My sister moved house without telling us

[OliveIsMad]

I got a text from my sister today to say that she’s moved house and here’s her new address. Hadn’t told any of us that she was moving house or even that she was thinking about it.

She does this all the time. She didn’t tell any of us that she was pregnant until she was about six months along — she just turned up one day with a bump and was like, Oh yeah, we’re having a baby lol. And when she had the baby, she didn’t tell us until the next day when she got home from the hospital. None of us even knew that she was in labour. She literally had a whole baby and then told us that she had given birth THE NEXT DAY once she was home. And we barely see the child (now 2) and my own mother has only held her granddaughter a handful of times. Bear in mind that my sister lives about ten minutes away. (The new house is also ten minutes away but in the opposite direction. I only know this because I had to Google the address.)

You know how I found out that she ran the London Marathon? I found her participation medal in her car. Turns out, she’d trained to run a 5k, then trained to run a 10k, then a half marathon, then a marathon. Took her two years. None of us even knew that she could run. Hadn’t thought to mention it.

She gets promoted or changes jobs, buys a new car, goes on holiday and we only hear about it weeks, months or even years later. She mentioned in passing once that she’d been to Australia. It was YEARS ago. She went to fucking Australia for like two weeks and literally none of us knew.

I tell my parents everything. We’re extremely close. We’re doing up our kitchen at the moment and I’ve run every single decision by my mum, she’s seen every paint sample, every fabric. I told her that I was pregnant the day that I found out. My other sister is also like this, although she still lives at home so partly it’s because of proximity. But my big sister acts as if she doesn’t give a toss about any of us.

I’m so sick of her gatekeeping absolutely everything in her life and not including any of us. I get that she’s big on independence, but there’s being independent and then there’s just being a bitch. If she thinks of us at all, it’s as an after thought.

Gah. Rant over.

She sounds quite high-achieving - is it possible she thinks the rest of you will be jealous? Or is there someone in the family who's controlling / overbearing, e.g. would your mother have tried to force her way into the delivery room although she'd been told not to (just as an example)? Someone in the family who gets shirty if someone else doesn't give a monkey's what they think of the colour of their new kitchen, that sort of thing?

OP hasn’t expressed that she wants “greater intimacy” with her sister - she said that when her sister expressed her feelings about the family situation that OP thought it was bs and was unable to empathise because it didn’t fit her perspective. What she wants is to have immediate access to information about her sister’s life. It’s quite easy to read between the lines and realise that there is probably very good reason that OP’s sister doesn’t want to share this information.

I can totally see why your sister is being private or secretive or whatever, and it has nothing to do with wanting to be mysterious or interesting. I cannot believe that you actually challenged her on her desire for privacy! Seriously, knowing that she feels she has childhood trauma, why would you do this?

You are minimising her feelings and experiences relating to her childhood and ‘issues with mum and dad’……. Again, why would you want to do this if your claimed desired outcome is to be closer to your sister?

I am sure she has had counselling to learn to cope with what you dismiss as ‘nonsense’. I strongly suggest that you have some therapy as well. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll open your eyes to some alternative interpretation of ‘your truth’.

I personally agree with you. Obviously you love your sister and to me it just sounds like you feel left out. I don’t understand the really secretive culture we seem to promote these days. I like celebrating the little things. I’d want to share my excitement about the things I do that are important to me with those closest to me. In my family it would be very odd to hide such big events like a marathon and travelling to the other side of the globe with one another. We aren’t even very close but when we see each other we all talk about what is going on in our lives and catch up this way over dinner. I can’t imagine having a relationship with someone who shares nothing. I would be put off.

I think you need to accept that siblings can have different views on their childhoods. My Aunt would say she had a great childhood but my Mum tells stories of her unhappy childhood- one being her parents not even acknowledging her birthday as they couldn't afford presents.

Humans are different and have their own feelings. Something that one person can "brush off" could also be something that could cause another person trauma.

Your sister sounds like me. I learned very early on that if I dared to share any of my achievements, I’d quickly be cut down and told I was bragging, showing off etc. I’m not necessarily saying this is the case with your sister, but it might be worth reviewing the family dynamics and asking yourself if this was/is how your sister has been/is treated.

I think the sister cares plenty but has decided to keep the rest of the family on a "need to know" diet. It's unusual, in a healthy family, but maybe OP's attitude explains why.

My sympathies.
She's hard work.

I love the sound of your sister. Independent, self sufficient and unsmothering. Your lifestyle would drive me nuts.

That's great if the people you share things with celebrate with you.

I would hazard a guess that ops family is pretty critical of ops sister, and so you can't blame her for not wanting to share things just for them to be picked over by unsupportive family.

