Bad Sister

[meaningofnight]

My sister is a very selfish controlling person. She has fallen out totally with her inlaws, her daughter, our brother and his family. She has been nasty to me several times, but I always shy away from confronting her (partly from fear and partly because - well actually totally from fear). She has lots of illnesses we suspect are imaginary because they are always at strategic times for her (e.g. she has just had swine flu followed by hepatitis because her son and his wife were thinking of going on holiday for Christmas - now they have cancelled their plans and are going to her for the day and she is suddenly able to shop, cook etc.).
She uses me to find out stuff about her estranged daughter and I hate it. My husband says I should just cut all contact with her but she is my only sister and my mum (who died last year) made me promise to keep in touch with her. Has anyone managed a relationship with a person like this?

Bumping for you - hopefully others with experience and tactics will be along shortly.

Thanks Dora. Her husband died a few years ago, and up until then she always used to say "I won't be happy until I am either dead or a widow".

As soon as he died she was "no-one can understand my grief" etc. while being absolutely poisonous to us all about the funeral (she refused to tell most of the family including her own daughter he had died) and she actually had him buried in a distant uncle's grave not he family grave (big deal in Italy).

I try to stand up to her but she always makes me feel like a spineless coward. She never contacts me directly unless she wants something.

i agree with your husband TBH

there is no point trying to manage a relationship with her

i know you made a promise to your mum, but you have tried and tried and for what?

some people are just not worth it - family or not

leave her be and concentrate on the friends and family which are kind and loving to you

she sounds malignant, like my mum (see thread under managing NPD manipulation!).

These people thrive on drama, control, manipulation.

When I realised what was wrong with my mum, it was like a light going on (I suspect Narcissistic Personality Didorder - google it to see what you think)

You have my heartfelt sympathy if you are ealing with this. I know you promised but you must disregard this if it's detrimental to yourself

Meaningofnight - I may be in the minority here but I think you should keep in contact with her, if only to honour the promise you made to your mum. Awful as your sister is, it's not about her. It's about your love for your mum. If your mum were here, she'd ensure your sister didn't end her days alone (which sounds to be the way she's heading), but your mum knew she couldn't do that, and so entrusted you to look after her baby for her instead. Cause that's what your sister was. And no mother wants to think of leaving their child alone in the world. You should take it as a compliment that your mum felt she could rely on you to do this for her. If you've gone through all these years, and you're still in contact with your sister when so many others have turned their backs, it just shows that you're a very special person. Your mum probably knew that better than anyone, and that's why she asked you. I hope reading this doesn't upset you, but that's just what i think. x

and what if this promise means that she is going to lose her own family!? Is it still going to be worth it?
By the sounds of it you are already looking after your own family and your sister's daughter.
I am sure that if she decides to get help, then you will be there for her and support her through it.
Have you talked to someone about your fear? what exactly is it that you fear?

Weirdly what I fear is that she will cut me off and sort of turn it all around to make me look bad. I also fear that she will do something violent (she threatened her daughter with a knife once).

Stupidly I bought a flat in the same town as her (she lives in France), thinking that we might move there eventually. Now I hate going there - she turns every trip for us into a horrible ordeal. I wouldn't put it past her to set fire to our flat if she got angry. She refuses to ever come and see us at home when we are there because she says the flat brings back painful memories of her husband (he helped me with some of the moving in stuff, getting a decorator etc.. He was a lovely man). However - she also makes a huge fuss if we don't contact her and meet her when we are there. She likes to get us in her house as a captive audience so she can moan about her daughter. If I ever ask her for help - I once asked her to pick up a letter for me - she just doesn't do it.

Last night, I told her that her estranged daughter had had an operation recently but is recovering well. She went silent and then said "What? And no-one told me? My God. This is the end. Well thank you for that - now I shall be awake all night worrying about my children"

Every reaction she has is hugely over dramatic. She once accused my (lovely) son of being a "rude snob" because she phoned during dinner and my husband told him to say sorry we are eating and we would phone back in 10 minutes. When I phoned her back she claimed that the shock of being told we couldn't talk there and then had made her lose the use of her legs!

She was horrible to my mum - having affairs (and telling mum about them), making suicide attempts. One of her favourite things is to slyly work out something vulnerable about someone and then attack them for it at a later time. She also tells huge lies whenever it suits her.

Honestly she has fallen out with everyone except me and her son. She now has a campaign of hate against her daughter in law.

