What to do with a jealous sibling?

Question

I have a younger sister (3 year gap) who I've been close to until 6 months ago. We had a pretty close relationship and I did the older sister gig of being there and looking after her when she needed. I'll give some context (and apologise in advance for the wordiness of it).

We went down different life paths - after uni I ended up getting a pretty blah customer service job to start with but stuck it out while doing further studies and meeting new people. I eventually succeeded in getting a great job (it took 6 years) and had a great group of friends and fantastic guy by then. My sister chose to travel which was more fun but eventually came back to an obsolete degree and also a blah job. She didn't have many friends (she has a lot of expectations of friends - and had a few burnt friendship bridges) and was single. She often confessed feeling like a failure and I always did my best to encourage her. Finally over a year ago she returned to uni and also met a really nice guy who she moved in with after a year when bought a house. Things looked good for her and I was really happy for her.

Fast forward to now. We had one of those silly arguments that pop up and where things get said from both sides. I don't like to hold onto things so apologised the next day and received an apology from her. I didn't think anything further and thought we were all good again but whenever I saw her afterwards there was this weird fake, formal cheeriness (the kind that you get from bad sales staff) and a few incidents of independance demonstrations such as declining to stay for dinner etc (she used to always come over and stay for meals which I loved cooking etc). I figured out that she obviously wasn't over things so confronted it and apologied again. She replied that she was still angry but wanted to 'defuse things' to which I suggested meeting to talk it through. Her idea of defusing things seems to be stewing on it as her reply revealed that she had really twisted some of my words and that she wanted time and space space which I said I'd give. 5 days later (which was coincidentally before her birthday) she announces that she feels silly being mad and wanted me to come to a birthday dinner with her and her bf and her bf's parents. I was hopeful but it turned out that things were still weird and I suspect now that she pretended to want to get over things so that she didn't look bad in front of her bf's parents and so that she got a present.

Hurtful things were said by both of us in our original argument, but I've chosen to move on and was genuine in my apology but it seems that she hasn't and wasn't. I am sorry for my words and the hurt caused by them, but can't apologise further or open honest communications if she is not willing to accept anything. So what now?

Answer 1

do you really think anybody is going to read anything that freakin long?



my advice is arrange for her to be kidnapped and sold into the sex-slave industry----end of problem.

Answer 2

I have a little sister too (5 yrs gap). We have spats that last a long time. :/ I love her sooo much, but sometimes I just can't stand her! Both of us have to step back for a few days & think about things. Then reopen the discussion. If no common ground can be found, then we must AGREE TO DISAGREE. Very good key words there.



The best you can do iz to continue to try & talk things over with her. Continue to apologize & if she still doesn't accept, you must tell her that it's not fair that you have to apologize THAT many times. That you REALLY ARE sorry for how this affected her. You didn't mean to hurt her or upset her. But you just don't know how to make things right again. You've apologized enough, you've talked enough, now could she please help you understand what to do?



Hope that all made sense. I"m a little sleepy. Good luck!



~fayquest

Answer 3

My sister and I had a fight like that when we were teens. It got to the point of being physical which neither of us are prone to do. I think our mother had a lot to do with it pitting each of us against the other. Anyway, it took a while to get over but we both healed. Having children helped reunite us since we had more in common then. I am glad I have my sister and we have a healthy sister relationship. Your situation may take time to heal and something that will bring you together. I am glad we were back to being sisters because the loss of our Grandmother was rough on both of us and we had each other. Not having her it would have been even more difficult. Wish I had a magic want to make it all better for you in an instant.

Answer 4

You have a very superior attitude towards her. You call her jealous, insult her choice to travel, and refer to her perfectly valid choice not to stay for dinner as an "independence demonstration". Sounds to me like you don't respect your sister nearly enough. If that stuff from years ago is the kind of stuff that hold onto and blurt out, despite claiming you don't like to hold onto things, it's no wonder she's finding you difficult to be around.



What now? You change your attitude permanently, slowly regain her trust, and if there was/is/will be any problem on her side, you leave it on her side, and treat her as best you possibly can anyway.

Answer 5

its going to be hard, but there's only so many times you can smash your head against a brick wall before you realise that it really hurts. She's your sister, you're always going to love her but you've extended an olive branch several times and she hasn't (genuinely) met you half way. As hard as its going to be you are going to need to back off and just leave her be, or reconcile yourself to the fact that there's always going to be hostile undercurrents no matter how hard you try. My brother and I had a pretty nasty fight years ago (I'm the eldest) and I tried really hard to patch things up - he wasn't interested and as hard as it was to do after a few months of trying I just stopped making myself always available when he needed something. Fast forward five years and we're back to being really close. I guess he just needed a lot of space and time to decide for himself if our issue was really worth sacrificing a very close family bond for and he decided it wasn't. But it was very hard for me to walk away and leave him to decide for himself if he wanted a relationship with me or not. Good luck with what ever you decide - its not going to be easy. Just remember that loving each other and being friends don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.

Answer 6

you were once jealous.

but now that your attitude toward her has change, so has you. i know that your real srry for your words so see if you can have a one-on-one and face-to-face talk of how to improve these problems. Find a time where you two can settle down and stay calm to talk about it.

Hope it works for u!;)

Answer 7

it`s normal talk to Hair and find why she so joules of u by the way siblings is usually jealous not big deal /