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...for it would have been my mother's birthday and I miss her so.
It just does not seem to get any better either as the time passes (3 years this year).
My twin sister, whom I have written to numerously does NOT answer my letters and has done just what my mother predicted - cut me off completely. The last time I rang, she was so unpleasant that I have had to protect myself and not ring again. I promised myself that I would await her call instead. But none ever come.
Yesterday I received a Christmas card, signed as rote clearly I am just another name on her Christmas list, so impersonal. The card did not even have my name on it. The envelope had a sticky label on it and the signature looked like a bulk standard one. Simply her Christian name and that of her husbands nothing more. I would have felt better if she had not sent me one, it hurt so much.
It was never easy for she was a very manipulative child and indulged by my parents. She has had a wonderful marriage and no financial worries and yet feels that she is so hard done by. She only worked for four years before she was married and then took a part time job or 'pin money' as she put it. Over the last thirty years she has taken two or three holidays all over the world each year and has a holiday home in Scotland and her own car. But she still thinks she is hard done by. It is so sad.
She took advantage of my mother and when my mother came to live with me just five weeks before she died my sister had my mother in a very difficult legal position and took half the money from the sale of the house, and when my mother died ended up with half of what was left and her son inherited a five figure sum whilst my children got nothing because my mother died before she had changed the will as she had intended to, such was the sudden and traumatic demise of our mother.
My sister was very angry that my mother took up my offer to come to live with me when she could not cope with the loneliness but the fact is that my sister did not offer to take my mother in, she offered to find her a 'home' in the city that she lived in...and my mother did not want to go to live in a city and she did not want to go into a home. My sister felt that I should not get anything because during my marriage my mother cut me off because of my AH. Five years ago, and after working hard at that relationship I won my mother back, but not because of anything I might gain financially, simply because I loved her and understood that she could not cope with my A. My mother cried alot and apologised for cutting me off saying she did not realise what she was doing until she was left on her own.
In the last two years of my mother's life my sister visited her twice, whereas I tried my best to help her and visit and look to the repairs the house and the garden because my mother was becoming frail.
My mother was afraid of dying in her home alone, and when her husband left her two years before she died she struggled. As I said I visited as often as I could, bearing in mind I was in surgery three times during that time and spent eighteen months with both legs in plaster, did not have a car and my mother lived 200 miles away, three coaches and two buses rides away from me a journey that took me 12 hours to do one way, where as my sister could drive there in 3-4 hours even though she was further away.
I did a lot of work to the house to help her sell it and move in with me as I had room, did not want to think of my mother struggling with the loneliness, the hard work of keeping the home and garden together at her age [she was 76 and she had never been on her own before], whereas I had had twenty years of experience of marriage to a service man who was away more than he was at home and then a further 14 years living alone after my divorce from the A.
My sister was always interested in what people had and how rich they were and she classed me as the poor relation and therefore inferior, but I loved her, and still do, she is my twin and it does sit easy with me to be alone and single and without family by me. She however does not seem to worry about me even though she used to say she felt my pain when I was ill [though she never knew when I was in hospital having surgery and never visited me or even sent me a card, even though she knew I was alone]. Personally I was never convinced and neither was my mother and my mother apologised for indulging her and not looking to my needs too when we were children. My sister always got her way and I was always the peacemaker and fell in with her wishes because I loved her and did not want her to be unhappy.
This makes my mother's death even more sad because my sister has done what my mother said she would do and which I so prayed she would not do. One of the very last things my mother said to me was, "I am sorry, but I think that I will leave you with a dreadful legacy when I die because I was not fair to you and pandered to your sister's whims during your childhood. Do not be surprised if she cuts you off after I am gone." I was horrified, but it happened and she would not even walk behind our mother's coffin with me, instead I walked on crutches by myself until my son and daughter came to my side when they realised that my sister would not walk with me.
This may seem utterly pathetic compared to some of the most recent posts that I have read and responded to, but it has hit a nerve with me and left me feeling so utterly sad and abandoned. Each time it is an anniversary or a birthday and especially our birthday and at Christmas this bubbles up from where I have buried it and I just feel so utterly utterly alone and sad.
So sorry, I just needed to get this down on paper and out of my head and cry 'cos my heart aches at this dysfunctional behaviour that I cannot put right.
Thank you for listening my dear family.
Heartbroken.
