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My advice to the OP's mother is this: call the sister's bluff. Demand that the sister receive counseling, and until she does, no more money or other support. If the sister threatens to commit suicide, the mother should just shrug her shoulders and say, "I hope you won't, but I can't stop you. In any case, I'm not giving you any more money until you accept counseling." And if the sister starts to become abusive, the police need to be involved.
Chances that the OP's mother will accept this advice: approximately the same as Honolulu being buried under two feet of snow.
My advice to the OP is this: completely remove yourself from this situation. Tell your mother that you're tired of being her sounding board. She's been complaining about this mess for decades, yet nothing ever changes. Tell her that unless she accepts the advice I offered above, you will not listen to any further discussions about the sister. And whatever you do, do not allow yourself to be roped into becoming your sister's caregiver once your mother is no longer able to do it.
It sounds like a difficult situation all around. I'm not sure that either one of them will ever change, though.
That isn't your doing or your responsibility to fix. Just remember that.
Agree. It is the responsibility of the mother, although the OP might consider chatting with social services and explaining the situation and getting advice, as I suspect they are familiar with this kind of issue. The sister is controlling the mother with her threats, and social services may be able to help. Yeah, no one ever wants to call, but sometimes it is the best thing to do.
Agree. It is the responsibility of the mother, although the OP might consider chatting with social services and explaining the situation and getting advice, as I suspect they are familiar with this kind of issue. The sister is controlling the mother with her threats, and social services may be able to help. Yeah, no one ever wants to call, but sometimes it is the best thing to do.
This pattern of behavior has been going on for decades. The mother could have blocked her daughter's calls a long time ago. She sounds just as reliant on her daughter as her daughter is on her.
If the daughter has been regularly threatening to commit suicide for the past 20 years does her mom or any other reasonable person really believe that the daughter is suicidal? I think that's just an excuse for the mom to continue on the way she's been doing. It's her money.
The title says it. I have a 41 year-old younger sister, my only sibling, that has struggled with self-esteem, depression, has significant learning disabilities, and has been employed for about 5 years of her life. She cannot find work and when she does, she gets fired and has proven to be a poor employee at every opportunity. She feels sorry for herself like no one I have ever met but absolutely refuses to get professional help, even though my mother offers to do everything she can to provide help.
My mother has an enmeshed relationship with her where they talk almost everyday. These talks almost always include suicide threats which leave my mother paralyzed. She has been supporting her financially for the better part of her adult life even though my sister has a bachelor's degree from a top 25 university and a master's to go with it.
I also feel my sister is spoiled rotten, is extremely entitled to my mother's financial help, and feels many jobs are beneath her. My mother complains to me about her suicide threats and asks me for advice. I tell her to draw a line with her financial support and make it contingent on my sister agreeing to get serious help, but she cannot do it.
Any advice?
Stick to your guns. What you've recommended is sound. It's up to your mother to see it. (Unfortunately, based on what you've written here, your sis may very well complete....) Sorry to say.
I'm not so sure she has gotten all good advice. This is her only sibling, her mother desperately asked for her advice. It's most certainly her "job" to get involved if she cares at all about her family.
With that said I wish I had good advice but this is just such a tough situation. I can certainly see why the mom would not take a hard line approach, suicide while merely a threat now is always a possibility should the sister find herself destitute and then how will the mom live with herself? I am curious as to why one sister would be raised totally different than the other sister. But it looks clear to me that this may be a big part of the problem.
It's not my intention to hijack this thread but rather to explain how the bolded happens. I'm the oldest child and had 2 younger brothers. Like me, the older of the 2 was raised to be considerate, have good manners, be responsible and never freeload off others. The youngest brother was later discovered to have dyslexia and ADHD. When he started school, there was no special ed for such kids. My parents argued constantly regarding how to handle him. My father thought that taking the belt to him was the answer. While my mother said they should just leave him alone. She got that from asking a counselor about the situation. In the end, he got away with a lot of bad behavior because there were rarely any consequences for him. As an adult, he has atrocious table manners. He also thinks it's okay to drop in on people. Or if he's invited somewhere, he thinks nothing of calling up friends to come and join him, never clearing it with the host of the gathering. He gets told to dress properly for certain occasions but refuses to do so. When he was first on his own, he moved in with my other brother and never offered to help with the rent or food costs. Rather, he would complain that the food my other brother had was terrible. My other brother and I, as kids would loan him things and he would destroy them. Meanwhile, my father would promise us that our brother wouldn't do it. When it happened, there was no consequences for him.
My parents used to say that they wanted him to find a woman to marry who would take care of him. He has held jobs but will quit them at the drop of a hat with no thought as to how he would earn money.
This is longer than I intended but, that's how such things can happen in families. So I believe the OP when he talks about how his sister was raised.
