Final Curtain

Six days later sister received my response. I make a reference to "EQ" in this reply. There is a pop psychology term called Emotional Quotient....it is usually referred to as "emotional intelligence". My sister likes to think of herself as emotionally intelligent. I'm the book smart one and she's the emotionally intelligent one according to her. All the evidence I can reference from my sister's history and mine would reveal that she's not only average on the IQ scale, she's not got a high "EQ" either. I think she has confused her ability to manipulate, lie and bamboozle with being emotionally intelligent. Getting people to give you what you want can't be the only measure of "EQ".

What follows are the last words I have "spoken" to my sister since April 20, 2006. She made a tentative contact last December that I wrote about here:

Dear D,

Some things have become very clear to me in the wake of your apology. While you do cleanly admit to:

1) being defensive in your Apr. 1st email.....

2) putting me in the position of mother and, as such, needing me to assuage your defensiveness.....

...the fundamental core of what you did against me went unacknowledged and therefore unapologized for. This means that you are going to do the same thing to me at some point in the future. That isn't acceptable. I have been treated like this by you too many times before. Generalized apologies for how I'm feeling don't cut it. Generalized apologies for how you've "hurt and wronged" me don't cut it. Apologies that are non specific are absolutely worthless. There is no basis for trust to be built on general, non-specific apologies unless the receiver is gullible and mistakes it for a real apology. I'm not that gullible. While I did recognize specific admissions as noted above, those did not touch on the real offense to me. You use those two admissions to make it about you and your tender feelings....once again. In other words, those admissions were to serve as excuses. They were to explain away whatever it was I was in a snit about. I was supposed to see you as wounded and weak and misunderstood and thereby forgive you, when the truth is that you were being the aggressor and I was the victim of manipulative tactics. I will not be swerved from what really happened by these diversions.

I have labored through multiple drafts of a response to your apology. I have discarded them all completely. For me to turn my full attention to the content of that email would only be hurtful to you in a non-productive way since you are not willing to admit the truth of what you do. I am not out for blood. I am not needing to prove to you that I'm right. So I'm just going to lay down all weapons and walk away from the field. You can be right. And while you're being right, I'm going to just be gone.

Your apology letter was, in fundamental essence, identical to the apology letter Mom sent me that you claimed made you feel so sick (only hers was more artful). Well, your apology made me feel just as sick. I have been feeling physically and emotionally horrible over how to respond to what you are calling an apology. I have had bricks in my stomach as I have tried to find a way to convey what I am seeing to you. But I know it would be for nothing. I won't waste any more time on it because you are not willing to see and freely admit the core of what you should be apologizing for. I'm not going to script for you what it should look like. I'm not out to extort what would come easily to someone who is truly sorry.

So I'm going to say the same thing to you as I did about K. I will have a relationship with you someday.....someday when you grow up and are willing to take responsibility for who you are and what you do and the decisions you make. I'm am weary to the bone of hearing you give yourself a pass on everything by blaming your childhood. It is looking ridiculous for a 40+ year old woman to be blaming anyone but herself for what she does and who she is. When do you start to take full responsibility for these things? I'm beginning to think never. Does it occur to you that I had the same parents? That in many ways my childhood was much harder than yours? That I never have used my childhood to get me off the hook for the consequences of my bad behaviors? What I'm doing now, by saying "goodbye for now" isn't about my childhood either. It is about the present. It is about how I so clearly see the careless way you deal with me is far from a thing of the past. You probably have little to no memory of the frequency that you've done this kind of thing to me throughout our adult lives. But your memory, or lack thereof, is not my problem. My problem is my memory. When you dish out your manipulative garbage at me you force me to remember so many things. You make the past present. If you can't remember the various unkind and manipulative ways you've dealt with me over the years then I guess that just proves my point. My feelings don't make much of an impression on you because you always feel so justified for what you do.

