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OP, no offense, but your sister sounds like a horrible person. Then and now. For some people, sibling bullying is a phase. For others, its a sign of who they are and won't change.
While I expect some sibling bullying, there is a point where it crosses the line, which it seems to have done here.
As for an apology, I personally wouldn't expect one and that wouldn't be the deal breaker for me. Rather, I'd be more concerned with how she is treating you today. And, from your original post, it doesn't seem like she's treating you well even to this day.
Family is important, but family is not limited to blood relations in my book. And people who make you miserable should not be a major part of your life. At least that's how I feel.
My sister is two years older than I am. We were close up until we were about 9 years old. Then, she went to middle school and things got ugly. She became snobby, "popular," and just generally wanted nothing to do with me. She always stuck her nose up at me. I do want to mention though that I have a social learning disability and am a bit weird (diagnosed as an adult). So I wasn't exactly a social butterfly.
My sister was often invited to spend the weekend with my cousins, who she got along with well (they all kind of had that popular girl vibe going on). I was never invited, and any time spent with my cousins was always super miserable. Wedding, bar/bat mitzvahs, I just had nobody to hang out with. And what sucked was that my sister would actively make things worse for me. She would tell our cousins embarrassing stores about myself, never try to include me, tell me to not try to hang out with them etc.
In fact, I think the turning point of my life, in quite a negative downward direction, was a family cruise we took when I was 11. It was two weeks long and I felt completely alone. My sister told me before we got on the boat to not follow her and my cousin around. My younger brother hung out with all the little boys. So I was just on my own, and the ship wasn't that big. I would hide in the room for as long as I could to avoid being seen alone. I have a very strong memory of my cousins pretending to not see me and actually running past me one time on that ship. After that trip, I really felt like I didn't belong anywhere, and I became depressed for about the next 8 years of my life.
Things only got worse. My sister would make fun of me for getting good grades, call me out on not making the soccer team. She even went up to my friend one time when I had someone over and told them what a loser I was because at family gatherings the only person I hang out with is some girl we're not even related to. She couldn't just be happy that I had finally found a friend? She even called me a **** once because you could see my nipples outline through my shirt (I was legit 12 and my mom hadn't gotten me a bra yet). She was just relentless.
I think a lot of this has to do with my dad giving me a lot more attention, since he loved sports and I was just a naturally better athlete. They had a pretty weak relationship, and it was crappy parenting on his part to not spend more time with her.
Flash forward to today. I have a lot of trouble engaging in pleasant conversation with my sister. I feel like she jumps on everything I say and always want to start an argument or get me riled up. We had a talk back in December and really tried to sort things out, but she wouldn't apologize for anything. To her, it's in the past and I need to move on. In a way, I feel like I should forgive her just so the past stops weighing me down.
But at the same time, don't I deserve an apology? There's no way she forgets treating me like **** for so long. Why should I just move on? Do I owe her that simply because a few years have passed?
Thanks for reading, any advice is appreciated.
Forgiveness is for you, for your peace of mind. But believing that someone with a malicious spirit wont act out is naiive and a set up for further abuse imo. I do think we can forgive and yet keep a safe distance and recognize healthy boundaries all at the same time. I had a jealous sister and she hasnt changed one bit. But I figured out how to keep her from ever bullying me again. I limit all contact and decide what I engage in or opt out of. It works.
Allison, I don't remember if you are trapped at your parents' home with siblings because of the pandemic. But you will not find any happiness with your siblings.
Your older sibling didn't like you, still doesn't. That's okay - a lot of people who are introverted and have low social IQ are not generally "liked" by many people. You'll find your true friends through people who share interests, and can see past your social awkwardness to the fact that you are a true and loyal friend. These people will become your family, as will your partner (yes, socially awkward introverts DO find life partners) and your children.