She is not my baby sister by the way. She is 13 years older than me and as she was married by the age of 18 I didn't really grow up with her. Is this NPD then? And if so what do you do about it?

She sounds awful, really truly awful.
I don't know much about NPD but if it is that I don't think there is anything you can do about it. The NPD person will only ever see things the way they want to see them.
Plenty people on MN can tell you more about NPD.

Meaningofnight - no, I didn't mean she was your baby sister. I meant she was your mum's baby. The baby she once gave birth to and held in her arms. Your mum will have had that same unconditional love for her (in spite of her many, many, indisputable flaws) that you feel for your son/children. And no mother wants to think of their child ending their days alone (no matter whether they brought it on themselves or not).

I'm not suggesting that you move to live near her, or even keep in touch on a daily basis. But if it were me, I think I'd just try and keep the door open, if I were you. After all these years, is there any real benefit to cutting ties now?

This woman is poison, and there's no point hiding behind sentiment just because she's your sister - you can't choose your family. Enjoy those people you love, and don't waste any more positive energy on someone who doesn't contribute to anything positive in your life. You never know, she may well notice that you've pulled back from contact with her, and possibly moderate her behaviour as a result so that you can mend the bridge. But it sounds as if that would be unlikely.

Just had a quick google of NPD. Feel amazed that she fits it all so well: no sense of humour, thinks she's really beautiful (she often says if you are out with her in public "Look at all these people - so bloody ugly"), no empathy, complete inability to accept any kind of perceived criticism. She is really jealous of every woman in our family, while at the same time convinced that she is superior to all of us.

One of her favourite things is to get people to stay with her and then when you are there innocently going about your day, she phones up someone connected with you and tells them how awful you are and how hard it is for her to put up with you. When her daughter was staying with her once, and had the temerity to meet some old school friends for dinner, my sister phoned up her son-in law and told him his wife had gone out on the town probably to meet a lover!

Any men that are there are always accused of being sexually attracted to her (my husband is terrified of being alone with her)

She is now determined to brand her daughter in law as having mental problems while over-indulging her little grandsons and encouraging her son to criticise his wife and despair of his marriage.

meaning of night, I'm sorry she's fitting the criteria for NPD but at the same time I'm glad you've had the light bulb go on.

They say that NPD is an over-used term but that doesn't detract from the fact that these people exist and they are poisonous. When you have one in your life, you really know about it.

She sounds like a real piece of work. I'm always being advised I won't change my mother. FWIW I totally disagree with the previous poster (is it WhiteRoses?, sorry I've had two glasses of wine!). You should not feel obliged to be in contact with this woman. If you CAT me, I will give you any support I can.

Thank you for your responses.
What does 'cat me' mean please? Sorry I am fairly new to MN!

CAT is a way of contacting a poster. Go to your email preferences at the My Mumsnet page. You pay a £5 subscription fee to use this facility.

Hi, I so sympathise with your situation.
I have a sister who I think has NPD (undiagnosed). She has no empaty at all. It took her two months to visit our father last year when he was diagnosed with cancer. I am 8 months pregnant and she hasn't contacted me once to ask how it's going, or how I am. The only time we hear from her is when she wants something like a lift or a stop-over at our's.
She has stayed at ours loads of times with various boyfriends, including over 2 Christmases but never so much as invited us over for a cup of tea, even when she knows we are in the area.
She thinks nothing of flirting with any woman's partner, or of trying to upstage the hostess of a party with a completely OTT dress so she is the centre of attention. She constantly makes comments about people being ugly or laughing at the way they dance, but has no inkling of how ugly and embarrassing her own behaviour is. She thinks she's really beautiful and that everyone fancies her, but she doesn't realise what kind of man she attracts - no-one that any self-respecting woman would want to be with.
I was sympathetic for years because she had her own problems with getting divorced and so on, and I know this hit her badly, but enough is enough.
This year, when I have needed some support and received none, has been the final straw and my eyes have finally been opened as what kind of sister I have. Pretty vile, basically.
I don't have the energy for any sort of confrontation at the moment and I am in a similar quandary to you about what to do.
My own inclination is to do nothing for now and to wait for a suitable opportunity to tell her exactly what I think. Even if it means we sever links completely, I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference to my life.
Anyway, I haven't been much help but I just wanted you to know you're not alone and that this is a very difficult situation to deal with.

BristolBella - you're so right in saying that you really know when you have a NPD person in your family. It's so destructive!

I have a sister similar to the one you describe OP, although I feel mine is more HPD then NPD.

