Sister age 61, on fourth (and finally succesful) marriage, no kids of her own. I’m three years younger, four kids. She is overly dependent on them for happiness and is trying to fill role of our mother (grandmother of kids) who passed a few years ago. I could go on and on, but how to deal with her guilting them into coming to every significant and mundane family event. They always come around for the biggies (Thanksgiving,etc). And how do I tell her to STOP telling my kids that they are going to have to take care or her when she’s old? I absolutely DO NOT want to EVER be a burden to my kids and they shouldn’t hear it from her.
Reported for forum change.
The best way to deal with people like that is, don’t. Limit your interactions and don’t try to lecture a 61 year old woman what to say and not say.
Just tell your kids not to believe what she tells them about that subject. Your kids will hear conflicting things from different people all their life and they need to learn who to trust, which hopefully is you.
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This is more of an advice and opinion thing than a factual question.
Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.
It depends on how old your kids are. If they are adults, you can let them know your opinion and then they get to decide how to act. If they are children, you will probably have to steer a compromise course which takes into account your own needs, your sister’s needs, and your children’s needs. Your sister is your family too – and your children’s family. But, your kids come first.
It’s up to your kids and your sister what kind of relationship they will have, unless these kids are actually young children that need protection, like at least under twelve. You can tell her you don’t like her guilting them or whatever and you can advise your kids if they are interested in your opinion about how to deal with it, but none of it is really up to you.
How old are your kids? If they’re adults, you’re better off not telling them who they can or can’t associate with.
FWIW, I had an “old maid” aunt who decided that out of all her many nieces and nephews, I was going to be her surrogate child. I didn’t need my mother to tell me that wasn’t the best idea.
Just tell them you understand if they don’t want to do as the Aunt wants sometimes. It could be they’re waiting to hear from you on the issue!
And I also think you are more than entitled to tell your sister directly, and emphatically, ‘Stop saying that to my children!’ If she balks tell her again. Whatever she comes up with, not serious, it’s only a joke, tell you don’t care, ‘Don’t do this again!’ You don’t have to yell but you need to be emphatic and insistent.
You’re 58. I’m going to guess that your kids are adults now. Old enough to reason and have adult to adult conversations with you. Why don’t you just have one with them?
There’s no reason for you to try and protect them from your sister.
I think you aren’t entitled to say anything about a relationship between adults that doesn’t include you. I would imagine that everyone involved probably is aware of your feelings, especially your kids.
Just let your presumably adult children know that while it is there decision to go to her house for holidays, to determine the size of her place in their lives, or to support her in her old age - you do not have any expectations that they do these things and you do not think they should feel obligated to do so.
My paternal grandmother was a very needy woman - and manipulative. And my mother said basically that - you girls shouldn’t feel an obligation. I spent very little time with her, my middle sister a little more (she is the holder of family each generation seems to get), but my baby sister - she never saw the manipulative needy woman - she saw a woman she really enjoyed spending time with.
When she passed, my internal response was “good riddence” (To my eyes, she’d been making my mother’s life hell for 40 years and I picked a side and was loyal to it), my middle sister said “it was time” (and I suspect that was her sincere over riding emotion - an 83 year old woman who smoked her whole life dies with stage four lung cancer) and the baby sister sincerely mourned her.
In other words, my mother stepped back and let each of us define the terms of our relationship with her. But she did tell us that it was ok with her for us to do so.
(I suspect your kids are at the adult age where family holidays are not yet overly bothersome. They might need to make it to a boyfriend/girlfriends place and have two dinners, or at least stop by. But there isn’t the bundling into the car of a toddler and an infant who are supposed to be on some sort of sleep schedule - if that is the case, time will take care of this - your sisters needs will take a back seat to the needs of their spouses, kids, inlaws, the dog needing to be let out, a job where they are on call for Thanksgiving…)
Agreed to both of these. I think the only intervention you need to make with your adult children is to tell them you’re okay with them not feeling obligated to her.
I also agree that you can have an open conversation with your sister, telling her to calm down already, that she needs to find her happiness from some other place than her nieces and nephews.