in “professional jobs” but deeply anxious and neurotic. Sister was diagnosed with autism in the 90s when she was about four and has always had problems associated with it. When she was diagnosed it hit our family very hard; my mum began having panic attacks and soon after my dad had a nervous breakdown, ostensibly associated with his job but I think my sister’s diagnosis didn’t help. It sounds mad now, but autism was so badly understood and hardly spoken about now. She was quite severe; non-verbal until aged around 8 or 9 and had to attend a special school. I think it hit my dad so badly as he had a brother with Down Syndrome growing up and therefore my sister being diagnosed with a “learning difficulty” as it was termed hit him really hard. My dad also has a sister who I think is autistic but was never diagnosed and who was in a bad marriage with a very controlling man (they are now divorced). I have a best friend- Fiona- who sister has never gotten on with because she thinks she doesn’t like her, but I think that really, it’s rivalry for my affections, although I may be wrong, maybe she just isn’t her kind of person (this is relevant). Fiona and I have been friends since primary school. Sister has never had a female friend and this is a big “missing” part of her life she talks about.

I have always been the “grown up” sibling. Even though I was only tenish when my sister was diagnosed and everything went to bollocks, I felt like I had to “hold everything together”. That has never really changed. I am very close to my mum but my dad is a depressive who is hard to get close to. I feel like my mum excuses a lot of my sister’s bad behaviour at the expense of me and brother and always has, even now we are adults. As a child and teen, I was made to take sister around with me and with my friends, which I didn’t think I minded but which as an adult I realise I did resent. I was very, very pious about never, ever criticising or slagging of my sister because “you have it so much easier” as both my parents and my grandparents used to drum into me. This also meant I have excused a lot of bad behaviour from her; she is very thoughtless and unreliable. She often forgets my birthday or just won’t turn up when we arrange to meet but I never call her out on it.

Fast forward to now. Brother and I both diagnosed in adulthood as being on the ASD spectrum and having ADHD. We are both married and have been since our late twenties, me with three kids and him with four. Sister lived at home until she was 34 and then at 35 married a guy she met online. No kids. Sister can’t hold down a job for reasons I think are associated with her diagnosis. Parents both still around by elderly and mum carer for my even more elderly grandad who lives with them.

My sister and my brother and I fell out around her now-husband and it all reached ahead around their wedding. Petty things, but things which hurt a lot at the time (for example sister paying for a £400 bridesmaid dress for her now-husbands sister and asking me to pay for my own – no big difference in our incomes and lifestyle- and asking his nieces and nephews to be bridesmaids/page boys but not hers). Sister has a history of MH difficulties, including suicidal thoughts in her twenties. Her MH got much worse around the wedding and afterwards; she was a nightmare to be around. What had always been a good relationship (I thought) with my sister started to sour when she met her now-husband and has gotten worse and worse over time, especially surrounding the wedding. I will admit to not being that fond of her husband; he is 18yrs older than her and very controlling in my opinion (and my brothers). He reminds us a lot of our ex-uncle. He feeds into her poor mental health struggles and is quite a gloomy character himself. I am always polite to him though and we have never fallen out.

Last weekend we all went to my brothers for a BBQ and sister found herself alone with my phone in the house. We were all outside and my four-year-old son came in and found her with my phone. She asked him for the passcode, which he knows from playing games on the phone and he gave her. She then proceeded to spend probably 15mins or so reading all the texts between me and Fiona going back over a year on my WhatsApp (that she is admitting to).

I admit absolutely that I have bitched about my sister in messages to Fiona, especially last year when they were moving house and there were some similarities between how she was behaving then and how she was around the wedding. I also bitched about her husband in these messages. They were bitchy but they were also a space for me to vent. I also told some stories there about them for comic effect about stupid things like when my BIL shut his foot in a car door on a family day out. I wasn’t nice about it at all and exaggerated elements of it for the laughs, I admit that, but I wasn’t saying it to him or my sister. I know that’s weak sauce as an excuse.

Anyway, sister has gone mad and is saying she wants us and my brother to have therapy together or she will no longer have us in her life. I don’t want that and will do the therapy but the situation just feels like a huge mess and I can’t see the wood for the trees… I would appreciate any advice you have. FWIW mum and dad think she was wrong to read the messages and say we all talk about people behind one another’s backs and brother agrees, but sister is very black and white and is behaving as though I have actually committed a murder (and claims to never have ever spoken about anyone behind their back).

I do see that slagging her off now to Fiona is a flip side of the years and years I never ever would spoken ill of her or have her spoken ill of.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice. I do think I need to talk about my relationship with her and my wider nuclear family with a therapist. My husband and teenage kids are all angry on my behalf as they see how hard I try with her. I apologise for the length.

Does that mean OP isn’t allowed to have any feelings though? Often the needs of the SEN child are reasonably foregrounded, but the impact it has on the siblings isn’t always considered. Two things can be true at the same time -1) SEN child needs more, & 2) non-SEN child also has needs.

You can resent being made to parent a sibling at an early age, while also still loving them and being frustrated with them at the same time.

