Blaming Myself for a Family Fallout.

Long post ahead.
Please help! I am incredibly anxious and uneasy about this whole thing.

Currently on a vacation with my sister, her family, their friends (a couple) and kids, and my mom. It has been stressful to say the least.

Backstory --

My older sister has a history of talking disrespectfully to people, including me. Her behavior is rude at times and agressive. I admit sometimes i get so wrapped up in pleasing her that it's hard to be mad at her. I just dismiss it and let it slide. I have been nervous to talk to her about things especially finances or big picture things my whole life, especially now as an adult. I have talked to her in the past about how she makes me feel, and why she is the way she is. I have spent nights crying while my husband comforts me. I have confided in friends. I have gone through therapy (even now). I've had moments where I have talked back and stood up for myself, but not all the time.

Her daughters have even seen it and have even asked why she is mean to me, auntie. Everyone, friends, family members, in laws, strangers and my own friends have always clashed with her because of power dynamics and strong personality, and knit picking. Most of the time I agree so I don't have to disagree. I just go along and take it. To the point where I lose my sense of self and voice. I lived with her and her family for years and endured a lot of the traits of her personality. My husband believes that my growth was stunted while living there. My mom has tried to calling her out. I get anxious during holidays and am afraid to hist Thanksgiving because I'm scared of being criticized for cooking something not good.
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Present day--
There were a few moments on this trip where she was blatantly was rude to my husband (of 6 months.. I need to add that we were just married in Dec.). He is very patient and has never once talked back because he doesn't want to get in a confrontation with her.

Before now and even on this trip, my husband anticipated many thinfs that would go wrong. My husband has asked repeatedly over the course of our relationship for me to build healthy distance and draw boundaries with my sister , so we can avoid fights. There are a lot of personality differences, lots of top-down decision-making from my sister on this trip. I didnt plan it well either and could have avoided this entire storm had I thought things through. Being me... Slow to make (good) decisions and impulsive, and stupid, I didn't handle the situation and let her negativity and actions affect our marriage.

My husband was quite angry by her comments and insults that he and I uprooted prior commitments to travel to another city last minute. We got into a huge fight and he ended up flying out back home. We ended up contacting my mom, who understood his perspective about why he was angry. He has done nothing but try to stand up for me even when I don't have the courage.

Well.... he and my sister got into an argument (on the phone) about things that have happened on this trip, all events in the past leading up to now. She laughed and minimized a lot of her actions after he had explained them. After all was said and done, I talked to her and felt really guilty. She cried on the phone with me because culturally, a younger sibling is never supposed to be disrespectful or talk back. But in the same breath, she insulted him again when she was on the phone with me and asked me why I was taking sides.

My brother-in-law texted me later and basically cut off my husband saying he's not welcome anymore and that he means nothing to them, I should think about what I did, how immature I was to rearrange plans. He kept reiterating how much my sister loves me and raised me. These are things that are true, and I don't deny them. I just dont think that should give people reasons to be rude or disrespectful to anyone.

This feels like it is all my fault. I could've avoided this whole thing and now I have to sit with this mess that I made. I had a chance to speak to my mom, who understood our points. She saw that my husband stood up for me,just like my brother-in-law stands by my sister. Regardless of cultural expectations, my husband stands by what he said and doesnt feel bad because no one else has ever called her out or said anything about this.

Even my mom told me not to stress because it's not a huge huge deal. I keep reminding her of how bitter my sister is and she will hold a grudge until the very end.

As a wife, I stand by my husband. As a sister, I have a guilty conscious that I brought this this far. As a friend, I am ashamed that I embarrased myself in front of the family friends.

Please, give advice about this life-changing moment.... Does it change things for the future? Why am I so worried about other people?

Sorry for the rambling and if it is unclear.

I understand your struggle. Do you see a therapist? When I was dealing with a difficult family member, I got some good advice from a therapist I had at the time. I recommend you find a therapist ASAP

In general when dealing with difficult, rude and disrespectful family member advice is to minimize contact IF full no contact/estrangement isn’t possible. And going “no contact” with close family member is often too complicated. Some people advise to cut family members off but I know it’s too complicated as it affects other family members who aren’t at fault.

So instead you do “low contact”: keep your interactions to a minimum. Conversations and get togethers should be short and infrequent. Practice “grey rock”. Don’t get engage in fights or back and forth. When they start arguing go about your things or end the conversation. “Ok got to go. Bye”. Have strong boundaries without being argumentative.

