I resent my sister and feel so guilty

duchy

And the sad fact is that when the parents are gone the OP's sister will have no-one -except a sister who holds a lifelong resentment towards her.

OP what you are feeling isn't normal -Most siblings at one time or another feel their noses were put out of joint - but they grow up and get over it. You seem to have hit a roadblock and if it isn't just pregnancy hormones then you probably do need help to get past it.For your sake , your own family's sake (as in your partner and child) and your sister and parents sake so you can have normal relationships with them all and not carry this terrible burden of resentment through life.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Shopaholic101 wrote: »

I did feel "left", I didn't want to go and my memory is of me moving my stuff out and my sister telling me she was counting down 4 years to get my room when I moved out properly.

When I did move out, after uni, my dad asked when I was going to finish moving the rest of my "sh*t" so he could decorate. It was then that they painted it, got a new bed, made the tv arial work, got a new tv and took me off their car insurance. To be fair, I was so upset with the moving my stuff comments that I burst into tears, told them how upsetting their coldness was and drove to my new flat. He did apologise but it was like they'd been itching to get me gone. This is reinforced by the "no" I received when I asked if I could move home when everything was going wrong and I was being made redundant.

My mum said she cried as she missed me the first week I was away and I was crying because I didn't want to be there. So
I don't understand why I was forced to go.

I did eventually enjoy the course but I wish I'd taken a gap year, chosen a better course and a different uni. Despite it getting me a decent job now.

I won't talk to my mum about this, it'd hurt her and I do appreciate the support I get, no matter how little or random.

Both my sister and my parents are very excited about my sister being a "proper aunty". I would be excited and will be excited when/if she has a baby too. Or I'd be terrified - I still remember her mixing my pet with her scissors... Queue one blind pet. Albeit she was 13.

This baby was a massive surprise to us and an amazing one at that. I can't wait to show it the world, take it to different places and introduce them to everyone I know. I'm very aware from baby's arrival nothing is about me... Heck we've already made life choices based on their arrival and it is exciting!

This is again, me trying to explain possibilities here -

You say you hate your sister, that you always have. That mealtimes were fraught with you reacting to at least every other meal served to the family. With punishments, with tears, perhaps.

Is it possible that your parents, or at least your father, have always been fully aware of your hatred of your sister? That the look in your eyes has always told him that you wished her harm in some way? Even as an adult as you are now? That the stress and worry of dealing with a child who they knew wasn't like other children, but couldn't get a decent diagnosis for, whose future wasn't secure and would always need more help, was compounded by also having to cope with an older child who refused to eat, would react when kids said something about her sister in what sounds more like self defence than protecting her, would complain about how life wasn't fair?


IF that's a possibility, perhaps insisting you went to university instead of dossing around (a common perception even now) on a gap year, in close proximity to somebody you always detested, was to put an end to the constant hostility and aggravation caused by everyone remaining in the same situation as had been around for the previous decade.


After all, following what could have been sixteen-eighteen years of constant battles and resentment, it could have been a relief to think of that ending - but to be told no, it was going to happen for another year, maybe permanently, as not everybody who takes a gap year ever makes it to university - it must be tempting to say 'no, it's time to change this'.

In the same way, for you to go back as a fully grown adult, still hating her, under a cloud, well, that would have been insane. Apart from the fact that grown women shouldn't be running back to the parents to make it all better and take on all the responsibility because they've lost a job. Any adult woman. Not just you.


You would have been miserable moving back in. The stress for everyone else would have been miserable. They did what was right there. Taking someone no longer legally regarded as part of the household off the Insurance is normal. Not keeping a room as a shrine is normal. Not using the old bedroom as a dumping ground for the stuff not worth carrying to the new place is normal.

Both my daughters when moving out left the detrius - but this isn't Big Yellow Storage, it's my home. So the stuff got packed up carefully and delivered to DD1 when I moved here, DD2 has sorted through everything to make sure there's nothing she needs, and I can dispose of everything as I wish now. DD1 is having the furniture, for a start, for her first home.


And again, injuring an animal so severely when a teenager is NOT something normal or minor. It suggests something very serious - perhaps something they have not shared with you because they know she's not your responsibility. Just as the 'we'll arrange for her to be alright when we're gone' could also be a 'we know you won't want to do it, so we've sorted it', rather than a 'we love her more than you'.


Even the stuff about her being excited could be trying to say how they want to see if things can be repaired, so you and your child(ren) can have a meaningful relationship with her, so when they die, she's not left alone and your child(ren) aren't isolated and kept away from an auntie who may love them to bits, even if she isn't capable of taking them away on holiday or having sole care of them overnight.





Rather than feeling those things were rejections, try and see it as their being prepared to be the bad guy in order to prevent what would be a collection of massive mistakes escalating into a huge problem. Being a parent means being the Bad Guy sometimes, for the children's own good. You will learn this over time.


In all, we will all make mistakes as parents. As we do as human beings, partners, friends, lovers, offspring, colleagues - every human relationship has the scope for misunderstandings and errors as well as malice and thoughtlessness or simply not caring.

