How to deal with being the unwanted / forgotten sibling?
Hi all. Seeking some advice. For some background- I’m the youngest of 3 girls. My middle sister is 4 years older than me, my oldest sister is 8 years older than me.
Even when I was a kid, I felt like the sibling left out or left behind. I always kinda understood the distance between my older sister and I, 8 years is a big difference, especially when growing up as kids. But unfortunately, my middle sister always was reaching forward to be with my oldest sister, and somehow I became the ‘uncool’ little sister.
My dad had to force my middle sister to play with me even as kids, just to show you that this type of dynamic has been around my whole life. And I’ve never done anything to my sisters to really warrant them not wanting to be around me. It’s just always been that way.
I always felt that maybe it’d be easier as adults, since we are all in more similar stages of life. But even to this day- they’re much closer to each other and I feel like a nuisance for just existing.
None of us live in the same state. I live about a 5 hour drive from my middle sister, and our oldest sister is across the country, a 6 hr plane ride minimum.
Every year, my middle sister takes a week off and will fly across the country to visit my oldest sister. They’ll get together and go to concerts and do super fun things together. But she won’t ever take a weekend off and come visit me.
They’ve only ever come to see me once in the 4 years I’ve been living where I am, and it was for a few hours during one day, and they really only came to my area to go to a concert together that I wasn’t invited to. And when I said I’d go just to be with them even if it wasn’t an artist I was into, they made the excuse of the tickets being expensive and not wanting me to spend the money on an artist I’m not into.
(I’ll also put a note here that their time with me was the day after the concert. We spent time together, I thought it went really well, we took cute photos together. And the day after they left- I noticed my oldest sister made her instagram profile pic a photo of just them… at the concert. Felt like a stab in the heart after we all took cute pics all together.)
I do visit the area my middle sister lives in a lot because my mom and other family members live there, but even trying to have a dinner with my middle sister seems like a chore when I come. She never wants to plan something fun to do with me, and always has some sort of excuse for it.
It’s really difficult for me to always be longing for the same love and effort they show each other. I’ve tried talking to them about it but they always shift blame and responsibility to me- even though I’ve been the only one caring and trying to fix the matter. I feel like I want to be done, but it still hurts to see them get together and love each other. I wish they loved me, too.
How would you go about calmly telling them how I feel, or if you think I should move on, how can I go about not letting it hurt me so much to see them together knowing they don’t treat me that way? (For reference, I’m in my late 20’s, they’re both in their 30’s) I’ve even talked to my parents about it. My mom understands and feels bad and wishes she could fix it, but my dad, like my sisters, just tried to make excuses.