Reply to Try to play peacemaker, or run and hide? Sisters battling!

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[quote=Anonymous]Stay out of it for sure.  My sisters are currently not speaking. I feel like I'm the sister, not the parent and that ship sailed long ago on things like manners and courtesy. If someone has not learned that no, your don't say whatever hurtful thing you are thinking because of jealousy, envy,moodiness etc, nothing I will say is going to change that.  Eventually they will lose friends, lose jobs, have trouble in relationships until they learn how to regulate their emotions to an acceptable degree either on their own or with the help of a medical professional. Either they will decide to change, or they will continue to see it being everyone's fault but their own.  In either case you can't change people that don't want to change.

[u]So, I always emphasize when brought into these things that you can't change people, you can only control your response and how you react.[/u]  I will say therapy can help you navigate for example how to respond when your emotionally volatile sister does XYZ.  There is probably that response that doesn't enable the behavior and still makes you feel like you have kept boundaries while not pouring gas on a flame, but honestly I can't tell you what that response would be. I will tell the person that feels that they were "wronged" that they may never get an apology or change in behavior from sibling, they can only look to be at peace for themselves and get guidance on how to not let things impact their other relationships like being able to attend a family event with the volatile personality. If the person is religious, the answer may be to pray and reflect or work with someone in their church.

Probably everyone in the squabble feels "wronged" so some variation of the response above would work for everyone.  Your sister that commented on the gift card probably felt "wronged" that dad was playing favorites and has some resentment that the otheir sister gets all these things/help but does little to help herself.  Your other sister was actually verbally attacked in text and her response was to blow up the battleship, it didn't solve the problem and may have made thing worse.   The dad may have actually been playing favorites/enabling the youngest and that is his choice, but when it causes sibling discontent/rivalry he has to reflect how he wants to handle things, maybe you don't send group emails unless you are making things equal but whatever his choice he has to own it and understand the consequences.  I won't tell anyone this is what you did wrong or say I think this is why the other person said or did Xyz because I don't know, only the person that did the action knows and maybe it was a subconscious reason why.  I just used my best guess above to show that everyone was probably wronged and wronged someone else.  You can't fix the other person but can look inward at how to do things differently even if it is in your response to crazy and foolishness. If directly asked/complained to, you encourage people to look inward and at their response and what will bring them peace, either they will think about it and look inward or no longer complain to you because you won't blindly agree it's the other person's fault.  Either way, win/win.

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