This all sounds very familiar, and I spoke to a counsellor about this and she said that each child in a family has a different upbringing and will see and remember things differently from their siblings. You have a good relationship with you parents and one that you sound like you are happy with as you seem to involve them a lot in your life, but you have to realise your sister has different perspectives from her childhood and although you don’t agree with her perspective it doesn’t make her feelings wrong. I am sorry that you feel left out of your sisters life but she is just trying to survive too and navigate her own life for your own child. Families and relationships within families are very complex. You will just need to give her space and try and approach it all differently if you want to maintain a relationship with her and your niece.

Your sister sounds amazing. Doesn’t seem to me as if she’s hiding the details of her life to be secretive, perhaps she’s simply learned that someone else will minimise her achievements? It’s not for you to say she isn’t traumatised. Children don’t all have the same parents. Perhaps you’d be better served unpicking why you’re so enmeshed with your mother and other sibling?

Just read OP’s update. She describes her sister’s claim to have been traumatised as a child as bs. I now understand why the sister is trying to make her own way in life. She has not been heard and has been scapegoated. Poor woman.

You’re like my sister, who feels entitled to know everything about me. My relationship with my mum was killed as she felt she had to fill my sister in on everything despite me being her not to.

My sister was jealous of me. Hated me doing anything she’d not done first (which, at ten years my senior, wasn’t much). Hence I only told my mum I was going to the States for the first time two weeks before as that didn’t give my sister time to get there first. The less she knows the happier I am.

I don’t see the problem? It’s not like you need to know any of that stuff in advance. Some people are just naturally more private.

Your poor sister is the family scapegoat, and she’s keeping herself to herself to protect herself. You are the golden child

Good point. Again, I’m curious how OP (and, by extension, her family) would act on this information about the sister’s life if it were more forthcoming. In my case, achievements were nearly always met with being unfavourably compared to someone else — if I told my mother I’d been to the moon, someone else would have been there twice. It took me a long time to fully recognise the pattern, but when I did I simply stopped sharing — problem solved. Only OP knows what would really happen if her sister chose to be more open. We can only speculate.

A lot of people don't say when they are moving until they do it because things often go wrong and it doesn't happen. They also tell nobody they are taking their driving test.

Not telling people you are in labour is fairly normal. I went into hospital at about 04.30, my husband was with me, we were hardly going to ring our parents, they couldn't do anything. I don't see that as a big deal.

You're overreacting. Be glad your sister isn't constantly updating you with every detail of her life, you'd soon be fed up with that.

If your mother wants more involvement it's up to her to speak to your sister, nothing to do with you.

Your sister is an independent person and values her privacy. Good for her.

Why would someone tell people they were in labour and have them.worry and be rooting for news. It's far better to get on with it and tell them.whem the baby has arrived. Thank goodness @OliveIsMad your sister delivered a whole baby, half a baby would have been tragic.

Perhaps she doesn't discuss her pla s because she doesn't want yiu all yomping all over them.

No two kids have the exact same childhood, even identical twins; they have different experiences and react to them in different ways, because they have different personalities. You're telling her that you know what her own feelings are better than she does - and then wondering why she doesn't tell you again? Seriously, think: if you told someone how you felt about something and they dismissed it as "BS" or "nonsense", would you make that mistake again?

You asked her a question and she told you the answer. If you don't like the answer, it's not her problem.

I don’t think it’s gate keeping at all…
She’s just a no-biggie kinda person.

This is exactly what I was thinking, and you have worded it so much better than I could have done.

I’ve spoken to her about it and she said that she’s not as close with us (“us” being me, our younger sister and our parents) as we are with each other and has never felt that way and always felt like the odd man out, even when she were kids, which is absolute BS, we were very close as kids. We were always a very close family and I don’t get why she’s pretending otherwise. She also has some personal issues with our mum and dad that have been blown way out of proportion to the point where she’s basically saying that she has “childhood trauma”, which again is nonsense, we had an extremely happy childhood.

So you asked her about it and when she explained her feelings to you you rubbished them...

And you wonder why she tells you nothing?

I bet the reason you've been coy about the "personal issues" is because you know people would agree with her.

Running every detail of your new kitchen by your mother as a grown adult isn't the example of a sold, healthy relationship that you seem to think it is

If they’re anything like my family, they would have been hoping she’d fail, and completely diminishing her achievement in the event that she completed it

There is likely to be a reason why your sister doesnt tell you everything. Has she been subjected to judgemental comments over the years, ignored, her achievements not acknowledged, lack of support during a crisis, compared to her sisters etc. you could just ask her this or do some reflection on your family dynamic.