DH and I just got back from a (mostly) nice vacation, visiting my home state and seeing my dad. My sister and her family also live there, and I visited with them for a very short time.
(The N is my mother, who I have not really spoken with over the last few months - she cut me off since I wasn't doing what she wanted me to do, but has called a few times just to chat. It was awkward, but she at least attempted to be nice. I am not calling or otherwise seeing her for now, but I am not avoiding her calls)
My sister was distant towards me during the visit. I asked her if she had heard from our mother, and she said she had the day before (they talk almost every other day - NOT normal for them, but since my mom doesn't have me to talk to anymore, my sister has been drafted and she is eating the attention up).
My sister informed me that our mother had a spot on her mammogram, which may or may not be cancer. Mom had breast cancer around 8 years ago, and had cleared it, but obviously there is always a chance of it reoccuring. She has had these kind of spots before, and they have all turned out to be nothing. I am hoping that this is the case this time.
My sister then proceeded to tell me that cutting off mom was hateful and that I needed to "get over myself" and give our relationship another chance. I told her that I wasn't the one that did the cutting off and that I had told our mother what I needed and what I would no longer accept from her, and that I had tried for the last few years to "work out" the relationship, but she just wasn't willing to change. I got the "mom is family, so you need to give her as many chances as it takes" speech, and ended up feeling like I'd been slapped around by the time we left.
My sister hasn't really asked for my side of what has been happening, and never indicated the least bit of interest in finding out. I'm sure that mom has been playing up the "I'm all alone!" stuff to garner sympathy from my sister, and she has even told her that she is selling the house she owns here (where I live) and moving back home permanently in the fall. She had originally planned on staying down here indefinately and maybe even keeping the house here and coming down for half the year, and living in the home state for half a year, but now she is pulling up stakes and moving up there completely. My sister has this weird idea that mom and her are going to be best friends and that they will all live happily ever after, but she has been on the receiving end of our mother's demands and expectations many times in the past and should know better. Even our father thinks that sister is delusional. I can't help but picture a small child throwing a temper tantrum about not getting their way and packing up their toys and going home. That's about what mom is doing here.
I'm thinking that I'm going to have to write off my relationship with my sister for now as well as our mother, since it is pretty clear to me that sister is taking our mother's side in all of this. It makes me very sad, but I don't know what else to do.
I'm also planning on getting a "thinking of you" kind of card and sending it to mom, so that I can let her know I've heard about the cancer scare. I am concerned with her health, just not to the point that I can handle initiating a phone call.
If the person that was abusing me (verbally and emotionally) was a husband, a friend or a co-worker, she would be telling me to dump them - that you don't have to take that kind of abuse from someone... but because it is our mother, I need to suck it up and deal. How is that any different? Why does it make it okay to treat a someone like crap and abuse them just because of who they are in relation to you?
At least I had a nice vacation other than this little "hiccup" with my sister.
