Reply to Books for coping with adult sibling rivalry/unequal parental treatment etc.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. I am happily married with 2 great kids. And yes, I feel like the slighted sibling.

In a nutshell my (married) sister is extremely needy and dependent and always has been. My parents bend over backwards to help her out/coddle her, etc. My sister and my mother both are extremely melodramatic and there is always some major drama in my sister's life requiring my mom to drop everything and help her out.

I've always been more independent, and DH and I have a good life, marriage, etc. so I think my parents just think they don't need to "worry" about me, and focus all of their energy/efforts on her.

I've tried talking with them several times VERY CANDIDLY about how this really hurts my feelings and they always vehemently deny that its true, and usually my mom ends up crying and I end up feeling like a douche. So I don't want to discuss it with them any more, I just want to figure out how to cope with it on my own without wanting to explode with frustration.[/quote]

NP here, OP I totally get where you're at.  Both DH and I have struggled our entire lives as the "second kid" (in attention, not age).  It's not a married/single, daughter/son, money/no money thing... it's a combination of two totally different family dynamics, which oddly enough have left both of us feeling like "I come second" which equals "our family comes second" now.

I only have two tidbits of advice.  One, try to be grateful to somtimes fly under the radar.  Sometimes it IS nice to be left alone to do your own thing and we constantly try to remind each other of this.  Secondly, try to accept the family dynamic as it is, and find a way around it.  Ie, IL's are never going to change, we are always going to be #2 in their eyes.  So we have formed closer relationships with other friends and family members.  The nice part about this is, we got to pick who those people were  :lol:[/quote]

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