Reply to Help me understand my sister ...

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Help me understand my sister ..."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]My sister is 29, a working professional, single mom to 1 very sweet and adorable 15 month old (never married), and at one point, was a very close friend/confidant/family member.  We used to call/text/email daily, see each other multiple times a week, and had a fantastic relationship for the previous 5 years.  I am 33, married, 2 kids (3.5 and 1), and also a working professional.  And just in case its relevant to helping me figure out my sister, our father passed away 2 years ago as of January and she had been closer to him than I was.

To compress a very long story, over the past year, I've had a variety of struggles.  First, just the reality of giving birth to a second child with a toddler around, though that was pretty minor.  Came back to work full time at BigLaw in March, a month or so earlier than planned, because we added some new team members that I had to integrate with.  In April I broke my leg and was non-weight-bearing for 8 weeks.  The day before my surgery, my husband's sister suddenly passed away (trigger grief and some depression for the next few months for him).  In August my husband had a mental breakdown, which was scary for everyone, and he spent 5 days in patient and came out with a good treatment plan of some stabilizing meds and therapists.  And then August - December figuring out what the heck is going on with my marriage, supporting my husband/evaluating whether he will be able to return to the stable man he was, and raising two kids while working full time.

After my husband's breakdown, my sister refused to speak to him because the act of his breakdown (somehow) hurt/scared her.  My husband is troubled by this ("doesn't your sister believe in me?  I thought we were so close."), and during August/September I press my sister to reconsider her stand-off approach and show him compassion.  She cannot.  So for Oct - December I try to both maintain a relationship with my sister and nephew that is separate and distinct from my husband and family life.  This was difficult to navigate, and of course we had some emotional snafus along the way, but it was what it was.

In December, on Christmas of course, my sister and I had a major argument.  She told me I was psychotic, and I told her she was a selfish B.  Obviously we were not at our best selves, and we ended the argument saying we never wanted to speak again.  We softened and agreed to take a month (ish) break and then see where we were.  We haven't had any contact for the past six weeks.

I worked really hard in January to try to forgive my sister and view her with compassion.  When I finally got to the place where my anger was gone and I was going to be able to showing a loving, supportive, and compassionate attitude towards her, I reached out to her via email to invite her to attend a lecture with me on a topic we both enjoy.  She responded promptly, said she was looking forward to it, and until today I was thinking this would be a nice thing for us to do together.

So here is what I need advice on DCUM.  She sent me an email yesterday confirming we were still on for the lecture and I responded with "Yes!  And I am free afterwards if you wanted to get a coffee or dessert, but I'll leave next steps to you."  She responded quickly with "at the lecture or somewhere else?"  I emailed back right away with "either is fine - whatever you'd prefer."  and then, NO RESPONSE AT ALL.  Not even an "I'll get back to you."  I'm feeling pretty angry and frustrated and thinking thoughts like "maybe she doesn't really want to repair our relationship and is still a selfish jerk."  I recognize that this may be off base, but I'm having a hard time understanding where she is coming from in just not responding at all. Would appreciate any insight to help me get out of the anger and back to loving compassion before we meet tomorrow for the lecture.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics