My sister often messages me at random times during the week about her sadness regarding her relationship (boyfriend not ready to get married), conflicts with our parents, and life in general. She doesn’t even ask me how I am or how my life is. It’s difficult because we live in two different states and in different phases of our lives. I have talked and listened to her numerous times about her relationship with her boyfriend and our parents, but at most times she has put the blame on me (that I have a better life because I left and that our parents favor me instead of her). I have given up at most times and accepted the fact that she would always blame me for leaving even though it was my choice. I have explained to her numerous times that the outcome of my life is a result of my own choices and that it’s the same for her.
The other day, we got into a huge argument and she spewed the same arguments about me leaving them and being our parent’s “golden child.” I told her that I wouldn’t get to the same argument again, and that I don’t want to talk at the moment. A few minutes later, she messaged me and said that she should move past that argument and then told me that she’s sad that her boyfriend hasn’t proposed to her. I didn’t respond because I was honestly still upset with her and she didn’t even recognize that. She immediately wanted to make amends so she can again emotionally dump on me about everything. I haven’t responded and she added: “I guess I have no one to talk to.” I have talked to her that seeking professional help/therapist would probably help her out but she’s only responded the same way. I just need help on how to graciously set that boundary with her and not blow up as well. I do feel guilty at times, but I also have my own issues and emotions that I need to cope with.
TLDR: I just want to set boundary with my sister who constantly emotionally dumps on me from afar. She disregards my own life and emotions. I’ve spoken to her about seeking a therapist, but she seems hesitant. Need to know how to set boundary.
18 comments
It doesn’t matter how your boundaries make her feel. You set them, and she chooses whether to listen to them or not. And if she doesn’t, then you have to have a consequence in place.
>“I guess I have no one to talk to.”
If she treats others the way she treats you, then that isn’t surprising.
If you’re the “golden child,” why would she want you to be her sounding board anyway? My brother actually is the golden child to my mom and he is just about the last person I would go to with my issues. My cats hear about my life much more often than he does.
You’re on the right track to setting them if she’s acknowledged that she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to and that she should move past her jealousy issues with you leaving. You’ll also right that she wanted to make amends quickly just continue using you as her therapist.
Take advantage of this moment and tell her everything. Tell her that you love her and like helping her out but there are clear limits to this. The most obvious one being that you can’t solve an issue that lives only in her mind and that makes you the guilty party when you’re not. She has to deal with her jealousy with a therapist or by herself, preferably dealing with the reasons she’s jealous about you leaving states. And that there’s so much you can listen to and give advice about the same situation with her bf.
>…but at most times she has put the blame on me (that I have a better life because I left and that our parents favor me instead of her). I have given up at most times and accepted the fact that she would always blame me for leaving even though it was my choice. I have explained to her numerous times that the outcome of my life is a result of my own choices and that it’s the same for her.
Genuine question, don’t mean to be a jerk here: Is she wrong? I don’t mean to say that you didn’t work hard – I’m sure you did – or that your hard work didn’t contribute to your success – I’m sure it did. But it’s possible to recognize that your positive outcomes are the result of BOTH your hard work and good choices AND factors outside of your control like parental favoritism or birth order making achieving independence much quicker for you. I’m an oldest sibling, and I can recognize the advantages I had growing up.
This isn’t related to the topic of whether you’re entitled to set boundaries for who you want to engage with, how often, or when, since you’re absolutely entitled to that. That consideration was more relevant to the underlying topic of maintaining positive relationships with siblings by recognizing their perspective. Especially when:
>She disregards my own life and emotions.
Maybe she’s seeking validation and understanding from someone who ignores her and disregards the validity of her experiences.
To effectively defend that boundary, you have to re-think the way you’re approaching it.
So right now the problem making it hard for you is that you’re worried about how she feels about it or how she might react. That means she’s still manipulating you and still sees holes in the wall that she can reach through. In other words, you’re looking at the boundary as a rule for *her* to follow, which is damn near impossible. You can’t make her stop dumping on you, you can’t make her stop overreacting to your boundary, etc.
