Twisted Sister

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I vividly recall the day I first met my husband and his sister.  He was quiet and shy, but her, not so much.  It was obvious that he and I liked each other and she thought our crush was the cutest thing.  She wasn’t around a lot because she was too busy chasing boys.  I remember her as his wild big sister, the black sheep of the family.  Back in the day she liked me.  But that was then…

She was never rude to me directly because my husband wouldn’t tolerate it.  So she carefully veiled her animosity toward me in hopes that he wouldn’t notice.  He did.  She resented that I was number one in his life.  It was very clear how much he adored me. 

 The summer we spent looking for our first home we stayed in his grandparents house, who had both recently died.  The heat was sweltering!  I was quite surprised when my SIL came over to take our refridgerator!  She already had one so she kept it on her front porch!  The comment that she made to her brother said it all “Morocco can go and buy y’all  a new one.”   I assume she felt this way because I had just bought a new car.   

During our courtship she started to connect with Eliza because they had a mutual enemy in common: ME.  I asked my husband what exactly had I done to his sister.   He replied nothing, and that she never wanted him to be with anyone.  She always found a reason not to like whomever he was with.  She was iffy with Eliza , too when they were together.  Yet, Eliza tended to cater to her to be accepted so it wasn’t a major problem.  I, on the otherhand, ignored her once I realized that something wasn’t right.  I didn’t see any need to suck up.

When we got married and had Nicholas she was very upset and cried bitterly.  My other SIL told us this.  My husband just shook his head about his crazy sister’s reaction.

She did many other things throughout the years which caused him to stop interacting with her.  He loved his sister but did not like her ways.  We both felt she had a weird fixation with him.  It just wasn’t healthy.  In fact, we even compared her toTony Montana from the movie Scarface because of the questionable love he had for his sister. 

One time we stopped by her house and she took a shower while we were there.  She actually came into the living room with a very small towel wrapped around her body.  However, you could very clearly see all of her vagina and parts of her breasts.  I was very uncomfortable and appalled!  She simply said “excuse me y’all” as she sauntered on through!  My husband also said this freaked him out and was very disgusted by her indecent behavior.  He said she scared him.

And she blamed me that she did not have a relationship with him.  I guess it had nothing to do with:

  • Her smoking “funny smelling cigarettes” in front of the boys.  I’m sure you can guess what she was smoking!  My husband was livid! 
  • She had no control over her tongue and would say whatever came to mind–even in front of the children
  • My SIL told Eliza that she did not like me (Eliza was thrilled with this nugget of information and couldn’t wait to share it with us)
  • She told me that she liked Eliza because “she don’t want my brother.” Huh?…was all I could think
  • When Eliza refused to let my husband get the boys she still allowed my SIL to get them.  If she was mad at her brother for whatever reason, she would not let him pick up his own kids from her house.  Once he tried to do so anyway and she called Eliza on him!
  • She is very materialistic and jealous-hearted
  • She has tried to run his life over the years and is very overbearing
  • She wanted my husband to take care of her and her daughter.  She would often ask him for money and would get angry when he said no.  She also tried to force him to babysit a lot
  • She often badmouthed him to their friends and family and painted the picture that he was upset with her for no reason
  • She thought my husband was wrong for not continuing to interact with his former stepson and often made an issue of it.  She would assert that he was still her nephew and that he was always going to be his son.  I was blamed for this, too
  • Her opportunistic ways
  • She kept drama going with many other people

The night he died I had a sneaking suspicion that she would not handle it well and act crazy.  I braced myself before calling.  I attempted to reach her but couldn’t.  My BIL tried as well as his aunt to no avail.  I even waited at the hospital for close to seven hours in part for her to get there.  She never made it and I was blamed for this, too.  She claimed that I did not try to call her at all.

From the day he died (Saturday) until Tuesday, she behaved very poorly to say the least.  She was running around foaming at the mouth with her hatred of me.  She told several of her family members that “she manipulated him away from us.”  They countered her point of view because of course, I had not.  She managed to do that without my help because he interacted with everyone except for her.

It really bothered her that she was the only one with these feelings of rancor.  His aunt told me that one night after Nicholas and I left her house,  my SIL started crying saying to her “You love Morocco, don’t you!”

She assisted and encouraged Eliza’s family in taking the boys away from me.  She also stated that they should be with “family” and provided the name of the hospital in which Evan was located.

