My sister has always been kind of sensitive. She can get her feelings hurt easily, especially if she thinks someone is judging her. She also is particular about some things and is very easily upset when they are messed up, to the point where she gets angry over seemingly small things. Usually if she gets very angry about something small, she'll apologize later. But it's only after she's calmed down and still in a way where I don't think she realizes how unreasonable it is (she might say something like "I'm sorry for yelling at you, I was feeling really tired after getting only a few hours of sleep last night..." And never something like "I'm sorry for yelling at you, you doing the thing you did wasn't a big deal and I shouldn't have gotten upset at it").
I think these traits are getting worse as she gets older, or they're just sticking out to me more because we're not kids anymore. She's very fastidious about germs and food safety. A lot of the time this isn't a bad thing; there's nothing wrong with closely following expiration dates, guidelines on how long it's safe to leave food out or in the refrigerator, etc. To me it's more the amount she worries about it that's concerning. And if she ever finds that she's eaten anything that wasn't prepared by these guidelines, she gets very upset (worried about if she'll get sick and most likely angry at whoever's fault it is). She has similar reactions for other things like washing hands at the right time, not scratching nonstick pans, putting any sort of plastic in the microwave (even things that say they are microwave safe). It's hard for me to address these things in the moment because most of them are correct behaviors for optimal safe use. But most people don't freak out if they accidentally break one of these rules.
She is now married and has a newborn daughter. Her husband is very obliging and doesn't push back much that I can see when she goes overboard. But I'm worried that her anxieties and behavior will cause struggles in the relationships with her husband and child, not to mention that she's never going to be able to keep everything clean for her child.
I can't decide whether to confront her about this. Our parents are past the point of being able to make any impact in this area (she's at the point where she thinks she knows better than them in most matters). Her husband seems to be used to it/hasn't gotten tired of it yet. And I'm far enough removed where it doesn't impact me directly anymore, but I'm close enough to her to where I could have this conversation. It could also just go terribly wrong.
If I do have the conversation: 1)She could not listen to me and never forget that I criticized her in this way, putting a block in our relationship. 2)I could be overstepping the bounds of what defines someone's business and be giving my judgemental opinion about something I don't fully understand (I definitely don't want to start talking about how she treats her husband sometimes) 3) it could make her more stressed out about being a mom. A lot of the behaviors that I've noticed lately stem from a place of not wanting to mess up as a mother. If I tell her I think some of her behavior could negatively affect her child, she could become more worried
If I don't have the conversation: 1) she could continue to have these anxieties, increasing the stress in her life and straining her relationships. Regarding the behaviors of not being able to control anger, our dad had a lot of unresolved issues with this. He ended up losing several jobs because he couldn't learn to properly work with others. My sister isn't at this point, but I don't want things to spiral out of control. Most of the time she is loving and a lot of fun to be around. 2) obviously everything could turn out fine or be resolved in another way
Please give any advice you can and ask questions if I didn't explain the situation properly. It's hard to summarize a large quantity of incidents
Tl;dr: I think my older sister has some anxiety issues and gets disproportionately angry/upset over what I consider to be small matters. I want to talk to her about it but don't know if it's my place or how to go about it.
Submitted July 02, 2016 at 10:28AM by Awwaywwethroww http://ift.tt/29jaOqY relationships
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