Earlier this year my husband was killed by a drunk driver. It was heartbreaking. I was left a single mum to 3 kids under 7, including a 2 year old who doesn’t understand why Daddy isn’t coming home. I’m grieving, barely sleeping, drowning in responsibilities, and trying to hold myself together for my kids because I’m all they have left.
I don’t have much family. My mother died 5 years ago, so my only real family is my younger sister who is 25. We have always gotten along OK even though we have a 6 year age gap. We’re not super close in a tell-each-other-everything and talk-for-hours-every-day kind of way, but we’ve always gotten along with each other. We’ve never had conflict, and I’ve always believed that if either of us really needed the other, we’d show up. She lives a few hours away from me.
In the worst months of my life, I asked her twice if she could come stay with me for a couple of weeks just to have some help around the house and support to find my footing again. Each time she told me she couldn’t take time off work.
But since my husband’s death she has take *two* separate overseas trips for K-Pop concerts. Two x 2 week long international vacations to Korea and Japan while I was struggling.
It hurt, so I gently confronted her. She told me she’s “sorry about what happened,” but being around my young kids would be “super overstimulating,” that using her annual leave to help me wouldn’t be “a fun way to spend her limited time off,” and that she “shouldn’t have to give up her plans that she already paid for because she wasn’t the one who drove drunk.” She even told my best friend who lives abroad who I asked to talk to her that she didn’t “sign up to sacrifice her vacations for kids.”
I honestly felt like the floor dropped out from under me. I wasn’t asking her to become a third parent or give up her life forever just to show up for her devastated sister during a nightmare I never chose.
Meanwhile I had to watch her Instagram fill with smiling photos, concerts, parties, shopping sprees… all while I was home crying on the kitchen floor, overwhelmed and alone.
I feel abandoned. Betrayed. Like family only counts when life is easy.
I don’t know how to look at my sister the same way again. But apparently I shouldn’t have expected this from her because everyone is busy. I texted her again last night about it and she said she’s sorry about what happened but I have to stop being bitter about her living her life because she did nothing wrong to cause the situation.
NAH
You and your sister aren’t close. You apparently don’t have the kind of relationship where one drops everything for the other. Neither one of you is an AH here. You’re not wrong to want that kind of relationship, but your sister isn’t wrong for not wanting that kind of relationship.
I’m very sorry for your loss. Truly.
NAH – you’re allowed to be upset she declined to do it, but you admit you are not close to her, so I don’t think a 25 year old is she’s unreasonable for not really wanting to give up trips with friends to use a huge chunk of her vacation leave to go be the primary emotional support for a sister she isn’t close to and to provide childcare to grieving children she presumably barely sees when she’s not comfortable around kids for long stretches of time.
Not everyone has the capacity to do that and just because someone is family doesn’t mean they can be what you need or want them to be. That is a hard lesson I have learned in my life.
How often did you talk to your sister before this happened? If it wasn’t very often, this would be an incredibly awkward situation for her and I understand her reluctance. She’d be staying in the home of a grieving family she isn’t very close to, and I don’t think it’s wrong for her to say that isn’t something she is able or willing to do. Saying she has to work might have been a white lie to protect your feelings (and she likely has a limited amount of leave and used it on her trips), which I find understandable in the situation.
But like I said in the comments of your other post, when you’re in a better headspace, I think it would be good to ask yourself if you perhaps subconsciously expected this from your sister specifically because she’s a woman without children, and if you’d have the same expectations and anger if she was a brother, or if her reason for declining is that she is busy with kids in her own life.
Women without children are so often the first point of call in these situations and are expected to drop everything to help others because they clearly have all the time in the world to do so since they don’t have children. The interests of women without kids are also often seen as less valid – you’re angry she went to a K-Pop concert in Korea instead of cancelling it to go help you, but would you be so angry if she had a step-child and didn’t want to cancel her planned trip to take them to Disneyland or the beach?
When my single mother sister was diagnosed with cancer, my family expected me to drop everything to provide emotional support and childcare, but they didn’t expect nearly as much from my brother. Being a shoulder to cry on and providing care for young kids was clearly subconsciously “women’s work” in their eyes it seemed……and yes, they got very defensive when I pointed this out to them. I was even the first thought for who could help her out with extra childcare rather than the literal FATHER of the children because “he’s busy with work” and “is recently remarried and probably wants the time with his new wife” as if I don’t have a full time job and a life of my own! But you know, I don’t have kids so I can obviously drop everything and don’t need any time to myself on the weekends or after work because I don’t have my own kids or spouse to rush home to!
