I am the younger sibling of two. We don't live nearby any more so we do phone calls every few months.

When I took my first funeral service when they were present (and very nervous)... all I got was “I didn't know you wore glasses” - no comment about how I did. My first sports car was greeted with a “That's a classic mid life crisis” as was my first tattoo. We were called “trailblazers” for moving countries – one compliment. I was told that my mum “f*cked” me up... basically I was the chosen one, not him – the reference very much there. A comment I cannot and will never forgive although it made me cry at the time and it was apologised for.

So when we have phone calls, it always gets round to the subject money (him, not me). How much they have in their pension pot, how magically the money tree keeps giving and actual figures for everything. So I attempt to move the conversation on, by saying that there is more to life than money and that myself and my husband both work part-time and have more time.

When we were seriously on the skids, he never helped even though my husband at the time had a DIY business with quality workmanship. Money was thrown at the house for his new kitchen and bathroom and it didn’t go well, my husband being brought in to finish off the dreadful mistakes of the person who was given the jobs, even haggling down the price!! If you can imagine the smuggest cake, with the smuggest icing on top, wouldn't you just want to poke a finger in the middle of it to mess it up a bit.

Well my life feels like the cake that has finally got the cherry on top but it's all about the money with him. I have only used a money“trump card” once but even then he had to question it like he didn't believe me. Is it the older sibling thing where they have to one-upmanship you all the time or is it more? I could tell you that he's squirrelling away tons in a pension and he always talks about money but I told him that life is for living and not all about money and you could drop dead tomorrow and what good would the money be then? I could tell him that he wasted at least £5k by not hiring my husband and another friend to do the DIY.

He lives in a really tired and jaded house but could do it up and has the money. HIS nemesis is having his lack of DIY skills mocked (you will really see him angry then). He sees himself as middle class as he shops in Waitrose. He will never know some poverty (unlike me in a few times in my life). He boasted about “running out of places to go on holiday as they have been everywhere” (lie). I could tell you I'm a b*tch and a tiny bit of me really really wants them to have some sort of financial f*ck up to live in the real world for a change and stop being so damn smug and lording it over me. It feels like he has nothing else to talk about and is desperately trying to convince me (and himself) of his financial success? I would love to know the psychology behind it and if it strikes a chord with anyone else?

Liz

A Moodscope member.