[Alyson121]

My husband is a twin with a girl, He is very easy going and relaxed while she is quite pretentious and self-entitled. Their personalities are very different.
They haven’t had a great relationship for about 15 years. I feel that the first conflict with them was to do with jealousy. It was around the time he started dating me. She was extremely rude to me and made up some horrible rumours. It got to the point where he started shutting his sister out as a way of protecting me. We ended up having a break for a little while. When we got back together. We were all adults now. This time I reached out to his sister to reconcile the past misunderstandings, I knew it was all to do with her feelings of rejection. So we started catching up for dinners together, everything seemed fine until there were a series of events of disrespect and derogatory things that happened that he thought its best to step away from the hurt, pain and drama his sister and her partner had caused him. So he cut ties.
They haven’t spoken for about 4 years now. During that time their father passed away. He has found he is much happier without her in his life and has moved on and so have they.
However his mum hasn’t accepted it. She is biased towards her daughter, she has always favoured her, which is very hurtful to him. As a way of his mum getting what she wants she uses emotional manipulation tactics eg “your father wouldn’t be proud of you” “it proves you don’t have the same love and respect for me that you had for your father” “do one thing for me and the memory of your father”
“your father would be ashamed of you” to make him feel guilty. She wants them to reconcile for her own selfish reasons. She never listens to his grievances about the situation or whether it’s actually healthier for him to not have this toxic person in his life. This last attempt has again not worked for her so now she is ignoring her son. He is at a loss of what to do? Does he succumb to what his mum wants to the detriment of his happiness? Or does he protect himself?

My answer is to not bother trying to reconcile. You and your partner need to take care of yourself which includes avoiding uneccessary triggers and situations you know will go badly.

[Travelinglady]

Welcome to Psych Central, Alyson121! What a sad situation. Your husband is the one who needs to stand up to his mom and sis. And that can be very hard to do. Remember that he did pick you over them, though!

[MickeyCheeky]

I think it's your husband choice about what to do.. if you really care about this, maybe you can talk about it with him

[Alyson121]

Originally Posted by justafriend306

My answer is to not bother trying to reconcile. You and your partner need to take care of yourself which includes avoiding uneccessary triggers and situations you know will go badly.

It's a real shame that him not having a relationship with his sister has now affected his relationship with his mum. She is totally ignoring him. I feel sad as it's his only parent left.

[Alyson121]

Originally Posted by MickeyCheeky

I think it's your husband choice about what to do.. if you really care about this, maybe you can talk about it with him

Yes it is up to him to decide. It's a very sad situation but I definitely don't agree with her guilting him into getting her own way. It's cruel and is only making it worse.