****

Families aren't all sweetness and light; three of my siblings believed I was treated as a special little princess when they moved out. One told me in all seriousness when I was 17 that our mother was my best friend, not just a mother. My sister (a lot older than me) carried 'my mum loved my little sister far more than me' for 39 years - until she saw for herself the black eye I got from going round to help the batshit crazy old witch clean her midden - I was smacked in the face with a garden rake. As an adult. 39 years old and attacked with a garden implement as though I were still ten years old.

Mind you, when I was little and wasn't actually getting knocked around, I was being told that I would never be as good as my elder sister. So perhaps it was a deliberate ploy to make sure none of us were particularly close. Divide and rule, as well as instantly discrediting any complaint of violence. I know I tried to engineer my nearest brother getting into trouble as much as possible before he moved out - if she was screaming at him, she wasn't threatening to burn my face off with the iron on cotton setting, after all. Only my eldest brother saw and understood it all. Because he was the only one who was hit, pinched, shoved, punched like me.

One of my brothers still won't believe it (the one who did the 'Mum is your best friend' speech, not realising that the day he did that was the day after she had repeatedly stamped on my bare feet with the deliberate intention of 'smashing them so you'll never walk properly again'.), even though my sister has told him she's seen the black eye and heard my mother given the excuse 'the light plastic rake in the hallway under the coats fell over round the corner of the stairs and bumped her on the head a little bit with the end that had been touching the ground'. He just can't accept that his feelings of my being so special were so very wrong.


I'm not saying this for sympathy. The reason I am saying this is that a child's viewpoint can be so drastically wrong that it can completely contradict what the real situation was. And the amount of harm clinging to that childhood viewpoint long after puberty has done can be immense.


Don't carry it into your first days, weeks, months and years as a Mum, or it'll affect any child you have as well.

Dunroamin

londonsurrey wrote: »

The OP has already stated in the title that she feels guilty for simply thinking what she does.

Feeling guilty usually means that, deep inside, you know that you're in the wrong - a bit like conscience really.

Raksha

Dunroamin wrote: »

Feeling guilty usually means that, deep inside, you know that you're in the wrong - a bit like conscience really.

Or does it mean that she acknowledges that her feelings go against what society expects. Suffocating those feelings instead of talkung them through, either with parents or counselling can lead to further problems.

marmitepotato

OP, you know what? Ultimately you will have the upper hand. It's your baby and only you can control who has contact with your baby.

I totally understand your feelings as I had these too. My sister was always the golden child, she was clever, she was pretty, she was everything I was not. My parents gave her everything, I was an afterthought.


Plenty of posters on here were quick to slate me because I said you were lucky to have a sister, and you are OP, you just don't know it yet.


Good luck with your baby and your life OP.

aliasojo

OP it's pretty clear from this thread alone that there are different types of people, so obviously you will get different types of reply.

The replies mostly fall into two camps, the 'so what's happened has happened, tough, deal with it and man up' type and the 'completely understandable but maybe get counselling to help from here on in?' type.

There's also the harsher 'just having a go' type and the ' I wouldn't do that' type which can largely be ignored because these replies aren't really designed to help, they're just there to give the writer a chance to bump their gums. So I suggest you gloss over these ones.

All replies are all just thoughts, the words we write don't make any of us right. None of us can possible have a completely accurate take on your life simply from reading a few words on an internet forum.

You should try to take from the thread whatever parts you feel seem to resonate with you more, and completely ignore the rest.

I hope you can reach a more settled time where all the things that upset you in the past can be left in the past and no longer cause you to feel unhappy and that you can view your sister through new eyes and feel less resentful towards her. Good luck.

Raksha

I have this on my desktop, it really helps remind me of what's important in MY life:
http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=5141578

No 7 seems particularly relevant

Mojisola

paye wrote: »

Trust me the day might come when you might never see your sister again and when that day comes you will feel very guilty.

You may hate her now but deep down you still love her as blood is thicker then water.

This doesn't necessarily follow. I know who people who have felt the most immense relief when a relative has died.

Some have said that it's only from that point on that they were truly able to start living their own life.

Mojisola

wik wrote: »

my 17 yr old has had a bad couple of years, basically she had a breakdown at 15 when my mum passed away, she became unable to leave the house and go to school and finished school being home tutored ( she did well in GCSE and is now doing well on a college course), she still has struggles and in a way has regressed back a few years...
My 13 yr old says she hates her sister,That I give her more love and attention (how do you explain it? I have tried to get her to understand that her sister is poorly, but that you cant see this illness) and she says that I love her sister more than her! There are days when I am just so very sad, as when they were little they were best of friends.

I just live in hope that one day they will be friends again!

Do you ever do anything that makes the younger one feel special?

Do you ever spend time with her alone - and without mentioning her sister?

wik

Mojisola wrote: »

Do you ever do anything that makes the younger one feel special?

Do you ever spend time with her alone - and without mentioning her sister?

Hi there... Yes I do, We have things we do just us, we go out on our own at least once a week, and also have a love for the same music and sit watching kerrang a lot together

Youngest also loves to help me with cooking, so is something we do together a lot.

I sometimes think about writing a book!! title - what really happens once the baby book finishes!!