Think of it like this instead: A boundary is a rule for *you* to follow. You decide what you won’t accept, for your own benefit, and then tell her that. She can be upset, she can do whatever she wants. But it won’t matter to you because you’ll have the tools you need to deal with it.
Come up with those tools to deal with these situations so you know how to reject the toxic behaviors. For instance when she yells at you, you know you’re supposed to just hang up. When she trauma-dumps, you don’t respond. Or you even temporarily block her if needed. Whatever works for you.
The point is not to convince her to change, or to make her happy about this; she’ll hate it. The point is to put up a wall to protect yourself from this behavior, and only let her through the door when she’s behaving in a way that you’re comfortable accepting. One day she might begrudgingly accept this and learn to change her behaviors.
Every now and then I think about how it might be nice to have a really close, let’s talk on the phone a couple times a week sort of relationship with my siblings.
And then I see this kind of thing. And it makes me very happy that I talk to my siblings on their birthday, my birthday, Christmas and Thanksgiving … and that’s it.
“I like you, I want the best for you, but I cannot be your sounding board for every problem in your life.”
We can only absorb so much of another person’s toxin before it affects our own mental health.
Are you part of a culture where it’s strongly expected that one of the adult kids will stay behind to continue living with the parents to “take care of them” (even when they’re healthy)? If so, I think that’s part of the consideration here. Those cultures/expectations can royally, royally suck for the eldest kid, who never gets to start their own life because this huge burden is placed on them, and in return they get basically no thanks other than maybe being treated poorly by entitled, dictatorial parents (while the youngest kid who visits every so often is the prized one).
So if the above scenario is the case in your family, it may go a long way if you communicate to your sister that you’re grateful for the sacrifices she’s made so that you could move away. She may be thinking that the scales are incredibly uneven here, and the least you can do is be available for emotional support that runs mostly one way.
If that’s not your scenario and your sister could have made the choice to move away just as easily as you could, then maybe be direct: “Sister, I love you and want to support you when I can, but it’s becoming too much for me that our conversations always seem to be about the same boyfriend and parents problems. I’d be happy to talk things through with you if something big happens, or if you need support in moving away or breaking up with your boyfriend, but can we try to take a break from this for a while in our day to day chats?”
If we set boundaries with someone and they freak out, we know the boundary setting was a good idea.
She also treats you like a therapist. You are not. You don’t have the education and experience to be a/her therapist. As well, there is a very good reason why therapists do not take family and friends as clients.
She isn’t dealing with her problems, she is just complaining over and over about the same things. She is avoiding therapy by talking to you and never resolving these issues. Tell her she has talked about these issues and complained enough without ever dealing with them. It’s time she either dealt with these issues and moved on or sought out a therapist and resolves them.
Raise that you can’t control how your sister feels about a boundary, and you shouldn’t try to do so. Set the boundary and let her feels what she feels. Don’t get drawn into debating the boundary.
Encourage her to find a therapist so she has someone that she can talk to about this stuff without putting loved ones in an awkward position.
Even if you wanted to (all the time,) you would need to be able to at the time she needs to be able to be a good listener, and that is not a realistic burden for anyone to bear.
A therapists job is to be a good listener, and to help you navigate difficult emotions and life experiences. Not only that, they are trained and educated in these things and she will probably find them to be a much better resources for coping and growing through difficult experiences and emotions.
Grey rock her.
“Oh that sucks, sorry. Anyway,”
One simple sentence can do wonders for you.
The next time dumps on you ask her what she is going to do about it?
