Have you ever been jealous of a siblings good fortune?

[Anonymous]

I love my sister very much but I cannot deny that I feel green with envy at her sheer good luck. Some of her blessings are as follows:

- good looking. She was always thin and had a beautiful face, great figure and lush hair. She never had an ugly phase in high school. She was always friends with fun and nice girls.
- she has a good head on her shoulders. She has incredibly high self esteem and selects the most supportive and best people to be in her life.
- she has a supportive and loving husband who also happens to be loaded! He clearly regards her highly and she runs the show while he provides the $$
- good career. She always ends up with nice bosses who support her and help her build her career skills.
- good extended network. In laws who adore her and friends who would die for her.

I am so jealous as I feel like the sad pathetic messy sister. I was cute but never the pretty one. I had low self esteem due to bullying and married the first guy who showed me attention. He cheated on me and can be emotionally abusive and I don’t have the self esteem to leave him.
I have struggled in my career and people bully me instead of wanting to befriend me.

I hate this and sometimes want to die

[Anonymous]

Yes. When my brother called to tell me his live-in girlfriend stole her mother's dog that was being neglected and bringing her home I said all the right things to him, got off the phone and CRIED SO HARD. I can't even explain to you how badly I wish I had a dog.

Luckily after about a year they moved to my city and the dog and I became best friends. Like, when she'd hug me, she'd put pressure into her paws.

[Anonymous]

I get it, OP. And yes. Everything always seems to come so easily for my sister, and she can do no wrong in the eyes of family. Me? I struggle for everything I have. I have been secretly envious of her, and I hate it.

My feelings became blurry when life came crashing down on her not too long ago. Now I don’t know how to feel, and I’m guilty to admit I don’t feel bad. She’s had things too easy for too long.

[Anonymous]

No. I am almost 20 years older than my only, full sibling and she is kind of a genius and is now earning more than triple what I earned at her age in a very prestigious role. I'm immensely proud of her.

[Anonymous]

Aw I’m sorry for your bad luck, OP. How is your sister’s personality? Are you close? Do you talk? Can you put aside your feelings of insecurity, and develop a sisterly relationship with her? If she has a good head on her shoulders, maybe she can give you advice? I have gone to my sister for advice, and she has come to me. And we don’t always get along…there’s plenty of irritation between us. I think that’s normal to some degree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aw I’m sorry for your bad luck, OP. How is your sister’s personality? Are you close? Do you talk? Can you put aside your feelings of insecurity, and develop a sisterly relationship with her? If she has a good head on her shoulders, maybe she can give you advice? I have gone to my sister for advice, and she has come to me. And we don’t always get along…there’s plenty of irritation between us. I think that’s normal to some degree!

+1

OP, you do not see everything your sister has gone through - her life is not perfect, and that is okay. If you like each other, get closer - make time for each other.

[Anonymous]

I'm on the other side of this. My brother lives at home with my mom, has never worked or had a relationship (though he was a golden child). He thinks everything comes easily to me -- I have nice looks, always had boyfriends, now have a loving husband, two kids, house, interesting jobs. His rage and jealousy towards me are TERRIFYING. Like I feel worried for my safety when I'm around him. We don't have a relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm on the other side of this. My brother lives at home with my mom, has never worked or had a relationship (though he was a golden child). He thinks everything comes easily to me -- I have nice looks, always had boyfriends, now have a loving husband, two kids, house, interesting jobs. His rage and jealousy towards me are TERRIFYING. Like I feel worried for my safety when I'm around him. We don't have a relationship.

This was my older sister. She was jealous and fixated on me to the point that I had to cut her off completely. I didn't feel truly safe until she passed away. Being on the receiving end of envy is no fun.

[Anonymous]

Sure. I’m a bit jealous of my sister’s house, which is in a desirable location and about twice what my family can afford. My sister is a bit jealous of how my husband and agreed on our house. (We had a list of must haves and nice to haves, we both vetoed a few houses the other liked better, and agreed on the house we bought.) Her husband bought the house with family money and made decisions with minimal input from her. All of which is to say, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

[Anonymous]

You seem to be the Prince Harry of your family, and much like birth order in the British royal family, there isn’t much you can do to change the circumstances of your birth (and your unique set of genes, temperament, looks) and its’ effect on either of your lives. You can shout angrily about the injustices of it all from the rooftops for the rest of your life, but that will not change anything for you.

It’s best to accept that there are things in life outside of your control, and go about making the best of your own life for yourself.

Going down your checklist, there’s no reason that you can’t work on being a good friend, being fun, being nice, improve in your own career or find another that suits you better, and to think more highly of yourself.

But everything stops here: being cheated on by a spouse is an extremely painful and difficult situation to navigate yourself through. You didn’t deserve that. In all seriousness, you should get professional help for that and to work on your self esteem. Everything else will follow. Good luck, OP.

[Anonymous]

No, but every time I envy someone, even someone I know well who I think tells me everything, I later find out that all that glittered was not gold. Some people present their lives as perfect in every way in part to convince themselves. I have found the rare people who actually have it all, fall completely apart when things go wrong that barely phase me. Life has kicked me in the face, stomped on me and then shoved me again and I always get back up and march on and I appreciate so many things because my life has been hard.

[Anonymous]

Yes - all the time. But I can also put it aside and be very happy for them and proud of them.

[Anonymous]

No. Happy for them. Just because they have fortune does not mean I cannot have my own good fortune. However, their misfortune means I have to worry about them, and that isn't healthy for me either. So it's a win when my siblings are happy in marriage, finance and life.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I get it. I am the least successful of my siblings.

But look at it this way. Wouldn’t you rather your sibling be healthy and wealthy and able to therefore care for herself, rather than someone you have to care for?

I want my family members to be financially self sufficient. That’s a good thing.

[Anonymous]

No I'm not jealous of my siblings at all but one of my siblings is clearly jealous of me and I'm not even sure why. I'm a SAHM now and before that I was a high school teacher and he has a rather prestigious job. We both married really nice, good partners and both have 2 healthy, wonderful kids. I don't know what he finds enviable about my life but he treats everything like a competition and is always comparing himself and his wife to me and my husband and his kids to my kids and it's exhausting and kind of sad too. I guess when we were growing up he felt like things came easier to me than they did to him. I kind of coasted by, got decent grades but never really challenged myself much. He worked really hard and followed a more challenging path and became way more successful in academics and in his career trajectory than I ever did. I was content to "just" become a teacher whereas he always wanted something more prestigious for himself. My best guess is he's jealous of me for having a more laid back, easy going approach to life while he makes his own life more difficult for himself by putting high expectations on himself in everything he does. But that's just our personalities and I don't think either one of us can control it much.