This story is about my older sister, Dove. To say she couldn’t stand my existence is an understatement. In her eyes, I was living a life I didn’t deserve. At 29, she’s divorced, jobless, and living back home with our parents, having dropped out of college for a rich boyfriend who wisely divorced her when her true colors bled through.
Growing up, our relationship was a minefield. She was the “pretty and smart one,” and the pedestal our parents placed her on made her insufferably arrogant. People raved about her looks, while I was just… me. It hurt. She used that power to mess with my head, constantly telling me that nobody liked me. Those childhood digs burrowed deep, leaving me with a crippling insecurity that my parents consistently ignored. Dove always met their expectations, so my feelings were irrelevant. I learned to distance myself from all of them.
When our parents were at work, she’d have friends over who would trash my room. Once, they completely destroyed a school project, and I almost failed the class. I was going to tell Mom, but Dove blackmailed me. She threatened to share my most awkward, “ugly” pictures with my classmates. As a terrified 14-year-old, I kept my mouth shut. Accountability was a foreign concept to her, and appealing to my parents was pointless. Dad would sometimes call her out, but Mom never had my back. Once, after I complained to Dad, Dove used my phone to send bizarre pictures of me to my entire friend group. Another time, she “accidentally” spilled coffee on my prom dress, then burst into tears, playing the victim. I stopped confiding in anyone.
I couldn’t understand her hatred until I realized she was a textbook narcissist. It had nothing to do with me. She cheated on every guy she ever dated and was an unapologetic gold-digger. Her behavior only worsened with age, a direct result of our parents’ refusal to ever discipline her.
Things finally got better after I left for college. I worked my tail off, landed my dream job, and at an office conference, I met the love of my life, Atlas. He was smart, kind, and handsome. We connected instantly. Atlas was tight with his family and introduced me to them within months. I, however, took my sweet time. The main reason for my delay was Dove. I had a gnawing feeling she would try to destroy this, the one truly good thing in my life. She’d always gotten the best of everything, and now that my life was soaring while hers was in a tailspin, I knew she couldn’t handle it.
But I couldn’t hide him forever. After a year and a half, I told Dad about Atlas. He was thrilled. He invited us for dinner. I was excited but sick with stress. A few days later, Dove called me—a first. She was fishing for details about Atlas, her voice dripping with a sickly sweet interest. I knew I had to take the risk. I had to see if Atlas could withstand the storm that was my sister.
Update One: The Dinner
Dove’s downfall began with her divorce. She’d ditched her studies for a super-rich guy, Jeremy, constantly flaunting the expensive gifts he bought her. “You’ll never land a rich husband,” she’d sneer. “You’re too ugly.” While I was studying for my college entrance exams, she insisted I’d never get in. When I did, and my parents threw me a party, she hijacked it by announcing her engagement to Jeremy, who looked utterly blindsided. She had to make the day about her.
Their marriage lasted three years. The reason for the divorce, Jeremy later told me, was that Dove refused to have kids, a fact she conveniently never mentioned. He also cited her constant drinking, partying, and flirting with other men. He showed me videos of her at bars, letting guys touch her inappropriately. He knew she had married him only for his money. Good for him for getting rid of her.
After the divorce, with no degree and no work experience, she moved back in with my parents, playing the traumatized victim while secretly hitting the clubs within a month. Her life became a revolving door of hookups.
The night I brought Atlas home for dinner was a masterclass in desperation. Dove had transformed herself—black hair instead of her usual blonde, a new dress, nails and hair professionally done—as if she were the one on a date. She physically pushed herself between my parents and Atlas to give him a hug.
At the dinner table, she wedged herself into every conversation. When she saw an empty seat next to Atlas, she rushed to it. “Could you move?” I asked, my voice cold. “I’d like to sit there.” The annoyed look she gave me could have curdled milk.
“What are your interests, Atlas?” she cooed. Whatever he said, she immediately claimed to love it too. “Oh my god, we’re so compatible!” she’d exclaim, winking at me as if it were a joke. Atlas was visibly uncomfortable, pointedly ignoring her to speak with my parents.
Later, while I was in the shower, she cornered him. She asked to use his phone to call her own, a transparent ploy to get his number. Then, she launched into her sob story about the divorce, with my mother joining in to bitch about Jeremy. It was pathetic.
Finally, Atlas asked if I wanted to go for a walk. Before I could answer, Dove shot up. “Sure!”
Atlas gave her a surprised look. “Actually,” he said gently, “I wanted to have some alone time with her.” Her face flushed with embarrassment, and she stormed off to her room. I knew, with chilling certainty, this was only the beginning.
Update Two: The Stalker
I’m engaged! Atlas proposed last month on a trip, down on one knee with a beautiful ring. But just as I predicted, Dove escalated her tactics.
She started texting him relentlessly, bombing his inbox with cute cat videos after learning he was a cat lover. She, a person who never showed an ounce of affection for any animal, suddenly got a cat just to have content to send him. For the first few weeks, Atlas showed me her desperate messages. Then, he stopped mentioning them. I assumed she’d given up.
