I dont know how to live with my toxic sister
I feel like I am losing my mind and I need to rant about my crazy sister. I 43f and my sister 45f live in the house we inherited from our family. i initially thought it was a good idea because we both went through bumpy divorces and needed somewhere to start over. We've both been threre for each other through difficult times and i feel like we have a good/horrible relationship and nothing in between. We grew up together so we also have a lot of mutual friends. While i love my sister, she can be a bit of a difficult person to deal with. She has a reputation in the family of being easily provoked and expolding on you. I have stopped speaking with her throughout my life for blocks of time becuause of this bad quality of hers. She's had a difficult life so everyone usually just lets her get away with blowing up on everyone, myself included. however, we now live together out of desperation and her old habits are starting to affect my mental health. I have tried reaching out to the rest of the family, but no one wants to get involved. I have a lot of sisters and one of my sisters, my younger one 36f, always sides with my older toxic siser. Even when my younger sister knows my older toxic sister is wrong. enabling her rotten behavior.
So anyway, my older sister always expects me to clean up. I try to clean as much as i can. i have 3 kids that live with me part time, the youngest is 6. when they are home, i dont always get to the chores right away because i also work full time in office whereas my sister works full time from home. I still do them, just not right away. She moved in with me so she should not be surprised i am unable to do all my chores on time. I admit i dont make it as big as a priority when i am too tired from a long day of work and after school family stuff. Again, i dont leave it for her to do. i just cant do it right away. As soon as i get the opportunity, i clean.
Her insults are getting worse and worse. I asked her to stop yelling at me in front of my kids. i make an effort not to call her names or scream bc i dont want to engage, I am ashamed to say that when she has pushed me too far, i have reacted with equal venomous assaults. i am really trying to not do that and have not the past few days. When i try to have an adult conversation with her she tells me she doesnt like the way i am talking to her. i dont really know how else to talk. I thought maybe i was being aggressive so i calmed down and spoke in an emotionless voice and she said i was irritating her. i talked like i normally do and it "made her want to punch me." i realized that it was me she didnt like and it didnt matter how i speak. At this point i feel like nothing can mend our relationship bc i refuse to make up with her this time. Its been this way since she moved in 5 months ago. i feel like i am losing my mind. how do i cope??? for the record when we have fought in the past it was always me going to her trying to get us to make up. I am tired and stressed.