Sibling Rivalry...How Does It Start To Begin With? Chapter 1

Discussion in 'Family & Relationships' started by Michelle Keiser, Apr 18, 2015.

  1. Michelle Keiser

    Michelle Keiser Veteran Member
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    Have you ever been told that you were just jealous over one of your siblings? That you were making less with your life than that sibling? That you have nothing and you never will, that your married to someone who has nothing! Have you ever been called fat by your mother? Have you ever been made to feel like your not important to your mother or father or both! This is a story of how I feel....I am really new to writing so please excuse any mistakes I might make. I decided after today that I need to get this down on paper and that maybe it would help me understand it if just one person knows how I feel inside.

    Please speak out and give me your opinion on any of this, your opinion could be one that makes me finally realize what all of this is about. I do know that I am tired of thinking about this, and tired of my mother making me feel that I am not worthy of her. I just want to spend the rest of my days on this earth as happy as possible. I want to make those around me happy. I want to feel good about me, about what I am , and what I do. I am so hoping to find some answers here...it is that important to me. I will write this in chapters because it will be long, trust me, this isn't an easy one to figure out, I am 53 years old and I haven't yet. Thank you in advance for taking the time needed to read this...

    I am not sure where to begin. Where the problem started is not any easy question because I honestly am not sure when all of the madness you are about to read came into my life. The feelings that are within me feel like they have been there for an eternity. Some days these feelings are stronger than other days but none the less are there either showing themselves are laying dominant. I try to think back as to when I was a child and I have to say that I cannot really recall much before the age of 9 or 10.

    That is when tragedy struck my family like a ton of bricks. My oldest sister was born with a heart condition. Back then, there were so many things that they couldn't fix and her condition was exactly that. She was considered a "blue baby". I only know of all of this by either my parents talking about it or later in my life discussing it with my Mother. Point is, she was suppose to not see 1 year of age and she lived for 15 years. Her heart must have been strong to endure all that she did and I think it just came to be that her heart could not handle it anymore. I remember vividly the night she passed away. I was 10 years old. My next to the oldest sister and my youngest sister were all sleeping in a double sized bed and my father walked into the room and woke us and told us that our sister was in heaven.

    I remember us crying, I remember my parents walking around totally out of it for what seemed like a long time, and I remember the funeral, walking behind the casket in an old Catholic Church not far from where I live today. I was crying and felt like the whole world was looking at me, at my family, walking behind a casket with my oldest sister in it. It was horrible. I still see the images of this today. Immediately after the funeral a bunch of people from friends to family gathered at our home. I remember all of the food! The mood was loving, my parents were moving about but paralyzed with grief. The one thing that seemed to lighten the mood was my baby brother.

    Oh, I didn't mention him yet, so sorry, along with having a younger and older sister, I also have a baby brother who at the time of my sisters death was nearly a year old. He was the only boy. He was the last baby my mother ever had. He was cute as a button and everyone adored him. My sisters and I also adored him but I think even back then could sense that my parents treated him differently than they did us. After my sister died both my parents thought that God took their daughter away but gave them my brother in her place.

    The years go by so fast. You go to bed one night on your 18th birthday and wake up and look in the mirror to a withered face and grey hair. Well, it might not be that bad but I do claim every grey hair on my head...be it from stress, kids, PARENTS! All the same the years go by so fast and you really don't even realize that until your about my age now....then you sit back and wonder where all the time went...why you did this or that.....sometimes I feel so empty inside that I don't know what to do next but sit and stare out our picture window. My parents, what a treat they are.

    My brother ...he really is a sweet guy.
     
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    Last edited: Apr 19, 2015
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  2. Michelle Keiser

    Michelle Keiser Veteran Member
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    I love my brother unconditionally but am told from my mother that I hate him! I really dislike it when she says that and she probably has even told my brother that. My sisters no longer live near us. One moved to Florida, the other Alaska. The sad part is I don't think they ever care to come back here again because of how us girls have been treated. My mom married at 18 years of age. She gave birth to my oldest sister 7 months later and took home a baby that she thought was in perfect health.

