Is it possible to support and love a self-entitled, ungrateful family member?

[fleurdumonde]

My younger sister is 24 and is in the middle of a 5-year bachelor degree program in another country. She should have graduated this year but took a year off before final year and is now repeating the 4th year. My parents have willingly agreed to finance her studies as long as she is sure that this degree is what she wants, to which she affirmed that it is.

 

Although her program is extremely difficult and demanding, she is not very responsible and usually gets carried away watching tv, planning vacations, hanging out with friends when she should be studying for her exams. She has been failing her exams since her first year. Her school's policy is to allow one re-sit before expulsion and so far, she has managed to pass the re-sits. Last year, she failed her exams again, went home for a year, and when it was time to take the resits, she found the stress too overwhelming and her school counselor suggested redoing the 4th year to get her accustomed to school after the gap year.

 

What I am trying to come to terms with is: (1) Her refusal to acknowledge that perhaps she was at fault for failing her exams. Her reasons instead are that the exams were insanely difficult, her tutors are not helpful, her school is rigid etc. I have no idea if she truly believes this or is just finding a way to avoid facing responsibility. (2) Her lack of gratitude to her school for giving her a chance to retake a year since it is normally against school policies. While my parents and I were relieved and happy for her, her response was "of course they would let me retake the year. I am giving them so much money!" By "I", it really means my parents, and (3) the most appalling - her attitude towards my parents. I feel that she takes them for granted and has found a way to manipulate them to get what she wants while dodging the consequences of her actions.

 

Earlier on, while my sister was taking a year off to prepare for the re-sits, my mother was forced to impose curfews on her as she would go partying every night if she could. But my sister would often guilt my mother into letting her go out, usually crying and saying that no one understood how tough it was for my sister and how important her friends are. My sister has not been able to make many friends at her school - she blames it on her schoolmates - and is happiest when she can be home with her group of friends she has had since high school.

 

She will ask my parents to buy her a flight home for every short break she gets, and this time, told my parents that her school counselor said she should go home since she was suffering from depression and my parents felt obliged even though they wanted her to stay at school to avoid the cycle of going home, partying every night, and failing her exams. We don't know to what extent my sister is depressed since she has never had any psychological problems, and this just came up this year when she was supposed to do her re-sits and got very stressed out. Then, after my parents buy her flight home, she buys herself (with my parents' money) an expensive ticket to attend a music festival and gets my parents to change her flight home so she can attend the festival. I don't know how she can rationalize all this. She goes on vacation 2-3 times a year even if it means postponing academic commitments, and justifies this by telling our parents that I travel a lot so she should be able to as well. The difference is that I travel to visit my fiancé who used to live in another country and I use my income to fund my travels.

 

Treating her like an adult by explaining that she can do as she wants, as long as she holds herself responsible for the consequences, which includes failing her exam if she is not prepared enough, doesn't work. She gets extremely defensive and says things like "I cannot promise that I will pass! How can you make me promise that?" It was futile trying to make her see that she was missing the point.

 

While I try not to get too involved, since it's my parents' choice to fund her studies (they also funded mine), I am finding it very hard to maintain a warm, supportive relationship with my sister. Every time we speak, she talks about herself and can be very condescending if anyone expresses a different opinion. She doesn't make an effort to ask about my interests, but criticized my decision to do a doctorate because she thought my studies had gone on for too long and that I would be too old to be a student (I was her age when I began my doctorate). She told my parents that it would be unfair to her if they funded my doctoral studies since she thought each of us should only get 5 years of funding (obviously she's changed her mind now). I ended up getting fellowships and part-time work to fund my studies out of my own desire to be independent but this didn't matter to her. She also didn't understand why our mother was so worried when my sister announced her depression and found it annoying because our mother checked up on her so regularly. Honestly, what did she expect our mother to do after saying she was having depressive thoughts? I try to be supportive because I know she is often very lonely at school and doesn't have many people to confide in but at the same time pushed her to consider other people's feelings. This has not worked either; she shrugs this off and defends herself.

 

I have also spoken to my parents in the most gentle way possible to try to show them that as long as they give in to my sister, she will not take responsibility for herself. Even though my mother is frustrated with my sister's behavior, and also quite shocked that her own daughter seems to be so ungrateful and dismissive of others, my mother feels that my sister is already so miserable away from home and does not want to cause more grief. The most important thing for my mom is for my sister to finish this degree and move on with her life. However, I don't think my sister's behavior will change after finishing the program and could affect our relationship if she continues to feel so entitled.

