I alienated my sister

Occupy your time with other things.

I'm serious.

I realize you may feel it's flip, but one thing that will help is for you to get into engrossing activities of one form or another, whatever they are. Hook a rug, read all of those books you've got on your to-be-read pile, binge watch Supernatural, whatever floats your boat.

Because the more time you spend not checking your phone every five minutes, the less you'll do that. Right now, this seems almost like an addiction to seeking contact. So you will need to do that less.

And seriously consider counseling, not only about this but also concerning your abuse. Counseling should help give you even more tools for dealing with this.

What is it that you want from your sister?

Do you feel betrayed? Do you feel she should have protected you?

She seems to be caught in the middle of this.

Counseling for you two together might help you have a relationship.

May I ask the ages of all involved?

I'm not the only one who was abused by my brother. He sexually abused his own daughter for years until he was caught. He is currently serving 2 consecutive life sentences for 9 felony charges. He's been incarcerated since 1988. He's always maintained his innocence. Last year, he asked my sister and I to provide him with his daughter's (our niece) address so he could write to her. I said no, my sister provided him with her address and phone number. He wrote a very long and nasty letter to his daughter, the one he raped for years, accusing her of all sorts of things.

That's when I became extremely hostile towards both my brother and my sister. I don't think I'll hear from my brother again and I'm ok with that. I am angry with my sister because she wouldn't listen to me and subsequently caused even more pain for our niece who is now in her 30's. She told us that we're dead to her. And I don't blame her one bit.

I want my sister to understand she cannot fix this. Not for me or our niece or even herself. It's been broken many years and I'm really ok with how things are. It took many fights to get her to realize she overstepped her boundaries. She wanted me to forgive someone for sins against me, used unfair tactics and generally made me miserable.

The ironic point of all this is we both hear our mother's voice in the back of our heads to not let this come between us. Having said that, I did tell my sister not to contact me if she can't respect my boundaries. So here we are.

What really do I want? For any of it to not have happened. But it did. Now, we all get to serve out life in cold silence.

A fitting ending for the #metoo era.

Are you gonna be alright not having a relationship with your sister at all? That's one option.

If it really bothers you and you would like to have SOME kind of relationship with her, then get some professional help in making her understand how she makes you feel. You and your sister can go into family counseling together. .

She seems in denial of your brother's horrific actions and doesn't want to deal with the truth. These acts ARE unforgivable and he shows no contrition or ownership for what he did. He's a victim- blamer. (Hence, the letter to his own daughter)

Your sister believes him and gives him the benefit of the doubt because probably it's too painful for her to comprehend or accept what he did. So she smoothes it over.

start by turning off the phone
check it a couple of times a day til the need to check ends

get counselling for yourself - lots to work through eh

get as active in the community as you can stand/manage

___

Family isn't always healthy and there really is no good reason to stay friends with a relative who has not accepted your boundaries/needs.

Friends are sometimes the best real family you can have.

One moment, it seems as if our original poster still wants a relationship with her sister, but: not one where:
- her sister can't understand the damage that's been caused, and
- because she can't understand, does things that both disrespects other peoples wishes & result in even more damage,
- then defends her actions.

If so, then it is important both of them receive some form of 3rd party counselling, and probably one who's a trained / very good in mediation. Counselling for one simply won't work. There is too much hurt here for empathetic communication (without a counsellor + mediator), which is the only communication that can bridge the gap at this stage.

I'm curious how counselling could be suggested to/arranged for the sister who has sided with the abuser/felon?

Is that the only possible perspective for why the sister did what she did?

It's quite possible that in the sisters mind, what she was doing was any of:
- believing her brother had changed
- siding with the idea of reconciliation and forgiveness
- wanting to help her family get past the hurt of past abuse
- wanting to bring her family closer together
- other similar motivations

Defensiveness when that didn't work, can be found in self recrimination, wanting to be a good person, and many other human emotions.

Nor is that to say that the above is any of the reasons for her behaviour. How can you know unless you sit down and talk it out. And again, it seems that at some level, our OP still wants a relationship with her sister, but can't get past this (quite understandable - that's just a statement of where it seems to be at in this moment).

