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Best Friend Being Manipulated by his Sister

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  • May 18, 2016 at 12:48 pm #104927
    Charlie
    Participant

    My best friend grew up in a very tumultuous family. His mother left the family when my friend was young and had a bunch of children with other men, so my friend has half-siblings who he’s never known. My friend is incredibly kind and self-less person — too selfless I think, and I care about him a great deal. Recently, a 20-year-old half-sister entered into my friend’s life. He was absolutely overjoyed when she first came into his life, and she has taken full advantage of that. This sister is emotionally abusive and manipulative. For example, she often cries to him on the phone, asking him to send her more money, then she spends the money he sends her on drugs. She often freaks out on the phone and says horrible things to him, and she accuses him of wanting to “abandon” her and basically constantly makes him feel guilty, sad, and anxious. My best friend already has a lot of issues in his own life to deal with as it is, and this sister is adding to his list. My friend is troubled by her behavior, but he feels like he needs to “save” her and be there for her, since she is obviously troubled and needs him. I hear about this sister all the time, and so far I have mostly kept my mouth shut. Recently he has asked me for advice on what he should do to help her feel less alone, and what he can do to make her a strong woman like me. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make my friend think that I am judging him or his family. However, the stories he tells me are seriously disturbing, and I feel that I cannot keep my mouth shut and pretend like everything is ok just because she is young and troubled. How do I tell my friend that I am concerned that he is enabling her behavior and that this relationship is toxic??

    May 18, 2016 at 2:49 pm #104938
    Eris
    Participant

    I think you are a very strong person and good friend not to have said anything yet to him. You seem pretty wise from what you have written.

    I think that him asking how he can make her strong like you is your way in with out it being judgmental. You can explain that one reason that you are strong is that you have had the support of people who cared enough not to allow you to indulge weak behaviors for example (not sure if that is true for you but generally people who have had people in their life who don’t let them behave badly because they want what is best for them are stronger and nicer people!)

    You can use the ‘well for me’ line e.g well for me its having people in my live who help support me in fixing the problem so that I learn how to fix that situation in the future, so if I have a money issue they help me work out how I can solve it myself rather than just lending me the money.

    I’m sure you can put it in better words but hopefully you get the idea. The important thing is to not let any of the frustration or condemnation of the sister’s behavior leak out in your voice so focus on genuinely wanting to help her and your friend at the same time.

    Good luck and your friend is lucky to have you in his life.

    Eris

    May 18, 2016 at 8:59 pm #104996
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear

    You asked: ” How do I tell my friend that I am concerned that he is enabling her behavior and that this relationship is toxic??”

    I would tell him just that, that you are concerned for his well being, and that you think that his motivation to help her is good and noble but his way of helping her is not helping her but enabling her. When he listens to her verbal abuse and proceeds to send her money instead of hanging up on her and not sending her money, he encourages her to verbally abuse him and others.

    He is encouraging her to be verbally abusive by rewarding her verbal abuse. It therefore works for her benefit to verbally abuse him. Why should she stop. If your friend doesn’t mind her verbal abuse of him, I hope he would mind if she verbally abused her own future children. When he encourages her being abusive, he is encouraging her to be verbally abusive to others as well.

    Please have the talk with him, speak with conviction, strong and calm and post again about how it went…?

    anita

    May 19, 2016 at 6:59 am #105018
    Charlie
    Participant

    Eris and Anita,

    Thank you both so much for your input. You’ve both given me so much to think about – things that I hadn’t even considered. I will let you know how everything goes once I’ve had the talk!

    Charlotte

    May 19, 2016 at 7:43 am #105028
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Charlotte:

    I didn’t type your username in the above post to you, was going to after the body of text but forgot.

    You are welcome and please do post again!

    anita

    August 9, 2016 at 1:29 pm #111999
    Charlie
    Participant

    Hi everyone,

    Just wanted to update you all on the situation. Sorry it took me a while to post back – there was a lot of back and forth, and I wanted to wait until things resolved somewhat. I started out with Eris’ suggestions and figured that I would see how he reacted to that first, i.e. “well, in my experience, what I think made me a stronger person….” etc. He reacted well to that and kept asking me more questions, so eventually I segwayed into Anita’s suggestions. I explained that I have been concerned about the way he was being treated and that he seemed to feel very hurt and stressed and burnt out, and that this is not how a healthy relationship should feel. He also appreciated that a lot. He agreed that he felt that he was being used and degraded. He eventually confronted his sister about it and she freaked out. She wouldn’t talk to him for a week. Then she apologized a week later and acted really sweet for a few days. Then she started acting crazy again – making fun of him, cursing out his Dad and other family members, etc. He finally said that he had had enough and needed a break, and she told him to “have a nice life.” He was pretty upset for a while because he finally had a chance to know his sister, and it ended up being a bad experience, but he is ok now. He said that, without a doubt, he was only able to get through it because of me being there for him. Thank you for all of your help!

