Sister Frustration Station (LONG)

doodah1013 · June 2014

I am sooooo freakin' frustrated with my sister right now, that I don't even know what to do. Let me explain the situation.... I have outlined some of it before, but wait... there's more....

Over Memorial Day, we were all sitting around joking and laughing as my family does.... The baby is due in December, and we kind of laugh about it, because I have always complained about how having December birthday means being overshadowed by Christmas for always... and how now the baby's birthday is going to make like my birthday doesn't exist.... Not that funny, but also not THAT offensive. People don't really understand our struggle. My sister has been pregnant twice and has 0 babies (by choice... which I don't judge, but just for context here) and my Mom was accidentally pregnant with both my sister and I after being over 40, so they just don't understand what we went through... I would trade my birthday, all the presents, cake, and everything that comes with it for this baby (among many other things, including my smaller appendages) ... but okay, they don't get it, and I don't need them to.

Then my sister makes a joke that A would never share her birth month no matter what... (It is a running (not so funny joke) in my family that A celebrates her birthday for a month.) Anyways, this is where it gets tricky... because our first baby (the one we lost) was due in September which is coincidentally the same month as A's birthday. It stung, quite a bit to hear my sister say that. She knew we lost the baby, and we had also discussed the due date, so she knew when our first baby was due... Chances are she forgot...and that is okay. We are not ego-centric enough to think that everyone thinks about our m/c as often as we do...

BUT WAIT... THERE'S MORE...

So A and I talked about it, and instead of letting this mistake be made again, we decided to send her a non-confrontational message that explained why what she said upset us... It went something like this:

K,

It was great to see you this weekend. We are always happy to see family, and we get to do it so rarely.

We just wanted to let you know that something you said upset us. When you mentioned that A would never want to share her birth month with our baby, it made us sad, because our first baby was due in September and we would have done anything to not have experience what we went through. We know you didn't mean to hurt our feelings. But instead of talking about it with each other, we thought we would mention it to you, so you knew it upset and didn't repeat this joke in the future.

Love you, C and A

We received NO RESPONSE.... it was sent on Facebook, so we know she read it that day.

This was two weeks ago, so yesterday we sent a follow-up

Hey K,

Just wanted to make sure you had gotten the message we sent. It is very important to us that you knew our feelings. Let us know that you read it.

Love you, C and A

Luckily, we got a response... Unfortuantely, this is what it said:

Got your message. When I decide how I want to respond, I will.

UNNACCEPTABLE. This is all the response that is need: "I am sorry... I didn't truly didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Of course I wasn't thinking about your loss. I will make it a point in the future to not make jokes like that."

I just don't want this to become a fight. I want to be open and honest with my family when they say things that are hurtful... and if I say things that are hurtful, I want them to tell me. I don't know what to do from here. I don't like tension (I would prefer to hit the conflict head on, and deal with it), but it seems she is unwilling to participate in a dialogue. I have spent the last 6 years of my life training young adults how to deal with conflict in the work place, but I am at a loss of where to go from here.

If you have read this much of the message you deserve a prize! Any advice would be wonderful... I don't get mad often, but I feel really mad about this, and I don't know what to do with that. HELP!

JGY · June 2014

Oooh, ouch.

I'm trying to word the below carefully, as you always do @doodah1013.

I don't recall reading about your sister in the past, so I apologize that I feel like I'm missing a really big part of the story here. I'm sorry that you're going through this, and I'm REALLY sorry that you and A had your feelings hurt by what was, likely, truly just a careless joke.

All I can offer is my experience which is this: In the past I have had a number of instances where I wanted to follow up with someone who had hurt my feelings. For me the natural go-to is always email. I feel like I'm giving them the opportunity to receive my feedback and process it without the pressure of having me right there to witness their response. But in fact what has happened to me, often, is that my tone has not been conveyed appropriately and they misinterpret what I'm trying to say, or what I am expecting in response if I haven't explicitely stated it. And for me to then follow up, has blown things further out of proportion to the point where they feel attacked.

I'm not declaring that this is what happened in this case, and again I feel like I'm really missing a lot of the story with your Sister. As for her not responding, and then sending the (rude) retort when asked about it, well, I'll admit to avoiding responding to things that made me embarassed about my behavior. (I have realized it's part of being an adult and sometimes I just need to suck it up)

I guess to summarize, it seems that the joke (while in bad taste) was almost certainly unintentionally hurtful. You're right in that she likely forgot about the due date of your first baby. Her awkward behavior now is likely due to being uncomfortable in not knowing how to respond to your message.