This kind of thing happens a lot with drug addicted adult children and their parents. The adult child becomes a constant source of stress and worry to the parents and they feel that they have to keep a roof over their child's head or their kid will wind up on the streets at the mercy of the worst of the worst. At first the parents plan to pay for a little while, just long enough to get their kid counseling. Next thing they know some new rock bottom happens and the parents wind up paying for a stint of rehab for their kid. It just becomes this endless cycle of paying their kid's rent and bills each month, sending them cash to buy groceries with. The kid gets used to never really having to take ownership of their issues and lets mommy and daddy keep on paying the bills. The parents keep paying because they really do not want that in their home.
There might be some addiction issues going on with Op's sibling that Op doesn't know about.
A lot of parents cripple their children by doing way too much for them (and not forcing them to sink or swim). However, when you have a child with a lifelong disability it would be extraordinarily expensive to do the right thing and arrange for them to be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
I have a friend like this and she has two very successful brothers and one brother who is schitzoophrenic and homeless. The parents died and so he no longer lived with the mother. The house was sold and the proceeds were split 15 years ago. They could not leave the house to him because he would never be able to handle it. They could not leave the house to the sister so she could take care of him (because he is really too much for her to handle).
It's a very difficult situation and she is constantly dealing with her brother (because she is the oldest and because she feels it's the right thing to do). There's really not enough help for him. It's in an impossible situation for someone with limited means themselves.
The title says it. I have a 41 year-old younger sister, my only sibling, that has struggled with self-esteem, depression, has significant learning disabilities, and has been employed for about 5 years of her life. She cannot find work and when she does, she gets fired and has proven to be a poor employee at every opportunity. She feels sorry for herself like no one I have ever met but absolutely refuses to get professional help, even though my mother offers to do everything she can to provide help.
My mother has an enmeshed relationship with her where they talk almost everyday. These talks almost always include suicide threats which leave my mother paralyzed. She has been supporting her financially for the better part of her adult life even though my sister has a bachelor's degree from a top 25 university and a master's to go with it.
I also feel my sister is spoiled rotten, is extremely entitled to my mother's financial help, and feels many jobs are beneath her. My mother complains to me about her suicide threats and asks me for advice. I tell her to draw a line with her financial support and make it contingent on my sister agreeing to get serious help, but she cannot do it.
Any advice?
This sounds familiar as I have a family member with the same background--highly educated, unable to keep a job, depression, supported financially, etc. This is not usually an issue of entitlement, failure to launch, etc., but something deeper that she can't control. Her learning disability alone can be challenging to manage, esp if it has not been addressed. Your sister likely has an undiagnosed psychological issue (neurodivergent, bipolar) cascading from the learning disability requiring a diagnosis and then therapy and/or meds to stabilize her.
Your mother (with your help) needs to calmly and sensitively convince your sister to have a conversation with a good therapist to get support and help. That your mother will pay for it. If your sister won't do that, your mother can offer to go with her and do a family counseling appointment, so your sister is not feeling singled out. Whatever it takes, get her in to see someone. In the end, it helps everyone.
Suicide threats are real. Do what you can to support her without frustration, as that will only drive her deeper into despair. I know how very difficult this is, but once everyone realizes what is going on with her, her life and that of your mother's will get so much better and you can all rest easy.
I wish you the very best of luck and don't give up on her.
This sounds familiar as I have a family member with the same background--highly educated, unable to keep a job, depression, supported financially, etc. This is not usually an issue of entitlement, failure to launch, etc., but something deeper that she can't control. Her learning disability alone can be challenging to manage, esp if it has not been addressed. Your sister likely has an undiagnosed psychological issue (neurodivergent, bipolar) cascading from the learning disability requiring a diagnosis and then therapy and/or meds to stabilize her.
Your mother (with your help) needs to calmly and sensitively convince your sister to have a conversation with a good therapist to get support and help. That your mother will pay for it. If your sister won't do that, your mother can offer to go with her and do a family counseling appointment, so your sister is not feeling singled out. Whatever it takes, get her in to see someone. In the end, it helps everyone.
Suicide threats are real. Do what you can to support her without frustration, as that will only drive her deeper into despair. I know how very difficult this is, but once everyone realizes what is going on with her, her life and that of your mother's will get so much better and you can all rest easy.
I wish you the very best of luck and don't give up on her.
At 78, this might be more than the mother can wrap her head around and she's taking the path of least resistance and the one that will cause her the least amount of emotional distress. She's been sending her daughter cash infusions for 20 years and likely will continue to do so until the money runs out, she dies or her daughter dies.
Every month for the past 240 months and since Mom was only 58, herself, she has been deciding to send money to her daughter.
Every month for the past 240 months and since the sister was only 21, herself, Sis has been accepting and spending and counting on Mom's money.
This is a lifestyle that both of them have been choosing to live for 20 years. This is their normal. It took them both to create this dynamic.
Another poster said that when something happens to Mom's money (she runs out, dies, gets incapicated) that Sis will figure out a new money source and that probably is what will happen.
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