So...after this email, I am laying down the pen and am leaving you to your reality. I can't live in it with you. Because of the fact that I won't play in your reality, it is certain that you would see me as cruel and mean and insensitive and whatever. I am no longer willing to accede to your version of reality in any way when it conflicts with what I know to be true. I will allow myself to be completely honest which you will see as cruelty. I am so done with protecting your feelings at the expense of my own feelings and principals. I am so done with the constant feeling of holding my breath around you hoping I don't ignite any fires. We've gotten along as well as we have because I was always willing to give in to get along. That was how I coped with Mom, too. My relationship with you has always felt too much like my relationship with Mom. The less cruel thing will be for me to take a bow and leave the stage. A clean break is less painful than a death of a thousand cuts which a continued relationship with me would feel like to you. You have very sensitive feelings. Unfortunately, your sensitivities are all for yourself. Your compassion you save for mostly you. I don't need to spend my compassion on someone who is so generous with it on themselves. I can imagine that you are shaking your head and wondering that I have this view of you and our relationship. I imagine what I'm saying doesn't comport with what you think and feel about yourself or our relationship. I can't help what you think. I can only tell you what I think. If what I'm saying in this email is hard....you can use it to help you envision what continued contact with me would feel like.

The high regard and love you claim to have in your heart toward me is a secret safe with you. It doesn't show. If you had those things in your heart toward me you would have treated me very differently than you have in the past, and than you did on Apr. 1st....and you wouldn't have followed that insult with the insult of a non-apology. Your type of high regard and love have never felt like the real article to me. I'm not going to pretend that its there just because you say it is. You've had plenty of time to learn how to show these things to me. That you don't know how after so many years on the planet means I'm not holding out much hope that will ever change. I no longer believe I have to put up with intermittent abuse just to prove to someone that I'm a good person. All manipulators and abusers in my life get the pink slip.

I'm sure this seems precipitous to you. Like I've come clear out of the blue with this decision. First of all, I'm not interested in giving you a recipe for how you should behave around me. That is what Mom does. I, on the other hand, want real relationships based on real caring. Not scripted behaviors. If you can't identify inappropriate behaviors, like manipulation, coercion, guilt-tripping, judging, and dismissiveness after all the conversations we've had about Mom and narcissism then, once again, your EQ is failing you. That you couldn't predict that I would not stick around if you decided to treat me as you have done in the past isn't anyone's fault but your own. High EQ would have told you this would be the result. I have demonstrated that I don't take manipulative crap off of anyone anymore by my decisions about Mom and Dad. You had a front row seat. But you would, if you could, demand yet another pass even while you refuse to apologize for what you really did. You are without excuse. You had all the information you needed to be able to know that your decision to try and force my will would be a fatal blow to our relationship. You did what you did with full disclosure on my part on how I would react to it. But, for some reason, you thought you were a special case with entitlement to endless do-overs if I should take offense at something you did. The plea is always, "That's not what I intended". "You misunderstand me." No, I don't any longer misunderstand when I'm up against a covertly aggressive person. I know when someone is selfishly and underhandedly fighting for their own way. I suppose it is very obvious now how different our view of sisterhood is. My view is simply this: the only sister you get to keep is the sister you don't abuse.

What you don't realize is that our relationship was on the brink back in the summer of 2002. You were so rude and dismissive that I was a hair's breadth from having nothing to do with you ever again. My offense? Refusing to surrender my opinion to yours. I'm betting you have no idea what or when or where you did this. You never apologized because I never confronted you. There is probably a book full of things you've never apologized for. (Just like now, I am sure I would never have gotten your attempt at an apology if I hadn't so adamantly gotten into your face because you don't think you did much of anything wrong.) Your reprieve came because of what Mom did several months later Thanksgiving 2002. We were back in regular communication again and Mom was the focus. What followed was two years of us having common ground (Mom) and many in depth and lengthy discussions on narcissism. What you didn't appreciate was that you were getting a clear picture of where my head was at on dealing with abusive, covertly aggressive personalities. This was your classroom on Anna. When the big test came, though, you failed spectacularly. D, you and Mom are the two most difficult people I've ever had to deal with. Ever. You are also the two most practiced covert aggressives I've ever had to deal with. You two have been the most cruel to me. You two had the most power to be cruel because you were family and the expectation was that you had the right to be mean and I had no right to protect myself by calling you on it. You two knew how to keep me down so I wouldn't resist. You have employed the best and most used tools of covert aggressives in your recent two emails to me. You're not out in the open enough with your aggression that you can be easily pinned down, which is the whole point of covert aggression. Nevertheless, I am well aware of what is going on. I see it all as clearly as if you were overt. No more wool over my eyes. Mom enabled me to rip it away....apparently, that was to your detriment since you didn't learn the lessons the last couple of years could have taught you. So, rather than seeing my exit as abrupt, you need to realize that you had an extra 2+ years to show me that you were different; to show you wouldn't use my relationship to you as sister to treat me any damn way you saw fit when you want your way. Since more than two years of discussion on narcissism didn't teach you anything about how not to treat me, I'm walking away. Since you can't, or won't, admit to what you really did against me, logic concludes: No admission = nothing will change. I don't have the interest or energy to keep up a relationship under these circumstances. I have many healthy relationships. Ours stands in stark contrast. I know when I'm being treated badly. No amount of fancy talk on your part can make me not know it.

