How do you handle the hurt of dealing with a selfish, uncaring and greedy sibling?

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How do you handle the hurt of dealing with a selfish, uncaring and greedy sibling?

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My sister has been self absorbed all her life. She takes no responsibility for her hateful actions, and constanly blames others for her actions. Our mother is 90 and in my care. My sister refused to help when our mother was going through treatment for cancer years ago, so it all fell on me to get mom through it. All my sister cared about was what she could get out of moms house while she was with us going through kemo.
Now she has everything she could possibly get her hands on including all the family albums, and mom's car (which she had been trying to get for years even though mom was capable of driving herself). During a recent situation that mom caused, leading me to realize that she has Dementia, my sister realizes that my husband and I have been supporting mom monitarily for years. She has pretty much broke off communications with mom. She did call on Christmas, but other than that she does not call her. Mom gets confused and can't seem to figure out the phone most days so she waits for other people to call her. I check on her all during the day since we put a small cottage just for her on our acreage. She loves having her own space and we know we can keep her safe for now.
I can't help feeling resentment toward my sister for her lack of caring, and self centered personality. I accept the responsibility for the POA assigned to me by our mother. However I can't seem to wrap my mind around the hate that my sister feels toward us as well as the out and out lies she has told to con other people.
I could use some hints on how some of you deal with this kind of situation. I know I'm not the only one. Every family seems to have at least one :-(

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Sounds like you have answered your own question...the answer would appear to be "with a good attorney, good record-keeping, and a 10 foot pole."

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In reading other blogs, I agree with pstegman - you cant change sis - I work full time - when I am not at work I am at home taking care of Mom - I moved in with her. My brother-in-law takes care of my Mom while I am at work. My sister doesn't work - Once in a while she covers for my brother-in-law since he does work.- I have no idea what my sister does with herself all day - it seems to be a secret. Oh, but she is definitely interested in having the family trust reviewed by an attorney (Daddy died 8 years ago). Yes, there does seem to be one in every family. When mom asked if she could stay at her house during the week while I'm at work my sister said - no - it would be too stressful for her to have Mom at her house. Even though my sister has never worked and has a live-in housekeeper/cook, my Mom was at my sisters house almost every day taking care of my sisters children (for the last 14 years) before Mom became ill.

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My mother just came out of stent surgery, my sister set it up , went to the hospital, during the surgery and drove her to hospital, that was at 6 am. My brother also went up there. they are not really dealing with my mother or really doing anything, my mother was under anasthesia, and completely knockedout and disoriented untill 6pm, my brother left at 12pm, my sister left at 2pm, i watched my mother go thru the shakes for 4hours, the nurses told me it was her body withdrawing from the anasthesia, she was shaking so hard the bed was rattling. I stayed untill 9 PM , she could not eat, she could not get the nurses to respond to her call bell, she was in a nightmere and all my brother and sister said is she is alright, you make a big deal out of everything, they left while she was still out cold. I was the only child out of 5 who went to see her the day before the surgery, and I spent 3 days with her after the surgery because my sister went on vacation, and I have no idea what my other 3 brothers are doing, and my nieces lied to my mother ,and said they were going out of town, they live across the street from me, I can see the car. My sister paid my mother $ 1.00 and hour to watch her kids while my sister made $60,000. and my brotherinlaw made $90,0000.,they borrowed $20,000. from my father to put down on the house and they rolled $40,000. from there condo into the house, and the house was tiny and only cost $90,000. It gets worse my sister had the audacity to complain to my father that my mother was eating all her coldcuts, and my father was buying her groceries, my sisters groceries! my parents were divorced and my mother was living on $658. a month, my sister brags all the time about how big her stock portfolio is , I do not understand why I am the only one to see how selfish and greedy my sister is. People thinks she is a darling, I think she is evil incarnate.I wish my mother and brothers would see her for what she is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Neither of my siblings care about me at all. It took a while for me to realize how much my brother manipulated me into taking on the care giving role for my Dad and stepmom. I finally cut him out of my life completely. I don't even talk to him or email him about Dad's condition. I don't need his help, nor do I want it. He always gets off easy and I get to live with the consequences. After Dad is gone, I will have nothing to do with either siblings. I don't need the negative manipulation in my life. LIfe is hard enough!