Yes, your parents are the problem, in that they didn't protect you from this behavior, allowed it to take place, and continue to allow it. Count your blessings, that the older sibling was a sister, and that the brother is the much younger one. Trust me, it could have been far, far worse had the older sibling been a brother, in a family where the parents didn't keep an eye on things!
Forgive her for your OWN sake, and move on. Focus on building your own life, finding your life partner, finding true friends and keeping them. Have little to do with your siblings. Do not expect anything from them. Get into therapy. Find the courage to tell your parents how you feel about what happened in your childhood, for your own sake. Do not expect their behavior to change - it will not.
It might be worth reaching out to your cousins, one by one, to just suggest getting together for lunch, and talk about how life is now, share memories, and see if they are willing to establish relationships now that you're all adults. You might be surprised to find that they are very happy to be friends now.
Move on for YOUR sake. Move on with your career, your search for a life partner, your own friendships, therapy for yourself. Distance yourself from your family of origin. Stay away from the abusive older sister. Let your little brother be what he will be - he might come back when he gets a little older. Do not expect anything from any of them, not your siblings, not even your parents. Be distantly in touch with them, but build your OWN life for yourself elsewhere. Their behavior is unlikely to change (although there is hope that the little brother may grow our of the jerkish self-centered late teen stage).
And of course, if you're on lockdown with your family of origin, there's not much that you can do now except plan - plan for getting back into your own place, moving ahead with career. Good luck to you. Know that there IS happiness in career, life partner, and building your own family, for awkward, spectrumy, introverted, bullied younger siblings!
You aren't obligated to forgive anything, but ask yourself what you get out of not forgiving. Or what you get from forgiving. Better to focus on what your sister is like today than the past, imho. Maybe you will never be able to have a good relationship with her. You are better off discussing it with your therapist than here.
Just because you're related to somebody, it doesn't mean you need to have a relationship. If your sister was instead an acquaintance or a friend, would you continue to have a relationship with her?
I cut my sister off over 20 years ago. She is a drain on my emotional health and I am 1000% better without her in my life.
Obligated? No
Will you ever get an apology from her? Probably not
Is it a valuable use of your mental health to try? No
Is it worth spending time with her with all the bad feelings that it brings up being around her? For you to decide. It it was me, I would minimize time with her, be polite if you have to interact, and go about working towards goals that show the world what a great person you are.
This is all true.
You are justified in having bad memories of her "mean girl" behavior, and I personally wouldn't want to be close to her either. Don't spend a lot of time/mental energy on it though. You need to "let it go". I don't mean to forget or get all sweet with her now. Just don't spend your precious life/time fretting over something that can't be changed (the past), and focus on the good things in your life. If she asks why you don't spend time with her, just tell her she already knows.
In the past she treated you poorly and will continue to until you stand up to her, but you need to learn how to do that. Read the book "When I say No I Feel Guilty" by Manuel J Smith. It's available as a paperback on Amazon. More than 30 years ago this book taught me how to be assertive (not aggressive) and how to stop people in their tracks who try to bully me or take advantage of me. The biggest lesson I learned from the book is that if someone treats me poorly, it's my fault for taking it and not stopping them.
It was really reinforced for me when after years of being treated like a kid by my father-in-law, one quietly spoken sentence gained his respect and changed our relationship for all the years that followed. You don't need an apology from your sister, you need for her to treat you with respect, but you will have to earn it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlisonSchwarz
Hi everyone.
My sister is two years older than I am. We were close up until we were about 9 years old. Then, she went to middle school and things got ugly. She became snobby, "popular," and just generally wanted nothing to do with me. She always stuck her nose up at me. I do want to mention though that I have a social learning disability and am a bit weird (diagnosed as an adult). So I wasn't exactly a social butterfly.
My sister was often invited to spend the weekend with my cousins, who she got along with well (they all kind of had that popular girl vibe going on). I was never invited, and any time spent with my cousins was always super miserable. Wedding, bar/bat mitzvahs, I just had nobody to hang out with. And what sucked was that my sister would actively make things worse for me. She would tell our cousins embarrassing stores about myself, never try to include me, tell me to not try to hang out with them etc.
