Need advice on how to go forward with my sister. Details inside (long).

Your best action course of action is to consult an attorney and determine what the case law would be with regards to the transfer of custody of finances. I’m assuming that you have guardianship of your sister, and are responsible for her care. It would follow that unless there were some reason that you would be unfit to manage her finances, that you would have responsibility for her money as well.

With regards to speaking your mind, I would not put it in an e-mail, where it could be used against you at a future date. Your older sister seems to play in a space that you don’t and it’s best that if you don’t know the rules, that you not play that game. I would suggest seeing a family counselor, first by yourself, and then have all of your siblings in to have an arbitrated session to discuss the Trustee issue. Your sister will either flip out in front of a third party, or you will have your platform to state your side of the relationship in a rational way, with help from a neutral third party.

I didn’t speak to my sister for almost three years because of something similar. I didn’t miss not talking to her, because she was so difficult to deal with. She eventually got professional help, and after that, we could talk.

She’s got a long documented history with the Public Trustee in her province. At points the Trustee has had their lawyer send her cease and desist requests.

Sitting down with a counsellor would be impossible as we all live 8 hours away from one another.

I had the option of applying for Trusteeship on my own. The reason I chose to set it up in the way I did was to allay fears that there would be anything funny going on with the money. These fears are completely due to my mother misappropriating funds years ago.

The reason the trustee in my province wants me to take it on is because my head injured sister lives with me. Oh, and no I do not have guardianship. I have been thinking about applying for guardianship but that is a difficult decision.

What do you want to have happen? What does your older sister want? I think that if you can figure these things out, then you can negotiate about who will do what. Actually, it sounds to me like you need some kind of arbitration because you can’t really talk to each other.

Is there something wrong with older sister? She sounds more flaky than normal. If she’s got head problems, that could be making this very difficult. You have to find the issues involved in this before you can address them.

Do you want to resolve this? Because if you do, you won’t rave at her. That is not going to help you solve anything. If you want to maintain any kind of relationship with her, and I think you should, for long term goals if not because you like her or love her. She could become a stalker if she gets shut out. You want her to agree to go away, which may mean paying her off in some way, like maybe getting a bigger place.

Of course, if you do get a bigger place because of her objections, then she should pay the extra cost. If she is unwilling to do that, then you could be perfectly right to say you can afford the space you have, and no more. But it’s perfectly adequate. Perhaps the Public Trustees say this, too?

Given that the Public Trustees know all about your sister, I’d guess that the reason you are worrying about this is because you want to maintain a relationship. If you want that, then you would be well-served if you listen to her. Maybe she just needs to be heard. There’s something bothering her, but I don’t know if she’s told you the real thing. That’s what you have to find out if you are going to fix this. What does she really want? And why? Then you can move forward.

I would take my sister over there and let her stay with the oldest for a month. And let her know that if she is willing to take full care of her 24/7 that you would have no problem putting the both of you on as co trustees since she is so concerned about her having approiate space than she can move and find a new place for the both of them.
I bet after a weekend, she will be calling you and not bitching.
Sometimes people feel it is fine to critize the care someone is getting when they don’t even realize the daily stress it envolves.
I had a neighbor do that. She went away on vacation and left her stroke dad stay with her sister who always complained stay with him. By the end of the week she was done complaining forever. After that all she heard was what a saint she was for helping him out.
After the stroke he would cuss and fuss all the time. He wasn’t bad when the sister would visit because it was only a short stay and he could handle himself for a little time. But he would have serious bouts of anger when he wasn’t feeling well or wanted something right away.
So go on vacation and along the way drop off your sister.
Good luck.
I agree, do not send an email that can be used against you.

My experience with a vindictive sister is to ignore her. Do not give in or retaliate in any way. Simply continue as you are doing. Make sure you have met all the legal requirements of the trusteeship and that you follow the procedures correctly. Do your part and never mind her issues.

I’m with @YARNLADY‘s simple and direct advice on this. An angry response to your sister, though it may be cathartic for you and satisfy some others in your life who want you to do it, would only give her ammunition to come back at you with later (because if you’re angry you’re very likely to misstate something that you don’t really intend, or give her information that you probably shouldn’t). Ignoring the message might not be wise, as she has given you evidence of her intent and mindset, so use the information she has given you to set your defenses (and your sisters’ defenses) against her expected legal, financial and personal attacks.

There’s an old Arab saying that applies perfectly well in this case (and many others):
The dogs bark, but the caravan passes.

Will anything you say to her change anything? I doubt it. If what you san won’t change anything, then say nothing at all.

I want my older sister to be supportive and not judgmental. At this point “all” she wants is for us to move. She’s wanted us to move since my head injured sister moved in with us 5 days after my mother died. We developed our basement for my sister when she moved in which put us $50,000 in debt. My head injured sister is happy with 800 sq.ft. She doesn’t want to move. Besides that fact we can’t afford to, the market sucks and we don’t want to move because we like our house etc. etc. She has no other problems with anything we are doing.

The problem with this situation is that when my oldest sister thinks about what she would want if she was in the same situation as my youngest sister she knows that she would want to be in a place on her own. My head injured sister can’t live on her own. She falls, she gets lost, she not safe around medication, she eats questionable food. She did live on her own briefly but it was scary. Besides all that she was lonely, desperately lonely and she is terrified of being on her own.

