Woman estranged from older sister must move on

Dear Carolyn:

I have a long story and I need outside input. I’ve gone to family, friends, etc. — no one knows what to tell me.

My older sister stopped speaking to me a year and a half ago. It all started because I asked her to come over earlier than she planned for me to do a practice run on her hair and makeup for her wedding. When I asked her to come over early she told me forget it. That was one of the last times we spoke. Prior to this, we were very close. I was her maid of honor and I was THRILLED.

She had gotten a higher-paying job a few months prior to that incident and, in hindsight, that’s where I see her pulling away. It was almost as if she was looking for a reason to hate me. A week after she stopped speaking to me, I was replaced as maid of honor by her friend who just happens to be a doctor. My whole family was invited except me.

I then realized I was not allowed in her life anymore. I sobbed and pretty much have been crying since it happened. I asked her what I did and I told her how sorry I was for whatever it was. She told me she just didn’t want me in her life.

I now am getting married this summer. I don’t want her anywhere near me, but I am so heartbroken still that she wants nothing to do with me. Her reasons just seem illogical — she told me I said mean things to her, and brought up an argument we had when I was 18 (I’m mid-20s now). This is still killing me. What do I do? I’ve approached her, I’ve apologized, I’ve done it all.

— A Sad Sister

No one knows what to tell you because there’s nothing you can do. That is usually the point in situations like this — which are more common than you might think — where someone cuts another person off seemingly out of the blue. It is a statement: “I am in complete control here.”

Sometimes, making that statement is a victory — for example, when an abuse victim stands up to an abuser. Seizing control of one’s own life and emotions and denying the abuser any further access is a triumph.

Sometimes, though, it’s a form of abuse unto itself — say, when someone in a relationship that used to be a loving give-and-take decides to end things without giving the other person any say in why or how that occurs. It is heartbreaking when that happens, as it appears to be happening to you. I’m sorry.

There’s also a third case that’s a hybrid of the two: The cut-off party feels abruptly and mysteriously dumped, and the cutter believes he or she gave the other person ample opportunity to understand and fix what was wrong. Of course one of them is necessarily wrong, but each thinks it’s the other. This, too, could be what happened to you.

So here’s one thing you can do when someone won’t let you do anything: Ask yourself whether you missed something, whether you ignored signs you were upsetting her — a year and a half ago, when you were 18, whenever. Whether you have a habit of getting defensive instead of listening when she (or anyone) objects to something you’ve done. Whether you’ve made assumptions about her that you never stopped to examine. This last one is especially common in families, where people grow but impressions of each other often stay fixed.

I’m not suggesting you look for reasons to blame yourself; just look at yourself, at her, at the context. Look for patterns.

If there’s really truly nothing there, then widen the circle to your family. They all went to the wedding from which you were abruptly excluded? Did they even try to mediate? If not — wha?! Is cutting off a thing with them? Do they shut down when they get upset?

If you come up empty still, then you still have two more options available: therapy, and grief.

The former is self-explanatory. Your anguish says there’s something you’re not seeing — in her, in you, in your family, in human behavior, in all of the above. Getting it, whatever “it” is, helps.

The latter, grief, means treating this loss not as damage you can somehow repair if only you get the right input from the right person, but instead as a death. That’s what your emotions think it is, because your sister is gone and there’s nothing you can do about it — but you’re bringing hopeful actions to a hopeless cause, and that’s torture.

Please change your goal from figuring out how to repair the rift to figuring out how to handle the loss and accepting there are things you can’t know, can’t fix, can’t change. It’s a painful crossing, but peace awaits on the other side.

Washington Post Writers Group