Sibling relationships gone down the drain.

I have a similar situation to Jeanne's just with smaller cast of characters. One brother and SIL (he's poa) are 10 mins from mom's nh. They visit throughout the week. I'm 75 miles away and mostly visit weekly. Sil does finances, brother does legal and i do medical. Youngest brother lives 4 hours away and does not visit much but also doesn't interfere. If my sil thinks she has an idea about something medical, i look into and don't "defend my territory". Same for financial. We all respect each other's expertise (sil's a cpa, brother is an engineer). We all have secure jobs and a healthy respect for ourselves and each other. I assume that anything they want to do comes from concern for mom, not self interest.

My mother has never talked about us to each other. I often see parents who foster competition between or among their children. Not a good thing.

Wait a minute. 2ndBest how did mom run up $600.00? Late fees? You tried to save her $20.00 a month, on an account that brother could manage and pay for, and it ended up costing a lot more than that! Maybe brother was going to try to send her pictures on it, hence the data plan....and maybe she really could not learn to use it. I was sad when my mom could no longer use even a Jitterbug style phone - I had tried to get her a CEIVA for grandkid pix but she sent it back, she really hated technology. Maybe you should have done the address change with her or for her beforehand, and who knows why nephew did not do it once she was back there with him.

You did try to communicate what you did after the fact, and you are not a monster, but it seems like maybe you did throw a monkey wrench into the system, or you were taken for a ride by the salesman who should have unlocked the password and then left well enough alone. That's probably what upset the sibs.

Babalou, your family sounds like they are functioning together in a coordinated way to help your mom without all the burden falling on any one person. That is an ideal situation for both your mom and all your siblings, and a great way to keep the family intact. The problem in my family is my mom has put my toxic sister 100% in control of everything - medical, legal, financial - absolutely everything. And my sister keeps it in her own little world - no transparency. So my mom has set herself up for exploitation because none of the rest of us are included in the decisions or handling of her affairs. The one person she has placed all her trust in is the one - out of us four siblings - that is totally untrustworthy. So it is what it is. It has been a good lesson for me to learn how I will approach my care when I am elderly. I will never let one person - either of my kids - have all the control over my care without input and inclusion of the other. I will never pit them against eachother making it a competition for my approval and affections. It is just a good safeguard to prevent abuse and exploitation to have more than one person actively involved in your care. You mentioned self-respect and respect for eachother - that is vitally important, along with trust. When you're dealing with a pathological liar (like my sister) you never know what is really going on. Sadly, it only takes one sibling that has ulterior motives to destroy the harmony of an otherwise functional family.

Sounds like your mom and mine are the same when it comes to their hate for technology, vstefans !! To answer your question, I wasn't there when it all hit the fan, so I'm assuming the bill had accumulated over a few months since she never called to change the billing address. Also it's possible that she made a long distance call and forgot to turn off the phone afterward. Her plan included 500 in-network minutes per month. I checked with all relatives and all but one had the same cell service as hers, so figured she wouldn't use very many non-network minutes. It was my brother's son's cell account, and he is always teetering on bankruptcy. So my thinking was that if he failed to pay his bill the account would be closed, leaving my mom without cell service until she could get to the phone store herself. Plus the inconvenience of having to deal through him if she wanted to make any changes, get the password, etc. She has no use for data and can't even use email. So there was no question about her not needing the data plan. I emailed both my brothers about the changes in detail but of course they both played dumb when my sister questioned them about it and threw me under the bus. We did what we did for all the right reasons, but no good deed goes unpunished apparently. I won't make the same mistake again. I will visit her and just not get involved in anything. Hey, easier for me and keeps everyone happy.

