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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Sister Argument- advice

89 replies

sisterHelp1 · 23/05/2024 14:01

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.

OP posts:
Original poster
sisterHelp1 · 26/05/2024 11:56

After a few more days of her freezing me out and no further contact from her because I'm in the wrong and she's thinking about whether she wants a relationship with me anymore, I've blocked her number. I've decided I don't want to be at the mercy of whether she wants to speak to me, for at least a while. My kids are also very upset as they know I'm upset and now so that's a factor. I have therapy with a new therapist on Thursday, hoping that will help.

For everyone saying how fucked up my childhood was, I'm gathering that it must have been, more than I knew. There's a real righteous, pious element to her since she's known her now husband she's always morally in the right about everything, with everyone, whenever there's a problem (for example, she has a bad relationship with her sister in law which is always put down to the SIL being an arse but I'm starting to wonder).

This started in childhood. When she was pretty much non verbal she used to really hurt me- it sounds silly to say she "beat me up" when she was 3-8yrs old and I was older, but she did. I would be covered in bruises and scratches and bite marks and told by my parents and grandparents not to retaliate because she was frustrated from not being able to talk. I remember having to lie to a teacher during PE when I was in year 6 when they questioned all the scratches. I lied and said we had a kitten, who knows if she believed me.

Looking back I realise that I've always had to "step back" from confrontation or argument with her because- those old words ringing in my ears- "she was frustrated". And I'm still doing it in my forties. It's mad. No more.

OP posts:
QualityDog · 26/05/2024 11:59

Well done for taking a step back. And for putting yourself and your own children first.

IAmThe1AndOnly · 26/05/2024 12:28

I’m afraid that being autistic seems to be a diagnosis she’s been able to use to be a manipulative bitch.

Nobody has ever stood up to her because of it, which has been a green light for her to behave in the way she is.

And her beating you up as a child, yes, her condition did explain it, but that doesn’t mean the child being hurt by it can’t have been affected by it.

Tbh though you shouldn’t give your passcode to your DS.

AnnaSewell · 26/05/2024 12:37

I have a sibling whose difficulties are very likely to stem from autism.

Their behaviour can be very trying. They take and do not give. They're selfish. They don't listen. They talk about their own issues and how badly they've been treated.

In order to try and be a decent sibling to someone who has a lot of problems - and who is also supported by parents in a way that I have never been supported - me and my other sibling - have needed to let off steam.

I don't think I should be made to feel guilty about this.

It is unfortunate that your sister may well be unable to move beyond thinking in a rigid way which makes her 'right' and other people 'wrong'. But I think you have to stick to your own values and put down some boundaries.

If you had deliberately left hurtful messages in a place where she might see them, than yes some sort of apology would be in order. But that is very far from the situation you're now in.

Baaliali · 26/05/2024 13:01

about 5% on you for bitching, and 95% on her for snooping

I agree with this.

Jhgdsd · 26/05/2024 14:13

Well done OP.
Keep her blocked. I hope the new therapist does validate just how much of a mess your rearing was. You were bullied and abused your whole life with your parents silencing you.
Take your space and protect it.
Step away from your enabling parents.
Your children deserve a mother who is not being abused by her sibling and parents.
This is not normal and it will NEVER end unless you put a firm stop to it.

Original poster
sisterHelp1 · 26/05/2024 20:51

Thanks all. I really appreciate all the advice and all the words of support and the opposite opinion voices too. It sounds silly to say a Mumsnet thread can have helped as much as it has, but this genuinely has helped me order my thoughts when I felt I was the worst person on earth for a couple of days there.

@AnnaSewell I'm sorry that you've faced similar problems with a sibling. Ironically I work very closely with kids with learning difficulties, and I think that we do so much work with them (obviously!) and then with their parents on how to cope with living with a child with difficulties, but siblings kind of get forgotten. But it's hard and it's something that lasts far beyond childhood.

