Thank you for responding to my thread, Roxanne. I feel better knowing that I'm not the only adult sibling in this situation.

I definitely have lowered my expectations of both my sister and her daughter. When I think of the way my sister treated me in the past without ANY recourse from me (and believe me, I tried to hold my sister accountable to no avail), I'm absolutely livid.

You're correct. My sister and her 21 year old daughter aren't going to change now...or ever.

When I told my sister, one of my biggest regrets in life was not having a sister who I had a close emotional bond with, my sister's response was to future fake me. She said, "Well we can start tomorrow, yada, yada, yada" yet she never follows that up with initiating any social bonding time with me. So, that's why I say 'future fake' because it's all a big act on her part. To keep me hooked, I guess?

If my sister really had wanted a close bond with me she literally had her entire life to co-create that with me. But she made no effort at all and rejected every olive branch I gave to her.

She rejects my olive branches now, which look like funny text messages from me where I attach silly TikToks or silly Memes. She never reciprocates with her own, or initiates any text communication with me unless it is to do with our mother's memory care updates. I must be very insecure if I think that will change her mind and she'll have an epiphany.

I don't even know how she became this way, either? We weren't physically abused. Sure, our parents were emotionally abusive and neglectful but we had a roof over our head, we had food and clothing, and we were not poor (or wealthy) but were middle class. So, how did my sister become such a narcissist? I swung the pendulum and became codependent. I guess those are the two opposite sides of how she and I dealt with our parents internally.

Did you estrange yourself from those family members, Roxanne? Or do you grey rock them and keep in contact?

Two past incidents stand out for me, about how my sister and her 21 year old daughter each have hurt me.

1. When I introduced a serious boyfriend to my sister at her house for Thanksgiving, she took him aside and disclosed her toxic opinion about me and told him that I was crazy and that he should run away and break up with me. He told me what she said as we drove back to my place. Then, he actually broke up with me citing her influence as a factor. Who does that? Who disparages their sibling's love interest behind that sibling's back? When I confronted my sister, she gaslighted me and claimed innocence. She claimed she didn't know what I was talking about.

2. My niece had a high school choir concert outdoors at a band stand. I literally sat at the table next to my niece who was with her friends and my niece ignored me the ENTIRE time. She never waved to acknowledge she'd seen me. Her friends would look over at me, laugh and look back at her. That really hurt my feelings.

Plus, my niece never reaches to me and she never responds to any of my text messages. I sent her flowers abroad for her birthday and she didn't respond until my sister texted her, probably telling her to respond. She texted me that she'd send me a photo of the bouquet of flowers I bought her, but she never bothered to do that. That's really rude behavior on her part. I lived abroad but if a relative or friend called me or emailed me, I didn't leave them hanging in silence like my niece does. She's so rude. When I was chatting with her on video, she kept making the video go black and would mute her sound. I knew she was probably doing that b/c her friends were contacting her. Again, very rude behavior on her part.