What blew my mind the most was that she called the coroner’s office and asked them NOT to release the body to me because we were ONLY related by law!  That crushed me more than anything!!!   She also thought I was going to have him cremated and wanted to prevent that from taking place.  I found out about the call from the funeral director.

Enough of my in-laws finally got fed up with her and chastised her callous, immature behavior.  I suppose they let her carry on as long as they did because she was grieving the loss of her brother–who knows?  On  Tuesday I went to make the funeral arrangements and she came along with my BIL (much to my dismay).  When the funeral director addressed me by my last name; guess who answered, too?!  Granted she had only been married for a week (she did not invite or call to tell her beloved brother about her small wedding), but still, she should have known that he was referring to me!

After I finished and was leaving out, she stopped me to apologize.  She then started to cry saying ”  Morocco, whatever it is I’ve done, I’m sorry.  But I should have never taught my brother how to live without me.”  I had no idea what she was talking about, but I replied “All he did was get married and have a family.  He was still your brother.” I had no fight left in me as I limply tried to comfort her. 

Since that day she has been full of praise for me.  Over the course of the last two months she has called many times saying what a wonderful wife I was to her brother, and mom and stepmom to her nephews.  She has left so many sickeningly sweet messages that half the time I can’t bear to listen to them. They are filled with phrases of love, admiration, and kinship.  It makes me soooo uncomfortable!  How can one change their heart so rapidly?!  I can only think of how she betrayed me with her Judas kiss.

But when the boys were in town two weeks ago and at her house, do you think she called me over for a visit?  I haven’t heard from her in almost three weeks.  And she knows that I am aware that they were in town.  Maybe she feels bad.

My husband would not be surprised by her behavior in the slightest.  He knew his sister well.  And he would be in a rage about the way she treated me.  If she thought he had disowned her then…

She is one of those people that I have a hard time loving.  I definitely struggle with forgiving her.  Do you see why?  During my time of deepest sorrow I had to deal with both her and Eliza’s crazy clan.  The state of shock I was in definitely preserved my sanity that they so desperately tried to break.

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11 responses »

  1. Dear Morocco,

    I am so deeply saddened at the constant and continual sorrow these people bring to you. I have a fair amount of crazy in my family; however, this goes beyond it. How awful to have to climb uphill with not one, but two, out of control people.

    I don’t know why we have toxic and hateful people in our lives. I can see that they don’t respond to love or care. Maybe Cain and Abel are in the Bible because this type of relationship just keeps playing out. Maybe we can only HOPE they’ll see themselves when they read. Then again, they don’t read and they certainly can’t (WON’T) see their own part.

    Wow. That’s just harmful. I hope by blogging about it, you were able to release the poison. I don’t think you need to go out of your way to love her. Nor do you need to forgive her. As long as you don’t allow their crazy to move you to hatred, you will be OK.

    For someone so young, and who’s gone through so much, you really seem like a very stable, loving person. The nice thing about reading your blog is it’s very obvious you’ve CHOSEN to be this way. It’s who you want to be.

    Have a wonderful weekend. Our hearts and minds are with you always,
    Suzanne

  2. Suzanne~

    It’s people like my SIL and Eliza (and her family) who have made my loss so much harder to bear. I am more hurt and betrayed by my SIL’s behavior because she IS his sister! She knew how much I loved my husband. But I don’t know why I expected her to be better behaved because she wasn’t when he was alive.

    Her actions have weighed heavily on my mind. Even now thinking about it makes me incredibly sad and leaves me perplexed. I’ll never be able to make sense of her lashing out in the manner that she did. The fews times that I have spoken to her on the phone I’ve felt very uncomfortable inside.

    And I know that my husband would not expect me to interact with her. But I feel bad because what if she is truly contrite? That is my dilemma. I still have yet to forgive her and don’t know that I ever will. My MIL just says that we need to love each other. However, I know that I won’t be able to do that anytime soon. She really hurt me in the worst way. In her arrogance, she failed to see that in her treatment of me how grossly she disrespected the memeory and life of her brother; whom she professed to love so deeply.

    I hope she gets the message and stops calling.

    You only win with dsyfunctional people when you don’t fall into their trap. My aim in life is not to annilihate others. Sometimes I am too caring to a fault. Furthermore, I have a sound conscious that tells me when I am not acting accordingly. I’ve come to believe that everyone does not have this compass (or the love of God) in which to guide them.