There is usually OUTRAGE on Mn that someone reads another’s phone even if it’s lying open in view but she deliberately got the password from a child then scrolled through your Phone - that’s pretty bad - obviously as well as what she read about herself and hubby she read a lot of stuff unrelated to her but very related to you -what a bluddy cheek.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You owe her zero apologies. She completely violated you privacy. You have every right to talk privately to your friend. End of. She went looking to be ofended.
Get therapy for yourself if you like, but step far back from her and take real space. Apologise for nothing.
If she doesn't want to read shit about herself, then best not to go about violating the privacy of others.

You all sound a bit toxic for each other.
She definitely should not have gone through your phone

I would just back off. Shes clearly hurt by what she read too.

How is OP toxic?
Venting to friends is normal and healthy.

You say you are in the wrong but you're not, this is 100% on your sister. You are allowed to vent to a friend, you did nothing wrong.
No way would I pander to her demand for joint therapy.

Why do you keep saying it's your fault OP? She crossed major boundaries - you bitched privately with a friend about someone who sounds like an absolute selfish pita. You have nothing to be sorry for. Autism does not automatically make you unpleasant. That's her personality.

Your sister was very wrong to look at your phone and it’s disgusting that she manipulated a child to get the passcode. No doubt about that.
However, bitching about your sister and her DH and retelling stories about them with exaggerations for ‘comic effect’ is also pretty awful. Sometimes of course we all moan about people - but it’s the exaggerations that make it bad. It’s almost like smearing someone’s name.
I think you would all benefit from therapy. It sounds like you have an awful lot to work through. The way you are treating each other is a result of your upbringing. If you work through that you might all salvage some sort of relationship, if you want to of course.

I'm torn between outrage on your behalf where you should tell her to fuck off or to see the family counselling as an opportunity for you all to get on a better footing with each other. It seems like her intention with it is for her to air grievances and to perhaps compel you to behave differently in a way to suit her, but you'll be able to spotlight her less than optimal behaviours too which could be really helpful for you. Just ensure you're happy with the therapist chosen, if you do go ahead.

You should feel violated because you were. I think you should be able to say/write whatever you want to your own best friend.

I do not see it at all as being unforgivable.

I can see why you would feel wretched and guilty but you did not cause this.

Your sister went looking for trouble. What other reason would there be for gaining access to your phone and reading your messages?

I know you say you don't want to lose her but I would think about why you feel that way. Is it guilt?

Why do you feel like you are the lucky sibling? If it's because your sister is autistic and you are not then there is a lot to unpick there!

Similar situation and the last couple of years have been really tricky as sibling had a real bad breakdown

That's settling down now but the behaviour and nastiness and manipulation is still there from them and excuses are always made by one parent in particular as to why we should feel sorry for sibling and be grateful la la la etc but that wore thin so I stepped bak massively and stopped physically and financially helping.

It was draining me massively.

My parent is still being manipulated and drained etc and no amount of me telling them to step bak even a bit works so consequently I'm relied on by the parent and used as a moaning block etc etc.

The dynamic will never change.

Maybe therapy would be a good thing so you can also air your feelings around the situation although if your sibling is anything like mine they wouldn't accept it anyway unless it's about how THEY feel.

Good luck

That's such a good point. Your sister didn't just invade your privacy, she invaded your friends as well.
If you went to therapy with her, would her husband attend as well? I would personally use this as a chance to step back. I think what @HeadDeskHeadDesk said is perfect. Time to put yourself first.

I wouldn’t apologise. It was a private conversation. You are allowed to share your feelings with someone even bitchy ones.

It was wrong of her to snoop through your phone but it was appalling to take advantage of your little boy to get the password.

I think you should listen to your dh and your children.

Cut your sister off for a while. Notice what it does to your mental health. Then determine whether you are worthy of being happy. Take it from there.

I think what @HeadDeskHeadDesk said is perfect. Time to put yourself first.

So do I.

Those messages to your friend were a private and very understandable outlet for your frustration and upset, after a lifetime of looking after your sister, overlooking her poor behaviour, being treated as her support person (with no thanks for it), only ever giving, never receiving any support from her. You've been treated badly by her for years. You did nothing wrong by confiding in a friend you trusted to keep the information private.

Your sister was shockingly in the wrong looking at your phone. And using your child to do so, even worse.

Yes she might be hurt, but she's been hurting you for a long time, and you've always continued to support her. Interesting that when SHE'S hurt it's the end of the world and you all need therapy.

I wouldn't agree to that therapy. She will see it as a way to show you that you're wrong, she's always the victim, misunderstood, needs more attention and support, that you need to apologise. There is a risk that you'll feel more frustration and your relationship won't be any further forward. And by going to therapy, you'd be accepting she has a point. Which she doesn't. If she was saying 'I can see I've been unreasonable for many years, and you've been a saint, and I've never acknowledged that, and you were driven to say those things in your phone, which hurt me very much, but I shouldn't have looked - let's get some therapy' then I'd say there's hop. But I don't think that's what she's saying?

