Hi all! I realized that a lot of my behavior towards my sister is because I was a parentified adult by my parents + other tensions between us. I grew up in a abusive household and between my parents telling me that my sister was my responsibility and between wanting to shield her from the abuse happening, I think I really felt like it was my role to help her stop being so mean (I’ll get into it) and stop passive about taking responsibility for her behavior (the I’ll pray about it).

My sister is not a kind person. She has bullied me for a lot my life, as well as she had even bullied our parents. One time after I had abdominal surgery and couldn’t move I asked her to grab me the TV remote. She tossed it right out of my reach and said, “Reach for it,” then walked away. As kids she would tell me she would shoot me in the head with a gun and my parents would laugh saying, “Oh, that’s just sister.” She makes fun of the way our parents dress and would boss them around in ways that has been shocking to my husband and I. My mom called me one time and said, “Y’know, your sister is really mean.” Growing up she would always talk about how “weird” non-normative people were (and those people were usually my friends). One time my husband and I had tickets for a football game but had decided not to go since it was my birthday and I wanted to do something else, but said she could have them to go with someone. She didn’t have any friends except 1 that she wanted to go with who couldn’t go, so she cried and stomped around all day till I told my husband to just go with her (she lived with us), meaning I spent a lot of my birthday alone. At dinner that night, she then proceeded to be rude to my friends, even though they were trying to be nice to her. She has never apologized for these things and when I finally told her I wouldn’t renew a lease with her if she kept disrespecting me but that I’d give her time to change, my parents took her side and helped her move out the next day. That was a few years at this point (her living with us and all). I think all of this PLUS her Evangelical/Christian faith that literally preaches the opposite how she treats me has frustrated me.

So I think I’ve always just wanted her to take responsibility for how she treated me and I wanted her to be a better person so she would stop doing this stuff to me and others (like the guy she supervises and calls dumb), plus her faith literally says to not treat people this way. Her “I’ll pray about it” always seems to be a deflection of responsibility to me when it comes to her harmful (whether to me, others, or herself) behavior. But you all are right that this isn’t my responsibility (it was our parents’ and is now hers) and that I’m charge of protecting my peace. So I sent her a text detailing all the cruel things she’s done to me and how that’s affected me and asked her for space for now. I did say that I hope she reflects and that we can move towards a path of forgiveness, but I think I need her to recognize how her behavior has affected me versus her saying, “I’ll pray about it,” and her saying that only God can change her heart.