    Suzanne, my only hope is that someday I will be able to make peace with this tragic episode in my life. There has to be a lesson in it for me; a reason that I have had the (mis)fortune of being intertwined with this crazy clique of people. Thank goodness my husband is at least free of their drama!!!

  3. How horrible. My first marriage break up, was due to a large part his sister. She too had a problem with her brother marrying me. She was never nice and always made snide remarks to me. The counselor stated it as “a incestuous relationship without the sex”. When we got divorced her comment to me was, “My brother and me, were so close, then he goes and gets married.” “How do you think that made me feel, I lost my brother”. My comment to her was she needs to go for help. She also took money from our business we had, without our knowledge. She was an employee and in time it was found out. I lived with her verbal abuse for 19 years. When I got divorced, I remember feeling so free, as I never had to listen to her again. I have not forgiven her for those years, but do not feel hatred because I have nothing to do with her. If she was still in my life, I would feel resentful towards her. I never stood up to her, and I should have. Today I would stand up to her.

    You have to honor how you want to handle these individuals. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t deserve your friendship. When they say, you marry the family when you get married, how true that is.

    I am sorry to hear that you had to deal with all that crap.

  4. I’m so sorry M. I don’t have any wonderful advice for you. All I can say is this is very sad and very selfish on her part. I only really care for the kids and what they may be going though. It’s so clear they were better off with you. Her behavior is very wrong and he obsession with her brother is borderline sick.

    Cheers to you hun.

  5. Been There~

    Thank you for sharing your story. Your SIL sounds strikingly similar to mine! Oddly enough, Eliza is also obscenely close with her brothers, so much to the point that it makes you wonder…She probably saw some of herself in my SIL. My husband always said those two acted a lot alike. What is it that they see in their brothers that makes them so obsessive? I felt my SIL wanted to say to me “You took my brother from me, now God took him from you!” She would have loved to sever us and became even more infuriated when she saw that it wasn’t possible.

    I outright asked my husband if she was ever inappropriate with him. He said no, but he felt that she could go that route because of her strange mannerisms. I know that he did not like her to kiss or hug him. She was very dramatic with her displays of sisterly affection. We used to joke that she wanted to be his wife. We just didn’t know how close to the truth we were.

    I’m glad when anybody wants one of my brothers! I only hope that they treat them well. I don’t interfere with who they date or marry. Some of their choices are questionable, but they have to live with them–not me.

    Joy~

    Most of the adults in the picture are not concerned about the boys at all. I think this will be very manifest later. My SIL was not even allowed to interact with the kids when my husband was alive. But I know she sees them as her only connection to him. She acknowledged that I was the closest person to him and that she loved me for this; strange, I know.

    However, I do feel sorry for her in that she did not have a relationship with her brother.; even though it was by her own hand. That had to hurt. Death is so final and provides no second chances for redemption or reconciliation. But she needs to accept responsibility for this instead of casting the blame onto me. Deep down she knows this, but it is probably easier for her to swallow by making it someone else’s fault. Without this acceptance she will always be bitter and without healing.

  6. Morocco, I am so sorry you’ve had to endure this on top of your loss. I don’t understand how people can hurt others like this.

    I can empathize with your pain as my husband and I have a similar situation in our life, only it’s his bio-father and stepmother that are so evil. My husband chose to sever ties with them. If he’s cool with that, then so am I.

    I wish I could tell you how to handle it, but I just don’t know…

    *hugs*

  7. Stacy~

    I am going to trust God to guide me in this situation. I know He will move my heart to forgive her, but that doesn’t mean I have to deal with her any more than I did in the past.

  8. i don’t know what to say about this. oh! ohmygosh! this totally reminds me of an exboyfriend and his sister. only … it was kind of mostly him being the creepy one toward his sister. but … not overtly or anything… just a couple of small things.

    it’s sad. she should have been there for you like a … you know… SISTER when he was alive, and she should have been there for you after.

    it’s hard not to dwell on the “should haves” and the “only ifs”. but this is her choice. she’s made these choices for her life. and you can make your own choices.

    look at all the sisters you have through your blog =)

  9. Yo, your SIL is clinical. I do not say that in a callous way. She needs help from a psychologist. When someone is manic-depressive or borderline schizophrenic you can not blame yourself for their behavior, nor can you control their behavior. My wife is psychotherapist and I see these people all the time and your SIL fits the bill. It doesn’t seem like there is any chance she will see a doctor and get the medication and/or treatment she needs to live a “rational” life. I say stay away from her and stop beating yourself up. Good luck and g-d bless you.

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