Now most certainly no one would ever advise to go on vacation with a difficult family member. Why? No way. I get along with my brother but I have no desire to go on vacation with bunch of people. Just travel with your husband. Maybe take your mom. Traveling with your sister who is rude to you both (plus she has her friends there) is unnecessary

I fully understand cultural differences and understand traditional family values etc But even in the most traditional cultures people stand by their spouse. Wife is expected to emotionally support her husband, rather than sister. I understand cultural obligation (in many cultures) to take care of elderly parents but I haven’t heard of cultural obligation of allowing disrespect from a rude sibling.

If you don’t have a therapist, but belong to organized religion of any sort, maybe go talk to your religious leader and ask what they think it’s a good course of action. I suspect they’ll advise you stand by your husband, not your sister.

When you marry, you supposed to “leave your home”. It doesn’t mean you must ignore your extended family. No. But it means your first allegiance is with you immediate family: spouse and kids. If you plan on having children, it won’t be good for them to witness their parents being disrespected by a sibling and their mom putting her sister first. I suspect that she’ll disrespect your kids too if you decide to have them

I’ll add an observation. She guilted and shamed you by reminding you how she “raised” you, being your older sister, demanding respect like you’d give a parent. It sounds like you do have a mother. It sounds like her “raising” you really means she bossed you around since you were kids.

I’ve had issues in my family with unchecked narcissism. The person was never held accountable and was allowed free rein. It all blew up in the end anyway.

I agree that your husband is your priority, and you should not let your bully sister come between you.

I’m not implying I think anyone has NPD, but I watched all the youtube videos on dealing with narcissists. Dr. Ramani is an amazing resource in addition to the good advice given by Divine to speak to professionals and clergy.

The best outcome for you would be to maintain peaceful family connections and remove the antagonism from your sister coming between you and your husband.

The dynamic with your sister will not change unless you make it change by limiting your contact with her.

This would be a great question to discuss with your therapist. I bet it has a lot to do with how you were treated in childhood.

I agree with Divine. Do not ever go on "vacation" with your sister again. Don't explain why, that will just lead to another argument. Just don't do it.

Definitely use "grey rock". Neither you nor your husband should try to explain things to her, or reason with her. Simply minimize contact and don't engage in any disagreement with her.

It doesn't matter that she raised you. That doesn't give her the right to mistreat you and your husband now. She isn't your mom and she isn't your husband. You don''t owe her such allegiance.

It's possible that your mom will lean on you to go on vacation with them again. Don't do it! It's possible that your mom will side with your sister, so as to have more joint vacations. She is your mom, but your first allegiance is to your husband, and to yourself! Therefore, work on self-regard and boundaries with your therapist. Put yourself and your husband first!

My husband told me he was going to send a message to my sister when we get back home next week from our vacation. It would be a respectful message laying out everything so that she'll hopefully see that she needs to change.

That if my sister doesn't back down, or if she pushes back, he'd share publicly about all of this on social media.

I don't support this method because it is within the family. I'm not confrontational yet he can be when people don't give him the respect he deserves.

He keeps saying that I need to trust in what he's doing and that it's all going to make sense in time.

What do I say and do to convince him not to give in to these impulses?

I'm scared people will hate us (her friends, my family, our nieces) and our marriage will be done.


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You're right. My loyalties can't be divided. So, what if he does something impulsively (read the post below ), am I supposed to tolerate that?


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You got married in December, but, if I understand the situation correctly, you've been with him for a number of years.

How have you two resolved, or gotten past, disagreements in the past?

I agree that discussing the situation on social media would be a very poor idea.

Fortunately, he is proposing to act in a week. This gives him time to rethink, one hopes, his plan of warring with family members on social media.

In the past, what (if anything) have you found to be effective in helping him get past destructive impulses?

I'm really sorry that you are so scared, and hurting so much, right now.

Your sister is a bossy spoiled entitled person. That is who she is as a person and you can’t change that. The best thing you can do is disconnect and don’t bother saying anything to her because engaging these toxic types with poor selfish character is a total waste of time. Engaging this type of selfish person only enables them to spew their toxic crap.

Toxic people don’t care how nice you are so blaming yourself when they behave in bad character is not healthy for you. These people can’t be nice so there is nothing you can do, and these kind of people actually prefer to get others to react badly so they can play the victim. They genuinely only have two behaviors, bad person and victim that’s the totality of their social skill set.

I definitely recommend Dr Ramani. I third the suggestion to speak to professionals and clergy.

I'm seeing a therapist this week.

I feel grief and sadness that it had to come to this where I become estranged with my sibling.

All the feelings....

I read this article to get some insight before my appointment.

5 Ways That Family Estrangement Can Inflict Lifelong Harm | Psychology Today

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I hope that your session goes well and that you can find peace in time.