Questions about love and sex in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area can be submitted to dearkiki@littlevillagemag.com, or anonymously using this form. Questions may be edited for clarity and length, and may appear either in print or online.
Dear Kiki,
About 18 months ago, my sister (who is 33) stopped speaking to me (38, F), claiming that my invitations to meet up two or three times a year were overbearing, manipulative and bullying.
This may sound bizarre to an outsider, but given the context of the dysfunctional, abusive family we were raised in, it makes complete sense to me why she felt that way. Our parents were atrociously intrusive and did indeed bully both of us into staying with them, sometimes by threatening suicide if we wanted to move away. Now that she told me, I totally get how she’s hypersensitive to any hint of a demand for closeness from me. I only wish I’d known she perceived my overtures in that way. I thought we were rebuilding a different relationship in adulthood, but in the sole email she wrote to me weeks after she did her vanishing act on me, she listed a litany of grudges she had been holding for the past 12 years: feeling bullied every time I said I missed her or feeling manipulated every time I said, “Aw, it’s disappointing that you’re busy these holidays, but let’s make a date for next time!”
Now my problem is that my children (who are tweens) are also being cut off by her. They are heartbroken and I’m not sure how to handle it with them … After having two or three of their emails ignored, my kids are now asking me why? Is she mad at them too? What did they do? They used to have such a close and pure-fun relationship with their aunt. … Is the right thing to do to write her off entirely, and help my kids come to terms with the loss of their aunt for good? I have no hope that she will ever reconnect with me again on her own. She is estranged from our whole family: parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, everyone.
Thanks,
A.
Dear A.,
Five years can be a pretty large age gap. You don’t say when your parents’ bullying started, but there’s a very good chance that it affected her in a profoundly different way than it did you. I want to stress that I don’t mean it was more or less difficult—but fundamentally different. You mentioned that they treated you badly if you wanted to move away. So, imagining you at 18, perhaps, she would’ve been 13, watching you treated like that even if not experiencing it yet herself.
You have tweens. Can you imagine the effect that experience would have on them?
When you’re exposed to behavior like that as a tween or early teen, often greater than the feeling of anger, even, is the fear that you will turn out the same way—that your parents were just how adults are. It’s no wonder, then, that she might jump to the conclusion that you have turned out that way.
But practicing empathy for her doesn’t make parenting your own kids through this any easier, does it? My best advice there is to be honest. Tweens know more than we think they do, and can handle more than we think they can. Try this:
“Auntie is struggling with being part of our lives right now. We love her, so we want to give her space. You did nothing to cause this, but likewise you can do nothing to fix it. I know that’s hard, and I’m happy to talk with you about it any time.”
You may also want to explore why it is that you’re included in the “everyone” that she’s estranged from, though. You say that you came from a dysfunctional, abusive family: Why are you still in contact with them? Although she didn’t express it this way, is it possible that she feels you’ve chosen them over her?
Encourage your kids to contact her via snail mail rather than digitally, where her lack of response won’t hit so hard, and where it might feel to her less like a response is demanded. They can send little trinkets or “thinking of you” cards that express warmth without increasing pressure. Keep your social media open and visible to her, if possible, so she can check in on your life at her own pace.
I understand that your kids are at a critical point in their development, so waiting a year or two seems like a lifetime. But after a dozen years of her holding grudges, it’s a drop in the bucket. Just keep her alive in your family conversations in a positive way, so that if she does find her way back to you, the kids are open to welcoming her.
xoxo, Kiki