    The first night home my sister turned blue. They rushed her to the hospital and then the nightmare began, their first born had so many problems I am sure their heads were spinning with questions. A couple years after that my 2nd oldest sister was born with a club foot. I think I would have thrown in the towel after that but the next baby to be born was ME! I didn't have any problems. Then another little girl was born roughly 2 years later...my baby sister. She was born with no issues. Nine years after that birth my mother gave birth to our "baby brother". They never figured they would have a son so it was a blessed day when my brother popped out! It was nearly a year later when my oldest sister died. Life changed for everyone that very moment.

    My sisters and I all married young. My brother was pretty spoiled us girls always being told because he was the only boy, or we were married and our husbands were suppose to take care of us now. There was always a reason why our brother was treated like royalty. He never wanted for anything...it was always a given. His own car, property was given to him to build a house on someday...credit card debt was paid when he ran up a bunch of them, they always had the reason for helping him be because he was the only boy and of course we had to hear how are husbands needed to take care of us.

    There are times that I wonder if I were treated so well when I was growing up would I have stayed home and went to college and not get married at 18 years old. I was just a baby when I got married. I think that I look back to often, and tend to compare what my brother received versus what us girls received throughout growing up...there really is no comparing...us girls didn't get the luxuries that my brother was blessed with...it is that simple. I have heard every excuse as to why this happened....we have more money now that you girls aren't living here, or he's the only boy that is how it works, etc....the big kicker was 3 years ago when my father died.

    My father made my mother promise to give my brother his pole barn and everything in it. This included a $30k tractor with attachments, a lund fishing boat and trailer, a nice pick-up truck with plow, a motorcycle, and various tools that men collect in their garages. Also yet another chunk of property was given to him as well. When my mother told us girls that she was doing this I was in shock. It made me feel so small, like my father stabbed me in the heart a million times over. What did I actually mean to this man?

    Well of course I made a few comments on the fairness of it all and was told that I was just jealous and all I was thinking about was the money part of it....that I was being selfish, never once did my mother make me feel that I was just being normal.....was I being normal to feel this way? or was I being jealous? I don't feel I was...I just felt hurt that my father didn't think I was worthy of anything he had. The story goes where my father gave the property that he built his home on for nothing. Us girls were told that it was because it was to stay in our family name. My parents sold their home of where they raised all of us kids and moved out next to my brother on the next lot over from my brothers property.

    My father had a 2 bedroom home built, pole barn. The shared a driveway...instead of putting in a separate driveway my dad decided to just use my brothers and veer off from that on to his property. So the pole barn was also given to my brother and the property is suppose to be split where the pole barn property goes on to my brothers property....this hasn't happen yet....and I am not sure why outside of the fact that I was the executor of my parents will until my father died, now my brother is....my mother was told by my father to change it, so she did. Again, I am not trying to sound greedy but why couldn't he just been added on. Why did my dad take me off? Now that my brother is holding the key to everything is that why he is in no big hurry to get the property separated that his "inherited from my father" pole barn sits on? The day my father died I was not even allowed to go to the funeral home with my mother...that was yet another thing that hurt me deeply....I know I am jumping all around here...but things come into my head that I feel I have to put down or I might forget, no I will take that back, I don't forget, there is just so much I have to say that I write it as I think of it....so I hope I don't get anyone confused. This is complex.

    My father worked very hard all of his life. Before he died however he confessed to my mother that he was unfaithful to her. The thing is she already knew that but never actually caught him in the act. From the time she was 19 years old, after having my oldest sister, my dad cheated on her with various women. She knew it...and she stayed. She has told me on numerous occasions that she never loved my father from the day she found out he cheated. She stayed but was always on the prowl to see if she could catch him. They both drank. They fought. Us kids lived it and all of us have problem marriages. All three of us girls have all been divorced. My brother is the only one that has stayed married but they have problems...they both drink and I know they fight because if you drink most likely there are arguments that come up. I myself use to drink but no longer do. I seen the light and what it was doing to my relationship.

    My point being, my mother use to treat my father horrible because she knew what he did. She would call him names, and the list goes on and on. They had a lousy marriage but stayed together. So back to my brother..he walks around like he owns everything out to my mothers. My mother acts like she can't do anything without consulting him first. It pisses me off actually...sorry for the french....but I don't understand why she can't just be her own self. My mother has a few bucks in Edward Jones and supposedly all of us are on that if anything should happen to her, which her health is not the greatest. I really haven't seen anything that says that....just been told that...so it probably is a total lie.

