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Am I wrong?
So basically. I just found out my father has malignant melanoma. It's a skin cancer. I have a sister and she tends to get EXTREMELY nervous for these kind of situation so I understand her feelings. She proceeds to text me today telling me she felt like crap about the situation and to top it off she was mad at me for calling her ungrateful to her child's father. They have been broken up for some time but she still seems to be attached and gets jealous every time he seems to try to move on. I have told her over and over that she is an ungrateful bitch because she truly is. The point is, she only knew about it because she went through my phone while I was sleeping. I honestly get where she is coming from but I feel like she was wrong for going through my phone.
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Your sister has every right to be mad at you for you calling her ungrateful how can you expect her not to be? You wouldn’t like it if being called ungrateful was done to you nobody deserve’s to be called ungrateful especially by their own family member you’re her sister you’re her family you should be there for her especially now because your father’s health is declining she doesn’t need you calling her ungrateful during this time you owe her a apology how your sister act’s toward’s her child’s father is her business she is her own person you can’t control her you can’t control how she act’s what she does she’ll do what she want’s you can’t blame her for getting jealous if she’s still attached to her child’s father it make’s sense i agree with you her going through your phone while you slept was very wrong and low of her especially while you slept you weren’t aware of her going through your phone she didn’t respect you your privacy she invaded your privacy i’m sure she wouldn’t like it if someone looked through her phone it was done to her so it shouldn’t of happened to you
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While bad news like cancer in a family member can put family members on edge and say and do things that are hurtful to each other, I don't think its the reason behind what is going on between you and your sister. I had a Mom die of cancer and yes, everyone ganged up on me as I was executer of Moms will and they didn't like it and so I was treated badly.
What I gather from what you wrote is that this is a separate issue between you and your sister. She is upset with her guy wanting to move on and she is upset with you. You are doing something that every human including meyself has fallen into the trap of doing, we do not look inward into our own life and deal with bettering ourselve even if just a teeny bit more each day, but we tend to see something in the lives of others and can see they are doing a bad job of whatever so we tend to give advice where it isn't wanteed. And that is what causes so many problems for us. I learned my lesson as a teen already on this and haven't repeated it since. It gets harder when you have adult children and you don't like a decision of theirs, or you feel its not the best way and want to give advice. Hey, I'm not saying its bad to give advice, however you can't give advice until you have permission to give it. That is a Big thing so I will repeat it using my own story. When my kids became adults, I was still in the mode of wanting to tell them what to do as when raising them, and now they are adults and I find myself having to bite my tongue to refrain from blurting out loud the stuff I feel they need to hear. But what I read somewhere is that I can ask them, Hey, I have some advice on your situation, would you like to hear it? Only a few times have I heard 'sure' Most the time, my own kids tell me no. YOu wrote in here asking for advice so it is okay for me to answer you. I hope you see how important this is.
Once we have permission to give advice, we can't give it without regard for the other persons feelings no matter how wrong they are about something. I do follow this all the time and find it easier by putting myself in their shoes, which basically means I use my imagination and imagine if the same were happening to me. So I will do this for me and imagine myself as having a child, the boyfriend breaking up with me, I thought everything was okay, didn't expect this and my wishes were for the child to grow up with me and its father under the same roof. So when something like that would happen, I most likely would be either in shock and probably going through grieving, which is a loss of something, like a job or someone who leaves you by choice or by death. I would not be in the frame of mind to want to even hear anything that is meant to help me, let alone any words that might suggest I was the problem whether I am or not. So basically, one thing is your sister is likely not in a good frame of mind, unable to see things correctly and chose to use your phone to check up on you, which is not right. However as any good counselor or psychologist would tell you, there were some basic rules broken by you in how to treat another person.
In case you aren't getting it yet, try to pretend and imagine how you would feel, lets say regarding your Father. You do something special for him with family involved to help cheer him up as you believe he needs cheering. It doesn't happen because the family who are supposed to be part of your idea are bucking against it and you have been told that you are an insensitive crappy person for bringing the reminder of his diagnosis up by treating him extra special, missing the point of why you want to do it. Everyone has their own view on things and quite often we are not correct with our views. If something like that was said to you, I imagine you'd be really pissed because the intention of your heart was to do something good so being told it isn't good would make you very upset with any family member who said that to you.
