My relationship with my older sister has been difficult since we were children. We are now in our mid twenties and I am trying to patch things up as things are getting out of hand. She is a very jealous person and our fights often begin with her criticizing (my boyfriend/career/lifestyle) and she knows me well so she knows how to cut deep. We also both fight for my mother’s attention even at our age. Since she lives at home with my parents, and I visit home often, she often tries to get me in trouble with my parents by tattling about inappropriate things. Recently she started talking about my sex life with my mother! It is embarrassing because my sister often makes up lies or stretches the truth in an attempt to make my mother upset with me about things that would not normally matter, as I am a grown woman. My sister often gets in moods where she will continually say nasty things to me for hours rather than just going away! It has gotten to the point where if I come home to a family gathering she will begin to pick at me immediately, and if I don’t give her the response she wants (freaking out), she will throw a fit and upset the whole family.

I have tried discussing these issues with my sister but she is uninterested in fixing things. Since I cannot change her, I am wondering what I can do to prevent her from continuing the behavior when it starts. How should I respond when she says something nasty about my boyfriend? How do I respond to her tattling and lying to my mother? I used to think if I stopped blowing up when it happened she would stop, but it still continues even if I ignore her. I even tried going along with it, but it just propagates the fight longer until one of us blows up.

I have always envied my friends who see their sister as a best friend and while I may never have that, I want to at least be able to be in the same room with her without fighting.