    August 9, 2016 at 6:40 pm #112011
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Charlie:

    You are an amazing best friend to your friend and very thorough in your successful efforts to help him. It is very rare for a person posting a thread to come back to it months later and you have. Indeed, you are a unique person: caring, responsible, thorough, thoughtful and gracious.

    You are very welcome and thank you for coming back with this delightful update!

    anita

    August 16, 2016 at 10:46 am #112492
    Charlie
    Participant

    Thank you so much again, Anita. 🙂 I actually just have 2 more questions…(sorry, this is such a messy family situation!). My friend is pretty much ready to cut off his sister. He knows that she is very manipulative, and whenever he has confronted her about things, she initially freaks out, but then a week later she sends a super sweet email and he feels guilty for wanting to cut her off. But for the past few weeks, he hasn’t spoken with her, and things seemed to have calmed down. Then 3 days ago, she sent this super long and sweet email to him, so he started feeling bad about everything again. He then asked me to look at her Instagram account (she has a public profile) because he doesn’t have an account, to see if she’s been telling the truth about where she is and what she’s doing. I basically found loads of evidence that she has been lying to him again about what she’s been up to. I told him, and he said that he is glad that I told him, but obviously he is hurt and a bit angry. I feel bad that I had to give him bad news and that he is hurting because of it. Was I wrong to tell him this?

    He was also asking me if I think that he should have no more contact with her. He is thinking of blocking her calls and emails because he can’t fall apart whenever she sends a sweet (but manipulative) email. I am torn because 1) she is really tearing him apart so I don’t want him to continue talking with her, but 2) I don’t ever want to advocate completely cutting someone off. Any thoughts about how to answer this question?

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Charlie.
    August 16, 2016 at 8:49 pm #112556
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Charlie:

    Will be back at the computer in ten hours or so and will read and reply to you then. Take care!

    anita

    August 17, 2016 at 6:21 am #112646
    Charlie
    Participant

    Anita,

    My friend actually told me last night that he sent his sister a very pointed email that basically said that he cannot do this anymore and that he will not be responding to any emails or calls in the future, that he wishes her luck in the future, etc. He made that decision on his own, without me, so that took a lot of weight off my shoulders, phewww. Hopefully everything is resolved now. He said that he appreciates that I told him what I saw on her Instagram account because otherwise he might have fallen for her lies again. I still feel kind of bad, but I think that is maybe mostly because it is a sad situation. I’ve never really had to deal with manipulative family members or friends, so this was all unfamiliar to me, and I didn’t really know how to best help my friend.

    Thank you so much for your help again, Anita. You are such a good person to dedicate your time here like you do, and you are so wise and have such good advice. If you haven’t already, you should write a book 🙂

    August 17, 2016 at 6:37 am #112647
    Charlie
    Participant

    PS: He also wrote me an email saying that, while he wishes that things were different with his family and that he could have at least one stable sibling, he is fine and already feels better after sending that email and getting it off his chest. He wrote that he is “grateful that I still do have a sister that really cares about me and is the most amazing person” (referring to me).

    August 17, 2016 at 8:15 am #112649
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Charlie:

    I agree with your friend, that you should have shared the Instagram information with him, absolutely! You helped your friend protect himself from a person continuing to try to hurt him.

    You wrote: “I don’t ever want to advocate completely cutting someone off.” I do. I do advocate completely cutting people who are trying to hurt you out of your life, no matter if it is a parent, a sibling, anyone.

    Cutting off abusive people is a good thing and should be done. Your friend stated he feels better having done so, good for him! The thing is he may feel guilty again because of the (wrong) social convention that it is wrong to cut off family members.

    I hope you will be there to remind your friend how good he felt last night when he sent her the message that he “cannot do this anymore and that he will not be responding to any emails or calls in the future”- and that he should stick to this policy regardless of future unjustified guilty feelings.

    Thank you for your appreciation and suggestion that I write a book… I appreciate it. Post anytime.

    anita

    August 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm #112688
    Charlie
    Participant

    Thank you again, Anita! I agree that sometimes it is best to cut people off – and it is necessary when they are deliberately trying to hurt you. My main concern was that I didn’t want to make that decision for him and that it should be his choice because it is so personal. But fortunately, he realized that he needs to decide himself and sent that email on his own, without my suggesting it.

    He had wanted to cut her off long ago but had that warped view that family should be there for each other “no matter what” – which is ironic because none of his family was ever there for him and probably never will be. But I think he realizes that this thinking is a fantasy (in his case) and a wrong social convention, as you said. I am glad that you brought that up, and in the future if he starts feeling guilty, I am going to remind him of this and the fact that he felt good after sending that email.

    Thank you again for all of your help with this! You’ve made me feel so much better.

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Charlie.
    August 17, 2016 at 2:37 pm #112694
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Charlie:

    You are welcome and I am glad you are such a good friend. He is fortunate to have you as his friend, very fortunate because not only you have been willing to help him, but you are capable of helping him. You didn’t pressure him or try to force him to think this way or that. You validated what part of him already knew was true.

    I like your thinking: your rationale and your heart.

    anita

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