Do you see her often? Would you have the opportunity to speak to her in person and say something like "Hey, we know that the joke you made was not intended to hurt either of us, but we just want to let you know that the loss of our baby is still a really sensitive subject for us. We wouldn't expect you to know that, so we want to proactive in putting it out there ..."

Good luck. This kind of family interaction can be so difficult, and so painful. Sending hugs.

firstcomeslove2013 · June 2014

Thanks for the support all. Its so difficult because I feel as though she is turning this around on me and almost blaming me for saying something. I realize a lot of this is my own emotion to deal with but at the same time all I wanted was an apology. Training people to deal with conflict management is a skill of mine so when I have to deal with people who deliberately run from conflict its hard...all I wanted was an apology.

wishiwaspreggo · June 2014

Ack... I have no advice but I wanted to say I know family conflicts are the pits and I'm sorry you're going through this. Siblings can be very insensitive (I have two insensitive brothers myself, one who referred to being gay as a "choice" just this weekend).

I hope she comes to her senses and apologizes for being hurtful. Even if I say something unintentionally hurtful I always apologize and learn from it. Surely she'll come around soon.

((((HUGS))))

JGY · June 2014

firstcomeslove2013 said:

Thanks for the support all. Its so difficult because I feel as though she is turning this around on me and almost blaming me for saying something. I realize a lot of this is my own emotion to deal with but at the same time all I wanted was an apology. Training people to deal with conflict management is a skill of mine so when I have to deal with people who deliberately run from conflict its hard...all I wanted was an apology.

Hey I hear ya.

The unfortunate conclusion that I've come to is that it actually takes a pretty mature person to react properly (yes, an apology) when confronted about something they've done to cause someone else pain, when their intent was never to do so. There's a whole range of emotions and reactions that they tend to go through first, because it catches them so off guard. I think most eventually come around to something along the lines of "Okay, well, I'm really sorry it hurt your feelings but it was totally unintentional!" But that can take a while. And then, for some, they feel like they've been attacked unfairly and they just never get there. Instead they choose to die upon their hill proclaiming that it wasn't their fault and the injured party is just being "Sensitive."

Flygirl1228 mentioned above. You've stood up for yourself and made it known that, intentional or not, the subject matter of babies is never one to joke about with you. And that's maybe all that you can do. Because, in the end, even if you do manage to get an apology from her it likely wouldn't be 100% sincere. And I can absolutely speak to the fact that an insincere apology just isn't worth receiving.

Or, maybe I'm just babbling here. But while I certainly don't have near your experience with professional conflict management, I have unfortunately had to do a lot of it in my life. So I can only speak to the patterns I've seen.

Again, I'm really truly sorry that you were both hurt by this. Sometimes when there's already tension in a relationship, the jokes just sting extra hard. And I think it goes without saying that someone who has experienced a loss as you did, should never be made to feel even worse about it through jokes or teasing. Intentional or not.

More hugs.

doodah1013 · June 2014

Thanks so much for taking the time toe give some really well thought out responses! I think it is hard for us because we really have made a solid agreement with each other that we will talk about our feelings and work through them... This is also what I teach my camp staff... So it's hard when other people haven't been taught that to make them understand that just because feelings were hurt it doesn't mean you are in trouble or a bad person... It makes you human!

My concern is, it wasn't a thing to begin with, and now it kind of is. Which is the opposite of what I wanted...

But thanks again for taking the time to give us some great food for thought!

2MamazInSeattle · June 2014

Ug, one of my biggest therapy lessons was when I finally got comfortable asking for what I needed from the people I loved, and then learning that they may not give it to me. And, as so many PPs have said, you expressed your feelings and there isn't a way to force an ideal response (if only, right?). You've made your point, and regardless of if you get an apology or not, it's very likely she will not go there again. Sorry this happened...

As an aside, I've just come out of a rough 4 months with my bff sister who finally explained that she's been dealing with something huge in her life but hadn't told anyone. All of her "misbehavior" suddenly made sense, turns out it wasn't really personal (though it felt that way)... It was a good reminder for me that, sometimes there is something unrelated driving behavior that doesn't make sense. Anyhow, hang in there. You've done all you can for now.

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