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The truth comes out -- and Flo's tears are flowing

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surf14:
HI Flo;
  relationships change over time and so do people.  You may want a relationship with your sister that encompasses certain parameters as you are defining them but it is her right  to deny you that if she chooses.  You may have to accept  her boundaries although it is painful and it is not what you want.  If only life could be simpler.  Surf

phoenix:
bye

hummingbird:
--I said, "That is completely untrue!!  She said, "Okay, then, I spend MY ENTIRE CHILDHOOD SUPPORTING YOU!!!"

--But when we both married ....

--I said, "That's a lot different. Not only that, it was the parents' fault, and not mine."


Hi Flo:

I'm very sorry for your pain.  I don't know, but _maybe_ your sister was needing validation withouth any "buts"...

What happened when you were children was not your fault of course.  You are 100% right, and both you & your sister suffered a lot of emotional pain it seems.   :(

Sometimes people just need _their_ truth (which will be dif. from our own) heard and acknowledged, with just listening and acceptance, and no other view directed back at them.  

Doing that (letting her get it all out without any counter from you) might help with some of the resentment she feels toward you.  But I know that might be a difficult thing for you to do.   After all, you are hurt in all of this as well.

It is a shame that she hasn't agreed the therapy you suggested.

I really hope it does not come down to not speaking anymore.  Maybe you could both just say that you are taking a break for awhile if worse comes to worst.  Words/language is powerful and it will make a huge difference if you end it saying you are cutting each other off completely, versus taking an extended break from one another to sort things out.

One closes the door completely and the other leaves it open.  I truly hope you both can leave the door open, and one day work through this.

Anonymous:

--- Quote from: Flo ---:cry: My tears are flowing, friends, because I just had another run-in with my sister.

The final conclusion of THIS one is: We agreed that our definitions of the word "love" are different.

To me, "love" means action, not just a feeling.

To her, my definition is a laying guilt trip on her. To her,  love is a feeling, and that is what love is.
       
Flo
--- End quote ---


Yes Flo, I'm that guest, the loo paper guest, and I thought your idea about fortune cookie comments was equally hilarious, "The task you are working on now will bring you great relief and much joy."

I cma back to your post because a couple of things you said have stayed in mind. Flo, I think it's fantastic the way you were able to get a definition of love out of your sister, and come to an agreement with her as to how you see it differently. To you love is both feeling and action. Here - here! I whole heartedly agree, otherwise what's the use of the love. I'm a great believer in love in action. The other type doesn't put bread on the table.

I don't think that's laying a guilt trip on her at all. If it makes her feel guilty, then I wonder why? Maybe because she's lost her zest for life and is trying to preserve her energy, whilst she is observing you brimming over with life. That must be hard.

I understand a certain amount, just a little bit about bi-polar disorder. My father-in-law suffers from this and he's told me some things about what he was like when his children were young. His rages were uncontrollable. He's not like that now, takes medication too. Some very famous people have suffered with bi-polar disorder I believe. It never stopped them, even before medication was available.  A lot of writers actors musicians and artists. Samuel Johnson was one I think.

Anyway Flo I think anyone who is excluding you from family events is extremely hurtful, and denying you access to your great-neice is odd and not nice, to say the least. There are lot's of things hurting you here, and it sems almost intentional and is impacting on your freedom to relate to other members of your family. Does it feel like you are being kept out. That really must hurt. If you feel this is the case, can you address this in some way. Duscuss the issue in detail. Even take notes. Get an assurance and a commitment that this is not happening, so that if you have to at a future time you can reference back to this conversation you've had.

All the best Flo

Guest

Flo:
Surf and Rosencrantz,  Yes, relationships do change.  I think that is one of the things that is so hard for me to accept about my sister.  When she moved within 15 miles of where I live, from over 2500 miles away, we were going to see each other a lot! That what what we expected, and talked about on the phone.  When she lived so far away, we talked on the phone A LOT.  Now that she is here, we seldom talk on the phone.  I am allotted 10 minutes A WEEK.  If we talk longer, I am criticized for taking too much of her valuable time.

At first I could accept that she had kids to raise; but the boys have been grown now for several years,and out of her home; but still, she has other priorities than me, her sister.  I can't figure out why I am now so far down on her list of priorities.   To me, if a person is far, far down on one's list of priorities, it means you don't really CARE about that person!

The people you care about, you spend time with.  Even the Bible says:  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  And the reverse is true:  Where your heart is, that is what you invest your time and money in = that IS your treasure.  Her treasure is HER HOUSE.  And all the knick knacks in it, and the new floor and redecorating she has been doing on her credit card, so that she HAS to keep a job she hates, so that she HAS NO TIME for people anymore.  HER CHOICES.  She has been told this by Mother and me, at HER request a couple of years ago, on three occasions when she asked us to help her lower her stress!! And this was BEFORE she got breast cancer -- BEFORE her doctor told her to cut down on stress FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE, but she has NOT done that.

She is killing herself, I think.  And she is in so much denial.  She refuses to get information about breast cancer, since her doctor told her not to, but to trust him exclusively!!!  As a result, she did not have the info she needed to prevent shoulder problems resulting from tendons missing (I think....) and so she can't dance anymore.  And believe it or not, she is actually giving "the positive side of not dancing"!!!!!  Give me a break!!! She loved dancing more than anything!!!  Her S.O. is a dance fiend, and I think this may portend bad things for that relatonship.  She is nortorious for finding good, fine, wonderful men -- men other women would just die for -- who do EVERYTHING for her, and then finding fault with them to where she throws them out after about 4 years.  And then she is miserable b/c she threw them out, and she feels guilty.  Sometimes they even come back, and she then throws them out again!