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Just saw this post this morning when I was asking my self the same question...how to you handle the hurt of dealing with selfish, uncaring and greedy sibling...then I realized...you don't 'handle' it...you have to accept the way they are. The funny thing is...you probably don't even have to try to avoid them because they don't come around anyway. When it's time to hand out the inheritance, I will do it with a smile. I don't want Mom's money or valuables. I just try to spend time with Mom and make her day a little brighter. I get little to no support from my sister. She agrees to help and visit one weekend a month, but haven't seen her since Thanksgiving dinner at my house. She didn't bother to go to Mom's apartment and made an excuse around Christmas that she didn't want to get sick since Mom had bronchitis. Sis hasn't been to my Mom's apartment since sometime in October, said she thought I was too controlling! I find it interesting that she is a retired teacher, single and said she would help with Mom since she didn't help with Dad.
I'm moving on. When it comes time to disperse the inheritance, I'll do it with a smile because I will have no regrets. We can't change our siblings, but we don't have to like them or spend time with them. Do what you can and forget the rest.

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I have one of the "ugly" sisters who wants all the inheritance, won't lift a finger to help, but will try her best to get me into trouble with mother and has done this all her life.

Unfortunately, I don't have the payoff mentioned above, as mother has been mentally all all her life with Borderline Personality Disorder and the accompanying narcissism that my sis has either inherited and/or learned from our mother.

So that is not why I do it. I certainly do not feel lucky that I am doing what I am doing - quite the contrary.

So why do I do it? Partly by default. I know my sis can't/won't do it. My mother was smart enough to see that and to appoint me POA. More than that she needs someone to do it, she is my mother and as a relatively decent human being, I accept that the task, albeit often very unpleasant, falls to me. My health has been affected by the stress of caregiving within a context of continued dysfunctional family dynamics and If that becomes too much, I will resign. I am very aware I have to look after me.

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Jane Austen quote: "Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure." Don't know that I agree entirely, but I do know that selfishness really equals neediness equals misery and a pitiable kind of person trapped in a pit of illusions and greed.

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I watched this happen with cousins, their Mom was in severe decline, and several were not helping at her all, just loading up their trucks with her valuables to sell and squabbling over who would control her very limited funds. Because of their fighting
over the money, she ended up dying very quickly as the care she so badly needed was
never provided. After my aunt's funeral, I was treated to shouting, cursing and name
calling because one cousin thought I was possibly standing in her way to immediately
receive her inheritance (I guess she wanted it the day of the funeral!). The total to be
divided four ways was at most $20,000 all cousins owned their homes outright while their mother lived in a run down area. Also my aunt's "good friend", neighbor, and some time caretaker tried to steal from her as well while she was ill. I put a stop to it, and boy
did this woman shoot me daggers.

It's the human condition, some people develop their character, other's develop their
public mask instead. The ironic thing is that greedy, selfish even to the point of sociopathy types often look better to others than the folks that do all the actual work.
So damned frustrating to watch someone steal from their dying relatives, put on a teary
show at the funeral, and then turn into a monster immediately again after the last
guest leaves. How the heck do these guys live with themselves??

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You can't change sis, and if she won't call, let God handle it. You make Mom happy. If she wants to talk to sis, dial the number for her and then go outside, do not listen to the conversation. If mom is happy after the call, good. If sis makes mom unhappy, do not connect them again. As far as outside lies, third party reports are usually designed to stir up trouble. Ignore them, do not let outsiders try to destroy your family, because they love the "he said she said" grapevine rumor mill poison. Deal with each relative on their own actions.

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RatherBeFishing described my sister exactly. Her greed has destroyed our family. I've never seen anything like it, and until an inheritance came into the picture, I never knew just how greedy she was. She's always been incredibly self-centered, selfish, self-absorbed and literally without shame - no conscience - but I never expected her to allow that to impact my parents. She contributed nothing to my parents' care, and in fact, just went on about her life while the rest of were burning down from stress - but yet she complained about the money that was being spent on it (because it would reduce her inheritance). She took all of my mom's valuables after she passed away, and systematically took anything of value my dad had, while he was still alive. She even almost convinced him to buy her a retirement condo on the beach (which would have been the entirety of the estate ALL going to her) - she did this all behind our backs - until my father, because of his dementia, accidentally told us about it. Then when confronted, she could only tell us that she was the victim and became furious with the rest of us because she saw nothing wrong with it. The only way to handle someone with no conscience, in my opinion is to try to forgive them (even though you know their actions are despicable), avoid them, and focus on the love you have for your other family members. I'm still struggling to do these things myself, and rid myself of the hatred and resentment I feel.

How do you handle the hurt of dealing with a selfish, uncaring and greedy sibling?

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