I'm so jealous of my perfect sister who has it all

Linda Higgens' "Life Lesssions" column, Evening Herald, 15 January 2008

Dilemma

“I am very jealous of my sister. I try not to be envious, but it’s very difficult.

I’m happily married to a lovely man. He works hard and is very easy-going (perhaps too much so). He’ll never be one of life’s high-flyers, but we’re content most of the time. Sometimes we have money worries, but we always muddle by. I work part-time. Life is busy and sometimes stressful. We have three children under eight.

I love my husband dearly, but I can’t help feel that my younger sister has made the better marriage. She has it all – a huge house, a handsome husband who is an entrepreneur, two adorable children, as well as a cleaner and a live-in nanny. Her husband has made a fortune through his work. He clearly worships my sister. She is totally spoilt: she has wardrobes of designer clothes, drives the newest available cars and always looks a million dollars. She’s very pretty and is always the life and soul of any social gathering.

I’m two years older and I feel like the ugly sister in comparison. My sister isn’t a mean person, but she’ll often make little throwaway comments about how I could do with a makeover or a new haircut or to lose a few pounds. And these barbs cut me to the core. It’s easy for her – she has plenty of money and free time on her hands. I go from working to looking after the kids to catching up on the housework. Is it any wonder I look – and feel - drab and rundown at times?

“I know I should just bite my tongue when she starts and rise above it, but it does hurt me. I should be grateful for what I do have. I am, most of the time. How can I get past these feelings of resentment towards my sibling?"

Expert
Catherine Keers (MIACP, MIAHIP) offers counselling adn psychotherapy services at her Dun Laoghaire clinic. Contact Catherine on 01 284 3297 or www.catherinekeers.com.

Firstly, I get a sense that you are really struggling with yourself and your feelings of jealousy and anger and I’d like to reassure you that all of us feel jealous at times and that this reflects more on how we feel about ourselves, our self-esteem and our self-value than anything else. The only way for you to be able to get past your feelings of resentment towards your sister is to explore how you feel about yourself and work on building up your own self-worth.

Secondly, it is likely that the dynamics at play in your relationship with your sister have been set up much earlier in life, in your childhood. I wonder what messages you picked up about yourself back then. How were you compared to your sister, what were you told about yourself, what support did you get from your parents and how was your self-esteem nurtured? You also say that her comments about you and your appearance are very hurtful to you and that you feel ugly in comparison. It seems like her critical comments trigger a strong reaction in you, perhaps reflecting and echoing feelings you already have about yourself, causing you to be even more self-critical and tear yourself to pieces. This of course is an extremely painful pattern for you. I think it would be helpful for you to explore this in order to gain more understanding on the dynamics at play in your relationship and perhaps find ways to cope better and become more resilient in your dealings with her. You may find Gael Lindenfield’s book ‘Self Esteem’ a helpful start.

Lastly I would like to focus on your life, your achievements and your values. You have a happy marriage and 3 children, its sounds like you are managing well but aren’t truly acknowledging this to yourself and valuing it. When looking from the outside into the relationships of others it can be easy to idealise what their lives may be like and this is not really helpful because we will never really know for sure. I think it would be more helpful to separate out and evaluate what your values are as opposed to your sisters. Ask yourself how important the material and more surface things such as the ‘huge house, designer clothes, handsome husband’ and so on are to you. You may have made choices in your life that are different to your sister; to have an active role in bringing up your children, hence you choose to work part-time and not have child-care, to marry the man you married, again presumably you had your own very valid reasons, you say that you love him dearly. You and your husband have worked towards a life that reflects your own ideals and values, on evaluating this you may feel that there are aspects of your life that you would like to work towards changing or you may decide that you are satisfied with things as they are.

Take ownership of what you have and what you want from life and question why it is necessary for your sister to try to impose her values on you or more importantly for you to compare yourself to her and then devalue yourself and what you have.