I'm sure that if you were willing to denounce me to Mom and Dad as the evil bitch they already think I am that they would welcome you in with open arms. I'm willing to be thought of as evil if it allows me to live in peace.

Maybe, at some point in the future, I'll call you and see if you're willing to have an mutually respectful, healthy and adult relationship with me.

There is no tone of sarcasm in this letter. You can read it with a tone of weariness, resignation and sadness for that is what I'm feeling.

Love,
Anna
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My next post will contain my parsing of my sister's non-apology letter which I never sent to her. It was an exercise I did for myself. Now, I'll share it with ya'll since it more fully shows what I actually took away from her attempt at an apology. It exposes her falsehoods and half-truths. One thing you have to pay careful attention to when analyzing a narcissist's fake apologies are the qualifiers and modifiers and subtle blame-shifting they sneak into their language. These will be highlighted in my next post.

My Sister Pretends to Apologize

One of the main reasons I'm sharing this exchange of emails between my sister and me is because she is a slippery fish. Her tactics tend toward the subtler side; her non-apology a work of art. I'm hoping by exposing her tactics that it'll help someone out there who is trying to deal with a similarly slippery fish.

If you're new here, the "Labels" section of this web page has a category of "My Sister" which contains a history of my sister and myself going back to before she was born. The "last straw" event occurred within the email exchange I am now sharing. The first exchange of emails is here. The next parts of the exchange are here and here.

I had never before thought that I would ever ax my sister out of my life. I had assumed that arm's length would be a safe enough distance. The turmoil in my emotions as I was assaulted with my sister's manipulations, lies and smooth words was worse than what I went through with my N-mother. I was perplexed at the time that it was so hard on me. All I can really conclude is that it was because I had never anticipated feeling the need to completely shut my sister out of my life. Being confronted with her willingness to lie so voluminously to me in order to get her way and to "save face" made me realize I couldn't feel safe with her in my life. A part of me was shocked at how willing she was to use covert tactics to get me to comply with her wishes and then to "save face". To tell as many lies as she did in her two emails to me forced me to realize she is a dangerous person to have in my life. I don't know how you feel about liars, but I don't think they can be trusted any further than you can throw them. Good relationships rely on honesty and integrity between parties. I was forced to see that my sister can lie in nearly every sentence when she either wants something from me or feels like she has to maintain her "innocence" when she should be accepting responsibility.

In the past, her self-righteousness was a major tripping point for me as well. She has always been so assured of her rightness in situations where her will clashed with mine that I would usually acceded just because she was surer of her "rightness" than I was of mine. My sister makes high claims to being a pious Christian. This time around, though, her self-righteousness didn't shield her. I saw all too clearly what a liar she is, and I know liar's claims to being "righteous" are just as much a lie as anything else they say.

Without further prologue I now post her "apology"...

My Dear Sister,

I am so sorry that my last response offended you. I apologize for not considering that you would have serious concerns or a moral or ethical dilemma regarding K. I truly never considered for a moment that you would have different feelings than I on the matter and for that I am sorry. I can understand how you believe that I make everything about me because often I do. It is a residual effect of my upbringing that I daily combat. Sometimes though, I fail miserably and sin in this way. Please forgive me.

