How do you get over resentment of siblings?
When my father died, I begged my sister to move in to help mom. She gets along better with mom and it is just her. I had three young children and a husband. She refused. She called me up a few years later and said that mom offered to pay for her to go back to college if she moved back in. I told her she was an able bodied adult(in her 30's) she had 8years of college with no degree to show for it. She then proceeded to tell me that mom should have given us part of the money that dad left her. Mom went on a vacation of a life time and my sister went as well. Mom paid for it. She offered to do the same for me but I couldn't in good conscious do it.(The trip for 2 was over 10 thousand dollars)
When mom was diagnosed with cancer she said she would help when she needed to. I realize she lived a couple of hours away and hadn't planned on taking her up on it. After a really nasty attitude during chemo treatment, I was so burned out, I asked her to take her once, just to give me a break.
She said she needed to let her job know at least a week in advance. I gave her almost a month notice and she called the day before to cancel.
Now mom has to have major surgery. My sister is between jobs again and now wants to stay for almost 3 weeks. Which means along with my last child being in school and doing all the mom things that it entails, as well as being a care giver for mom, I have to pick up after my sister, remind her that some clothing(Or lack their of) is not appropriate in front of my husband.
How do you not resent the situation? Is it just me?
The age old question!! Or I should say the "agingcare" question..LOL
questshopadmin, it was either move in with her or try to support two households, and we really can't do that. She refused to move in with anyone.
I'll give my mother credit though, she loves her daughters and when my sister asked to move in, she referred her to me so I had to be the bad guy. I honestly think mom would be scared to have my sister move in because my sister has around 20 cats(I wish I could say it was a joke but it's not) and she doesn't take care of her house.
It's like emotional quicksand. You just keep getting sucked in further and further until some level of inability to act is reached.
I've gone through this and it only upset me, causing resentment which affected my health, not my sibling's.
Eventually I decided to treat it more like a business issue: Analyze the issues, desired goals, and as many contributing, mitigating and resolution factors as possible; identify possible solutions, evaluate the likelihood of their implementation and effectiveness, then make a decision, focusing on the best method of reaching the desired goals.
Then do it and forget about who's doing what or who's not contributing his or her share, or whose time is more important and all of the issues that end up weighing down personal decision making.
I won't say that I don't fall back occasionally to feeling resentful that I'm the only one providing the care, but the feeling of resentment only upsets me, not my sibling. And it reminds me that I found a better way of addressing and interpreting the situations, and it's best to stick to that and avoid the "who did this", "who isn't helping", "who got more from mom or dad", etc., which isn't really an effective problem solving method.
Clip, this is NOT intended to criticize your approach; as I wrote I've been through this as have others here. I'm just trying to suggest a way of skirting around these issues and focusing on what's really important.
I hope you do find your way to a solution that's workable for you and your family. Good luck.
As far as resentment goes someone suggested to me one time to pray for the person you resent. If you're a praying person you might try it. I found that it worked. I prayed everyday that the person I resented be blessed with everything I would want for myself. I didn't mean it when I was praying it but that was OK, I prayed for it anyway. After a while I found that when I prayed for the person I did mean it. I kept praying until the resentment went away and it did go away in time. After some time went by I realized that the prayer helped me more than it helped the person I was praying for. Not being a religious person I was amazed that this worked.
We can't make people do things we think they should be doing. We can't make them behave in a way we think they should be behaving. To try and do so is just going to make us nuts and the situation won't even improve so we're left feeling angry and resentful while nothing's changed. Your sister is a grown up. Leave her be and let her deal with her life the way she wants to. Do this for your sake, not hers.