I am always boggled, not so much by jackass 'famblees', but by the victim caregiver who seems to want to go snuffling after them as if they are desperate for 'famblee'. Where the family works, as in some of the examples here, it is tremendous. A strong unit. Dysfunctional? Some here have the sense to turn their back on 'famblee' and go on with their lives, leaving the sob's behind.
I have 'famblee' out there, distant, very distant. but have not had contact nigh on half a century. Why? they were out and out ba**rds involving a relation of mom. I called her aunt, but she was further than that. As many here, the 'famblee' did nothing to help, didn't even visit, save for one 'unc' who dropped in once or twice in the time we had her in our house. After she died? All the ba**rds came out with a lawsuit which the judge thankfully tossed out of court. Have not seen, heard anything from the mf's. Good riddance.

I would sure like to hear the other side of the story from 2nd best ' s "toxic sister" (to use the name she has been given, by her sister ). In 2nd best's other posts, and here, there is enough venom and ill-will to conquer North Korea. Nobody can live a long, healthy life and continue to spew that much negativity--2nd best, I hope you will reconsider your choices, and seek a way to regain Balance and Light and Love in your Life. There is something really wrong going on, but it is not your sister.

I do consider myself lucky. I assume that my situation is the "norm" overall, but not, of course, on this forum. That is totally understandable. People tend to come here with problems, and siblings can certainly be a problem!

I am also extremely fortunate that while caring for my husband, our entire blended family supported me. I have seen in my support group that stepchildren can be worse than siblings for stress and criticism and backstabbing. My two sons and my three stepdaughters told me often what a great job they thought I was doing and how glad they were that Dad had me.

There are plenty of caring, functional families, including blended families, in this country. I am truly sorry that so many on this forum do not have that experience.

Jeanne your tone is so positive, and that must be why your family is all working well together. Being cheerful and thinking the best of everyone goes a LONG way towards having good working relationships, whether in family situations or elsewhere. Sometimes siblings use derogatory terms about each other ("toxic") and how that is helpful in reversing a crumbling situation, I cannot understand. It is good to vent-- like I have done here on occasion-- but venting and never achieving a clearing and a healing of bad relationships, is just gathering steam and preparing to boil over. It's always better to get some resolution, and get on to the good things in Life, like enjoying family, appreciating each other's gifts, and, since this is a website devoted to our elders & their caregivers, a very important way to Enjoy Life is to respect our elders in their choices of caregiver (and that extends to our elder's choice to compensate their caregivers if they are fortunate enough to be able to do so). There is just so much pain surrounding siblings (who aren't involved in daily caregiving) who play games like, thinking they are due an inheritance and that is more important than mom paying for her own needs (even if one of those needs happens to be a local child who performs caregiving ). The non-caregiving kids need to Get Over It. Mom's funds are her own to use as she sees fit. If she is enjoying one of several children "more" than the others, everyone has a choice in their "reaction" to that-- you can stamp your feet and have a tantrum, or you can be adult and respect your mom's choice, and Be Happy. Generally speaking, being accepting, respectful, appreciative, and Happy is going to serve you much better than the alternative choices to be intolerant, disrespectful, vindictive and suspicious. Everyone, please do something GOOD for your folks today, AND think good things about your siblings. I dare you to!

In my opinion, the siblings that do not help/visit their aging parents (if they clearly have the time and live in the area) should step up to the plate and do the honorable thing and tell their elderly parents that they (the non-helping siblings) would understand entirely if they were left significantly less, or none at all of the inheritance. Unfortunately, from what I have observed, the non-helping siblings have very strong feelings about not helping out, yet paradoxically they also have very strong feelings about getting their share of the inheritance.

My sibling relationships have all gone down the drain, except for one, which at the moment seems to be circling. The problem in my family is that nobody wanted to take care of Mom, and nobody was in a good position to do it. Most of the siblings live far away and so had a ready excuse for not helping/not visiting. Plus three of us were local (in my case, only because I moved to be closer to Mom when she started needing help), so the others thought that we had it covered.