I hope that with time you will be able to accept my motives in writing you were not how you interpreted them to be. Please believe me when I tell you that my motive was simply to offer you “where I was coming from” so you could have more complete information from which to formulate your opinion. But can I understand your reaction in the light of the fact that you were dreading having to tell me because you said were expecting the worst in my reaction. I know that in the past I have tried to force you into beliefs that you did not hold. I know that I have hurt you terribly because of it. I am so sorry for that. But please believe me that this time I was only trying to be truthful and sensitive and reveal my heart so you could know me better. And I can see how you can read into it that I was once again making everything about me. I was and I am sorry.

You are right when you say that you and I differ in what we believe about sisterhood. Now I understand how you think on the matter and will not be making the same assumptions I have in the past. That you feel I have taken our relationship for granted was a sorrow to me. I am so sorry that I have made you feel taken for granted. Please forgive me for showing you such a poor example of my love for you. I want to learn how to love you in a way that feels like love to you. I know that our differences in temperament and disposition have made it more difficult for us to relate all through our lives. I know that when I am excited I want everyone to get excited too. What I didn’t know is how it made you feel when I do that. I am so sorry.

I can also see that you and I feel differently about relationships. I have always known that you take them very seriously and try to be honorable in your relationships. But I never understood before now that you consider relationships as responsibilities to carry. But knowing that now, suddenly it makes a lot of sense to me why you are thinking as you do about K. I think I get it. You don’t want to burden K with a relationship that you think is unnecessary and you aren’t sure you are ready to enter into the responsibility of a relationship with her either. That you and I think differently about this is not a matter of one of us being right and the other wrong. I think it’s because we have completely different temperaments which cause us to perceive things entirely different. I hope what can change in the future is that we can both feel free to express our perceptions freely. I will work on receiving your input without making you feel judged. I certainly don’t want you to feel that way with me and I am sorry that my last correspondence made you feel judged by me. I have re-read the e-mail I sent and I can honestly say that it wasn’t the intent of my heart when writing it, to make you feel judged for not believing as I did. But I believe you that you did feel that way and so I offer you my deepest apology. If I were to be completely honest with both you and myself, I would have to say that my last e-mail to you was written from the perspective that I was trying to justify my decision and make you see that I wasn’t a bad person for believing that I was doing the right thing for K. That I caused you to be burdened with granting me absolution on the matter is very wrong. I can see why you reacted as you did. I was asking you to give me what you could not...and should not have to give. Please for give me for doing this to you and causing you such distress as a result.

I spoke to K about your preferences on the Saturday I received your first e-mail. I told her that you felt morally and ethically wrong to impose on her life at this time of her development. I told her how you didn’t want to hurt her, P or D [K's adoptive parents] or interfere with her family life in any way. I told her that when she is an adult and able to initiate a relationship with you, that you will be more that happy to receive her at that time. Her response was,“ so she is not rejecting me...she just feels like now isn’t the right time.” I agreed and she was fine with it.

You are right, if I was present at your first meeting I would do everything I could to facilitate you getting to know each other. And now I understand how irritating that would be to you. And you know, I can accept that. I can see how that would feel like pressure to you and how that could cause resentment or at least discomfort. And I don’t want to cause you to feel that way at all. So I can see why you made that request.

Anna, much of what you see in me is true and valid. I am praying that God will make the necessary changes in my character so I am a better person. I hope that you will understand that much of what I say and do that causes you pain is not intentional. In my heart I hold the highest regard and love for you. In our youth you were the nurture that I did not receive anywhere else. I do ask a lot from you because that was the role I have seen you in. But it was wrong for you to have been placed in a position to “mother” me. That was far too great a responsibility for you to have to carry when you were so young and it is wrong for me to hold you in that role right now. Please forgive me for burdening you with my emotional needs. And please do not read sarcasm into that statement. In fact, nothing I have written today or on my former e-mail comes from sarcasm. I am sincere in my expressions to you. I have hurt you and I have wronged you and I am truly deeply sorry. Please forgive me.

