Sister gave up dating at 40

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’m not smug. My kids are getting older and she’s going to have to back off. I have two SILs in the same position as my sister who do not behave this way. They live our kids but have boundaries and my MIL doesn’t drag them along every time she visits. My sister doesn’t think boundaries apply to her. I do not think she should be relying on me and my family to provide that experience for her because she decided to throw in the towel on dating. Do some here think I should invite that?

We get it. You're special and important because you managed to catch a man and get married. Your nuclear family is now the most important and unique thing in the world. A family member who wants to spend time together must want to live vicariously through you because she can't get a man, because you're so amazing, and you accomplished the one thing in life that a woman is meant to do.

Nailed it. I don’t understand though, who wouldn’t want more people to help care and love on their children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How lucky some of us would feel to have the problem of a loving childless sister who wants to be involved in our kids' lives....

No kidding. This sounds great actually.

Maybe becasue OP gives no specific examples of how "bad" sister supposedly is.

[Anonymous]

Maybe she actually doesn’t want kids and just loves being an aunt. Maybe she isn’t trying to live through you at all but just wanted to enjoy your family since she loves you. I suppose you need to tell her to back off and that you don’t want her around that much. Hopefully your sister friendship can survive this.

[Anonymous]

Consider yourself lucky. My sister met a man who has isolated her from her family; she married and has a child and decided her new spouse's family is better than us and cut us all off.

Be grateful she wants to be involved with your kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are so judgmental. How is it the easy way out for her to accept, with what must be sadness and maturity, that she is going to be stepping away from creating her own nuclear family? I can't imagine my sister feeling the way you do.

She’s taken it to the extreme. My kids should not be her plan. I’ve watched this go down for the last 20 years. She’s been”accepting” is since college. Her situation is not an accident.

OP, she may have emotional problems. My sister who did started going off the deep end did so after 40. Youth was over and she hadn’t made anything of her life, lots of failures. I think she just couldn’t cope, and also I think she had always had psychological problems, but they became more obvious at that age. She ended up retreating and hiding from people. Some people are not very resilient and have a hard time in life. They don’t have the same inner resources as the rest of us. This is why she’s close to your parents. Think about it, this is her family. This is all she has. There have probably been signs that she may not be able to establish her independence for a long time and she’s always expected you to be her sort-of mate. My sister did this and I had to move on. Your parents know that she doesn’t have many options and are sympathetic to her. It’s possible she’ll meet someone, but if she’s like my sister, she’ll sabotage it. You will be dealing with this for a long time, so I would get help for it.

[Anonymous]

If your sister is willing to do boring things like watch swim meets with your mom, let her. I assume eventually she might get bored. Maybe your mom likes company while they do the boring waiting for your kids' few minutes of race time. Obviously your SILS have other things to do. Perhaps their own swim meets to go to.

I agree with the posters who say you can benefit more by having her take the children places while you do things with your husband. Maybe even a couples vacation?

I prefer active, interested family members vs. the ones who never go out of their way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly OP, without more details, you don't sound very kind.

Your parents bring her along when they visit? Why not?

I do not think it’s healthy for her to put all of her eggs in one basket at her age. Maybe because if I were in her shoes, I would not be doing what she does. She’s attached at the hip to our parents, she blew off dates with interesting me , she gave up on grad school and other things that would have enriched her life, and she turned down job offers that would have helped her grow as a person.

My parents want me to take responsibility for her feelings and happiness. But how much of it really is my and my DH’s responsibility? Yes, she absolutely should come over for holidays. But does she have to be invited every time my retired parents come to watch one of our kids at a swim meet, let’s say.

Does she have a really negative personality or is she a terrible role model for children (other than her great sins of being single and wanting to spend time with family). If not, I do not understand why you are pissed off that she wants to attend your children’s sporting events.

You are very judgmental of her choices but you need to let it go. Maybe she regrets her own choices and is covering up her pain. But either way, you have the upper hand and superior lifestyle and can afford to be a little gracious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are so judgmental. How is it the easy way out for her to accept, with what must be sadness and maturity, that she is going to be stepping away from creating her own nuclear family? I can't imagine my sister feeling the way you do.

She’s taken it to the extreme. My kids should not be her plan. I’ve watched this go down for the last 20 years. She’s been”accepting” is since college. Her situation is not an accident.

OP, she may have emotional problems. My sister who did started going off the deep end did so after 40. Youth was over and she hadn’t made anything of her life, lots of failures. I think she just couldn’t cope, and also I think she had always had psychological problems, but they became more obvious at that age. She ended up retreating and hiding from people. Some people are not very resilient and have a hard time in life. They don’t have the same inner resources as the rest of us. This is why she’s close to your parents. Think about it, this is her family. This is all she has. There have probably been signs that she may not be able to establish her independence for a long time and she’s always expected you to be her sort-of mate. My sister did this and I had to move on. Your parents know that she doesn’t have many options and are sympathetic to her. It’s possible she’ll meet someone, but if she’s like my sister, she’ll sabotage it. You will be dealing with this for a long time, so I would get help for it.

