After traveling for 3 months last year I decided when I got home that I wanted to move over the the UK and try living and working over there. So the time ticked by and September 2008 came along and even though I was very nervous I set out on the big journey.

I thought I would get a job within about 2 months and be able to move from the people who had generously let me stay with them and find my own two feet. In the process of a month I have found myself a really nice guy (who I have known for 3 years) and we hit it off really well. So we started dating.

As soon as my sister found out that I was seeing someone she flipped out that I hadn't told her. As this is only my 2nd real relationship I wanted to keep it quiet as I don't think my personal life should be made public until I feel it needs to be. In my own time I would have told her.

So my sister then proceeds to hound him on Facebook trying to find out all this information about him. Trying to find out what he does, who his friends are, what his interests are everything. Now I was the one who told him not to add her as a "friend" because again as far as I was concerned it was private. She didn't stop - and still hasn't.

We had a huge argument over the phone, because all she did once he finally accepted her friendship request was call him names, to her it was "joking" and I know her sense of humor and it could have come off either way. But because he doesn't know her sense of humor he took offense to it; and rightly so. Different backgrounds, different upbringings and different things mold us each as people. So I completely understood why he had taken offense to it.

It was again later that they still weren't talking (because he is very shy) and my sister begins bugging him again. Trying to talk to him, nicely but also with her "humor" too. So he declined to reply. To which she gets more and more abusive and name calling towards him.

We have now been going out for almost 6 months, I have stayed with him a lot in this time and even got invited to spend Christmas with him and his family. Now to most people that is a big deal. To spend Christmas with your partner; and to me it was also. That's a huge deal from me because I'm a very private person, who doesn't like to go out much. SO I came up and spent Christmas with them all. His family, have all accepted me for the person I am and the opinions I have.

My sister on the other hand is a totally different matter. Every time I speak with my sister now, it turns into a HUGE argument. I usually end up in a bunch of tears and just don't know what to do. She keeps telling me how no one in my family likes him at all and all call him certain names. She brings our mother and father into it and her "family" (her partner and children) saying that she never wants to meet him, don't ever bring him home here because he has disrespected the entire family by not apologizing and conversing with my sister. And then when I question my mum about it even though she doesn't like that I kept it private for a month I think she's dealt with the fact that I have someone now and am happy.

I love him. But I also love my family. I feel like I'm constantly playing piggy in the middle, trying to please everyone. He now despises my sister and wants absolutely nothing to do with her (rightfully so after how she has treated and spoken to him) and because of how she makes me feel and he can see it. She in turn wants nothing to do with him until he apologizes, and says even then that she's skeptical.

She doesn't know him. And he doesn't know her. They have never even met and live half a world apart, and yet they hate each other with a vengeance.

I am at my whits end and don't know what to do any more. I feel like I'm being emotionally blackmailed by my sister who is a very headstrong person and doesn't stop until she gets her way. I also know that she is a very jealous person and is most likely jealous that whilst I've traveled the whole world and am now living in another country shes in a stable relationship with 2 beautiful children, and is now paying off a mortgage.

Every single time I talk to her she turns it into a conversation about how much my boyfriend is "disrespecting her, then in turn disrespecting the family" when all I want is to find out how things are back at home. She told me today that I'm not sticking up for my family because I'm not defending her over every single point - which is not true. When she has a valid point I agree with her and stick up for her on it. But I also agree with a lot of the things my boyfriend says and stick up for what he says too.

I feel completely and utterly torn at the moment as to what to do.
If I head back home I know it's going to take a long time for me to be able to accept her again as I once did and I would also have a lot of resent and regret that I didn't try harder to make the relationship between my boyfriend and I work. And if I stay here, I have to constantly deal with all the negative talk and splash from her about him and continually get upset over it.

Please help me. I can't even sleep at night.

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