You are tired, and nobody in your family would guess it. Your stomach tightens a little when the phone rings. You resent people you love. I've kind of been that responsible one. There's nobody taking care of you, and you have stopped expecting there to be.
From outside those look identical. They tend to come apart when the family manages without you.
01
What you do when the phone rings
The tiredness has a job description behind it.
Your sister calls about your mother. Your mother calls about your sister. You translate each to the other. You know your father's appointments, which cousin isn't speaking to which aunt, and whose turn it is to host. When something breaks, the first call is to you, and you pick up.
People call you the responsible one, or the glue. It is a compliment and a job description in the same breath. It doesn't say why it has to be you. People think I like running everything. I don't. It's just that if I'm not on it, nobody is.
It also leaves out what the arrangement may do. While you carry messages between your mother and your sister, they may never have to speak to each other directly. The argument can stay bearable that way, and it may go on longer for it.
One way to look at it is as fire and smoke. Smoke is what you can see and keep clearing. Fire is what keeps producing it. The feud, the moods and the logistics are smoke, and you could spend years more clearing each one as it rises. For your part in it, the question about the fire is what would happen in you if you let that call go to voicemail.
02
What picking up may be protecting
That question leads one layer down. Two candidates here, and the page on fixing lists two more.
"If they didn't need me, why would I be here?"
The routing may be your place in the family. Being the one they call may be how you belong to it.
Read about Needed →"If everyone is okay, then I'm okay."
You may not be able to rest while two of them are at odds, so you fix it to end the tension.
Read about Peace →The two can run together, as co-rules. And neither may fit.
03
What is under the rule
Underneath is the fear that may be answering the phone.
Under Needed, it may be that without your usefulness there is no reason for you. If that is running, the day your mother and sister make up without you can leave you slightly outside, even though it is what you worked for.
Under Peace, it may be that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong. If that is running, you would probably be relieved if they worked it out themselves and never called you about it again.
Either way, the resentment makes sense. Everybody just figured I had it covered, and that's where the anger came from. You are doing a great deal of work, and some of it may be for a fear and not for them.
04
One question that separates two of them
If they were completely happy and didn't need you at all, how would that land?
Empty, or quietly displaced, is the Needed answer. Relieved is the Peace answer. If you get both in the same minute, it may be both.
Some of this is not a rule at all. When a parent is seriously ill, or a relative is in real crisis, somebody has to coordinate, and it is often the person who is good at it. That is a job. What to look at is cost, and whether doing all of it yourself is costing you something you want.
What you are doing here is subtraction: keeping only what explains this moment and the others like it, at work, at home, and on the good days.
05
One thing to try this week
Pick a call that is not an emergency. Don't solve it. Listen, and then ask one thing: what do you think you'll do? Then stop talking.
There may be some pushback at first. A family that has had a fixer for years may ask again, more firmly, and that is not a sign you were wrong to try.
Then watch them. They may have an answer of their own. And watch yourself. If they coped and you felt lighter, note that. If they coped and you felt a small drop, as though something had been taken from you, note that as well. That drop is the question above, answered by something that happened instead of something you imagined.
What the resentment is about, when it comes, is covered in Why do I take care of everyone and then resent them?