Sibling Estrangement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went zero contact with one sibling. Best choice ever. Year three.

Leave it be.

I'm gonna guess you spend a lot of time seeking validation for this decision. You certainly seem self satisfied.

I did the same thing and told no one. So stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hope you hear. I think that’s a fair statement, but nothing was ever said and we had no argument so how would I have known if there was an issue? To this day, I still don’t know why she no longer speaks to me so how could I have assumed anything wrong before. Sometimes I feel it’s a power play the silence.

Nah. What was the non-holiday related interaction like? I hate when people feign cluelessness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. No other siblings and parents have passed on. Have shown last contact to therapist and have dealt with it in therapy. Mentioned younger because birth order seems to matter in terms of how people deal with things. Without going into too much detail, break in contact coincided with a happy event in my life. Therapist suspected that jealously was involved.

Could be self-preservation if that is the case.

I'd characterize the relationship with one of my sisters as low-contact and surficial. We had our arguments as kids but it went both ways. It's clear in adulthood she doesn't like me and if I were to be honest we probably wouldn't be friends if we weren't family and just met somewhere randomly. What annoys me is that she tries to turn extended family members against me, it's not enough for her just to keep her distance, she doesn't want others to like me either. Whenever we do see eachother I feel like I'm walking on eggshells that I'll say the wrong thing.

And this triangulation is narcissism.

Who's the narcissist in this case, and what makes you qualified to diagnose from one paragraph? I feel like a lot of people are throwing the term around in this thread (and forum in general) without really understanding what it means.

[Anonymous]

OP, are you unpredictable? Mood swings? You said you're in therapy. Maybe you don't realize, if you are intense, even sometimes, some people can't handle that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hope you hear. I think that’s a fair statement, but nothing was ever said and we had no argument so how would I have known if there was an issue? To this day, I still don’t know why she no longer speaks to me so how could I have assumed anything wrong before. Sometimes I feel it’s a power play the silence.

Nah. What was the non-holiday related interaction like? I hate when people feign cluelessness.

I hate it when people expect me to be a mind reader.

[Anonymous]

Has OP ever come back to answer any questions or give any information whatsoever beyond the fact the relationship was fine before? If not, perhaps it isn't worth continuing the thread. Assuming the sibling and/or OP has mental health issues, doesn't help anything and I don't think this thread will go anywhere positive. I doubt the sibling wants to reconnect if it's been 4 years and I don't think OP wants to share any information to try to help us provide more useful insights.

[Anonymous]

I also had a younger female sibling do this to me and multiple family members. She is only in contact with two people in my family. The lame explanation I got through a family member is that she was tired of trying. Whatever. It is her loss, and it was exhausting dealing with her constantly; everything was always everyone else's fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has OP ever come back to answer any questions or give any information whatsoever beyond the fact the relationship was fine before? If not, perhaps it isn't worth continuing the thread. Assuming the sibling and/or OP has mental health issues, doesn't help anything and I don't think this thread will go anywhere positive. I doubt the sibling wants to reconnect if it's been 4 years and I don't think OP wants to share any information to try to help us provide more useful insights.

This was OPs response a few pages back:
"OP here. It was not a wedding, but another significant event. I have stopped trying. There is also another half sibling where communication has stopped as well, but they were never very close. It’s been very interesting to read all the different opinions and even more so to see that I’m not alone."

[Anonymous]

OP here again. I don’t know who reads these threads so I’m hesitant to give a ton of details. I was just looking to see if other folks had experienced similar things and this has started to become a weird mix of accusations of mental health issues. I actually went to therapy to try to help with this situation because it was devastating to me. Going to therapy doesn’t mean someone is a narcissist. Happy to discontinue the thread. I’m not the one continuing it at this point. I hope others were able to get some thing from it as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think sometimes siblings do and say things that they don't realize are hurtful/not acceptable/think are fine after years of the same behavior being tolerated. Then there is a moment were the person asserts themselves and cuts off contact.

The reality, a mature person would talk to the sibling, discuss, since in many cases the behavior was never intentional to harm, and frankly the person wasn't aware it was a problem. Might not even be aware that something they do is a problem for someone else.

Again, mature people talk these things out. Unfortunately, the person who is cutting ties WANTS no contact. They don't want to talk. Given that, there is nothing to do about it.

I meant to add that that person who cuts off a sibling without a conversation is immature or emotionally unstable.

Ridiculous. You have no life experience.

There are lots of reasons to not bother with a conversation particularly if there is abuse involved. A more mature person can evaluate the situation and may decide to avoid the drama.

You clearly are someone who has been cut off and you clearly caused it.

There are plenty of reasons to not have a conversation particularly if yu

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Younger female sibling went no contact about four years ago. Have never gotten a straight answer as to why. Relationship was fine up to that point with shared holidays and frequent contact. This happen to anyone else? Ever get an answer to why or reconnect? Seems like time is not a friend in these sorts of situations.

Echhh, until you find out what or who influenced her to do that, you don’t know wtf is going in.
Cult, mental disorders, actual abuse victim, fake abuse victim, narcissist, bad agent therapist, pathological liar, being isolated by an abuser, etc.

Best case is she’s misguided in self estranging, and doing very well for her self- career, friends, health, life.

Riiiiight. I couldn't possibly have anything to do with her family being dysfunctional and op being a big part of that. /s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In all the cases of estrangement I’ve encountered there’s never been one that happened for no reason. There’s usually a reason, one that the party who is cut off dismisses or ignores as not important enough.

“Coinciding with a happy event in my life” makes me wonder how the younger sibling was treated in this happy event— my younger SIL barely exchanged three words with my older SIL in the year after her wedding because older SIL was *so awful*. Of course older SIL would say younger was “jealous” she wasn’t married yet…

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect people who go no contact with relatives who have NO clue why it is happening were encouraged to do so by some well-meaning friend or therapist who is putting their own issues into their advice and justifying and even selling it as “protecting your own mental health”
It’s a toxic practice that tends to spread from one mal-adjusted person to another because sometimes misery loves company.

This is such bull shite and is a constant refrain from rwnj familyfamilyfamily types. It's also pushed in a lot of religious dogma. I have fundamentalist Christian family who wouldn't give one whit if you were raped by a family member as a child. They believe in "handing it to God" and smiling through everything. Just don't ever talk about any of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Younger female sibling went no contact about four years ago. Have never gotten a straight answer as to why. Relationship was fine up to that point with shared holidays and frequent contact. This happen to anyone else? Ever get an answer to why or reconnect? Seems like time is not a friend in these sorts of situations.

Echhh, until you find out what or who influenced her to do that, you don’t know wtf is going on.

Cult, mental disorders, actual abuse victim, fake abuse victim, narcissist, bad agent therapist, pathological liar, being isolated by an abuser, etc.

Best case is she’s misguided in self estranging, and doing very well for her self- career, friends, health, life.

This.

Could be a myriad of “reasons.” Most of them not valid.

Could be a myriad of "reasons", most of them valid.

PPs tell us about yourselves and which mega church filled you with this crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. No other siblings and parents have passed on. Have shown last contact to therapist and have dealt with it in therapy. Mentioned younger because birth order seems to matter in terms of how people deal with things. Without going into too much detail, break in contact coincided with a happy event in my life. Therapist suspected that jealously was involved.

Yeah, no. No real therapist is going to blame this on your sibling being jealous of you. This post is very telling.