Sibling Pressure

[steve]

Hello all:

I am sure that this issue was addresed before but I can not seem find the posts. Nonetheless, the issue is that 2 of the 3 siblings realize what our father is and the third is denial. I have borne the brunt of his attacks and in a sense am more connected to him because i manage his affairs as well. The problem I have is that one of my sisters is very mad at me for the way I see my father. I have expressed the contempt I have for him and how I believe he does not care one bit about us to her. She acknowledges that he has some issues but refuses to believe that he does not love us. How can I explain to her that this man has no love for anyone but himself. That he has no feelings or concerns except for his personal satisfaction. That everything he does is for his own personal benefit even if it occaisionally means that others may benefit from it.

For me it is not so much that I need her to understand, though I think that this would be helpful to her. The problem for me and my other sister is that she believes we are monsters for the way we treat him. She expressed to my other sister that she can not believe that I think the way I do. She thinks I am heartless and selfish and that I am trying to place all my problems on him. I love my sister very much but it hurts me that she can not see what I go through even though she experiences many negative things with him as well.

So, basically my question is if you have experienced a similar thing in your lives with one of your siblings, how have you handled it?

On a more perverse angle, my sister seems to blame my mother for some of her problems. This is a woman who worked very hard to give us the things we wanted, never sought to spend on herself unless she knew we had what we needed, and continuously sacrifices and shows love to all her children. A woman who also suffered at this man's hands (a man that I have started calling my sperm donor as opposed to my father). He cheated on her many times and then would deny and tell her that she was crazy. My sister seems to believe that my mother was never there for her when she needed her.

Anyways, as you can see, all is not well in my world. I am starting to handle things better with my father, basically treating everything he says as blah blah blah blah blah. But to get the pressure from my suster is not acceptable. Any insights in to this would be greatly appreciated.

Steve

[Awen]

Hi Steve,

So, basically my question is if you have experienced a similar thing in your lives with one of your siblings, how have you handled it?

Yes indeed. 

One of my brothers was in the favoured child role as we were growing up.  Though he indeed recieved a good deal of abuse he was also indulged fairly often, and my sisters and I percieved that he usually was given the things he wanted and asked for - unlike us.  He was able to minimise and deny the abuse and neglect and fantasize a happy and normal childhood.  That is his perception and reality. 

Does it feel that your sister's different view of the situation invalidates your own perceptions?  I see that you want her to accept your view but you do not agree with hers, especially about your mother.  Yet, her experience may indeed have been very different than yours, and she may feel equally invalidated by your statements of your reality.  Frankly you are both entitled to feel however you wish to about your OWN perceptions, for that is YOUR reality.  In the spirit of love, you must come to accept that you and your sister each have a right to feel however you wish!

It sounds like this is a time when emotions are running raw.  If you can not agree and feel hurt, perhaps this is not a good time to discuss these things with your sister.  If so, try again in the future, but keep it to yourself for now.   Then again, if you are able to find a tactful and loving way to approach your sister again you could tell her that you are trying to sort out FOR YOURSELF your perceptions and feelings, and ask if she could listen (and share, or not...?)  Tell her you see that she feels differently and are learning that different people can percieve [whatever]  in very different ways... that doesn't make any one interpretaion wrong.   

If 4 people stand around different points of a large globe, each will be able to describe different features... one person may see the northern hemisphere, another the southern, another is seeing the lasnd in the far east. the last sees the west... they may all agree that the globe is round, lol.   

take care... and be sure to tell that dear sister of yours what you said here -

I love my sister very much

[Bloopsy]

I can relate because I have a twin sister and we remember some things very differently. Sometimes I would feel hurt and upset when she didn't believe things that I would tell her and still do a lot so I don't talk to her about certain things, which makes me feel less close to her but at the same time I know that she can't handle it and that I have to understand that and that I can still believe myself , and her way of handling her childhood was very different in certain ways than the way I handled mine even though we are twins. I know it is hard , in my experience it sort of keeps on being hard but less so good luck.

[miss piggy]

Hello Steve,

Yes, I've gone through this.  It is much easier when two siblings are on the same page.

Does it feel that your sister's different view of the situation invalidates your own perceptions?  I see that you want her to accept your view but you do not agree with hers, especially about your mother.  Yet, her experience may indeed have been very different than yours, and she may feel equally invalidated by your statements of your reality.  Frankly you are both entitled to feel however you wish to about your OWN perceptions, for that is YOUR reality.  In the spirit of love, you must come to accept that you and your sister each have a right to feel however you wish!

Awen, you hit the nail on the head.  I added the bold because this is the crux of the matter.  Steve, your father may have treated you the same (not a given because some Ns deliberately treat sibs differently), but let's say it was the same.  Different sibs will respond differently.

I have two brothers and for some reason I do not understand, I could not listen to one brother complain about my father even though I agreed with him.  I think maybe it was because he wanted me to fight his battle for him.  And that's what I resisted.  I told him not to put me in the middle.  I also resented his statements because he married someone who was just as bad if not worse who was causing a lot of problems within the family.  So his criticism of our father was just to ward off the crap headed in his direction.  Also, even though I agreed with the assessment, I wasn't ready to take on my father.  It was NOT in my best interest to head into the breach.  I very much resented the treatment my SIL gave my father because basically she was communicating the message that she was more important and she was now the head of the family, not him.  I didn't remember voting for her to be the boss of me.

As for the other brother who I could listen to because he had been fighting his own battles without involving me, he couldn't buy the fact that I was treated badly for being a girl.  Because this meant my battle was somehow unique and special and so had to be discounted.  He didn't buy it until my father pulled a really disgusting and degrading move recently which I won't go into here.  I told this brother about it and he was just shocked.  "I can't imagine Dad doing that with me," he said.  I said "do you get it now?" meaning my dad's low opinion of women.  So our experiences of our parents will be unique to each child.

