It has been many years now, but I still remember my younger sister, Emily, with a mix of frustration and sorrow. For as long as I can recall, she had a gift for painting herself the victim. Nothing was ever right, everything was too hard, and everyone was at fault—except her. She never learned to solve her own problems, always waiting for someone else to drop everything and rush to her rescue. To put it kindly, she lived her life convinced the world owed her.
Shortly after graduating, Emily married. I wouldn’t say she was unlucky—quite the opposite. She was given an opportunity many would envy. Her mother-in-law, Margaret Whitmore, was a kind and sensible woman. She owned a small flat in London, inherited from an aunt. Instead of renting it out as she’d planned, Margaret let the newlyweds live there rent-free, while she stayed in her own modest house on the outskirts of the city, all so the young couple could save for a home of their own. But, as often happens, such generosity was repaid with ingratitude.
Emily had little interest in hard work. She was content to spend her days lounging on the sofa, binge-watching programmes, sipping tea, and scrolling through social media. Find a job after university? Why bother when she could have a child and go on maternity leave instead? And so she did—within a year, she was pushing a pram, and another year later, her husband filed for divorce and vanished. Left alone, who took her in? Margaret, of course.
Margaret, ever compassionate, allowed Emily to stay in the flat until she could stand on her own two feet. To Margaret, that meant finding work, saving for a mortgage deposit, and gradually becoming independent. But Emily’s interpretation was quite different: she saw it as permission to do nothing until forced to leave.
Margaret helped where she could—looking after her grandson, buying toys, even covering groceries—while Emily spent her money on holidays abroad, designer clothes, and flaunting new handbags and cosmetics online. All the while, she continued living rent-free. Her ex-husband, for his part, didn’t waste time—he took out a mortgage, remarried, and built a stable life. Emily, meanwhile, seemed convinced she owed the world nothing, and the world owed her everything.
Seven years passed. Margaret, long retired by then, gently reminded Emily that she had originally intended to rent the flat for extra income and asked her to start making arrangements to move. And what happened next? Emily staged such a performance that even the West End would have been impressed. She screamed and sobbed, accusing Margaret of throwing her and her child onto the streets—right in front of the boy and his father.
No one was tossing her out. Our parents live in a spacious country house with a spare room waiting for her, but she refused to go. Why? Because there, she’d be expected to lift a finger—help with chores, tidy up, wake early—and she’d grown far too comfortable with her idle life. So instead, she tried passing the burden to me.
My husband and I had only just paid off the first instalment of our mortgage, renovated, and begun renting out the flat to cover our monthly payments. We were still living in my husband’s old place. When Emily found out, she had the audacity to ask if she could “stay for just six months”—rent-free, naturally. She swore six months was all she needed to sort herself out.
But I knew Emily. Those six months would stretch into eight years. Our newly refurbished flat would be ruined within months. And soon enough, she’d accuse me of being “stingy” for refusing to help my own sister. So I stood firm: “No.” It was the right decision. Emily exploded—ranting to relatives, painting us as heartless, even turning her son against us.
But I’m done with her games. My husband and I work hard for our future. We haven’t lounged on Mediterranean beaches or splurged on designer labels—we’ve saved and sacrificed. We owe no one anything, least of all payment for another’s laziness.
Even now, I can’t fathom how anyone could spend seven years without a thought for tomorrow. Did she truly believe she’d live in Margaret’s flat forever? Or was she banking on another relative handing her another home? The worst part? That unshakable sense of entitlement—even her own son became a pawn in her play, “The Tragic Tale of Poor, Persecuted Emily.”
What do you do with a sister like that? Do you cut ties for good, or keep an open door? I’m weary of being treated as though I owe her anything at all.
