A successful professional life doesn't always translate to a successful life. I have an older sister, we'll call her "Em". She's got a solid career, and lives in a very pricy city. Over the years, I have been there for Em for through ALL of her relationship and other personal issues. I mean hundreds of hours of complaints and crying.
Some bad stuff happened to me a few years back (I got 2ndary PTSD from an abusive ex, on top of my complex PTSD from childhood). I decided it was time to tell Em about my PTSD diagnosis. She glossed right over it when I told her, and continued to exacerbate my depression later on by saying things like,"You were so smart when you were a kid!" and "Now I just realize you're mentally ill."
Wow. If listening to Em's narcissistic ramblings for years wasn't enough to end things, her making statements about my mental health when she never took the time to hear me explain my diagnosis was. I could never listen to her ramblings again after that and started to blow her off. She became a life coach around then. When we spoke, she openly offered me free life coaching, and I declined. Several times. I finally found that the only way I didn't feel depressed communicating was through e-mail. Eventually, she begin to life coach me again in e-mails, and I cut all contact.
I haven't spoken to Em in a year. I feel so free and light from not hearing her self-made stress. The price for her to hear/see what she wanted and completely invalidate my experiences became too high for me to keep our relationship. It never seemed like Em had that much affect on me, until I lived life without knowing her.
Em's got her career in the big apple, and good for her. Some people cling to the illusion of superiority because there are so many deficits in other parts of their lives. Like Em's wedding, where it was clear she'd not asked anyone to give a toast, and no one wanted to give her a toast ("Can someone give Em & Doug a toast?!" Dead silence). Or Em's co-workers, who, despite which company Em is working for over those years, struggle to have even professional relationships with her. Or Em's marriage, last time I saw her her husband was berating her as she cried. She had a son in November.