Auntie SparkNotes: My Sister Treats Me Horribly
Dear Auntie SparkNotes,
My older sister treats me horribly. She’s two years older than me, and we had a really good relationship until about four or five years ago when I entered middle school. Now, our relationship is hanging by a thread, and it feels like I’m the only one trying to do something about it.
She has these unpredictable mood swings, which put me on edge and cause a lot of unwanted stress in my life. One minute she’s asking me to wrap presents with her, the next she yells at me to go away and stop talking to her. She gets mad at me about every little thing, and when I call her out on it, she turns on me, saying that I’m being too dramatic, or I’m playing the victim. I’ve talked to my mom about this, and the advice she gives only makes things worse. Recently, my mom told me that I’m always too apologetic, and that I need to be more assertive. I tried this, but it only made her yell at me and ignore me for the rest of the day. I can’t get mad at her even if she got mad at me for the same reason in fear of her blowing up in my face. She is such a hypocrite, but I can’t say anything because of how she would react.
The worst thing is that she doesn’t treat anyone else like this, just me. She treats my cousins better than me, even the ones my age. She purposely excludes me from things, for example, last month she turned on a movie at around 10 p.m. with two of my cousins who were both my age. She kicked me out, saying that I should go to bed because I get “emotional” and cranky with too little sleep. This kind of treatment has been going on for forever, it seems like she has a fixed image of me being six. She blatantly said to my face that she doesn’t trust me, thinks I’m irresponsible, even though I’m more responsible than she is, and constantly questions my actions. My cousin said that I should stop letting her walk all over me and get mad, but I’m afraid that would destroy any chance I have with her.
Everyone says that I just have to be patient, work on my end of the relationship, and hope that by the time she’s in college our relationship will have improved. I am so tired of hearing that, because what I’m worried about is what our relationship is now! How do I improve this?
Man, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But that thing you’re so tired of hearing? There’s a reason why people keep saying it, sweet pea: namely, it’s the truth. And unfortunately, there is no improving the way another person chooses to treat you; if your sister is determined to poison your relationship, no amount of sweetness and sunshine on your part is going to counteract that. That’s the thing about relationships: it takes two people to make it work, but only one to make it awful.
I’m sorry. I know that wasn’t what you were hoping to hear—and I understand your anguish, Sparkler. I do. Really. But all the energy you’re investing, endlessly, in trying to speak and act and be in such a way that magically shuts off the flow of nastiness that your sister has been aiming at you for the past four years? That energy is a tragic waste that would be better spent on literally anything else. Another friendship, a rewarding hobby, a second secret life as a shadowy underworld figure who commands a secret army of guinea pigs who are trained to commit crimes. Seriously. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. It’s time to accept that things suck between you and Sis right now, and redirect your attention elsewhere.
To be clear, this is not to say it’s hopeless that your relationship might someday improve. I could even take a wild guess that your sister is going through a ghastly but temporary phase, one in which she feels insecure and out of control virtually all the time, and uses you as a punching bag because it’s the one and only time she ever feels like she has power over anything. Not that this makes it any less obnoxious while it lasts (and boy oh boy, is it ever obnoxious!), but it almost certainly will not last forever. But if and when this phase comes to an end, it won’t be because you sat there and took it. If anything, the way you keep making yourself available to be abused is only encouraging your sister to keep doing just that. The fact is, things won’t improve until or unless your sister decides to be better—and whenever she’s ready to stop being a supercilious weenie, she knows where to find you.
Which is what you can say to her, more or less, whenever she’s being a jerk to you: “You’re being awful and I’m not here for it. I’ll be happy to hang out with you whenever you’re ready to stop treating me like garbage.”
And once you’ve said that? Peace out and find something to do. Call a friend, pick up a good book, recruit a few more guinea pigs to your army of criminal rodents. Again, it can be anything, just as long as it interests you, and as long as it keeps you safely outside the blast radius of your sister’s jerkbomb behavior.
Will this be hard? Heck yes, it will, especially at first—and especially when you’ve convinced yourself that your relationship with your sister is a stick you have to keep holding your end of at all costs, lest it plummet into an abyss from which it can never be recovered. What you need to realize is that the space you create by walking away and leaving your sister alone with her foul moods is not a permanent rift; it’s temporary breathing room for her, and an important bit of boundary-setting for you. (Also: If refusing to let yourself be mistreated would “destroy any chance” you have at a relationship, then it was not a relationship worth having. That’s true in any case, not just this one.) And while stepping back won’t give you the instant gratification of a trouble-free friendship with your sis, it does give you instant relief from the immediate effects of her meanness—and hopefully, enough patience and goodwill to wait this out, to hope for the best, and eventually, to not hold her teenage hideousness against her for the rest of your lives.
Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
Want more info about how this column works? Check out the Auntie SparkNotes FAQ.