Your sisters life is hers to handle and be successful in it or mess it up royally. The same with yours. Yes, at times, a person gets a chance to speak some encouraging life changing words into a persons life but it is never said using them as the example of the doer of the terrible deeds. I also use this tactic as it is more well recieved by a person needing to hear something that helps them. If not presented well, it will shut you down. I had an ex who was verbally abusive. Do you understand how humiliating it feels to be reprimanded in public? Even done in private, it makes ones hackles rise and you want to defend yourself cus you;re an adult. In my case, I truly wasn't doing anything wrong and he had un-diagnosed mental illness but appeared normal to the majority of people. I met a few people like him who said things to me in general conversation after I mention something I believe or did and they immediately pounce and tell me that is wrong and I should know bette and never do that again. WhAT? Talking to me like that? My reaction to people like this is to avoid them in the future. And that is possible unless you are family, married to, a child of the offending person(s). So the only way to avoid subjecting myself to more degrading and unfair treatment with the husband was to divorce him. If your sister doesnt like how it feels to hear you address her as you do, true or not, and attempt to give unsolicited advice, she may decide to avoid you for the rest of her life. It could happen. Out of the family I grew up with, 4 members treated me very badly, two parents and two siblings in separate incidences where what they planned out how I should act regarding something they did or said wasn't what they imagined it would be. As you can tell by now, I am as careful as I can be to talk to people and not say anything a person could take the wrong way, not being God, people can't easily see the intentions of my heart. So I had family members, 3 of the 4r not speak to me for months, going on 6 months and when all returned to normal and they wanted to talk again, I didnt bring up what they did or tell them to ask for forgiveness which I never got. I was just happy that they were all happy with me again after getting over their pity parties or whatever they were. I know you truly believe you are doing this all in the right way for the right reasons. Yes, it is a good thing to care enough about your sister that it troubles you to see her hurting and just not getting it, but that is her lesson to learn. So if you cant change her but can only change yourself for the better, work on how you relate to people and in time you will see people are more likely to trust you again, open up to you and ask for advice. But they have to feel loved and not feel like someone is telling them as a adult they are wrong, no one likes that. If you ever get the chance to give advice to anyone because you asked and they said yes, make sure you dont use them as the wrong person. I will lie and make up a story if I have to, either saying there was a time in my past when I did the very same thing, or I will use people I know and just change the names to tell them the messeage I want them to get. What they do with what they hear, is for them to follow or not, same as you have the choice to hear and take to heart what I've shared or disregard it all. I wish you the best.
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Lock your phone first of all. Also, keep anything you wouldn't want people inadvertently reading out of conversations on there. You shouldn't be talking about family negatively on there anyway to other people. That's wrong in and of itself. What she did was wrong to go through your phone. Let her know that.
The situation between your sister and her-ex boyfriend or husband is her problem to deal with. It's not your issue nor should you butt your nose in or offer a point of view or chastise her in front of him. If you think she's ungrateful than that's fine. You voice it privately with her and certainly not in front of him. There's nothing fair or right about that. Don't do anything that you wouldn't want her to say/do to you in front of anyone.
She needs to be told that the relationship was many years ago and tough but that people move on and she must do so as well. She needs to see that the guy isn't interested and has moved on and that NOTHING will get better in her life until she does the same and admits that it's completely over. Failure to do that suggests she's narcissitic and may want to look closely at her mental health if she's unceasing and unrelentless in jealousy over a situation long over.
She needs to move on. I think you and your parents should try to get through to her but it's definetly a mental health thing if she cannot let go and see reality. She's punishing and poisoning herself not him with the behavior. She won't be physically or mentally healthy if she keeps it up.
She needs to do this and be encouraged to because she has to have a cordial relationship with the father as her child grows and involve him equally in parenting and access and see that he has moved on and she can to and that the child's relationship with both are important and his/her perception should not be clouded by any BS between her and him. And that's all it usually is BS that people can't let go of that affects the kid. She's not a victim here and has to get past that and playing that role. It takes two to start and end a relationship. It's not all about her.
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Hi there!
To start off, I agree with you that it was wrong of her to go through your phone. Our phones are an extension of us, and no matter what is on them, it is an invasion of privacy. Have you tried having a heart-to-heart with her where you don't call each other names and just try to find out where each other is coming from? I am an only child, so sibling relationships are slightly foreign to me, but I think it might help you both to get things off your chest and become closer as your father fights the cancer.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this so I can formulate an even better response :)
Thank you!
Holly
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