YTA, but very gently.
What you’ve been through is horrific, and your grief and overwhelm are completely understandable. Suddenly losing your partner and raising three very young kids alone is beyond what most people can imagine, and it makes total sense that you wanted your sister there.
That said, your sister is still allowed to have her own limits. She’s not obligated to give up her job, mental health, or pre-planned vacations, even for a painful reason. She was honest about what she could handle, and while I can see why that hurts, it doesn’t make her a villain.
Where it tips into YTA is continuing to confront her, involving your friend to pressure her, and framing her choices as betrayal. Your pain is real, but it doesn’t give you control over her life. You deserved more support than you got, but that support doesn’t have to come from her. In fact she made it pretty clear through words and actions that she can’t be that source of support for you.
You’re not wrong for wishing she showed up. She’s not wrong for saying no. Both things can be true. I am truly so sorry you and your family are dealing with this and I hope you are able to find some peace amidst the grief.
Worded beautifully and respectfully. I agree with you.
And at what point has her sister shown up at all? I agree she can’t be expected to change her life, but that’s not what was being asked, she asked for some support in the immediate aftermath of a horrific tragedy for a few weeks if work allows (which it clearly could have) and that is not too much to ask. Dear god. When did it become ok to abandon family or anyone we love with an ever ready excuse of my absolute comfort is more important than your sanity in the face of devastating trauma!! It is so sad that we live in a world that justifies and teaches this to the younger generation. And I in no way mean some kind of martyrdom, just very basic level familial love and care. Urgh. Using the language you have to justify this makes me so sad.
It might not have. And it doesn’t seem as if these sisters are the type to show up for each other. That isn’t a stress that’s been put on either of them. She had her time off already planned in the trips, likely didn’t have more time off to use without being unpaid for it, and knew that she didn’t have the spoons to be able to go handle her grieving, depressed sister and her equally upset kids. Not all families are close and lovey dovey. They don’t have any extended family, mom died, no dad in the picture, and a sister who lives hours away. This is not the family dynamic of people that lean on each other.
And tbh, the phrasing from the sister in OP’s words sounds a lot like someone who’s possibly neurodivergent. “Overstimulated” in terms of taking care of emotional needs. That’s a relevant reason to say no. Some people are aware that they don’t steep in sadness very well, and sister clearly doesn’t have the time, time off, or even just basic desire to do what OP wanted her to do. Freaking out at her and sending flying monkeys after her sister is not the way to react to that.
Oh, OP i am so sorry for your loss.
NAH – for all the reasons other people already gave you – its a hard pill to swallow – but ask yourself if you know or have known in the last 7 years – a personal inner experience of your sister?
If you dont – you really have your answer. She lost her mom at 20 – her sister was busy building her own life with kids and a husband – and she was left alone.
This is what happens when you dont build a village – and I dont mean that in a blaming sense or a mean way – just that you cant count on someone you dont know to be your person.
Firstly, I’m so sorry about your loss.
However I can’t say NTA here.
Yes it’s awful what happened but it also isn’t your sister’s responsibility to take on the extra load you now carry as a single parent. She has her life too as is entitled to spend her time/leave as she pleases even if you think that makes her selfish.
You said yourself you two aren’t particularly close, your sister likely doesn’t see your relationship as one where you are ‘there’ for each other. If you don’t foster and nurture those villages you can’t really complain when they don’t show up.
Going overseas for a concert isn’t exactly a spur of the moment decision, she probably had it all figured out well before everything happened and couldn’t change it without wasting a lot of money.
NAH It sucks that you’re not getting the help that you need, but not everyone is equipped to provide what we need when things get hard. I really hope you can get some support, I can’t imagine what you’re dealing with but clearly your sister can’t be that person for you and you need to look elsewhere.
> Going overseas for a concert isn’t exactly a spur of the moment decision, she probably had it all figured out well before everything happened and couldn’t change it without wasting a lot of money.
Yeah, OP’s sister didn’t do it to rub it in her face or anything. It’s very likely these concert trips were planned before OP’s husband died and she had already committed to the flights/accommodation/etc and didn’t have holiday leave left after going on those trips. But even if OP’s sister booked them after her sister’s husband died, she isn’t really obligated to decide not to go and instead use her very limited breaks from work to go provide childcare for her sister’s kids when she isn’t close to her sister.