    Now that my mother has all of these health issues I have to take her everywhere because she was so used to my father taking her everywhere that she gets to nervous driving. I do my part in helping her....but it usually isn't enough for her. I ask her to come up for dinner or go out for dinner and she always has an excuse not to go but yet she will tell me that I don't spend any time with her doing "fun" things...she is so bitter about what my father did to her and I strongly believe she takes it out on us girls. I have told her that she is the one that put up with it, us girls had nothing to do with it. It is almost like she wants us to be unhappy...that she don't want us to be successful.

    Like at Christmas time, the only people she will buy anything for are my brothers 3 kids...and then she will tell me she don't have money to buy her other grandkids anything. I don't understand that behavior either...I guess the other grandkids are just not important to her....she could careless if she even sees them. My mother worries about her hair and that it's not out of place than worry about her daughters...she continues to say how us girls are losers, that we are just jealous....it really is hard for me to be around her on days that she is like this. I would rather not have a mother than to be made to feel like I am no one....and it's not like I can talk to her about my feelings because she always makes it about my brother...and how us girls hate him....This is getting off track....there is so much to say... con't
     
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  3. Mal Campbell

    Mal Campbell Supreme Member
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    At @Michelle Keiser, I can certainly sympathize with you. First, let me say, that I'm so sorry you have gone through this and are having such a tough time now. No one deserves to have these issues. I, too, have sibling problems and ever bigger parent problems. I'll reply to your first post now, and the second later.

    I'm the youngest, and I always knew that I was unwanted. I am 54, so born before birth control. I'm convinced that had the pill been available in 1961, I wouldn't have been born. I have an older sister, who is 8 years older, and had an older brother, 5 year older. By the time I came along, my brother was in school, so my Mom thought she would be done with babies, but now had to start all over with diapers and bottles.

    Anyway, my sister was my father's favorite and could do no wrong in his eyes, and my brother was mom's favorite. I was odd man out, so to speak. Because my siblings were so much older than me, then didn't want anything to do with me, growing up. However, as adults, we got along fairly well, for a time.

    As she got older, my sister and mother became best friends. After she moved out and got married, she would come to the house every Friday night and stay all week-end. They were like two high school BFFs. They would go shopping, play cards, and generally just hang out, laughing and having fun - I wasn't included. My father and I never got along, we couldn't stay in the same room for more than 5 minutes without fighting. Nothing I did was good enough.

    This caused a lot of frustration on my part. And a tremendous loss of self-esteem. I mean, what was so wrong with me that my own parents couldn't love me and didn't want me. Add into this, we moved when I was 13 and I never really made friends in high school, and was subjected to bullying.

    Needless to say, it's taken years of therapy and an enormous amount of self-reflection to realize - it had nothing to do with me. This was their problem, not mine. There was nothing wrong with me. They were in a bad marriage, they never really wanted kids, they both came from broken, dysfunctional families, so they didn't know how to be kind and loving.

    The insight does have a silver lining though - because of all I went through, and all the bad feelings I grew up with - I was a much better mother to my son. I knew that, if nothing else, he would grow up knowing that he was wanted and loved. That he was special and meant the world to me. And he does know that - he's happy and well adjusted. I asked him one time when he was in his late teens, "You know I love you, right?" He looked at me like I had grown two heads - the question was so foreign to him, the concept that his mother didn't love him had never occurred to him. I knew then that I had done alright!! :D

    More later.
     
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  4. Michelle Keiser

    Michelle Keiser Veteran Member
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    Wow that second part of my writing sure went into many directions....I feel like a bomb ticking at times...that I am ready to explode....and I can see that in my second part of this post. I jump all over and probably am confusing the heck out of those that read it. I will try to be better and not skip all over the place. There is so many different avenues it is hard to stick to one...most likely because they all connect. I must have been filled with a lot of different emotions when I wrote that second part there...because when I read it again, I thought "Holy cow, did I ever jump from one thing to another!!!" Again, I will try to not be so confusing.

