I dont really know where to start with this, but i’ll give it a shot. My wife and I used to hang out with her sister and husband all of the time. The four of us used to be great friends, They got married before we did. Once we got married, they changed 100%. We got a house and they would rarely come and visit. Then my wife was pregnant, and here sister would never call her to ask her how she is feeling etc… would take 2 days to return phone calls and just changed 100%. Then once we had our baby, they got pregnant and my wife (being the older sister by 2 yrs), would be nice and call and see how shes doing etc… When they had their baby, they did EVERYTHING 100% opposite of what we did. If we bought stroller A, they would make sure they bought a "better" stroller. If we put our daughter in swimming, they said that didnt want to because kids arent really learning to swim at that age. My wife took my daughter to "mommy and me" music classes, but her sister said that the mommy and me classes are only for the parents pleasure and not the kids. We let our daughter watch sesame street or barney sometimes while she had her bottle, but when they had their kid, they would not let her anywhere near a TV. In fact lastyear for my wifes birthday, they came over and later told us that I was being sneaky because I was watching hockey and that I knew their daughter isnt aloud to watch TV and I left the hockey game on.. In my own house. I guess what i’m trying to say here is that they would inderectly cut up everything that we did. without coming out and saying it. To top it off, they live directly across the street from us. We invite them over when we have get togethers with friends, and they always come, but when it’s reversed, they do not invite us. In fact, we could be talking to them earlier in the day and ask them what they’re up to later, to which they reply "not much", and then later we see they’re having a party. It is alot of little things, but it is a problem. Especially since we are all very close. I have been unlucky enough to be the one over the past year to try and fix the situation. I arranged a get together last easter where we tried to just put the past behind us, and move forward. One of the issues my wife had was that she has always offered to help with anything as far as giving them baby toys, infant clothing etc.. but we notice that their daughter never wears anything that we have given them. So my wife brought that up. This was the point that I really realized her sister had a problem. Her sister stated that "she is not jealous of us and only wants the best for us, however as far as accepting our help, she said that she thinks accepting someones help is a sign of weakness and that’s the reason why she never asks for my wifes advice or help with anything", and then in the next sentence she states "but we will help you guys if you need it". Funny thing about this whole situation is that their parents have helped us all out eith our houses. We must all be very weak people !! lol.
Just this past week at Xmas at her parents house, my wife and I gave her parents a gift to which they were very happy, buy my wifes sister just sat there and had no response. she gets very quiet when anyone else does something nice. She then later told her parents that she has a gift for them, but didnt want to give it un front of everyone. My wife is pretty sure that they dont have one and were just waiting to see what we gave so they can now go buy something "better". We had our basement finished a few months ago. Everyone that would come over would make a comment about it, where as her sister would just come over and almost pretend that it’s nothign new and would barely acknowledge it.
These are only a few of the issues, and arent even the worst examples. Personally, I deal with it by tuning her out most of the time, but for my wife it’s harder because it’s her sister. and it hurts her because she hears of so many people that have sisters that would do anything for eachother, where as her sister will do anything in order to be opposite or compete against us.
Does anyone else have these issues?
And for the record, we have had many talks with them, and they will never admit that they compete with us or that their is a problem, but everyone in the family can see it.
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