Thanks for the words of advice and support @QualityDog @Jhgdsd @IAmThe1AndOnly and @Baaliali. I really value everything that you've said. As for the code though @IAmThe1AndOnly and others who've mentioned it, it just didn't occur to me. My son knows it because he uses my phone, and anyone he might tell in a situation like that (at a family gathering, only relatives there) I trusted entirely. I would never have thought that any one of the people there would have a) used my child to get into my phone and then b) gone through anything on my phone. That's what I can't stop thinking, how totally blindsided I've been by this. Prior to this, whilst thinking often that my sister was a pain in the arse, I'd have trusted her with my phone, my wallet, my keys (my kids!)... never thinking for a second that she'd have done anything sneaky like this.

Re: the 95% on her for snooping and 5% on me for bitching... I'm not saying I disagree, but interesting my husband stumbled upon this and what she did is actually illegal under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Didn't even occur to me that it might be illegal but there you go, for future reference!

Sort of slightly off topic, but this is a tech problem that I wonder if anyone can answer: I have an iPhone and have blocked her on iMessage, but am in WhatsApp group where she is too. Will I still get messages from her in that does anyone know? I sort of want to be able to just because she won't say anything in front of the people in the group, but I'm worried if I can that she might message me directly on WhatsApp. If anyone knows the answer to this I'd be grateful.

Thanks Mumsnet army, you're all legends.

OP posts:
Baaliali · 27/05/2024 08:01

Re: the 95% on her for snooping and 5% on me for bitching... I'm not saying I disagree

You are right as I read more her culpability went right up. I am surrounded by ASD. Some of the best people I know have it but then there are others who are self focused to a personality disordered level, literally. They wreak havoc. You have to protect yourself from your sister’s behaviour.

Citrusandginger · 27/05/2024 08:23

I'm glad you've blocked her and are seeking therapy. I'm also a "lucky" survivor of a complex childhood who sought therapy in my 40s. (Reader, I was not lucky).

Therapy really helped. My therapist helped me to acknowledge that a lot of things that I had pretended were OK - including lying to protect others just like you OP - shouldn't have happened. I also learned finally, to acknowledge my own emotions and feelings, instead of containing them due to other's needs. I hope you find similar benefits. Your sister is unlikely to change and so you need to find a way to manage your mental health and your needs. If that is by keeping your distance from your sister, so be it. Good luck.

AnnaMagnani · 27/05/2024 08:23

Moaning about your sister to someone else is entirely within normal sisterly behaviour.

I'm tempted to say you should go to family therapy with your sister. She seems unable to imagine anyone else has agency so thinks you are all going to apologise and acknowledge how hard her life is.

I think she would regret what she wished for when therapy actually turned out to be you and your brother telling her that she's always been a self centred nightmare.

Citrusandginger · 27/05/2024 09:36

I would be wary of family therapy with someone with OP's sisters tendencies. There is a risk her sister would use it to extend her abuse and emotional control.

Nottherealslimshady · 27/05/2024 09:45

Sounds like a huge fucking mess. Group therapy sounds like it could be good

HeadDeskHeadDesk · 27/05/2024 10:10

No. The OP's sister is controlling and abusive. She wants group therapy because she thinks it will validate her feelings and so she can publicly whip her sister some more, in front of a professional audience and get a round of applause for it. Absolutely not. The OP owes her nothing.

AncientBallerina · 27/05/2024 10:22

Agree. OP - it’s great that you are having therapy to help you. I think there would be little point in going to family therapy with someone with such black and white thinking.

Opentooffers · 27/05/2024 12:23

It's tricky as you are a ND family. I'd say its no accident that both your parents have had MH issues - I think you will find they are ND in their own individual ways, hence their difficulties with coping with life situations . No surprise then that they have had 3 DC's who are ND.
I haven't read it all as you seem to focus heavily on the detail, that makes it very long. You all behave in your own ways because of how you are. Not sure you can do a lot about that. It seems your DSis has had the greatest difficulties which has left her vulnerable to a dogy character. All you can do is step away, and its up to you if you feel you want to offer to be there for her if she needs future help, but you don't have to.
Your parents didn't help, unfortunately probably their own underlying, undiagnosed ND and shame that prior generations felt, resulting in things being swept under the carpet. They let you down and your childhood was horrific because of their inaction. How much blame can you put on people with ND? It's sad all round, the hope is for better support for future generations and more open discussion as hiding it solves nothing.

