Bed time story for tonight
FAMILY JEALOUSY-The Shameful Secret Behind Abuse And Betrayal
THE FIRST CLUE: YOU THOUGHT EVERYTHING WAS FINE....UNTIL YOU GOT STABBED IN THE BACK
Many, if not all, cases of birth-family abuse can be traced back to jealousy or envy in the abuser’s heart toward the victim. It is very painful to be the target of jealousy from someone we love. We are often blindsided by it because it is the last thing we would expect from a family member , however it is much more common than you would think. Often, the victim has done nothing to provoke an attack or a betrayal, and is shocked when it happens. Many times, there will be no explanation, or the act of abuse or betrayal will be way out of proportion to whatever the victim might have done that the abuser claims angered him. An offender may decide to judge her victim for something that has nothing to do with her. Instead of minding her own business, she uses a decision the victim has made in her own life, perhaps to get married, or move away, as a reason to become angry at the victim and “punish” her.
It doesn’t make sense to anyone else except the offender. It’s almost as if she was waiting all along for any excuse, no matter how lame, to hurt her unsuspecting relative. As soon as the victim does anything she “disapproves” of, the abuser jumps on the opportunity to attack the victim and tell anyone who will listen how terrible the victim is. She may start an unprovoked fight with the victim because of her resentments. She may sabotage or undermine the victim. Or she may go to the extreme of cutting the victim out of her life because her own feelings of inferiority have made her uncomfortable around the victim all along, and now she finally has an excuse not to be in the victim’s presence any longer.
People who care about and love each other make every effort to talk things out and hold their relationship together.They may give each other advice out of concern for one another, but they do not force their opinions, wants, or needs on another. They do not judge, “punish”, or blackmail each other. If one makes a decision in her own life that the other is not completely happy with, an unselfish, loving relative puts her own feelings second, wants what’s best for her loved one, and shows support and encouragement. An extreme reaction that doesn’t make sense and is all out of proportion to whatever “offense” the victim supposedly committed is a clue that jealousy, envy, and resentment are at work behind the scenes.
Another tell-tale sign is a relative who hurts you and then “apologizes” by saying something along the lines of “we’ve BOTH hurt each other” or “we BOTH need to forgive each other”, when YOU haven’t done anything hurtful to her at all. When you ask her to be specific about what you have done that requires her forgiveness, she will be unable to give you any examples. She will try to change the subject, or the most you will get is some vague babbling. She will have nothing to say because there IS nothing to say- you have done nothing wrong.
Although you have not hurt her, she has FELT HURT by you all along anyway, simply because she envies you for some reason you are not aware of. She is resentful of you for inadvertently making her feel bad, inferior, or upset, and uses her resentment to justify attacking you. She is making you responsible for her feelings of jealousy. In her mind, her offense of betraying, abandoning, or abusing you is no worse than YOUR 'offense' of just living your life, and she reveals this in a “Freudian slip” by telling you she has “things” she needs to forgive you for too. But when you ask for clarification, she will be unable to admit her jealousy, sometimes even to herself, and so will have nothing specific to accuse you of.
WHEN THOSE WHO SHOULD WANT THE BEST FOR YOU RESENT YOU INSTEAD
SISTERS, BROTHERS, COUSINS, AND OTHER ASSORTED GREEN-EYED LOVED ONES
Sibling rivalry is well-known, has been written about extensively, and is almost expected. There is often an outright or unspoken competition between siblings, but many times this competition is very one-sided. Sometimes the signs are outrageously blatant, such as an adult sibling copying everything you do. Some women find their sister copying everything from a hairstyle or
decorating
color to planning a wedding within a few weeks of their own, or giving her baby the same name her sister chose for her baby. I know of more than one case where, for years, one sister told everyone in the family that she loved a particular name and intended to give it to her baby, only to have her sister give birth FIRST and use the name she had chosen before she could.
Many times one sibling isn’t even aware that there is a competition. It often comes as a surprise to the sibling who is just going about her life that her sister or brother may be envious or jealous. The signs may be hard to read because it is not expected, but a clue often comes in an off-hand remark.
