Sister issues and totally different ways of communicating VENT!!!
Trying to write this out I just don't quite know where to start, so I will just begin by starting with the beg hinging of my day and how that relates to my sister and my issues with her in the bigger picture.
Ok so I'm in the uk on holidays. Laser night we were at some good friends place for a very rare catch up. We had a bit to drink, and then all went to bed pretty exhausted at about midnight. I woke up to our 19 mo, and 4 yr old sometime about 2:30 am. I checked the time on my phone and noticed a message from my cousin asking me how old my nieces are, they are 10 and 8. She asked me what on earth my sister was doing letting them have fb profiles and why on earth the 8year old was wearing a bikini on the beach. I was pretty well half asleep given the time, but was a bit worried that my sister had allowed this. We have pretty different values about this sort of stuff. But I was concerned that she would let them and worried as I tried to drift off how I was going to broach this issue with her. I HATE confrontation! Anyway I had a bit of a disturbed sleep. In the morning I went online and found the profiles and had a look. They had three friends each and one of those friends was my mother. Not their mother, my mother. Anyway, whilst distracted trying to cook breakfast with our mates this morning I had fb messages from my cousin asking whether she ought to point out the danger to my sister of the profiles and tell her to get the girls profiles made not public etc etc and all the rest. She wondered whether she should tell her and I said she should. So all that occurred within about an hr of me wakin up. We said good bye to our friends and got on the road and I went on fb again to see my cousin saying my sister was livid because she hadn't known about the profiles and was really upset. She posted a fb status asking people to tell her if they saw this kind of thing again, as the girls weren't allowed. I sent her a message asking how she was and if the girls wee in lots of trouble to which she replied that they were.
She also then started to tell me she was furious with my mum for not saying anything and then told me she held my mum and also me accountable for the danger the girls were in because we had known for hrs before we told her. I let her know I had seen the message in the middle of the night and that I didn't realize she didn't know. That when I had had a chance to look up and think about it, I was also simultaneously aware that she was being told. Tbh because I thought that she may well have been aware and might have given permission for them to do it, I was really hesitant to want to go charging in criticizing her parenting choices. I hadn't had a real chance to think it thru, but I contemplated waiting to discuss it with her over the Internet and may have waited a week to get home and discuss it. We have a history of communicating badly in social media. I didn't want her to misunderstand me on a possibly touchy subject.
When she contacted me she was pretty out of line I think. She was obviously very scared, and shaken up by today. She perceived that their very lives were endangered by just a few hours on fb. And whilst I thought it was a REALLY idea I didn't perceive it to be an immediate threat. Like not as in standing next to a cliff edge in a high wind kinda threat. More of a social bullying and vulnerable to predators who groom your girls kinda threat. Which doesn't happen in an instant. Anyway..... We exchanged some messages. Mostly me telling her that "it was 2.30 am!!" I'm sorry I assumed that you knew, but I didn't look at their profiles and realize you weren't a friend etc with her getting upset that "I don't know her if I thought she would let them" And "you think I am a bad parent I you think I would let them" sorta stuff. As I said we don't communicate very well on fb and so I facetimed her to talk. She was very emotional. She was obviously upset that it had happened at all, that her hubby who was at home didn't know that the little girl/friend of my nieces had helped them to set it up, was doing what she/they were doing. And she was upset with me that I didn't know her well enough to know that she would never let them. I apologized for assuming she knew and hesitating to bring it to her in the middle of the night.
I on the other hand now feel really distressed. I hate conflict, I hate feeling unsafe that I can go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning dealing with this sort of mess as tho it was my fault and being held accountable by an irrational distraught family member for an act of omission that I had never even concieved of. I hate this ****.... I often when I see a friends phone number have a moment of irrational fear that they wil call me to explode for doing/not doing something that I was completely unaware of an losing a friendship. It all makes me feel really unsafe. My sister is highly confrontational and often wants to deal with issues head on whether she has the completely wrong end of the stick or not and doesn't ever compromise with what she thinks, unless you tell and scream and yell and compete with her at the same hugely emotional level. Well I HATE that stuff. I am very sensitive. I need to protect myself from other people's emotional excess cos I feel everything almost as if it is my own emotion. It hurts me. I can't communicate like that because I hate to hurt people and just telling it how I see it all the time would be really hurtful to people. I know we all judge people all the time, but I try not to apply my judgements and I leave them open to learning more.
Sorry guys.... This is a massive rant. I just feel really unsafe right now, with a sister who has only just moved back near us after 10 years in a distant city, who is upset that we arnt closer, but who makes me want to close off and pull away to avoid just this kind of thing.
Don't get me wrong. It is ok and normal that she is different. We all are. But I don't now how to communicate and talk to her the way she likes to communicate with me. I have spent 10 hrs now today feeling completely unbalanced and unsafe. Blurgh!!!
I haven't proof read this, it is just a written befriend for myself. Hugs and thoughts appreciated. Anyone else dealt with this sort of relationship issue??
Sister issues and totally different ways of communicating VENT!!!
Dp is being great. He let me talk it out today. And yeah I have had counseling years ago, around my mother relationship. I talked to dh about perhaps seeking it (counseling) with her this time. It may be necessary, because she talks over me and can't see that even if she doesn't desire to hurt me that she can still be very hurtful. She just perceives herself as being honest. And I have a reasonably full tool kit of "I want, I feel" strategies, but thank you for the reminder. I do think I generally use them. But they often make me feel like I am communicating with her as the parent and her as the child, where I am careful with what I say and she is just totally spontaneous regardless of how anything makes me feel.