In fact, I think the turning point of my life, in quite a negative downward direction, was a family cruise we took when I was 11. It was two weeks long and I felt completely alone. My sister told me before we got on the boat to not follow her and my cousin around. My younger brother hung out with all the little boys. So I was just on my own, and the ship wasn't that big. I would hide in the room for as long as I could to avoid being seen alone. I have a very strong memory of my cousins pretending to not see me and actually running past me one time on that ship. After that trip, I really felt like I didn't belong anywhere, and I became depressed for about the next 8 years of my life.
Things only got worse. My sister would make fun of me for getting good grades, call me out on not making the soccer team. She even went up to my friend one time when I had someone over and told them what a loser I was because at family gatherings the only person I hang out with is some girl we're not even related to. She couldn't just be happy that I had finally found a friend? She even called me a **** once because you could see my nipples outline through my shirt (I was legit 12 and my mom hadn't gotten me a bra yet). She was just relentless.
I think a lot of this has to do with my dad giving me a lot more attention, since he loved sports and I was just a naturally better athlete. They had a pretty weak relationship, and it was crappy parenting on his part to not spend more time with her.
Flash forward to today. I have a lot of trouble engaging in pleasant conversation with my sister. I feel like she jumps on everything I say and always want to start an argument or get me riled up. We had a talk back in December and really tried to sort things out, but she wouldn't apologize for anything. To her, it's in the past and I need to move on. In a way, I feel like I should forgive her just so the past stops weighing me down.
But at the same time, don't I deserve an apology? There's no way she forgets treating me like **** for so long. Why should I just move on? Do I owe her that simply because a few years have passed?
Yes, you have to forgive, regardless of what she did or does. Period.
That just means that you release anger/animosity against her and don't dwell on it, and you would be willing to help her if needed.
I don't know about you, but not only do I have people in the past who I have grounds to hate, but there are also people who have grounds to hate me based on how I was in the past. If I want the latter to forgive me, I have to forgive the former.
If I were the OP, there'd be no forgiveness, and any apology wouldn't be accepted.
I was bullied in High School, and I'll never, ever, ever go to a High School reunion. And I'm even unforgiving of those that didn't interfere with the bullying.
You're correct in identifying the way your sister acted was beyond the pale and not the normal teen sibling behavior. I know; I had 3 sisters. We were raised in a dysfunctional family, so there was a lot going on. But none of us went to the extreme you describe.
I would advise that, for the time being, keeping her at a distance, being polite & pleasant, but avoiding prolonged contact w/her. You might want to keep her in your life to some degree, in case you (or she) change your mind later & want to have more of a relationship. Also, when you get old, at some point, it's possible that you and she will be the only two in your family left. Only you two will share certain memories. And when you are both older, you may want to share certain physical illnesses or conditions you are getting that might run in the family.
Apologies are overrated. They're helpful & they mean something, but they can't take away what happened. You can't go back in time and change the effect that her behavior had on you. (You CAN, however, turn it into a positive, possibly.)
Being snooty & a bit vindictive, saying things intentionally to hurt you....these things are normal for siblings getting back at each other or picking on each other. But she went beyond that, and to a degree that most people would not go. That is her character. I believe that while a kid's behavior is just that - kid behavior, some things show an underlying character flaw.
What seems odd to me is that your parents didn't address her behavior towards you. Esp on the ship. Is it possible it wasn't as bad as you remember? Or as obvious? Did your parents not notice that you were hiding in your room on the ship? Or not notice that your sister was bullying you? What's the story on that?
Honestly my parents knew, but what could they do? Forcing my cousins to hang out with me only would have made me look more pathetic. My mom would go swimming with me and try to spend time with me, but eventually she needed to go be an adult with the other adults, and I would just go back to my room and read. My dad knew probably, but didn’t know how to help. It was just a ****ty situation for everyone.
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