OP here. Yes, I do think this is part of the problem. I do also blame our parents for encouraging a lot of this behavior. They convinced her not to take a transfer to a new city out west years ago. It was all about them, not her. Instead she continued staying in the same place stewing over the one boyfriend she had who moved away (and they convinced her not to leave with him).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are so judgmental. How is it the easy way out for her to accept, with what must be sadness and maturity, that she is going to be stepping away from creating her own nuclear family? I can't imagine my sister feeling the way you do.

She’s taken it to the extreme. My kids should not be her plan. I’ve watched this go down for the last 20 years. She’s been”accepting” is since college. Her situation is not an accident.

OP, she may have emotional problems. My sister who did started going off the deep end did so after 40. Youth was over and she hadn’t made anything of her life, lots of failures. I think she just couldn’t cope, and also I think she had always had psychological problems, but they became more obvious at that age. She ended up retreating and hiding from people. Some people are not very resilient and have a hard time in life. They don’t have the same inner resources as the rest of us. This is why she’s close to your parents. Think about it, this is her family. This is all she has. There have probably been signs that she may not be able to establish her independence for a long time and she’s always expected you to be her sort-of mate. My sister did this and I had to move on. Your parents know that she doesn’t have many options and are sympathetic to her. It’s possible she’ll meet someone, but if she’s like my sister, she’ll sabotage it. You will be dealing with this for a long time, so I would get help for it.

What does that mean? You cut your sister out of your life, because she was unmarried and lonely?

[Anonymous]

OP - I understand you completely. I have the same issue with my SIL. Attractive, well educated, and good jobs but has never had a boyfriend at the age of 45. I love that she wants to be close to my kids but she oversteps boundaries all the time and her expectations of us are way too high. She expects that we are taking her and MIL on vacation with us every summer (and paying for lodging, car, food, and most activities). She is upset with us because we told her we were planning a family trip by ourselves this summer. It’s really bizarre. Both MIL and SIL are single and are overly reliant on us to meet their emotional needs. It is stressful and caused a lot of conflict because they make plans or have assumptions and expectations about how we should spend our time and money with them without being invited or asking if it is something we want. Last year, MIL invited SIL to stay at our house for over a week for my son’s birthday and didn’t tell us. They couldn’t understand why we were upset about her surprise visit. The only advice I have is to firmly set boundaries. It’s hard but I’m finally doing it.

[Anonymous]

You describe her in your initial post as successful, independent, but then later on describe her as attached by the hip to your parents with no life of her own. So that’s confusing.

I’m having trouble understanding how this concrete affects your life in a negative way. Attendance at a swim meet wouldn’t bother me.

How do your kids feel about her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You describe her in your initial post as successful, independent, but then later on describe her as attached by the hip to your parents with no life of her own. So that’s confusing.

I’m having trouble understanding how this concrete affects your life in a negative way. Attendance at a swim meet wouldn’t bother me.

How do your kids feel about her?

They used to be enthusiastic about seeing her but now she’s a fixture to them they're so used to they say hi to and then disappear into their rooms to do homework or call friends.

She’s successful in that she has a lot of resources but our parents step in with her too much and she welcomes it. Sometimes, I see it like this—imagine someone who has plenty of job offers that would pay enough to afford a great apartment but opts to stay in mom and dad’s basement because it’s so cozy and mom and dad just adore the company.

[Anonymous]

My spidey sense says that OP is still in the grips of sibling rivalry. She wants all of Mom and Dad‘s attention and is mad when (pretty, financially successful) sister is there, because Mom and Dad are not completely focusing on her and her kids. I mean she deserves it, right? Because she did things the right way, caught a man, got married, and had kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spidey sense says that OP is still in the grips of sibling rivalry. She wants all of Mom and Dad‘s attention and is mad when (pretty, financially successful) sister is there, because Mom and Dad are not completely focusing on her and her kids. I mean she deserves it, right? Because she did things the right way, caught a man, got married, and had kids?

OP here. Oh lord, no way. I moved a plane trip away from them to keep my sanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You describe her in your initial post as successful, independent, but then later on describe her as attached by the hip to your parents with no life of her own. So that’s confusing.

I’m having trouble understanding how this concrete affects your life in a negative way. Attendance at a swim meet wouldn’t bother me.

How do your kids feel about her?

They used to be enthusiastic about seeing her but now she’s a fixture to them they're so used to they say hi to and then disappear into their rooms to do homework or call friends.

She’s successful in that she has a lot of resources but our parents step in with her too much and she welcomes it. Sometimes, I see it like this—imagine someone who has plenty of job offers that would pay enough to afford a great apartment but opts to stay in mom and dad’s basement because it’s so cozy and mom and dad just adore the company.

So is she like often over at your house on a Tuesday after school? Cause yes, that would be weird and would become unwelcome if a regular thing.