Dear June,
I am the oldest of four children, and after my mother was unable, I was designated to organize family gatherings for holidays and birthdays; these celebrations were often dinners at my mother’s house. After she died in 1998, my brother bought the house, and we continued to hold celebrations there.
After my mother’s passing, my sister, who is five years younger, became moody and somewhat distant. At one point, my uncle in Oregon asked if I could organize a family reunion. I emailed to ask who could participate and what dates would be best. After a few days, I sent another email, and my sister responded, asking why I was the one always organizing and planning. My brothers waited without responding to see how it worked out. In the end, we had a lovely family reunion, although my sister and her family didn’t attend, and over the next 10 to 12 years, we spoke infrequently.
In 2016, my sister and her husband moved close to us, and we saw each other occasionally. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she called me to talk; when she wanted help with her house, I helped her; when she had an accident on her horse, I was the one called to sit with her in the hospital while she prepped for surgery. At the time, I asked why she called me after the way she treated me for years. Her reply was, “I knew that no matter how badly you treated me, you would always help if I needed you.”
In 2020, the COVID-19 quarantine hit and lives changed. On Mother’s Day, my sister invited us and her daughter to her house for a socially distanced, outdoor lunch, which was very pleasant. It was the last pleasant get-together of any type. Afterwards, I was shunned, ghosted; phone calls and texts not returned. Finally, my sister called to say I was depressed and needed to be on antidepressants for her to be around me. She blocked my phone, unfriended me on Facebook, hosted Christmas for the family but I was not invited. After visiting my sister, my brother is now cautious around me because she told him not to share photos or information with me. And that is where we stand.
I went to my GP for blood work and a depression test, and my doctor said I was not depressed.
I am now 70 years old, and facing the last good decade of my life. I would like it to be happy and fun-filled. I have several friends who know this story and insist she is wrong and I am the most positive, upbeat friend they have. I no longer know who or what is real.
So my question is: Other than continuing to smile through the pain and take care of friends and my family, is there anything I could or should do?
Dear Confused and Conflicted Sister,
It sounds like your sister is a complicated person and her actions as you describe them are neither kind nor charitable. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have complicated or unkind people in our lives. The pain they bring can be a good teacher. So I’d like to offer some thoughts that might help you to resolve or at least make the best of the situation.
But before I do, I would just like to say that you do have the option to write her out of your life completely. In the end, this may be the best option, but that is for your heart to tell you after careful consideration and reflection. Family is important, and these precious bonds should not be casually broken.
First, I’d like to consider your question, “Who or what is real?” We can’t always answer this question fully in regard to difficult situations we are involved in, because we lack perspective and can’t always know what is in the hearts and minds of others. But we can use this as an opportunity to see where our own hearts and minds are, and this can be invaluable. When we live up to our own highest principles, we have a clean conscience and sincere heart—and then we can have peace, even if others treat us unfairly.
There are two principles that I would like to highlight, which I would call part of a universal standard for being a good person.
One is a reverence for truth—the desire and determined pursuit to live our lives by what is real, even if it’s uncomfortable.
The other is love and compassion—even when it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient.
Some readers may be wondering: Why should we be loving toward someone who has gone out of their way to hurt us? In this case, Confused and Conflicted Sister said she wants happiness and fun in her last good decade, full of love and compassion. She is not feeding discord, which would inevitably lead to more unhappiness. Her sister is who she is; she will not be changed by force or logic, but compassion has the power to touch her heart.
From the way you asked your question, it seems like harmonious family togetherness is a great source of happiness to you. And the fact that you went to your doctor to check for symptoms of depression (with the only evidence being your sister’s recommendation), and that you are questioning yourself, to me is a sign that you also value truth.
Now, let us look at your sister through the lens of truth and compassion. We cannot really know what is in her heart, so it may not be that she is intentionally lying; she may lack discernment and actually believe that what she has said about you is true. We can’t fault her for lack of discernment; people are born with different capacities for this. However, she has not behaved kindly or fairly toward you. For example, a compassionate person who saw their sister depressed might say gently, “I see you are having a hard time, how can I help?” But your sister only said she could not tolerate you unless you went on medication, and clearly no one, from your doctor to your friends, agrees with her.