 

I would be very grateful for any insight on these issues, particularly if there is any way that we could guide my sister towards a positive change. Also, any advice as to how I may tolerate her behavior while trying to maintain a supportive relationship with her would be much appreciated. Occasionally I feel like keeping some distance between us until she gets things sorted out, because I am really put off by her manipulation, but I do not know how long that will take.

 

Thank you for reading this long post and for your thoughts.

Edited June 6, 2013 by fleurdumonde

[mrs rubble]

My parents are funding my son's uni degree, they made him sign a contract when he started, stating that they would only cover his fees while he was achieving, if he failed he could start paying for himself.

It has worked amazingly well, he's halfway through his degree now and getting top marks.

[fleurdumonde]

mrs rubble, thank you, that is a very sound idea that helps both parties feel protected yet not taken advantage of. I have suggested something along that lines to my parents a while ago but they have not implemented anything like that so far. They can be a little soft with my sister - I guess the consequences of giving without boundaries are now clear.

 

Thank you for your advice!

[Leegh]

I have read that the human brain does not fully develop until around age 25, so part of her actions may just be she has not fully developed emotionally yet. She does seem to have narcissistic tendencies, but I've read a lot of young people can have narcissistic tendencies, but once they mature they do not have the narcissistic tendencies as much or anymore. It is not good that she is concerned about money for your schooling, as she should not financially over-reach into your situation, as that is between you and your parents. I guess it's just a wait-and-see situation, to see if she matures. I can see your concern, because with a sibling, we cannot just walk away; it's much harder when we have to deal with them, for better or worse.

[tbf]

Underlying all this, is a form of sibling rivalry. You're still competing for your parent's love and attention.

[turnera]

meh, her brain is just fine. She's just spoiled and has learned to Use people.

[turnera]

If you want to help your sister...don't help her.

[loveunlimited]

I hate to say this but unless this situation places you at a distinct disadvantage, to be very blunt about it, you need to keep out of this and mind your own business. You have tried your best to show everybody the error of their ways, and to show them a better method of doing things. nothing of what you have advised so far seems to have either worked or been adopted by anyone.There's not much else you can do, or even if I dare say it, have a right to do. they're all adults and can make their own minds up. If ever your parents come complaining to you, it would be your right I suppose to tell them *I told you so!!* but until then i would bow out gracefully and leave them to it.

Have you considered that she may have a personality disorder? I see such things are big on here, so I'll put that into the ring to see if anyone concurs.

[fleurdumonde]

Thank you so much for all your replies, and especially to Leegh for your encouraging and understanding post. Yes, the reason why these issues bothered me so much is because we are family and will have to deal with each other's ways throughout our lives.

 

Since my first post, I have decided to detach myself from her issues and leave them to her and my parents to figure out. It felt much better not having to worry over someone else's problems but things still bug me sometimes, like how she has begun telling fibs to my parents to cover up her short vacations. I know this from hearing the truth from her and the cover-up from my parents. For now I have kept my mouth shut but it is honestly getting more difficult to trust my sister. I am mostly disturbed by how easily she manipulates my parents and I am also worried that one day I may find myself in my parents' situation.

 

In reply to loveunlimited, it has never occurred to me that my sister might have a personality disorder and your post has got me wondering if it might be possible. As her sister, it is hard for me to judge her actions objectively. I have always assumed that she does what she does because she dislikes facing the truth and has figured an easy way to escape from that reality. This seems to point to immaturity rather than an actual disorder. The absence of any remorse seems strange to me because our family is a compassionate one. She also rarely expresses gratitude in person but will post facebook statuses about how grateful she is to my parents and how much she loves them. Maybe this is her way of expressing her feelings but there's also the gaping fact that neither of my parents have a facebook account...

 

Lastly, to tbf, I honestly don't think this is a case of competing for our parents' love and attention. I know my parents will give me as much as they have given her if I ever needed or asked for it. But you are right in the sense that I feel she is obtaining what she needs from them in an unjust manner, something that probably wouldn't matter as much to me if we were not siblings.