Sister Reliving Our Abusive Childhood

Reader’s Question

My father passed away when I was a child and my mother raised my sister, my half-sister, and me by herself. My mother’s relationship with my half-sister was bad. I really think she didn’t like her at all, although she insists she loved her then and loves her still. They do not speak at all. There was verbal and physical abuse in the home towards all of us. Now my sister is married to a man who is very similar to my mother. He dislikes her son from a previous relationship and is also narcissistic. My mother can’t stand him and wishes my sister wasn’t with a “controller”. I agree, but the difficult thing is that my mother does not see her mirror image when she looks at him. I can’t stand to hear her go on and on about him and how he should be more loving and kind to my nephew. It is all true, but it hurts that she was not loving and kind to us. I am 33 and still afraid of my mother. Maybe not that she would hurt me, although I have frequent dreams that she does, but that she will never speak to me again if I offend her. I also don’t want to hurt her.

I think my sister needs to realize she has established a home identical to the one she grew up in. Should I confront them?

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

The early death of your father probably forced your mother to operate in “survival mode” during your childhood. As a single parent, overwhelmed with responsibility, she probably was excessive in her need and behaviors to control the children, possibly creating the abusive situations you describe. Now that the three children have become adults, your mother has relaxed and now views family situations in a normal manner — forgetting about how she parented her three children. This situation is not uncommon.

Your sister has found someone similar to her parent — also not uncommon. In mental health terms, it’s called “identification with the aggressor”. When confronted with an abusive parent we have three approaches:

1. Try to be like them and hope that will protect us from their abuse,
2. Become anxious and try to please them constantly, or
3. Detach from the parent and live an isolated childhood.

Your sister may have picked survival approach #1 and you picked #2. This is why you are torn between saying something to your mother yet still fearing her at the age of 33.

Your childhood has produced a lot of emotional memories that now interfere with the way you relate to your mother. I’d recommend reading my article on Emotional Memory on this website. It offers guidelines about restructuring your memories. I’d also recommend not confronting your mother about what you see as an obvious difference between her current feelings/opinion and those in her past. Your fear that she may never speak to you again is likely a childhood emotional memory — the fear a child has that confrontation with the parent may make you an orphan. The key — what is her behavior toward you now…not then. If she is currently loving, supportive, etc. then choose to relate to that mother — not the mother of your childhood. Both of you survived a difficult childhood and you should both be free. If she is abusive or offensive to you now — slowly detach and keep an emotional distance. The important thing is to make your current life healthy.

I would consider discussing your sister’s situation in a sister-to-sister manner. Express your concern that the family life must be very stressful based on your observations. From that point, the two of you can discuss ways to improve her current relationship, check to see if she needs additional support, and offer any way you can be of help.