Over many years I reduced contact with her and was happy with minimum contact achieved 2 1/2 to 3 years ago. For about 12 months we managed to be civil, then one day she came to my house and started putting my children down to make her child appear 'better' than mine, she is a master at sarcasm and the "I was only joking......." comment. Hmm, I thought and gave her the benefit of the doubt, as usual, fool that I was.

Next, I received an attack of the emotional blackmail type, but it was very overt this time. I think she knew she was losing her grip on me and this was a last ditch attempt to make me 'fall into line'. (I was really cross at the time that she thought I was such an idiot as to fall for her emotional blackmail it was sooo overt! How thick did she really think I was? ) Anyways, I think instinct to protect not only myself but my children from any more abuse, manipulation, deceit and general emotional vampirism must have kicked in big style. I ended telling her exactly what I thought of her treatment of me over the past 40 years! I really did let rip!

After that there really was no going back. I am now 18 months complete No contact.

My parents do not discuss her with me, at my request, all cards and presents are returned unopened, to accept the presents and cards gives her access to my life and she isn't worthy of being in my life imo.

I have to phone my parents for her address as I have no contact details for her at all. I have changed my phone number and the childrens phone numbers, any e-mails from her are deleted before they even reach me. At present I am waiting for the Xmas cards to the children to arrive so I can return these too, there is great satisfaction for myself, in putting these cards in the post box unopened marked 'return to sender'. I see it as part of my job as a parent to protect my children from known quantities that may harm them and that includes protecting them from being emotionally abused by my sister, hence me including my children in the 'No contact' arrangement.

I am finally in control of my own life - my sister and her made up dramas ruled my life for such a long time - it feels fantastic to be able to visit who I want, when I want without her tagging along to put herself in the middle of all and any relationships I have and ruining them with her gossiping and slander. I am finally free to live MY life as I want.

What you do about your sister really does depend on how much of an impact she has on your life and how much you are willing to put yourself through to find your 'peace', this maybe just having minimum contact. For me 'No Contact' is where my 'peace' is. It wasn't an easy journey by any means but was definitely worth all and every single bit of heartache and soul searching along the way.

I wish you all the best in making your decision, whatever you choose will not be easy but I so hope you find some sort of peace somehow. x

Thank you all so much for reading my post and answering me. I am sorry to hear others amongst you have poisonous relatives, but it is encouraging to know I am not alone.

The giving of presents thing is very interesting. My sister and I share a birthday, but she never gives me a card or present. In fact, she hasn't given anything to any of us for years. I don't want presents particularly, but it makes it all a bit one-sided! When I give things to her grandchildren she gets in a right state, sometimes even going so far as to take the gift out of their hands to replace it with something from her! When her eldest grandson was born I bought him a lovely teddy bear, and she said "Oh he hates cuddly toys. He likes intelligent presents"

She tries to be closer to her grandchildren than their own parents. Only this morning her estranged daughter phoned me to say her daughter has gone and had plastic surgery against her wishes (a nose job) and she couldn't understand where she got the money for it. I knew straight away - my sister had given her £10,000 and said to her granddaughter "Just enjoy yourself with this. Do whatever you want with it" (my sister had told me she had done that).

She wanted to have my son to live with her for a year after school, but I made an excuse (I lived with her for a year and my mum thought I was having a nervous breakdown when I came back!).

I wish I was brave enough to drop all contact with her like her daughter has done, but I am weak. Every now and then when she has fallen out with everyone she phones me and says she's depressed I find myself trying to comfort her . If I am ever ill or depressed though she has zero sympathy!

I think she is a dangerous woman and becoming more so - the plastic surgery affair shows that. Her granddaughter has no idea how sick and manipulative her grandmother is. She sometimes phones me and says "Can you phone Mamie, she is really down."

.

For what it's worth meaningofnight I don't think you are weak to maintain contact with your sister at all. I think it is far harder to try to maintain contact and your sanity, than it ever is to walk away.

My main suggestion as you feel the need to keep contact is to read, read, read, anything and everything regarding NPD and associated disorders. Such as HPD and even something called 'reactive attachment disorder' which could explain a lot about your sisters behaviour. My sisters problems are to do with events going back to when she was a toddler.

This reading isn't to diagnose or label your sister - it's to enable you to cope with her behaviour and perhaps understand how you can protect yourself in away you feel comfortable.

By understanding what made my sister the way she is I am not angry or upset with her anymore. I am just sad for her, I can get better, she can't, she is unable to realise that she is the one with a problem not everyone else.