There seems to be only one way forward if that is her wishes. Hence my previous post.

If you were asking how to raise the matter, why is the wording for that difficult? Sis, I'm having a hard time getting past the hurt. When we talk about it we seem to just fight. I want a relationship with you where the hurt won't come between us all the time. Can we sit down with a third party so we can communicate what we're going through without fighting? That''s made up on the spot, but there are many ways it can be raised.

The question is how is that person to be brought to counselling.

see my edit

She believes spending 30 years in prison is sufficient time to pay for his crimes. Murderers get released by now. He was denied parole twice because my niece wrote to the Board to plead not to release him. My sister thinks that's unjust. I told her she doesn't get to say what's just or not, the victim has every right to feel and do what they feel and do. I've never been asked to either write to the Parole Board or to testify on his behalf. I think they're more scared of what I'd say so I'm left out of it.

My sister is a fixer, always has been. I don't need fixing or counseling. I don't "need" anything. I've reconciled as much as I can and that's what it is.. Ok, now that the drama is gone, I think I miss it. If I initiate contact with her, it starts all over again. But I miss her. She was my rock for many years.

You don't have to be asked, you can find out when his parole hearings are scheduled and either write or testify why you think he needs to remain in prison. I write every three years to try to keep the woman who murdered my cousin behind bars until her sentence has been served completely. She pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 25 years, 15 suspended and time served. That means she was eligible for parole after 5 years.

I think you should protect yourself and your niece. Your sister may think she is helping but all she is doing is prolonging the agony and I bet your niece feels betrayed.

I'll pass on that, thank you.

What ever happens to him, it's his own doing, not mine. I've let my niece know what ever she decides to do or not do, is totally up to her. It isn't my crime, conviction or my pain. I've taken the step back, acknowledged my part, my guilt and my own pain enough to realize I'm done.

The only thing my sister has over me is a shared parentage.

I do want to thank every one who has read all of my ranting. It wasn't easy to let the truth out. Cried a little bit. Got angry again. It subsided. I sent her a generic text 5 minutes ago,

I think hell just froze over.

I hear their demonic hockey team fights dirty.

And - to you - good on you for taking charge of your life.

Well, that didn't last long.

I texted her late last night, she responded by telling me I didn't call/text for her birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years. I texted back saying that I was hurt and angry and upset and I'm sorry.

Today she texted me to ask if I was done being hurt and angry and upset. For for reason it came off very condescending to me so, doing the honesty thing, told her that. She responded that she's tired of walking on eggshells around me and I just need to get over it.

So I guess I am, I told her I was done. I tried reaching out but all I get is the same run around bullshit and frankly, I'm just too damn old to give a ****. She sent one last text telling me to grow up, It's tough to loose a sister but to me, gaining a drama free life is well worth the price.

So, there it is/was. Had it, lost it.

Instead of trying to patch things up with your sister, I'd be most concerned with patching things up with your niece. If I understand right, she is upset at you over the letter that she was sent, even though you opposed it being sent to her.

If I were in that situation, I'd want to make it clear to her that I had been adamantly opposed to her being sent the hurtful letter.

As for your sister, I advise telling her that you aren't going to forgive, and she needs to stop pressuring you into forgiving, but that you would like to have her as part of your life if she stops pressuring you to forgive.

None of that is going to happen. Any communication with my niece should go through Victim's Services and she isn't willing to accept any thing I have to say. It's a done deal. I get it, no hard feelings, she has to look out for herself, and she's doing that. She knows that I was opposed to giving a rapist the victim's address and that's just how that one went.

Right now, I'm still in shock and anger to figure out what to do about my sister, if any thing.

Is it ok to take some time and revisit the situation? I think I hate her right now.

Of course it is.

Note that I'm not a counselor or anyone with any professional expertise in giving such advice. I'm just a guy making what I hope are good suggestions.



I'd suggest looking into vikorr's suggestion of mediation.

Maybe when you're ready again, try to arrange contact through such a mediator, and make it clear (or have it made clear) to your sister that you will not communicate further with her unless she agrees to the mediation too.

It would have to be voluntary of course.