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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
I am so sorry that you are having to deal with this situation. It must be even more difficault for you since you are twins.
I have not been as close with my sister either since my mothers death 11 years ago. It is especially difficult during the holidays because my mother was always the one who kept the family togther. Our father was an A and mom was the "glue" in our home.
I recently talked with my sister, and I am realizing that she has a drinking problem too as she was quite drunk during our last conversation. This would have upset my mom deeply, and I am very saddened to see this happening.
I have come to realize that I can't control my sister any more than I could control my father or my alcoholic husband. This disease has control of them all.
I will pray that HP will comfort you in this difficult situation, and remember that we are all here for you.
Love and Blessings,
Claudia
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A person's a person no matter how small --Dr Suess
Your first post and you write an encouraging response to me. Thank you from my heart.
I posted because I have realised that this is my new family and I can be honest and open here and talk about the things that deeply hurt me and know that I am listened too.
I do not expect others to reply [unless I have asked a question then I hope someone will] though I know others may relate in some way to me for, so far, nothing I have experienced has not been experienced by others too. This is what I realise I have missed in all these years, the sharing of common experiences so that I know that it is a normal thing and not just happening to me.
Thank you so much, for the encouragement, and ((((Cookie))))) your response was also a great comfort and help. I am working STEP 4 and after thinking through your words I realise that this is one thing that I should be addressing in this stepwork. So to you too Cookie I am so grateful, and I will read both you responses again and again so that I get this into perspective.
Grief seems to come in waves and paralyses me at these times by stopping me in my tracks.
Humbly and sending love to you, Heartbroken
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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
Your Mum left more than one legacy. The most important one was you. Your kindness and giving heart are tenfold that of your sister. She will not realise what she has lost until she is alone herself one day. She may have the money and the material items but you have the pure soul. Richness is found in many forms and you have it already you just haven't recognized it. Luv Leo xxx
My sister was always interested in what people had and how rich they were and she classed me as the poor relation and therefore inferior, but I loved her, and still do, she is my twin and it does sit easy with me to be alone and single and without family by me.
Oooops. what I actually meant to say was IT DOES NOT SIT EAST WITH ME TO BE ALONE AND SINGLE AND WITHOUT FAMILY BY ME.
What a stupid mistake for it gives a whole NEW meaning to what I said.
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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
I can empathise a great deal. I have two sisters. I now speak to neither. Some people's response to grief is to get incredibly greedy and justify their actions. My elder sister did that. I fought it. My younger sister totally gave into my older sister.
That actually could be the blueprint for our relationship, our responses to the dysfunction we grew up in were cookie cutter, my elder sister over compensated became a bully, aggressive, take all she can. She had to be the "star' no matter what. My younger sister became an alcoholic (there is no question she also had some predisposition to this genetically), I became the problem. I fled my family at 30 and became a long long task of unearthing the abuse, deprivation and more. I've been 20 years plus in therapy, groups, working on these issues. My mother died 5 years ago. I was with the A. He could not be less supportive. He never put his arm around me, never comforted me. At one point he said my grief upset him because he had unresolved grief around his father's death. He shut down. I did not find much support around the greed issue that went on with my sisters. I was not in therapy, I isolated even more. I became a cocooned person around the A. I gave up trying to be intimate with him sharing feelings. He would just bite my head off if I said anything. I went into people pleasing.
Every Christmas I felt such grief at not having a family. I desperately tried to have that with the A. Of course its taken me 7 years to realise Christmas for him was one of his prime times to get loaded. He could drink, smoke and imbibe to excess. That was his agenda. He didn't even consider mine. Nevertheless in my dysfunctional pattern I tried harder, I grieved more, I raged more. I raged about the way he behaved one Christmas when I paid for a very expensive trip away for years. I had no boundaries, I was lost in my grief and anger around my family of origin.
Funnily enough I think all the grieving and raging I did around the a helped to resolve some of it. I raged so much it all came out of me. I felt rage that I never allowed myself to feel before. I grieved and cried and sobbed so many nights when he was off out with his friends on some binge. I grieved that my family never considered me in much the same way the A never did.
I can definitely understand where you are coming from. I know for me sharing my story helps if I have the right audience. I find it incredibly difficult around the holidays. I have to say it is easier now my mother is dead because I no longer feel as left out. There is nothing left from my famliy of origin I know that. There was never anything ever from the A. Maresie.