I don't know if this applies in any way to your situation, but this is part of how it was for me.  I'm guessing you want some insider support for your position.  This is really something you have to wrestle with on your own terms w/o sis.  If you are troubled by her response (you're being selfish, etc) you can try to explain your position without trying to change hers.  Something I hang onto re the charge of selfishness is that it isn't selfish to take care of myself.  It isn't selfish to have needs and think of my own emotional survival.  Hopefully you are not being deliberately hurtful of your father, but just taking care of yourself. 

Hope this helps.  Good luck, MP

[Sallying Forth]

Hi Steve,
I have a similar situation though all brothers. My oldest (and possibly youngest) bro is N and favored by my Nparents. I don't try to convince them of what my Nparents did. We agree to disagree. I haven't even approached them with any of this N stuff. They believe our family was healthy and functional.

My middle bro knows what happened was abusive and that I was mostly scapegoated (he too some). However we don't go any further than that. He's keeping the status quo because he lives close to the rest of them. He's the peacemaker in the family and hasn't gotten out of that role. Other than me, he's the only one who has gone to therapy. Although his was short lived. He's horribly dysfunctional in relationships. Prompting his exwife to call me up one time asking what happened in our family.

I remember years ago trying to convince my oldest and youngest bros that our family was screwed up. I realized it was a lost cause. They can't see any problems because they got treated like royalty. And I got treated like sh$t!

[write]

even now my sister cannot see my father as a whole, she alternates between anger and sentimentality.

If I do or say something which asserts myself against him- I am being cruel. Even when the outcome is good, she still cannot let go of this romantic image of him as something he clearly is not.

I have given up trying to explain or reason with her.

My relationship with him is I believe as honest and as positive as it ever will be, in that I will only accept communications with him feel wholesome and refuse to go back to the relationship we once had. He wavers over this- sometimes he accpets it, sometimes he criticises me.

But he isn't in control of my life now.
Now she often tries to manipulate my relationship with him, for whatever reasons, telling me I should call etc. It's like she's picked up where he left off!

I strive to have a good relationship with my siblings, but his histrionics over the years has tainted it, he has damaged them, and unlkike me they don't seek their answers through therapy.

We have to agree to differ ( or at least i do ) where things get ugly, and I really believe he has 'passed on' his acting out behaviours to the next generation.

[Marta]

Steve,

Sibling relationships in our family are majorly screwed up. Still, I don't know what to write about it because I wouldn't know where to begin or where to end. I am terribly confused and in a lot of pain over it. Just know that you are not alone. Poisoned sibling relationships is a hallmark of N families. Accept your sis's POV re. your mom. When you portray mom as a long suffering saint, that in itself is a sign to me that something is going on there that you haven't quite faced up. Hope you don't mind my saying so. My dad was the saint in our family, and I alone saw what was going on with him.

Another thing is, if your sister thinks of you as a monster and has said other abusive things to you, could it be that like your father, sis herself may have some major problems? She sounds abusive to me, and if you are looking for her acknowledgement or approval re. how things are, it may not come forth.

SF:
they got treated like royalty.

With N parents, NOBODY gets treated like a royalty. It's a common misconception of other siblings who didn't get their fair share of attention. I know because I was the favored child while growing up, my sis perceived me to be the one who got treated like royalty. I alone know what it felt like, the damage it did to me, and I really bore the main brunt of it all from all sides.

Write:
I will only accept communications with him feel wholesome and refuse to go back to the relationship we once had.

That sounds great. How do you manage? What if he does something very hurtful? Do you still overlook and continue to have a relationship with him instead of cutting him off? I ask because I am struggling with this one right now.

[Sallying Forth]

SF:
they got treated like royalty.

With N parents, NOBODY gets treated like a royalty. It's a common misconception of other siblings who didn't get their fair share of attention. I know because I was the favored child while growing up, my sis perceived me to be the one who got treated like royalty. I alone know what it felt like, the damage it did to me, and I really bore the main brunt of it all from all sides.

My oldest (a N) and youngest (a probable N) bros did get treated like royalty. I didn't say they got what they needed but they got what they wanted. And that was to have their way, to be the center of attention, to do as they pleased, to have a double standard for everything, and to not be scapegoated EVER.

When my oldest bro had problems there was immediate treatment sought out for him. No one even knew I had nightmares, depression and suicidal ideation. No one ever asked. And treatment? What's that? None.

[write]

How do you manage? What if he does something very hurtful? Do you still overlook and continue to have a relationship with him instead of cutting him off? I ask because I am struggling with this one right now.

persistance.
I rarely take his calls, though I regularly write to him and sometimes call him: basically for a long time I insisted everything was on my terms.

When he did finally ask me why I've changed I explained that I thought things were unhealthy between us, that he was offloading and I felt disregarded and stressed when he calls. He apologised, but then I had that big illness so he explained 'my moods' ! all away as 'she must have been a bit depressed'! But he's never bothered me as much since and I feel I can be a good daughter within my own definition of that without having to get sucked into the black hole of his endless needs and neuroses. Saying that he has rarely been abusive interms of shouting or frightening me- I would feel different if he did that and would have to end the relationship unless he stopped; I can't take that behaviour from anyone now.

My sister said I was being unfair etc. She always does. I've come to see that as her limitations, doesn't matter how I try to explain, she can't really hear me, same as him.

I think it helped when I gave up the fantasy of wanting a more wonderful family and came to accept that it's something I don't have and I'm not going to get with them.

Also it helps that I emigrated and aren't in close proximity or easily accessible to any of them any more!