She's been this way for over 40 years, I am not expecting her to have a 'eureka' moment anytime soon. Until my sister can seek help herself there is nothing more I can do to help/rescue/support her ....she needs professional help, not my amateur pop psychology.

The only thing that I would say is probably important for you to realise is that your sister is very unlikely to ever change so maintaining contact means accepting her exactly the way she is or continue fighting a losing battle.

There are loads of websites out there covering this stuff, try googling 'toxic relatives' and 'emotional vampires' amongst the personality disorder listed above and hopefully you will find some method that enables you to cope with your sister and look after yourself at the same time.

Thanks Zoomy will do some research.

I hope you find something useful out there.

Oh and I really do understand where you are coming from. I was my sisters surrogate parent/rescuer and family 'go between' too. I did anything I could just to keep the peace between them all...until it became a case of do something or lose myself in the insanity of it all forever.

I was the only one in a huge family that tried to maintain contact, the rest got fed up 20 years go, so I know how difficult it is to deal with it all, when you feel you are the only one they can turn to in a crises, but the reality is if you weren't there they would just find someone else to fill your space. They have no loyalty unlike us who jump though hoops for them every time a 'drama' moment happens.

Take care x

Like Zoomy, I have also been chief diplomat and arbiter, in the past often sticking up for my sister in family arguments and misunderstandings, and doing everything I could to maintain the peace. Never again!
People with NPD have absolutely no sense of loyalty. I know my sister has spread malicious lies about me, and at times when I was trying to support her. One of the most galling things about these people is that the mud they sling against you often sticks. I have had snide remarks from several of her friends - usually men - accusing me of having a chip on my shoulder, being unsupportive, jealous etc. Often these peope have steered a conversation into an area where they can have a go at me. The first couple of time I thought it was chance but I'm now convinced it was stage-managed by her. Usually other people are also present, which makes the situation even worse because you are backed into a corner and can't escape without slinging insults back and stooping to their level.
Strangely these incidents have often happened when I have thought that she and I were getting on fine.
I now avoid any event or occasion where I know she is going to be there, though this isn't always possible.
Increasingly I'm considering speaking to a mutual friends of our's - who knows what my sister is like and has fallen out with her in the past - to find out what she has said exactly. I have been putting it off because I know I'm going to be hurt by what I hear, but I need to know so I can take the appropriate action to preserve my sanity and to protect me and mine.
Also, sorry to add to the list of diagnoses you are beging offered, but I think my sister might also have (mild) Asberger's as some of her behaviour is also consistent with the symptoms of that. With the lack of a proper medical diagnosis it's hard to know whether there is a medical/psychological reason for these behaviours, or whether they are pure evil!
Good luck anyway!

She has just phoned me to say she has people going to her for Xmas after all (she had thought she would be alone at one point) and she is making them pate de foie gras (altho she is supposed to have hepatitis) and yes she paid for her granddaughter to have plastic surgery against her mother's wishes. She said "well she will be even prettier now perhaps, We shall see"
She talks to me all the time like she is scoring points. I can't stand it.
The worst thing about these people is how can you beat them?
I know because I wasn't fawning on her and because I questioned her motives re the plastic surgery she will be trying to wreak revenge on me now!

This is a good site, a therapist who has done much work on the subject
www.disarmingthenarcissist.com/

What you said about you not wanting people to think badly of you might be the key to being able to deal with your sister? If you could get over the fear of being shamed, then you could perhaps feel more confident in your decision of how to deal with her or whether to cut off contact. Interestingly, narcissism is often born out of a deep fear of being shamed, despite your fears, you managed to keep empathy and become a carer. She didn't and you do not have to be there for her if it is more damaging to you than no contact.

Don't be guilted into staying in touch because of what your Mum asked you to promise.

You would not allow a friend of yours to treat you like this so why should your sister be any different?. Blood is not always thicker than water and contact with her damages you emotionally. I think you need to carefully consider your H's words here.

Her behaviour is to my mind personality disordered at the very least (may well be NPD, my BIL is NPD and his behaviours are not enitrely dissimilar to that of your sister but these people are often never clinically asssessed).

Do not be beholden to a promise made to your Mum. Am wondering why your Mum made you promise such a thing in teh first place - probably was a misguided attempt by her to help her.

You've tried your best here, ou truly ahve nothing to feel guilty for if you cease contact. Our own lives are a lot happier and with less drama now that BIL is no longer in our lives. You CANNOT help these people because they do not want to be helped or saved.