When, after seven years of planning, saving up, and making do with a stove that only had two working burners, I remodeled my kitchen in a “country kitchen” style, the only thing my birth-sister had to say, with a shrug, when she saw it was, “ I like modern.” Not “Oh, how nice”, or “Congratulations”, or “I’m so happy for you- I know you waited so long.” Just a shrug and a comment on how it wasn’t her taste. Why should it be?- it wasn’t her kitchen! But just because something is not what you would have chosen for yourself doesn’t mean you can’t compliment it anyway. This was just one clue I had to the fact that she was envious, but I didn’t fully realize that until I was able to put it together with a few other clues.
A clue that should have been obvious to me, but wasn’t at the time, was our phone calls. First off, every one of them was initiated by me. She never called me for any reason. Whenever she talked to my mother, she would just tell her to say hi to me. That was her idea of carrying on a relationship with her sister. And every conversation we did have was all about her. She could talk nonstop for two hours about her dog
When I gave birth to my first child, my birth-sister, who always made a big point to me of not wanting children to tie her down and infringe on her career, traveling, lifestyle, etc., did not visit me or the baby in the hospital. She did not come and help out, like other aunts might have. She finally met her new nephew for the first time when he was five months old and she happened to be in town for her job. Her jealousy was even more obvious when I gave birth to my second son. He was born on New Year’s Eve, and she did not come to see him until the following Christmas Eve, when she was in town for the holidays anyway, and he was almost a year old! She only worked a few days a month, lived a few hours away by car, and 45 minutes by plane- and because she was a flight attendant, she flew for free and had plenty of time off! But still no happy, excited Auntie showed up!
Several years later, after she had a miscarriage, I called to express my sympathies. Her reaction was to make light of it and repeat that she did not want children and she was perfectly okay with what had happened. It seemed a little strange, but I felt that further expressions of sympathy would not be appreciated- and I didn’t want to make her feel bad if she really was okay. After her second miscarriage, even my mother told me that it was just as well because my birth-sister did not want children. I didn’t realize then how odd it was that a woman in her mid-30s who didn’t want children would have a second “accidental” pregnancy. I just trusted my mother and sister to tell me the truth because it never occurred to me that this was something you would need to lie about.
It was only many years later that I learned from a neighbor that my mother had told her my birth-sister was devastated by losing her pregnancies. I was shocked and hurt. My sister and my mother had conspired to prevent me from offering any comfort. I was lied to by both of them.
I could not ask my mother about this because she had already died. To this day I do not know why my birth-sister would not want me to know she was upset by her miscarriages. She did not want me to comfort her. She did not want to appear vulnerable to me. She did not even want me to know her true feelings.
Unfortunately this lack of emotional connection on her part was the hallmark of our relationship for all of our lives and is the reason that I do not consider her a real “sister”. It’s no big deal that we are no longer in each other’s lives, because we never really were anyway. I can’t miss what I never had, and God has blessed me with two “real” sisters who have more than filled the void. I now understand that my birth-sister never revealed herself to me, or showed any interest in my life because of her overwhelming feelings of jealousy. It was as if she didn’t want to “give me the satisfaction” of knowing she cared.
But hiding her reaction to her lost pregnancies from me, and asking my mother to lie as well, when put together with her complete lack of interest in her little nephews, points to an envious heart. In her resentment, she could not be happy for me, because I had been blessed with children. Her reaction was to point out all the negatives to having children and emphasize how great her life was without all that responsibility. It was a textbook case of “sour grapes”.
And even more incredibly, for years, several of my friends, who really didn’t even know my birth-sister, had been telling me that she was jealous because I had children and she didn’t- and I had been insisting there was no way she was jealous because of her lifelong emphasis on not wanting kids. Remember the old Shakespearean saying-
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much”? Well, even though it was right in front of me, I believed her denial and never saw it as a sign that she really DID want children. It’s really weird how the signs can be so obvious to others, but you miss them because you are too close to the situation, or you just take the person you love at face value and don’t question the truth of what they are telling you even though everyone else can see that they are lying.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much”? Well, even though it was right in front of me, I believed her denial and never saw it as a sign that she really DID want children. It’s really weird how the signs can be so obvious to others, but you miss them because you are too close to the situation, or you just take the person you love at face value and don’t question the truth of what they are telling you even though everyone else can see that they are lying.