I'm increasingly wondering why I keep saying it's my fault. It's almost like a reflex if that makes sense? It makes me realise how much blame I've taken on over the years that I probably wasn't responsible for. But I do still feel this is my fault, even though logically I can see that she was also in the wrong for reading my phone.

Yes I agree that was wrong and I own that. My only defence is that I know I use humour as a huge safety net when dealing with and about my sister, so the comic effect is sometimes a way of making a frankly awful story a bit funny to deal with it if that makes any sense? She's got almost no sense of humour nowadays (used to have before she was with her now husband) and won't even acknowledge when things are slightly funny about emotions etc, she's very serious about "taking mental health seriously" and talks in a very therapised way. I sometimes make light of things and exaggerate for comic effect to get a laugh out of people, I know that. But it's to make myself laugh as much as anything so it doesn't all feel so shit.

She wasn't 'also in the wrong'. She was completely in the wrong.

She caused all of this. What outcome other than upset and violation could there be when a person hoodwinks a child to gain access to a phone to read private messages?

we all need to vent sometimes, mumsnet wouldn’t be here otherwise! Getting caught out was a bit of a bummer for you op, but that’s it. Your sister went snooping and isn’t looking at her own behaviour she going down the route that has always worked in the past .. blame her sister who will take full responsibility.

If you agree to family therapy without going individually first will only continue the dysfunction I think… which your sister would love as it will reinforce her position

i understand you feel bad about what you’ve said about your sister, but be honest with yourself that those things you said were true and you feelings are valid. The miracle here is that you’ve never told her or your family how you feel. I don’t think you should go back to how things were now it’s out in the open. You should embrace the freedom of speaking the truth! And frankly once you get to a certain age, don’t you want to live openly and happily with the people who actually love and treat you like they love you?

She sounds awful @sisterHelp1 and she’s totally in the wrong here.

That said, I encourage you to get therapy to unpick how you seem to feel you’re not entitled to hold her to account/ to have feelings because you are the “lucky” one. It sounds like you needed to look after yourself a lot because she sucked up all the oxygen. I am not saying she did it deliberately but there seems to be very little recognition from her of how it impacted you.

I say this as the hyper independent “lucky one”, middle child older sister of my younger brother who was always “fragile” and now has severe MH issues and lives with our elderly parents. In fact I wasn’t lucky (though I did well at school and uni, became a lawyer and am materially well off) - my hyper independence meant I ended up in an abusive relationship with my very awful exH for 20 years and felt unable to ask for any help because my family were so preoccupied by/at capacity with my DB.

When I snapped and told DB to shut up droning on about his terrible life for once, my husband had hit me, I got not a skerrit of sympathy from him: “my life is hell!!!” Honestly such a fuckwit. I know I’m the lucky one etc etc but sometimes it’s hard to tell where the MH problem starts and the complete and utter selfishness ends.

Tell your self centred cow of a sister to naff off.

One of the first things I learned when leaving an abusive man @sisterHelp1 is that you don’t go to therapy with them as you can’t be vulnerable there, they are just gathering ammunition to use against you. Same goes with your sister I think

Because you've grown up in an environment of mentally fragile people and depsite being somewhat mentally fragile (and mentally exhausted) yourself, you've been given the role of the 'strong, dependable one' by the rest of your family. So they can all collapse around you, as often as they like, knowing that you will remain calm and steady, and sooth everybody else's tantrums and meltdowns for an easy life.

You don't want that job, you didn't ask for it. It's been dumped on you. You've become sort of trauma bonded and co-dependent in this unhealthy family dynamic full of complicated people. It's their role to be damaged and it's your role to try to hold all the pieces together. It's okay to let it go now. Give yourself permission to just let it go.

Go to counselling by all means, but go for you and go alone. It will help set you free. As I said before, you owe your sister nothing. If she wants her own counselling she's welcome to it and it might help re-build the relationship, or it might not, but either way, she needs to understand that:

1. she can't foist this all onto you, given that she has behaved appallingly herself.

2. she needs to reflect on why you would feel the need to vent and bitch to your friend as you did in the first place. we all all human, we all do it occasionally when stressed and we don't usually want or intend the target to find out or be hurt by it, but if they do then so be it. Our feelings are valid too.

If she is not willing to accept some responsibility for where you are now (or she's just pathologically incapable of any self reflection or self awareness due to her issues) then there is absolutely no point in you doing whatever she demands to 'mend' things between you, because ultimately, there is nothing in this for you, only for her. She's not going to change.

It's time to allow yourself to make it about you and what you need. She can either accept that, or bye bye.

OP, your rearing is REALLY fxxked up if you think you are in the wrong to have private conversations with a friend on YOUR phone.
No matter what you wrote, it is your private business.
Screw your sister and screw ANYONE trying to guilt you.
Your childhood sounds awful. Of course you are entitled to private conversations to relieve the stress, no matter what you wrote.
Do not apologise.
Step away from her AND your parents if necessary.
Redraw your boundaries and protect yourself.
She is a sneaky horror and deserves everything she read via violating yours, and your friends privacy.
OWN what you wrote and step away from her.