BS08

Some of you may remember my story. Estranged from my family by my choice for 15 years, reunited with sisters 2 years ago, mother is a dry drunk/personality disorder and I have not had contact with her in 16 years and hope to never have contact again. My sisters and I have had a lot of emotional damage from my mother's behavior and my father's death from cancer when I was 18. When I reunited with my sisters 2 years ago (and it was a BIG decision to let them in again), I thought it would be great to have a family again and that the loneliness that I've felt all these years estranged from family would change. Well it did, but not how I had hoped.

My older sister, while I love her, has turned out to be just like my mother and is absolutely RUINING her marriage and family! She behaves just like her, even in ways I couldn't believe (like the classic move my mother would make by taking all your pictures down in the house when she was made at you and gave you the silent treatment. Apparently, my sister has been doing the same behavior). My BIL is at wits end and doesn't know what to do. They tried couples theraphy, but anytime the talk steered toward something that my sister didn't want to talk about, she left the session. She need individual theraphy and to take ownership of her ****, but she won't do it. I get these huge emails and calls telling me everything everyone else is doing wrong, but never anything she is doing. It's exhausting. And now my youngest niece is starting to avoid her.

So now she has decided to come visit me for a few days in Aug. While I'm happy she is coming to visit, I also resent the visit because it's only because she's having more problems at home and I make an awesome escape. And she's going to spend most of the time looking to me to validate her behavior, which I won't.

Anyone have any idea how to address these issues in a way she may listen and I won't completely destroy the time she's here? I don't really know where to start. My mother has just really screwed her up, and if she can't see it, she's going to lose a good man and a happy family life. She's choosing to ruin her life just like my mother...

ideas?

tromboneliness

You can't fix this. Talking about it will just make sis mad, and she'll get up and leave.

Which, from the way you're describing her, might not be so bad.

Seriously -- you cannot change people.

T

desire2befree

OMG! I had the same problem with my twin sister! She called me up about a year ago wanting to "escape" from her "situation". I think her problem was that she just got bored with where she was (with a nice man that treated her like a queen, but he didn't drink) so she wanted to come stay with us for a while. She thought it would be on a more permanent basis, but I knew in the back of my mind that it wouldn't work. See, we are identical twins, but our personalities are night and day. While she was here with us, she basically tried taking over my house. Even going so far as to tell me how to water my garden (I'd been gardening for 6 years and she had never gardened). She tried telling me how to be towards my husband and how to raise my child. I think that's part of the reason my drinking started getting, in my opinion, out of hand. I drank to cope. I had to send her back to where she came from. My husband agreed. After she left, I mailed her a hand written letter (from the heart). I couldn't call her on the phone and explain why her staying wouldn't work out because she's always avoided the truth and she'd just hang up on me. The letter wasn't rude, mean, spiteful, or anything like that. I just spoke what was on my mind and told the truth. When she got it, I received several texts (not very nice, mind you) saying what a "judge" I was and that I'm no christian. By the way, I got her into church while she was here so after being in church for 1 month, she was an expert, right? She's right up there with Joyce Meyer! Haha! I texted her back and told her that I was not going to go back and forth with this and that I was just telling the truth but she couldn't handle it. I haven't spoken to her since. I chalked it up to me and my husband were nothing to her but a gravy train. Sad but true. Now days, I hope she's doing well and I hope that she's quit drinking. So, needless to say BS08, I know just how you feel. It sucks because they are blood, but just as you can't pick your family, you also can't change them. You can try until you're blue in the face, but there always comes a time when you just have to let go and let God.

dbh

I had to respond because I too have a mother that would do weird things with pictures when she was mad. I also have a sister that I was estranged from for a couple years, but I missed having her in my life and we were able to reconcile our relationship but under different terms.

I completely agree with tromboneliness in that you can't change people. Just like an alcoholic has to hit their "rock bottom", people with dysfunctional behaviors have to get to a point where they see how this behavior is negatively affecting their lives and work on alternative ways to cope.

Both my sister and I are ACA's. She tends to create a lot of stress and drama in her life and I was usually the one that would try to rescue her and tell her what to do to fix her life (whether she liked it or not). The dynamics of our relationship was awful. I was stressing out over her. She was getting mad at me for either being too controlling or not helping her enough. I was getting mad at her for not listening to me. You get the picture.

When we reconciled, I made the decision that I needed to accept her "as is" and realize that she may never change.

My codependency tendencies towards both my brother and sister are strong. It hasn't been easy and it's something that I need to continue to work on. We don't see each other that often so that helps.

Basically, I tell myself that she is an adult and has the right to make her own choices and that it's actually arrogant of me to assume that I know what she needs to do to live a happy life. Heck, I'm in my late 40's and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I need to do to live a happy life.

What I do when I'm around my sister is LISTEN. I'll say things like "I'm sorry things are hard for you now.", "What do you plan to do?", "I know you'll figure a way out.", etc. If she asks for advice, I'll tell her what has worked for me under similar situations. That's all I can do.

I hope that you have a good visit with your sister.

Thank you for letting me share.

db