Another time, my b.s. (birth-sister) and her husband, who was from England New York City Rockefeller Center Empire State Building Central Park , Trump Tower
No matter what display we looked at, she remarked that she had seen better somewhere in Europe . As a flight attendant, she traveled quite a bit, and I usually didn’t, so this apparently became an area in which she could feel superior. When I commented that I had just seen an article about real estate values in Manhattan
Finally, even my brother-in-law had had enough. We were in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, admiring their gorgeous life-sized nativity when my b.s. commented that there was a much nicer one in Paris
My husband and I, who could have gone to the city anytime we wanted to, went during the most crowded, stressful time of the year, just to treat her and her husband. We paid for their lunch and train fare and took a day out of our busy holidays. It is interesting to note that although my brother-in-law expressed his appreciation, not one word of thanks was ever spoken by my birth-sister, not even for treating them to lunch. She did not even make an effort to be pleasant company.
I was disgusted and aggravated by the whole episode, and pretty much promised myself never to bother going out of my way for her again. I couldn’t understand why she had behaved so poorly, till my husband gave me his old stand-by word of wisdom- Jealousy! And then it did kind of make sense. Jealous that I lived so near the greatest city in the world? That I knew it so well? That with all the traveling she had done all over the world, people from everywhere else always dream about coming to New York
FACING THE DISTURBING TRUTH: RECOGNIZING FAMILY JEALOUSY
A jealous, envious, or competitive relative will never be happy for you. She will not celebrate your joys or successes, but she WILL celebrate your sorrows or failures, and although she might make an effort to keep it to herself, you will sense it. It will kill her to compliment or congratulate you. She doesn’t believe you deserve anything nice, or that you worked hard for something- she believes it’s just dumb luck- and why shouldn’t it happen to her instead of you?
She will make lame excuses not to be a part of your happy occasions- getting “sick” on the day of your wedding and miraculously recovering the next day, being “too busy” to visit your new baby, “not being able to get a babysitter” for a big party at your house. She doesn’t want to see you surrounded by family or friends or celebrating any happy events- it just kills her to watch you be happy!
When something bad happens to you, however, she will be there with bells on. If you lose your job, you have problems with your kids, your husband leaves you, or God forbid, anything worse, she will swoop in with false sympathy long enough to hear every gory detail and then disappear just as quickly, without ever having actually done anything helpful. It’s as if she can’t wait to get home and gloat in private, or call up everyone she knows and pass around your bad news or revel in your tragedy. And she will make it a point of claiming that you “deserved it” or explaining how you screwed up and “brought it on yourself.” There will never be any true empathy, compassion, comfort, or encouragement.
An envious relative will choke on the words “congratulations”, “good for you” or “that’s so nice” when you achieve a goal or have a happy event. You can count on never, EVER hearing the words, “I’m so happy for you”, or, heaven forbid, “I’m PROUD of you.” He is also completely unable to manage any words of sympathy (or at least any sincere words of sympathy) when you are grieving or in sorrow.
When my beloved cousin Tony died unexpectedly and very prematurely after a short illness a week before Christmas, I was devastated. We were very close and he was like my older brother. Tony had spent every holiday at my house for many years and my husband and children were also heartbroken. He was a gentle, good-hearted soul whose loving and cheerful presence kept things on an even keel at family gatherings despite my birth-father’s hostility and nastiness. Like all best friends, we chatted frequently, went out to lunch, and spent a great deal of time together, commiserating and laughing about the relatives we had in common.
Christmas the week after his passing was a very traumatic time for me, and I missed him so much I couldn’t help but brush away the tears. Yet my birth-sister, who was in town for her once-a-year visit on Christmas, never uttered a word of condolence. No sympathy whatsoever, not even an acknowledgement that I had suffered a major loss in my life the week before. She did not even mention Tony’s name. She laughed, chatted away about herself, and celebrated the holidays with our cousins at our aunt’s house on Christmas Eve, and then came to my house as usual on Christmas Day, eating the food I had prepared through my tears and having a fine time without even acknowledging Tony’s very conspicuous absence- as though nothing was the least bit out of the ordinary.