I was wrong. One night, scrolling through social media, I saw she was now friends with him. She had liked and commented on every single one of his posts, even old pictures from ten years ago, littering them with heart emojis. A cold dread washed over me. I checked his phone. The texts were still there, unread, but they were increasingly weird. The call log showed missed calls from her, including one received at 3 a.m.
I confronted him. “Why didn’t you tell me she was still texting you?”
He looked nervous. “I was ignoring them. I didn’t want to upset you by bringing her up.”
“What about the 3 a.m. call?” I pressed.
He sat me down and explained. She had called him, hysterical, claiming she was having a panic attack related to Jeremy and needed someone to talk to. “I told her it wasn’t appropriate to call me so late,” Atlas said firmly. “And I told her if she needed to talk, she should have called you first.”
His answer relieved me, but I was still shaken. “Hiding this from me isn’t okay,” I told him, my voice trembling. “It makes me not trust you.”
He swore he would never fall for her tricks. But I’ve read too many stories. “The next time she calls,” I said, setting a boundary, “you hand the phone to me. I want to catch her red-handed.”
The call came in the middle of the night. He woke me up and handed me the phone. I answered.
Silence.
Then, hearing my voice, she stammered, “Oh, it was a mistake,” and hung up.
The next day, I called her repeatedly, but she didn’t answer. I texted her from Atlas’s phone: This is me. Do not call or text Atlas at odd hours. If there’s an emergency, you call me.
She stopped. For a while. But after I sent a picture of my engagement ring to my dad, the stalking started again. As soon as Atlas told me, I called her myself. I unleashed years of suppressed anger, screaming at her to get a life and stay out of mine.
Minutes after I hung up, my mother called, yelling. “How dare you insult your sister! She’s having panic attacks because of your cruelty! Can’t you be considerate? She’s struggling with depression!”
It was so absurd I almost laughed. “If you continue to be blind to what she is,” I told my mother, my voice dangerously quiet, “I will cut you both out of my life. I am done being a puppet in her game.”
Update Three: The Wedding
I never thought she would stoop so low. Bullying, body-shaming, constant ridicule—that was one thing. But trying to seduce my fiancé to break up my wedding… that was a hard pill to swallow.
In the lead-up to the wedding, Dove was quiet. My mom called to apologize, claiming she’d “lost her control” because she was scared for Dove. Meanwhile, my cousin told me Dove had been playing the victim to our entire family, sobbing about how I was accusing her of trying to steal Atlas and how I was undeserving of my happy life. According to her, since she was the “gorgeous one,” she deserved the best of everything, not me.
The day of the wedding arrived. We were at the venue, getting ready, when I got a frantic call from Atlas’s best friend. “You need to come to Atlas’s room. Now. Bring your parents.”
“He can’t see the bride before the wedding!” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“This is serious,” he said, his voice grim. “We need to address this before you walk down that aisle.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. I grabbed my parents and rushed to his room.
The scene was chaos. Atlas was shirtless on the bed, slipping in and out of consciousness. His groomsmen were crowded around, their faces a mixture of fury and shock. They explained Dove’s cunning plan. She had arrived at his room with a drink. He refused it, but she was insistent, forcing him to take just one sip. He knew instantly it was spiked. He excused himself to the washroom, where he managed to call his best friend and explain what was happening.
By the time his friend burst into the room, Atlas had partially passed out. His friend, who was sharing the room, had his camera recording as he entered. He captured the sound of Atlas shouting, “Leave me alone!” He filmed Dove, sitting on top of Atlas, undressing herself, rubbing her body against his.
When she saw the friend, she pretended they had been making out, quickly covering herself. “Don’t tell anyone,” she smirked, not realizing the entire disgusting act was already on video.
It was a nightmare. My parents stood there, mortified. My mother called her. “Dove, come to Atlas’s room.”
She arrived with her lipstick smeared, a triumphant look on her face. “I know you guys are mad,” she began, “but it was mutual. Atlas loves me. He convinced me to have a one-time hookup before the wedding.”
SLAP.
My mother’s hand cracked across her face. “We know everything, you liar,” she hissed. “Your disgusting performance was recorded.”
The color drained from Dove’s face. My parents had security escort her out of the venue, with strict instructions not to let her back in. Her plan was to be discovered, to have me cancel the wedding in a cloud of humiliation and betrayal.
A doctor confirmed Atlas’s drink was spiked. His parents were so enraged they wanted to hunt her down. The wedding was delayed for hours until Atlas, after several rounds of puking, could stand.
As my dad walked me down the aisle, I was a wreck of emotions—joy, stress, and a profound, bone-deep anger. At the altar, Atlas added a new vow, his voice ringing with conviction: “I promise to protect our relationship from anyone and everyone who wishes to see us fail.”
After our honeymoon, my parents visited. They apologized profusely to Atlas. My dad assured us Dove was out of our lives for good. He had kicked her out of the house and told her she was on her own.
I’m still processing it. My wedding was an inch from being destroyed. If his friend hadn’t recorded her, I might have believed her lies. I would have lost the best thing in my life because of her venomous jealousy. But she failed. We won.