Setting a boundary is ABOUT being okay with your sister not being okay about it. That is the skill you are practicing when you set boundaries — learning to cope with whatever response you get without giving in and letting yourself down. You have a boundary because you need it for your own well-being. How she feels about it is not yours to control. There is no approach or technique to make enforcing your boundaries go down easily, to prevent everyone from ever having big feelings. She will get the message if you are consistent, and hopefully, she can manage herself appropriately. <3
The “I guess I have no one to talk to” is passive aggression and bait. She is trying to bait you to respond. The correct response is to not respond to her bait.
It sounds like she is using you like an emotional vampire. She wants you to do all the emotional work while she dumps on you.
It sounds like a lot of her approach is the “I’m sad because……” with the expectation that you will volunteer to provide aid and emotional support to her. It sounds like she wants free comfort by just saying “I’m sad”.
The solution to this is to stop volunteering support to her. When she starts up the pity party “I’m sad” “My life sucks” “I haven’t been proposed to” or any similar routine you start replying with neutral statements that are neither positive or negative. Or when you get more advanced, you start replying with questions or changing the subject entirely. You can tell you are on track when she tries to bait you for emotional support, you respond, but don’t give her emotional support she repeats with a “I said I’m *sad*.” *pouty face* with the expectant tone that you are supposed to do something here.
Be careful to also not get into a fight with her. If she can’t get emotional soothing through sympathy, the next option is emotional strength by provoking a fight where “you are at fault” and she can blame you for it. So if she tries to provoke a fight, stay in control, stay neutral and don’t take her bait.
So start working on responses like below when she drums up the “I’m sad because my boyfriend hasn’t proposed”
Easy options
Uh-huh (Literally that is it. Just say, uh huh and wait her out)
I see. (Same as above)
Medium:
Have you talked to him about this?
I don’t think there is anything I can do to help with that.
Hard:
I guess you are right (This is throwing the hand grenade)
Why are you talking to me about this?
Then follow up with more questions about this. Don’t answer questions, reply with questions. Because questions make her do the work. She wants you to volunteer and you asking questions makes her do the emotional labor instead of you doing the emotional labor. Stay calm, stay collected reply calmly and in control. Don’t give into her bait.
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Check your texting settings with her -make sure the setting that allows her to know if her messages have been delivered or read always stays at “delivered” so she doesn’t know if or when you have read her messages.
You might want to look up the “Focus” setting in the iphone (or equivalent for the Google Phone). Make a setting that mutes your sister. And then mute her for part of the day, everyday. When the mute comes off then you can look at her messages and see if any of them actually need to be replied to, or if they are all “pay attention to me”
Get into the habit of replying to her texts no more than once a day. at the same time. Look her her messages, discard the “pay attention to me texts” and then reply to any questions she may ask with short concise answers that doesn’t give anything away.
I have a sister who I also have a hard time setting boundaries with. It’s partly my fault because I allow myself to get wrapped up in her drama. Tbh the thing that’s worked for me is distancing myself. I don’t answer every call or return every call. If I do talk to her I don’t open the conversation up by asking how things are. I limit conversation lengths. I use my toddler as an excuse to get off the phone. She is over 40 making dumbass choices like she is 20 and then horrified when the same things happen over and over and over. I don’t have time for that.
Re-post this at
r/raisedbynarcissists
r/NarcissisticAbuse
r/nocontact
KUDOS 👏 FOR SETTING BOUNDARIES. Continue to do so.
I recommend to go to YouTube and basically watch any videos by psychologists regarding Narcissistic abuse, trauma bond, etc.
Look up GREY ROCKING on youtube to handle Narcissistic people.
I personally went NO CONTACT with my mother over 9 years ago and it extremely helped my mental health. Blocked all of her siblings because they are flying monkeys (bullies)
There’s no cure for Narcissism. Narcissistic behavior is all environmental. You either become a Narcissist or a scapegoat (me).
Truth speakers are often shunned in a Narcissistic environment. You will be bullied and guilt tripped for standing up for yourself, been there.
Continue to do what’s right FOR YOU, even if that means going NO CONTACT with your own sister.