Anyway: what she did -- you asked!

Well, a couple of weeks ago, on a Friday, she left a message on my voice mail.  I had an outgoing message that said I was extremely tired, and to please not leave any messages till Wednesday, and she knows I leave these, so she apologized and said she hesitated to leave me one, but that she knew I wanted to go hear my nephew (her son) play trombone.

My nephew is a professional jazz trombonist, and plays Latin music among other things.  And Jim is Latino, as you know.  Mostly I do not go, b/c he's either in a Big Band (which I don't dig), or it's really late in the evening, or it's too smoky.  But this time, it started at 8:30 p.m. and he was in one of the small combos he plays with.

I only got the message at 1:30 p.m. Saturday b/c I had been asleep and hadn't noticed my light blinking.  

On her message she said she wasn't even sure if her S.O. was going, but she thought that Jim and I might want to come.

She must have also said something about other plans....

Anyway, I called her from Jim's at 1:30 and got her voice mail.

Ten minutes later, she called me at Jim's and said:  "I said on my message to call me back on Friday night or Saturday morning, and that if you didn't, we were going to make other plans. Now, we have invited this other couple that we have been wanting to get together with for a long time, so we won't be able to go with you after all."

So I said, "Well, we'll just sit someplace else in the restaurant."  [She says I was screaming at her at that point....]

She says, "Well....that would look really WEIRD....."  meaning, "Don't come at all!!!!!"

I was so HURT and ANGRY -- mostly HURT AND DEVASTATED that she would actually tell me not to come here my nephew play at all, that she was so ashamed of me and Jim that I was persona non grata with her other friends....etc, that I was just BLOWN AWAY.

When I got off the phone, I took the plastic automatic pencil I was holding, and with all my strength, I tried to break it in half; succeeded in bending it and twisting it double, and threw it across the room.

Then I wept.

She called back, and I asked told Jim I wasn't answering it.  Jim offered to answer and I said Go ahead.

He was very nice and sweet, not a bit phoney.  But my sister denied having told me not to come, and denied having said that we were not welcome to sit with the four of them -- at least according to what Jim told me, and I did hear him say to her, "Well, it certainly did come across that way."  He had asked her point blank, too, "Did you or did you not tell Marian that she was not welcome to sit with you and your friends?  And did you or did you not tell Marian not to sit elsewhere in the restaurant?"  So it was quite obvious she was denying having said this.

She kept asking to speak to me, but Jim told her I was very upset right then, and would talk to her when I was feeling better and ready to talk.

A little later, I went home to cry, and there were three voice mails for me from her.  I called Jim and gave him my password, and asked him to listen to them.  I was plenty p.o'd that she called back so quickly, when Jim had conveyed to her, with me sitting right there, that I was not ready to talk!  And that I would let her know when I was ready.  It's par for the course in my family to badger somebody half to death if they are upset and are not able to talk to them.

Jim listened to them, and told me that all three of them were apologies, and he had erased them all.  I wish he had not erased them, though.  But as it turned out, her "apology" is pretty hollow, which is what I had expected.

Then, Jim told me that he was not going to allow my family to treat me the way it had been, any more!!  That they must realize that they would have him to contend with from now on.  I really appreciated his support, because I am unable to deal with my sister's irrationality when she is like this.

I know that at least in the past, I got very irrational, too, and was speaking something that sounded like English, but made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. This is how SHE gets.  Both of us are very articulate, normally.  But when she gets upset, she starts talking almost gibberish -- she contradicts herself, says one thing, denies she said it, contradicts herself, blames, denies she blamed, just CRAAAAAA-ZZZZZEEEE STUFF.  When I first heard her do this, I realized that when my husband told me I made NO SENSE he was actually RIGHT.  But now I am on meds, and I sure hope I am not like this now.  I do know I now know better than to argue with people when I am upset.

Then, Jim said that I MUST go to the concert.  That I could not let myself be pushed around by my sister, etc etc.  I said I totally agreed, BUT that I was incapable of going.

Then, Jim called the restaurant, and found out that the band leader was an old friend of HIS, that he had known for 15 years! So we agreed to go see the band due to THAT fact.  So he called my sister and told her about his friend, the band leader, and that we were going to see HIM, and that we would be sitting elsewhere in the restaurant.

When we arrived at the restaurant, I headed for the restroom, which meant I had to walk in front of the stage.  My sister ran up to me, sorta put her arm around me and sorta tried to kiss me  and said cheerily, "Are you sitting with us?" And I looked her straight in the eye and said plainly, and simply, "No."

An hour later, the male of the couple that was sitting with my sister and her S.O. came over and re-introduced himself to me -- seems we'd met some years ago anyway!! I had forgotten, and did not recognize him.  But he said he and his wife were about to leave, and my sister had "two chairs" (the place was PACKED) and that she "wants to talk to you."  I told him to tell my sister that I was "just fine where I am, but thanks."

Then a few days later, I saw my therapist, and I told him Iwanted my sister  to come to my session with me in order to straighten this out.  He said that sounded like a good idea.

So I left a message for her that this is what I wanted to do; that her therp could come, too, or that her therp could be on speaker phone.

I did not hear from her for quite a while.

Then I called again and said maybe she didn't feel like coming to the therp and would she prefer to have us ALL on conference calls, with none of us in offices?  Or would she maybe like to have our brother be the person we talk to, instead?

She left me a message that she didn't think we needed a third party at all, that it was "just a misunderstanding."

The rest of the story, you all know, I think.

Flo

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