My older sister has this most irritating habit of piling on guilt on to the rest of the siblings. We aren't perfect and we've made mistakes in the past but she keeps on harping and digging at the scabs every now and then. It's highly irritating, to say the least. Her main topics are how we're all horrible children to our parents and how she won't marry because she wants to look after them. And how we did this and that! Recently, she even messaged us in Facebook just to lay on the guilt trip. My siblings and I are truly, truly tired of this. Mostly, I fire back or choose to ignore her but these days she has started making my blood boil. Apart from these two reactions, what other options do I have? We've talked to her about this but she just continues!
--Ritika
I feel so sorry for your sister. She must be a really, really sad person. I can only imagine what it must feel like to wake up every single day believing that she can't rely on her siblings. To be burdened by the idea that she must make personal sacrifices of her wellbeing to take care for her parents. It must feel really lonely to not be able to relate to her brothers and sisters, to rely upon them, to be best friends, to share the deepest fears and feel that you can lean on each other. Right now, you might be feeling – "...but that's not true. We are responsible kids, and if she wanted, she could rely on us." What we don't understand is that everyone creates their own world of reality in their heads. She has made herself believe certain things about her parents, her siblings and her burden of responsibility. She isn't being able to see beyond that. To her, that's her world – sad, lonely, and burdensome. The reason she spreads unhappiness is because she's unhappy and she feels bitter herself. Whatever she's passing on to you and the rest of you siblings, that's all she has to give.
The easier way to deal with this is what you're doing right now – resorting to anger and aggression or withdrawing and ignoring her. If you wanted it to be easy, there's no other way. If you want to do something more difficult, I can share my story. My sister is about nine years older than me. Back in the days, when I would get back home from school, she'd already be back from college. There was a particular year I remember where she was often irritated and she would vent that upon me. Thus, every evening we'd always land up in some squabble. On the way back home, I always passed by a fence of a house, which had Jasmine flowers crawling around it. One day I picked some Jasmine on the way and as soon as my sister opened the door to let me in, I gave it to her. We didn't quarrel that day. Then after, almost everyday, on the way, I picked up some Jasmine.
This is the difficult way – to love unconditionally, to forgive, to develop a sense of humor and laugh off things that make no sense. It is easy to try to change someone else, the most difficult way is to set oneself on a journey of personal transformation and change oneself.
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Dear Swastika,
I was in a relationship for two years and then due to some problems, we couldn't be together and she got married. Then, I fell in love with my best friend. We had a thing for sometime and then we broke up because of long distant relationship and haven't been able to recover from the break up since. She fell in love with someone else. However, I'm still hung up on her. We were best friends and still are now. But, she doesn't know that I still have feelings for her. She's a very good person and a really nice friend, but I still like her a lot. Not a day passes by without thinking fondly of her. I see her in my dreams everyday. I don't want to tell her anything because we have no future and I don't want to lose her as my best friend. But then, I still have feelings for her. Also I don't want to have the feeling that I made things weird between us. Is it just okay to tell her how I feel? If I tell her how I feel, I might loose my best friend, which I don't want. Or what should I do to move past this emotion?
--Confused Heart
I know the feeling of desperation to release the heaviness of the heart; the desire to just pour your heart out because you simply can't keep it inside you any more. I think you very well know the dangers of speaking your heart out.
There was a time when I lost someone I was so much in love with because he didn't explicitly say it and I assumed that he simply didn't share the feelings that I had for him. It wasn't until seven years later, that he confessed what he felt back then. Apparently, we both were waiting for the other to take the leap. But at the same time, I had a dear friend in college, in whose eyes I clearly saw the love he never confessed. We're still really great friends and till date, I feel so thankful that he never said those words. It would have made everything so awkward and difficult to remain friends. Almost 12 years later, he winks at me and says how he was once madly in love and had a nasty twist, and I wink back at him and say "Really? Who was she?" And then, we just laugh.
Maybe it is wise to make sure she isn't waiting for you to take the leap. Check how she feels in her current relationship. She could be missing the kind of relationship that you shared and perhaps wondering if you're interested to start all over again. You might be giving her mixed signals by overstressing on "best friends" angle while she might just be waiting for you take a step forward. However, if you're sure by now that she has happily moved on beyond the point of return, then allow yourself to carry on, with a heavy heart if you must. It's okay for the heart to crunch in pain, to miss someone dearly, and to feel the weight of your loss right on your chest. After a decade, you might be able to sit across in a restaurant and wink at each other and laugh with a heart that still feels heavy, warm and fuzzy.
Sometimes, the biggest loss is not in losing the one you love. Sometimes, the worst is when you lose her and then also lose that pain of losing her. It is worse to feel nothing, to feel empty, to feel you have lost everything including the pain of losing everything. Therefore sometimes, the best thing to say is to say nothing at all.
Swastika Shrestha is the co-founder and head of training and support at Teach for Nepal. She has several years of experience training and mentoring youth leaders. She can be reached at swastika@teachfornepal.org.