Feel hurt and left out

[Earth Girl]

I live with my parents. My older sister has a child (toddler that we will call Bob) and a husband who live in a house fairly close to us and my younger sister lives in a different city, but in the same country. When I visit my older sister, most of the time that I am at her house, I am looking after Bob while she has a break or does some cleaning which is fair enough because I understand she needs breaks and Bob is really lovely anyway so it's nice spending time with him of course.

Today, her husband invited me and my Mum over to help and hang out because Bob has a cold. I was thinking it would be great because we'll get to hang out like a family, but from the moment I got there, they expected me to do almost all the baby stuff. After being there for a minute, my older sister said to me in a kind of aggressive way "Okay, Earth Girl, you're on Bob duty" and she then went to have a friendly chat with Mum while I was watching Bob in the back door way. Bob and I later went outside the back, while my sister and Mum were still inside chatting and I was talking and playing with him and this went on for at least 40ish minutes. After they had there long chat, my Mum helped her tidy the house a bit with some vacuuming and wiping the kitchen while I was still watching Bob. I understand that by doing that, she was also helping my sister, but looking after Bob is harder and I know that if Mum got asked if she wanted to clean or look after Bob, 10/10 times she would choose clean and if I was the one cleaning and chatting with my sister, she would be a lot more annoyed than I am. Also, after they cleaned, they just started chatting again and my sister didn't say much to me at all (chatting wise).

My sister would never talk to my younger sister like that (tell her that she was on Bob duty while spending time with Mum). This is no different than if I had a baby, and I told her that she was on Bill duty and then just chatted with Mum or if I told Mum that she was on Bill duty and I just chatted with my sister. I'm not annoyed with her for wanting help, I am annoyed with them for leaving me out and putting all of this part on me while they just chatted mostly and the way they talked to me.

Close to the end, they both said "We should do this again" and I was thinking um, I think I'll go by myself next time. (When I go by myself, I'm mostly just with Bob too, but at least it's not just me).

I want to discuss this to them, but they will get likely get angry with me and.....

[smallwolf]

Hey there.

It's understandable to feel left out and frustrated ... given how the situation unfolded. It sounds like you enjoy spending time with Bob, but it seems like the way responsibilities were distributed felt unfair and dismissive of your time and effort.

If you choose to discuss this with your sister and mum, you could approach it by expressing your feelings calmly and focusing on how the situation made you feel.

Sorry my reply is not much longer, but if you want to chat more I'm listening

[Earth Girl]

Hi Smallwolf, thanks for understanding how I feel about this situation.

I talked to my Mum about it a few days ago and it went better than I thought it would. She said we will talk to my sister about it the next time we come over. I will try to express my feelings calmly.

I feel like this sort of thing happens a lot when I go to visit them. I want my sister to be able to have some time to herself, but I just don't want to feel like I'm a nanny almost the whole time that I am there. I like helping to look after him, but sometimes I feel like that's mostly all I am there for and it's especially hard if there are other guests over and they just talk to each other without me.

[smallwolf]

Wow! Good on you. And glad to hear that it worked out.

The unknown is always the hardest part.... how will they respond? react? Will they tell me I am wrong? Overreacting?

And then.... when it all works out better than expected, you (or at least "I") think, that wasn't sooo hard. Up until that moment we ("me" again) are conditioned to think that we are wrong.

Hope you do get to have that conversation with your sister. I can see that you also understand your sister's position as well. So my wish would be that the conversation goes well for yourself (and mum and sister). And hope you have a happy (?) Christmas as well if I don't hear you before then.

[Earth Girl]

Thanks smallwolf,

Yeah, I'm glad the conversation went well with Mum and I. It will probably go better than I expect with my sister as well, although sometimes when I try to explain to her that I disagree with something she said or did, she sort of acts like I am insulting her. I don't think she really thinks I am though, I think she just takes it personally and finds it easier to think of it like that. But sometimes it goes really well.

We're going to their place for Christmas so hopefully if we have the talk then, it will work out okay, though it might be better to talk to her about it beforehand if possible?

And yeah, my sister definitely needs to have some breaks so I'm glad that I can help her have some and hopefully we can figure out a way to do it where we all feel good about it.

When I talked to my Mum about it, she actually told me that she was thinking about how I was with Bob a lot and she was wondering if she should watch him for a while as well so she does seem to understand it better than I thought. We were there for about 2 hours so it wasn't a really long time I guess, but I guess I just felt like I wasn't being including as much as i should have been with the whole family.

I hope you have a happy Christmas too! 🙂