Tony’s friends put together a wonderful memorial service for him a few months later. Many spoke about how much they loved him. I gave the eulogy, and my husband and children attended as well. But not my birth-sister. She couldn’t be bothered. And even worse, not my mother, either- even though she was Tony’s first cousin, she went to an anniversary party instead. So while I tearfully struggled to get through the eulogy I had written, neither my mother nor my b.s (birth-sister) was there for any kind of support. It has been nine years since his tragic passing and my family and I still miss him and feel his loss, especially around the holidays, but never once has my b.s. expressed her sympathy or even mentioned his name in all this time.
Although I had expressed sympathy to her in the past when she had lost people she cared for, the favor was not returned. And since Tony’s passing, she has made it clear to me that she STILL feels entitled to MY sympathy and support if she loses a loved one, even though she gives none when the situation is reversed. This is a common characteristic of all narcissists. Sympathy FROM me was expected, but sympathy FOR me was unheard-of.
Was she envious of the relationship my family and I had with Tony and the love we felt for each other? Was she jealous that I had been blessed with someone so terrific in my life? (I should mention that she could have been close to Tony too, if she had ever made an effort to keep in touch, but she didn’t- as she didn’t with most of the family. I had a special relationship with him, as well as many other relatives, because I DO make that effort.) Was it a small victory in her one-sided competition that he was gone and I didn’t have him anymore? Was she so selfish and self-centered that only HER pain deserved an acknowledgement- and she was blind to anyone else’s sorrow? Or was she secretly glad to see me hurting over the holidays instead of being happy and enjoying myself? I’ll never know- but her completely ignoring the fact that I was mourning the loss of a loved one is shockingly uncaring and unfeeling behavior coming from a so-called “sister”.
A jealous relative will do everything he can to bring you down and keep you down. This will range from snide remarks and criticisms, to lying about you or gossiping behind your back, to outright sabotage. I have seen jealous parents or siblings purposely set up a situation to embarrass or upset their unsuspecting family member- some even going so far as to sabotage their relative’s job or marriage. If you are joyful, he won’t be satisfied until he sees your smile vanish. If you are sorrowful, he’ll make sure to say or do something when you are at your lowest point to make you feel even worse.
In the Old Testament, we see that Cain murdered his brother Abel because he was jealous of him (Genesis 4:4-8). Abel never did anything to deserve being murdered by his brother. In Genesis chapter 37, we are told the story of Joseph. Joseph’s brothers were consumed with jealousy toward him, threw him in a well and plotted to kill him. They eventually sold him into slavery and told their father Jacob that he had been killed by a wild animal. That is how much their hatred burned toward their brother because of their own envy. But God loved Joseph, and prospered him greatly, as he will also prosper us. Genesis goes on to tell the rest of the story of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph had a happy ending, in which his brothers must come to him for survival and repent, he forgives them, and they are all reunited, together with their father. Our happy ending may not be the same as Joseph’s, but, sisters, I assure you that we will have our happy ending as well! Thanks be to God!
A jealous relative can only feel good if you feel bad. The last thing he wants is to know you are happy. All his high points come at your expense. In a sick way, he is truly obsessed with you and your life. Without realizing it, you have become his focus. It is a creepy feeling to know that you are just going about your normal life and minding your own business, all the while being observed by a loved one with jealousy in his heart who is just waiting for you to be hurt, upset, or embarrassed in some way.
Perhaps he is angry that you are not as obsessed with him. Maybe he wants your attention and is resentful of not being the center of the universe to you. In the case of a sibling, maybe he wants your PARENTS’ attention or approval. Perhaps he feels inferior in some way and can only feel better about himself by bringing you down to what he unconsciously thinks is “his level”. Or perhaps he really IS inferior, and can only boost his own self- esteem by making you look or feel foolish or bad. When a tragedy happens to you, he is secretly thrilled, because all along he had been bitter at whatever good things you had in your life.
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