My oldest sister does have issues. Much of her wants to head for hills and not look back. She admits that she is vindictive and she’s kind of proud of it. She has a hard time getting along with many people because she can be so harsh. In the past I’ve been the one to calm the waves. It’s not a job I want to do anymore simply because I am too busy and frankly I’m tired of it.

My role within the family has always been of peace maker and reconciler. That is a job that really weighs on me. I can’t keep banging my head against the same wall.

My oldest sister does take my head injured sister for 4 days at a time. Four days because she can’t handle her beyond that.

I did type up an angry e-mail but I didn’t send it. Even though I was angry when I wrote it it doesn’t sound angry at all. At this point I think I’m just going to ignore her. I’ll print off her e-mail to me to keep for future reference.

I’ve filled out all the paper work. It’s been notarized and my younger sister is in the process of notarizing it herself. I’ve been working closely with the Public Trustee this whole time and they have been invaluable in their help. They were concerned that I wanted three co-trustees. They prefer one and maybe two for the exact reasons why my oldest sister can’t be a trustee: she would hold up the process when ever she could.

Family dynamics are hard.

Thank you everyone for your advice and support. This whole process has been really hard on my and my family. My sister is a full time job. Splitting myself between her, my kids and my husband is more than enough. Dealing with my oldest sister on full attack mode has laid me sideways.

It sounds like you have created the best invironment for your sister with a disability. The older sister doesn’t realize this for a variety of reasons. Invite her down for a visit. She’ll get a bird’s eye view of reality, both in what you have created, how content your younger sister is, and what life is like taking care of her.

You’ll be able to hold a discussion on this matter and include 3rd party people. If possible, work out an agreeable system for communicating decisions. You are one of the chosen trustees and for good reason. Don’t let go of that responsiblity.

She’s been here briefly but not since we had the basement done for my sister. She can’t stand to be here for more than a few hours. I don’t take that personally because she’s like that with everyone. She lives in another province an eight or nine hour drive from here.

In the past she has vilified my kids! She talks about them like they are parasites who spend their whole day crawling all over my sister. When I try to tell her how much they help her out during the day lifting things for her, finding things she misplaces (she misplaces things every 5 minutes), playing games with her, reminding her of her appointments, helping her tie her shoes…and the list goes on and on, she doesn’t hear it.

When I was having issues with her a couple of years ago a physiotherapist who was working with my sister let me know about “white knight syndrome”. Apparently it is quite common for family members to snipe at who ever is the caregiver.

@CaptainHarley I am at that point now. Nothing I say will change her mind.

If she truly cares about her sister and feels that she is not in the best possible situation, she will come to visit, no matter the distance. She can always stay in a hotel if she so chooses. Stand your ground while making resonable offers. And prepare yourself for what you seem to already know may be coming: losing one sister over the rational care and concern for another. It sucks, and my heart goes out to you.

@Pied_Pfeffer Thank you.

An update:

She’s intent on applying for both trusteeship and guardianship…all to compel me to move into a situation that would be very hard on my head injured sister and add tons of debt to my husband and me. Now I’m going to have to sit in front of a judge.

This is in response to my question as to how I could give her peace of mind (her words not mine) around my head injured sister’s living arrangements.

As an outside observer of your situation, please don’t take offense when I say that having it go to court appears to be the best solution at this point. It’s time-consuming and costly, and there is the risk of some sleepless nights until all is resolved. Having all of the facts reviewed and assessed by a third party that can enforce the final decision have helped others. It sounds as if you have the facts documented. Your ace will be your younger sister’s desire to stay with you.

It might be prudent to mentally prepare for what you feel might be the worst outcome. What happens if your older sister is awarded with the responsibilities? What can be dont to have the financial responsibilies and care for younger sis monitored by a third party to ensure that all stays on track?

She has care aides come into the house to work with her. If there were any concerns they would talk to me about it. Nothing has ever been mentioned. They are there to advocate for her the same way I am.

After sending me threatening e-mail after threatening e-mail my oldest sister sent me another one last night asking me to end the silliness. She seems to ignore that she is the one that has been escalating things. I’ve been trying to ignore her. I did type her a long e-mail outlining all of my head injured sister’s activities, her doctors appointments and her treatment plans. At the end of the e-mail I asked her to stop using the guardianship and trustreeship as a means to compel me to move.

I did speak with a senior trustee, the one who has been helping me the paperwork. He told me that her chances of being able to sway everything in her favour is remote and for me to not worry about it.

She has said so many hurtful things at this point. I want that to end. If she does take it to a court situation I am sure she’ll use it as a platform to fling mud. If that happens, it happens.

Now this whole thing is starting to make sense. She’s gone over the deep end. She sent out the meanest e-mail to date tearing apart every one of us. She also let us know she was divorcing herself from the family and for us to never contact her again.

She’s struggled with depression for a long time. Unfortunately, she lashes out at people when she is depressed. I have begged her to get help and she just won’t go. Having been through horrible depressions myself I know that the only person who can help her is her. She has to take steps to get some therapy.