It may very well be that because of something inside her, being around you makes her feel depressed, and she is confusing what she feels with what is actually coming from you. Her logic might be, “I feel depressed when I see her; therefore, I must be picking up her energy.” If this is the case, it sounds like she is not very well in touch with herself.
You might be wondering, why is she this way?
One reason might be the character she was born with. I recently read a Hans Christian Andersen tale called “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf,” in which the protagonist is a girl disposed to doing unkind things from birth. It speaks to a truth that people are born with different propensities. Anyone with multiple children knows that they are born with their own personalities, sometimes radically different from anyone else in the family. And if you have multiple siblings, you can see that people raised under very similar conditions also can turn out very differently. So perhaps it will help you to think back: What was your sister like as a child? How would you describe your relationship with her when you were young? How was her relationship with your parents? With other people?
You mentioned that something seemed to change in her after your mother passed away. Perhaps the grief triggered something in her? Could it be that, perhaps, she always felt she could never be as good or capable as her older sister, and that is why she is upset that the hosting role fell to you? Maybe she took it to mean that people thought she is still not and never will be as capable. Or maybe she is jealous of you for another reason.
At any rate, I think it’s true to say that your relationship is painful to her; why, I can only speculate. Although, when she is facing other pain or difficulty (like after her accident), she is able to put aside the bad feelings and know that she can count on you. To me, this suggests that whatever is going on inside her is something emotional, and not something you need to take as an indication of something wrong in you.
However, there is one thing you could consider: Have you perhaps unintentionally hurt her feelings? It could have started in childhood. Younger siblings naturally look up to older ones, so their hearts can be very vulnerable. Even a casual dismissal (that you may not even remember) might have hurt her. I know of one situation where a younger brother struggled throughout his whole life because his talkative older sisters didn’t give him space to be heard. His sisters were not trying to demean to him, but that is how they made him feel. Also, if one of your parents made comments to the effect that your younger sister should be more like you—perhaps with the intention of encouraging her—this might have made her feel that she was not as good as you and created hurt and resentment in her.
So if you can find out what is at the root of her unhappiness, your sincere apology for how she feels—even if it was not your fault—could help her begin to heal her wounds. Even if you don’t know what you did wrong in her mind, you can sincerely apologize for making her feel bad. This can have the effect of breaking straight through her defensive wall, and then she may eventually begin to heal and someday tell you what is really hurting her.
It does seem she is struggling with herself and pushing the struggle onto her relationship with you—therapy might be helpful too, but this is a choice she has to make. In the current situation, I don’t think you should suggest this to her. Another thing you could do is try is speaking to her daughter. Daughters tend to know their mothers well, and she might have some insight into the situation that you do not. If you do contact her daughter, I would keep it completely in the vein of kindness, concern, and wanting a resolution to this conflict. You want to avoid making the daughter feel like she needs to choose between love and loyalty to her mother and talking to you.
Another thing I would do is reach out to your other siblings and see if you can spend some quality time with them and their individual families. Invite them over for dinner, or whatever would be a pleasant way to connect, so they can see for themselves how and who you are. You don’t have to bring up the issue with your sister at all, unless it really seems appropriate or they ask you. You could perhaps mention that you missed seeing them at the holidays last year and would very much like to celebrate with them this year.
However, if your sister invites everyone over for a holiday except you, I would just let it be. Continue to connect and spend quality time with individual families over the next year; this way, they will have ample chance to see how both you and your sister behave. Then, they will be able to make their own choice about the situation. But be prepared: It may be that some family members take a long time to realize that the issue is with your sister rather than with you, so patience will be important! If you can keep your heart strong, loving, and filled with goodwill toward your family, and do your utmost to maintain harmony, this will be a very effective way to undo this complicated situation.
Sincerely,
________