Once I realized how long Mom was likely to live with her disabilities (probably at least 10 years - I had initially assumed 2-3 years) and how demanding and difficult she was going to be, I knew I couldn't make a long-term commitment. I immediately tried to enlist my mother and the local sibs in finding other alternatives for her. Paid help, senior apartment, assisted living, therapies, assistive devices, other family members. No dice. They had me and they were not prepared to let me go. One of the local sibs stepped up to help with some of Mom's needs - the other has been a lot of excuses and an occasional guilt-trip. My relationship with my mother and all sibs except the one helpful one are now fractured. I have put my life on hold indefinitely for the benefit of a group of people who don't give a damn about me. I am merely the family drudge.

Eventually I realized that as long as I stay here, nobody will investigate or consider any solution that does not require me to be here 24/7. So, I've made plans to move back up north where I came from, and let them figure it out without me. They'll find out when it's too late to try to guilt me out of it. With family like this, I'll take my chances among strangers.

Heaps of thanks to you, malloryg8r, for your very biased and judgemental response to my post about the problems in my family. After reading some of your posts I can see that you are nothing but a hypocritical windbag. So go be "cheerful" with someone else and I really don't care to read any more of your "helpful" posts, thanks.

2ndbest, I don't know that mallory8 is THAT far out of line...that's pretty harsh. There may be something to be gained by imagining what the "toxic" sister would post if she were posting on here, however far out of line it might be.

Carl Jung said the best way to understand the darkness of others is to understand our own...it can be hard to do that; I made it my Lenten discipline this year to try though, and I think to some point I succeeded in being less judgemental....Well in any event, I can tell you are hurting a great deal and that you are a caring person. You tried to do something you thought was a big positive and it was ill-received, due to unintended consequences (aka the bane of most people's existence, especially if they are trying to write legislation) and that always stings; but looking at the "other" perspective might still help you enormously.

I know when we all get to Heaven there's going to be the Big Reveal and LOTS of stuff each one of us thought was SO important, is going to instantly be deflated. The Internet age will no longer exist in Heaven, and that will be so Wonderful! plus, our aged parents will once again be young, and we ourselves (and our siblings sweet and toxic) will be waiting for us on the other side, cheering our arrival. All that will remain of our old lives is what Love Light and Music we choose to commit unto our hearts for the sake of God and Heaven. I look forward to that Eternal Day of Brightness.

Well, if my sister were to post here about me, she would call me toxic, greedy and totally unreasonable by way of failing to communicate with her in the last year or so. I call that projection and self protection. I think each of us is more entitled to call a sibling or other family member toxic than any of us are entitled to call one another that or suggest anything similar. We don't know all the dynamics of someone else's family situation, but we can chose, or not, to judge others here.

kthin - in retrospect, my sibling relationship was never healthy. A psychiatrist confirmed that there were problems that were not of my making, It has taken me many, many, years to truly accept that. Mother's decline has brought out the worst and I have basically cut contact. I agree it is sad. (((((hugs)))) to you.

I think this website would become totally worthless if we were reading about two or more side of sibling dysfunction all the time. We are not here to judge but to support one another. My siblings too would charge me with being the toxic one. What value would that be to anybody on this site?!

I think we need a new question asked, "what do we say to our siblings who claim we are "toxic"?"

Nothing. We stay strong, ignore their onslaughts, and do what we do best! It is part of the job.

And VENT when we need to!

What we say to our sibs who claim we are toxic depends on what the truth is. I would readily admit to being toxic right now - in fact, that's a key reason for choosing to remove myself from the caregiving situation. I'm no longer friendly with my mother - I do my "chores" silently and get the hell out as fast as possible. My anger and resentment towards my siblings has poisoned my relationships with them. Not so much for not helping, but for not caring the least about the loss of my plans and hopes and dreams and what I wanted to do with my life. I'm toxic for sure, and I need to get away from all this to detoxify.

Most people who are toxic will just deny it, so there's no point telling them. That's a big part of their toxicity - they dismiss other people's feelings and have no regard for the truth. You're only asking for a nasty confrontation if you point out any of their faults, wrongs, inconsistencies, etc. I wouldn't bother.