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This is my first thread and I have not been here for a whole year yet. Just wanted to start off with that before getting to the topic.
I’m gonna describe my so called “family” as best as I can individually.
My eldest sister: We get along but aren’t close bc most of my life and her life, she was living in another state. She couldn’t take the family drama anymore so she left. She recently moved somewhat closer than she was bc her job required her to live somewhere else.
My second sister who’s also older than me: We’ve gotten along well for the most part but very recently she’s been annoying. It’s great having someone to care about you so much that they check on you to see how you are. But the annoyance is from her being too aggressive with it. We both have our own lives to live and we deserve time to spend with our own selves. But instead she’s checking on me every single day. I gently told her that’s unnecessary. She responded saying she gets anxious and worries when she doesn’t hear from me. Why now when she never did this when we were younger and more importantly why only me? What about the rest of the family? How come they’re not getting this much attention? I’m not a child who needs to be checked on everyday. When I actually needed this version of her I didn’t get it. Now when I don’t need it I’m getting too much of it. She can also be too nosy and bossy sometimes too.
My brother who is older than me too: This is currently my best relationship. The only thing I don’t like is how he keeps saying “I have to” do this, do that bc….and his constant defending, taking sides, and backside kissing of our toxic mom and stepdad. It’s more than clear that he’s their favorite. He’ll never tell them what they should/need to hear and instead just go about things as if nothing is wrong or as if they’re not doing anything wrong. The only exceptions are if they keep pushing him to do something he doesn’t want to which could annoy him or unless I’m angry and blow up which means I’m forced to do that.
My brother’s wife: She’s really nice. Very friendly and kind. They’re lucky they found each other. They’ve gotten along really well. I’m happy for them.
My second sister’s husband: He and I get along really well. He blows up sometimes and sometimes his blow ups are even at a higher level than me which is the only thing I don’t like about him but he’s only blowed up a few times so far in all the times I’ve seen him. He’s really caring and helpful. And if asked to for example not do something anymore or tone it down or anything, he’ll respectfully go along with it regardless of how he feels about it and whether he likes/agrees with it or not.
My stepdad: We had a close relationship with each other for the most part but earlier this year he decided to throw that all away by saying what he said and not saying a single word to me at all since then and it’s been half the year now but in 2 weeks it’ll be over half the year. He’s walked past me more than enough times to say something, at least a “hello” or “good morning/afternoon” or “how’s it going” or something like that. He doesn’t even look or glance at me. He just ignores me as if I don’t exist. If I cold shouldered him like that for 1 day or week, he and the rest of the family as well as everyone he complains to about it would be all over me asking me why, telling me it wasn’t nice and that I was disrespectful. But when he does it for 6, soon to be 7 months, he gets away with it with no one saying anything to him about it or at least questioning him so he’d share his reasons for why he’s behaving so immaturely for this long. After waiting and hoping he’d come around, I finally told myself I patiently waited and hoped but he’s too much of an immature child to care about changing so I’ve moved on. He wants to ignore me and pretend like I don’t exist? He wants to show gratitude like that for the person who was there for him more than anyone else ? Ok. So be it. But I’m done pleasing people who are never satisfied, never respectful, never appreciative, never happy, always complaining, always miserable, always self victimizing, always negative. I don’t care about what he wants or expects from me. My life doesn’t revolve around him. And since he’s not my boss I don’t work for him.
My toxic mother: She causes trouble. Her mouth is too overactive. She talks too much. She is too loud no matter what she does. She’s bossy, ordering me around to do things. She’s too nosy and secretly gets involved in my business. Secretly bc either I don’t know about it at all or I know AFTER she’s already done what she’s done. She lies all the time, never listens to anyone when they say something, saying no multiple times isn’t enough to convince her to stop. Like for example she’s forced me to initiate a conversation with the stepdad who decided not to say anything to me instead of telling him to apologize to me for disrespecting me the way he has all this time. I told her please leave me alone. She responded saying “Why? Just come here, sit down and talk to him.” My brother who was visiting got involved and said a bunch of things to her. Her response was laughing hysterically and saying “It’s so irrational. He’s being so irrational. I don’t understand” but she only stopped temporarily bc she tried to force me again so I responded by immediately leaving the house, only coming back in after she was away. When I was a kid still in elementary school, my second sister was spending all day with her friends. Sometimes she’d just come home to get ready or bc her friends wanted to spend time with her at our home but mostly she was either at one of her friend’s house or they were out somewhere. If she was out she’d typically come home late. In these years, there were no cellphones to call or text someone to see where they are, when they’ll be home, etc. So my mom called the house. I answered. She asked me if I knew where my sister was. I honestly answered no. Her response was yelling at me saying I’m a uncaring brother who doesn’t care about my own sister and that I better call all her friends and ask if she’s there and once I found out where she is, I was told to call my mom back and tell her what I found out. I said ok and I did all that. But none of her friends parents who answered knew where she was. I told my mom all of this once I called her back and she yelled at me again asking why I always allow this to happen. Uh hello! I’m just a kid! What can I do about it? You’re the mother. Why don’t you ever do anything about it? Yelling at me won’t do anything. If you wanna find her, get in your car and drive to place after place till you find her and once you do, take her home or whatever you wanna say/do. If I was older than I was I would have said something like that to my mom. But I wasn’t and looking back I feel like she knew I was too young to say anything like that to her and took advantage of me. Looking back on that I see that night as a turning point in my life bc I was too young to know this at the time but that night my mom showed me her true toxic self. She’s also very egotistical, manipulative, narcissistic, and all that other negative stuff. She fabricates stories and excuses. She never acknowledges or admits when she does something wrong. Instead if she’s questioned about it she’ll pretend like she doesn’t know what’s being talked about or she’ll deny it. She also loves blaming others. An example of her lying, if someone, let’s just say me, is around she’ll pretend like everything’s ok and will say good things about me but I keep rolling my eyes and don’t take it seriously or buy it knowing it’s all lies bc behind my back she’ll tell one or both of my sisters, my brother, my stepdad, and/or anyone else she talks to the exact opposite about me.
To combat all this I’ve distanced myself from my stepdad and toxic mom as much and as long as possible and I’ve given myself a much needed break from my second sister’s aggressive and obsessive over caring. It’s too much to deal with all this at the same time. I’ve got my own life too. But they don’t respect that. They just want me to live my life however they want and expect me to without accepting that I’m not obligated to do that.