    I think with what I have already wrote I was trying to express some of what I believe lead up to my mother being who she is today. She is not a happy person. Since my father has died she has had one thing after the other wrong with her medically. It seriously has been non-stop. I take her in to see her doctor for one thing and we get that taken care of and the next week it is on to something else. My mother has a lot of health issues as said prior. She had open heart surgery 16 years ago. They replaced her aorta in her chest and did a single by-pass. My mother use to smoke. She now has been told that she has COPD. She is also over weight, and her left knee is as she says, "Bone on bone" but because of other issues they have not discussed doing a replacement yet. Now the last thing that came up is her legs swell very badly from the knees down. The right leg is normal swelling to some degree because when they did the single by-pass surgery they took the vein from that leg and the doctor told her at that time that she will have swelling in that leg because of that reason. However, both legs are swelling really bad so we seen a specialist and he said they could go in and eliminate veins, or something like that, however she has to wear the compression socks for 3 months before her insurance will pay for this type of procedure. Also he did a blood test to see is she was having congestive heart failure. After I got her home the day she had that blood test they called after I dropped her off and said that she was having "mild" heart failure. I have never heard of such a thing and questioned her about it and she said well that is what they told me. I think she is holding something back but until I see that doctor again I will just have to play along with her story. They called that soon for a reason, and I doubt it was to say she has mild heart failure...either you have it or you don't right??? Meanwhile she has moved on to her ears and now she says she needs to have her hearing tested so I guess that is my next adventure with her. Where am I going with this....so anyway my mother and father both had my brother so high on a pedestal that if he were to fall he would surely die! He could do no wrong in their eyes and when he did, they would shrug it off or cover it up making him look innocent. So, on my father's dying bed he makes my mother promise to give my brother more property and the pole barn full of stuff...expensive stuff that I would probably never have the luxury of having and he wouldn't either if it wasn't handed to him. I am not jealous over that, as I said, I felt more hurt that my father didn't look at any of us girls as if we were worthy of it. And why that surprises me I am not sure because once one of your parents if not both tell you that your never going to amount to shit, and yes, those were the words, you start to believe that...and my parents did that to all 3 of us girls. I know it is horrible to say, and I just don't get it, they have never talked that way to my brother, he has never seen that side of our parents as us 3 girls has seen. My mother will say mean and nasty things to me to hurt me and yet turn around and feel like she is the victim. I have always respected my parents. I am not saying they have NEVER done anything for me, they have, but there were always conditions attached to whatever it was they helped me with at the time. I have never had my parents do anything for me that wasn't thrown back into my face afterwards. It was never because they loved me unconditionally. I promised myself I would never be like either one of them to my children and I haven't been and I will never be like my mother...never.

    So here I sit, my father is gone, he left this world telling my mother things that made her hate him worse than she already had, yet she will tell you that she loved him. My mother is letting her health go down the tubes and blaming everyone else for it. She dangles her will and what she has over my head and uses it to upset me whenever she feels the need to be mean which is usually 2-3 times a month. I end up walking out of her house and feeling like someone just beat the hell out of me. She continues to tell my brother that "us girls" are just jealous of him and that we hate him. I try to make sure I tell my brother in every text message or when I am on the phone with him, that I love him, but to be honest he probably don't believe that because of what my mother has said to him. It is just so messed up. I am not sitting back waiting for my mother to die, which she has told me that I am. I would rather have a happy mother who wants to enjoy the rest of her years on the earth. To be a good grandmother, great grandmother, but she can't see beyond my brothers family. When you spend $200 dollars on my brothers kids for Christmas each and then tell me you don't have the money to buy your other grandkids gifts there is something wrong! I have come to some reasoning with that however. My mother is the one missing out when it comes to her other grandkids. She has made them feel that they are not important so they don't even bother to go around her anymore. When they do, she always thinks they are up to something, that they want money or whatever....it upsets me so bad....I just tell my kids to stay away from her...call her on her birthday, those special holidays, and then forget it...it isn't like she puts herself out there for them. It's on her, if she don't want to know who they are then the hell with her is what I say. They have me, and that is more important to me than any of this other crap.