Portfun24 · 27/05/2024 12:37

As an older sister with a complex younger sister with adhd and alcoholism who I have looked after and pandered to her whole life. Its only since my mum died and I've realised it's all been about her and she's never asked me once how I am or ever done fuck all for me. I can advise you that cutting her off the last two months has lifted so much weight off my shoulders and made my life so peaceful.

Sometimes we need to realise that relationships should go two ways and if someone isn't bringing anything of value to your life and is zapping your emotional energy and asking too much of you, it's okay to cut them out. We don't need to put up with it just because we were born to the same parents. I wouldn't put up with it from a friend and I'm no longer going to put up with it from her.

I strongly suggest you start putting your own wellbeing first.

Hocuspocustoasty · 27/05/2024 14:43

If you block someone on WhatsApp, they can still message in groups you share and you will still see their messages as they will see yours in group chats.

Original poster
sisterHelp1 · 28/05/2024 01:58

Hocuspocustoasty · 27/05/2024 14:43

If you block someone on WhatsApp, they can still message in groups you share and you will still see their messages as they will see yours in group chats.

Thanks. Does blocking them on imessage make any odds to whatsapp do you know?

OP posts:
Hocuspocustoasty · 28/05/2024 07:41

Sorry I don’t know but I doubt it as it’s a separate app. I think also try not to worry about what she says. That’s how she will try to reel you back into the drama. She will want to trigger an emotional response in you so that you talk to her again.

rainbowstardrops · 28/05/2024 08:41

Bloody hell, you've been treated poorly for years.
I don't think you're 5% in the wrong for sounding off to your friend. She's your support and your sister was never intended to 'hear' your thoughts. Your sister was 100% in the wrong for snooping on your phone, especially via your young child!
It seems as if she's got her way all her life and now doesn't think she's ever wrong. Well done for blocking her because she sounds totally toxic.

Original poster
sisterHelp1 · 28/05/2024 16:38

Update of sorts. Still got her blocked on everything except the family group chat where she is behaving like nothings happened in front of my parents. She didn't want my Dad to know ostensibly because he's been unwell recently, but really I think because she knew he wouldn't approve. Anyway, she told my Mum too that she didn't want my Dad and my Mum said we had to respect her wishes. When I asked why we have to respect her wishes she gave no answer, so I just went and told my Dad.

I have had my first online therapy session and made some notes. The therapist asked me what I wanted from this and I said to give myself the tools to not have to be the appeaser all my life and the tools to say that I do not want to keep other people's petty secrets which become blown out of all proportion (the family has form for this).

Tbh I feel sick that I've blocked her and incredibly guilty about everything, but I'm trying to remember the validation I've had here and from people in real life too: I've been violated and she's chosen to take this path. If I say it enough times I might believe it and the guilt might dissipate a bit!

OP posts:
Original poster
sisterHelp1 · 28/05/2024 16:39

Apologies - I realise in the OP I said that Mum and Dad both thought it was wrong to be a as the message. That was a slip of the thumb, it was only my Mum who knew at first.

OP posts:
Original poster
sisterHelp1 · 29/05/2024 13:23

I'm really struggling today. I've got her blocked on everything still but every fibre in me is screaming to get in touch and try and make this better- to do what I've always done. Doesn't help that my parents are both being very on the fence and clearly think I should capitulate. I've spent all morning in tears on and off and feel dreadful.

OP posts:
Hugosmaid · 29/05/2024 13:34

sisterHelp1 · 23/05/2024 14:01

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.

Fuck that shit.

No way would I be going to therapy. She looked at person private thoughts. Tough luck on her.

OP - you are not responsible for your sister. Go therapy for yourself - no one else included. Your sisters needs do not come before your own all the time. Let her husband look after her now.

Families are hard but you are not obliged to dance to someone’s tune because they have autism. You are not there to fix everyone’s shit.

Take a step back. It is what it. It will teach her to not go rooting round in your private messages. This is as bad as reading your diary

AbbieLexie · 29/05/2024 13:52

Stay strong please. Remember you can buy a doormat - you don't need to be the doormat. Have faith in yourself and your judgement. It never really goes away - in my experience - but you must protect yourself and your family - they are your priorities. Deep breaths and carry on living!