Hi Auntie,

My sister is 33 years old, and has been married two times. She keeps marrying men from India, and they usually stay married about four years, then after they obtain full American citizenship, they file for divorce within a month or so. She always blames me or our mother for them leaving her, since we didn’t support her properly. She is currently on her third husband, and she’s having problems with the government allowing him access to the country, but they believe he will be here within a couple months.

The problem with that, is that she recently moved back into my parents’ home because she could not afford to pay her bills. I live with my parents, as I am a full time college student, and I work full time as well to pay for college debt-free, and we’ve never particularly gotten along well. I thought that since we are both now adults, it would be easier, but she is constantly asking me for money to pay her cell phone bill, or put gas in her car. All of this wouldn’t be a horrible thing, but she’s very hard to live with. She is a huge slob, and leaves trash and clothes all over the house, and her room is so messy, she can’t get into it, and has been sleeping on the couch for months. She also has a habit of going into my space and taking things that don’t belong to her. I don’t know what she is doing with them, but I have lost a Kindle Fire, a special edition Nintendo 3DS, an xbox 360 slim, an xbox one, and a lot of jewelry. She doesn’t speak to my father because he outed her for being in my part of the home after she denied ever going there when I confronted her about my missing 3DS, and my mother and I are constantly cleaning up after her, and I find it frustrating because I’m already very busy.

When she is asked to act like an adult and clean up after herself, and not take my things, she becomes very defensive and yells, curses, calls names, etc. until we walk away. But she used my laptop recently, and she left her gmail account up, and I found out she’s been sending upwards of $1500 per month to this guy in India. And several of the transfers I had given her were transferred directly to him. She knows I don’t support what she’s doing, and I am furious that the money I made to pay for my education was used for this. I confronted her about it, and she denied it until I showed her the receipts that I had seen. She accused me of hacking her email (I’m a computer science major, and she thinks I spend my days bringing down the FBI online, I think), and I corrected her. She got very upset, and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that her husband needed the money. I called her pathetic. She is no longer speaking to me.

I know what I said was very mean, and I didn’t mean to say it. I DO feel that way sometimes, but I was so mad at her that I couldn’t stop it from coming out I guess.

After the argument, she told my parents that they needed to ask me to move out because she didn’t want this negativity around when her new husband gets here. My parents were unaware that she planned on living here with him, and told her that was unacceptable. My father told her he would not ask me to leave while I’m in college, and she could not live here with her husband, and she needed to have a new place to live by the time he gets here. She blames me for this too, and told me she no longer has a sister. She has gone about telling everybody in the family that she could get a hold of what I’ve done to her. Some think I’m a horrible person, others agree with me. But it’s causing problems.

Should I try and patch things up with her, or just wash my hands of it and ignore her?

Actually, Sparkler, I’m going to suggest a third option: One where you face down the unpleasant reality of who your sister is, and adjust both your behavior and your expectations accordingly, forever.

Because right now, neither of the paths you’re thinking of taking, whether it’s patching things up or cutting her off, seem to take into account the fact that she is not well. Emotionally and mentally healthy people do not behave the way your sister does. And as long as you (and your family, for that matters) keep approaching her like she’s a healthy person—and expecting her to react to you the way an healthy person would—you’re going to be disappointed and frustrated.

If your parents were the ones writing to me, this is the part where I’d tell them to insist that she see a psychologist, and to make continued treatment a non-negotiable requirement if she’s going to stay in their house. Not because I know for sure what’s going on with your sister (I don’t), but because whatever it is, it’s almost certainly not going to resolve itself without professional help. But as a person who is a) much younger than your sis and b) without the parental power to compel her one way or another, your best bet at this point is to find a way to make peace with the present situation.

Specifically, that means boundaries. You can start with the obvious, easiest one: Put a lock on your door, and keep all your valuables safely stowed behind it. (If you can’t secure the door itself, then a foot locker and a padlock will accomplish the same task.) Your sister can’t take your things if she can’t get to your things, you know? And the $30 it’ll cost you to secure your belongings is a small price to pay for some peace of mind—not just ’cause you can be confident that your next expensive digital toy won’t disappear into the same black hole that swallowed the rest of your stuff, but also because you’ll never have to have another fruitless, frustrating confrontation with your sister about this issue ever again.

That’s Boundary One. Boundary Two is this: Stop allowing your sister to take advantage of you. Don’t clean up her messes; don’t rise to her bait; and for the love of Mike, don’t give her any more of your hard-earned cash, when you know she’s just going to send it to Grifter Husband #3. All of this stuff is totally awful; it’s also only happening because you are consenting to it. You have to start saying no to her.

And if (and let’s be honest, it’s probably more like when) she freaks out about the boundaries you’ve set, then give yourself the following reality check: You cannot control your sister’s behavior. If she wants to throw a tantrum, it’s her prerogative—and if you want to live in a home where she also happens to be, you’ll have to deal with that. But what you do control is the cause of the tantrum: Would you rather have your sister flipping out because she got caught violating your privacy, stealing your stuff, and sending your money to her deadbeat leech of a husband—or because you wouldn’t let her do those things?

Choose your answer, darling, and then choose your path accordingly. And either way, realize that your way forward is blocked unless you first accept the reality of who your sister is and how she behaves. You can’t change that; you can only find ways to live with it.

Personally, I’d choose the way that lets me escape from the drama into a locked room where I can play on my un-stolen gaming system until the storm blows over, but you are your own master.

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