    There have been moments that I want to get in my car and drive as far away from here as I can go...I totally understand my 2 sisters doing that very thing. Why should they stay here just to be beat up by her? They shouldn't so I give them points for getting away from it all. I have just wanted to stop being around her at all...but my heart won't let me do that. I do love her, but I don't understand her at all. I don't care what she does with her belongings, seriously I don't. The excuse "he's the only boy" thing don't hold water for me...he is no different from me, he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else does. I wish my mother would wake up one morning and realize what she has done to us girls but it will never happen. You would think a mother would want her daughters to be happy but she don't. She wants us to be miserable like she is...but I have news for her...I will not be like her...at all.
     
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  5. Michelle Keiser

    Michelle Keiser Veteran Member
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    My parents seemed to claim us girls when others were watching but when we needed them most they would turn their backs on us. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard "Well if you would have done things this way" or "I told you so"....after something is done and it is a problem you need to fix it not be told you should have done it a different way, that don't fix it. My parents refused to help me once when I was on the verge of losing my home. My ex husband and I got in over our heads and had no where to turn. Sure it was stupid and we should have known better but the problem was still there and we needed to refinance our home to get back on track. I went to my parents and asked if they would co-sign for us. My ex husband was a hard worker and we just needed help getting things consolidated. Of course we were told no, that they would not do it. A couple years later my brother went to build his home on the property they gave him and he was in credit card debt, over $30k, and the bank said he was over extended, they wouldn't borrow him any money, so my parents paid off his credit card debt. It didn't come out that they had done this for another year or so and my brothers drunken wife slipped and told my oldest sister. Of course us girls were upset but we were just told that we were jealous and basically to suck it up. I just feel that if you are going to help your children then your heart should be open to all of them, not just one of them. I am so sorry that you had to grow up that way...I do know the pain it causes. I don't give a damn about my mothers money yet she makes it out that it is all I care about. I just want to feel that she loves me the same as she loves my brother...and I don't get that from her at all and I probably never will. I also am a better parent because of what I went through growing up. I promised myself that all of my children would always feel loved by me the same, and I have 4 kids and they are all equally important to me and I make sure they know that.
     
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  6. Michelle Keiser

    Michelle Keiser Veteran Member
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    Another little thing that has been really bothering me....so I might as well get it off my chest...after my father died my husband and I came across a golf cart that was given to us. Instead of keeping it for ourselves we decided to give it to my mother as a gift from us. It was a used golf cart but in good shape. I never gave it any thought that she wouldn't actually use it. I thought it would be a neat way for her to go check her mail, go up to my brothers house, he lives up the hill from her and it was hard for her to walk up there due to her COPD. We took it out there and she was thrilled. Well it wasn't even a week and my brother and his children were riding it all over and it is parked up in his yard most of the time. I got into with her about it and told her that we gave that to her, not my brother and his family, and she defended it by saying that she couldn't very well tell them they couldn't drive it because she had to live next door to them and didn't want to "piss" them off. The thing that upset me was the man that gave it to us knew we were going to give it to my mother. I think that is why he actually gave it to us.

    My mother never once even thanked up for it nor did she even think to thank the man who gave it to us. It was like a given to her...like she had it coming. Then she turns around and maybe has drove it a dozen times if that. So now the golf cart is starting to fall apart slowly because my brother and his kids are treating it like a go-cart instead of a golf cart. They hit bumps and race it around as fast as it can go. My mother told me it was a piece of shit the other day on the phone and it hurt my feelings....it was a nice golf cart when she got it, she has allowed my brother and his kids to make it fall apart.

    After my father died he had a car that my mother gave to me. I was at that time never going to get rid of the car because it belonged to my father. It was an older thunderbird. Well all of a sudden instead of her given that to me she said you know, I think we will call that a trade. The golf cart for the car. Now here I sit thinking how does one take a present and turn it into a trade because I was upset that she allowed my brothers family to run rapid with it. Who does that? My mother took a gift that I gave her and made it a trade for my fathers car......that is just insane to me. Am I wrong in thinking that way?

    Why would a mother do that to her daughter? Just so she can justify letting her son take over the golf cart? I will never do anything nice like that for her again. I am so upset right now because now she is going to "buy" a different golf cart and fix that one up for my brother's kids to use....and the one she buys really isn't for her, it's for my brother...just a way to buy him something of that nature and justify it....do I think she would do that for me or either of my sisters? Hell no....she wouldn't. I just wish I didn't have to be part of this family at times...I just wish I could walk away from it all and not look back.
     
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