For context, my siblings both live in different states. I live in the same area as my uBPD mother, who I went NC with last November.
I'm in a good place with my other sister, who understands my boundaries and doesn't expect to change my mind. She's been understanding and working to see my perspective.
With FM sister, I've been kinda stuck. Early in my NC I went over my reasons and talked about things recent and past behaviors that lead me to NC with my mom. She seemed understanding, but would say that she's learned how to handle it and could help me manage my mother's behavior. (I know she means well, but that's where I was - managing and soothing my mother's needs.)
She's seen the most impact from my NC. Here are some things that happened that make me feel bad saying no to her more...
- She broke her foot in December while at mom's for Christmas. I told her I couldn't come over to watch her after her surgery. (I went through various scenarios to help her, but they'd all involve going to my mother's house.) She didn't end up needing surgery luckily.
- I didn't go to her graduation.
I explained my reasoning and apologized about both when I told her no, but I still feel bad because those were essential moments.
Since NC, when she visits (staying at mom's place) we'll meet up to hang out and she always brings stuff from my mother. I know I should refuse, but I always end up taking it because I have a hard time saying no to my sister.
Inevitably we talk a bit about the "mom situation" and she'll say something like:
"You know the longer you don't talk, the harder it'll be to fix this."
"I just don't want you to do something you'll regret."
My therapist says I should go low contact with her. But I feel like I already am, living far away with only a call every two or three weeks. My boyfriend says I need to set stricter boundaries with her. One I've gotten a little better about is about how long I'm going to be NC, I would always say "it's going to be awhile" but last time I quantified it "at least a year, but likely years." Though I know I should just tell her that she should just expect it to be permanent until I say otherwise.
A more specific example is when she asked me to see my grandpa with her and my mom. He's been sick for awhile. My boyfriend helped with my response because I was tempted to be wishy washy. I was worried about my mom showing up to our lunch with dad so we added that in there too. This was the text conversation:
Her: "I just wanted to put this out there. Sunday evening after the stuff with dad,, mom and I are getting dinner with Grandpa. I know you still have this thing going on with mom, but if you don't know Grandpa is not completely mentally here anymore and probably won't last much longer so I figured you might want to go."
Me: "Thanks for the update. I know you have good intentions, but I would appreciate if you would not try to have me meet mom. I don't feel comfortable being around mom even with you there, and that's not going to change for a while.
Are you going to be driving yourself to lunch with dad?
Love you ❤️ Thank you for respecting my boundaries <smiling-dog>"
Her: "I think you got me wrong. I was offering to meet Grandpa, but mom was going. I'm not trying to set anything up. I was assuming I was driving myself"
We talked about it after lunch a bit and she was offended about what I said. I feel bad that it was a bit rigid, but I think it had to be.
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I think I just need some help deciding what boundaries need to be set and ways to go about it.
Any thoughts or advice is appreciated