I Love You, D

My next post will contain my reply to this letter. I will let you know now that I did not address all that I saw in this letter when replying to her. I trashed several drafts of a response and ultimately decided not to go point by point with her because it would be wasted effort. She had made it clear she was in no way willing to accept my point of view unless I was giving her what she wanted. After I sent her my reply I sat down with her letter above and did go point by point as to what I saw in her letter and have kept that for myself. It helped me to stop mulling the letter over in my mind once I was able to thoroughly respond to it. I will share that private analysis of her letter with you after you read what I sent to her. Since you are not aware of all the history between me and my sister my private analysis of this letter will help you better see what I did. Sister labored for almost two weeks on this non-apology letter. So I know she deliberately chose every word of it. Therefore, I hold her to every word of it.

An Added Link

In light of my sister's upcoming "apology" email that I'll soon be posting, I hope ya'll will check out this cynical take on non-apologies. I added it to the "links" section of this blog and it is titled "How NOT to Apologize When You Have Seriously Fucked Up". It is a work of brilliance.

I Get in Sister's Face

My sister's last email was infuriating. I had specifically told her I was settled in my mind on this and I asked her to not try to pressure me to change my mind. That was me kindly warning her to not do what she ended up doing. She was judgmental, condescending and a bit freely revising some history that was now proving inconvenient to her case.

Since I don't believe that showing one's anger is necessarily a wrong thing, I responded in such a way that she could not fail to feel mine. I used sarcasm. My sister also looks down on sarcasm. She doesn't think it is ever right to use it. That is because she is somewhat ignorant. Sarcasm can put a fine point on something and deliver the message much more clearly. Even God Himself uses a bit of Divine sarcasm in the last several chapters of the book of Job. Read it. It makes me laugh every time I do. God using sarcasm to make His points to a man who needed to comprehend a reality bigger than himself. God doesn't sin...God uses sarcasm. Do the math.

My next email was pointed. It was also my sister's last chance to get it right. I was giving her one last opportunity to pull her shit together by what I instructed her with in my "P.S." Also, you will probably notice my frequent use of the word "feeling" and "feel", etc. It is because that is the language she speaks. Because I tend to rely on logic and rationality to guide my decision-making processes sister chooses to portray me as emotionless. She hasn't hesitated to frequently portray me that way to my face. She has made it clear to me that she looks down on me for being this way. So I made sure to speak her language. For all the good it did.

Thank you, D, for being gracious enough to allow me to have a different opinion than you on this without having to cast shame, blame and aspersions on me and my views.

Thank you for confirming that K lacks the maturity and perspective right now to have me in her life as you believe that my truthful feelings and reasoning can't be understood by her. My email was anything but rejecting of her. You appear to have completely missed the part where I state that I DO want to meet her. How is my clearly stating I would like to meet her when she is an adult being hurtful? How is it hurtful for me to respect K's adoption? If I can't be truthful with her then what is the point of her meeting me? It seems I'm too hurtful of a person to allow her to get close to. Perhaps you need to warn her off.

Thank you for giving a stark revelation of her inability to discern what is best for her at her tender young age as shown by her continued desire to want to meet Mom and Dad. You have been warning her against them since you two met up. Yet she still thinks she wants to meet them. I see a profound lack of wisdom and maturity which is completely understandable and even appropriate for her age. I am not condemning her. I am simply saying she needs to grow up more before she will be able to make wiser decisions about who should be in her life. I'm willing to wait and see if, when she gains more maturity, she still wants to meet me. I am not being unreasonable or unfair or rejecting. I resent what appears to be almost a deliberate misapprehension of my words by you.

Thank you for making this all about you and what you want while acting like this is only about what K wants. Thank you for not giving any weight whatsoever to my feelings or beliefs. Thank you for pointing out what a failure I have been as a sister because I didn't "enter your joy". Never mind that it would have been disingenuous for me to pretend to feel something I didn't feel. Frankly, I'm just about never enthusiastic enough for your tastes. Here is a newsflash about me: I am honest in my reactions. I fake nothing. I would not be able to count the times when I have expressed honest enthusiasm or praise about something and you keep poking me and prodding me to ramp it up. I always get the message: I'm not emotional enough for your tastes. I don't "validate" you the way you think I should. Why can't I be myself and be allowed to think that it okay for me to be me? Why is it always about you and what you want and need? Why are your needs always top billing, yet when I, in a rare moment, express my need for some respect for my feelings and I get slapped around? Why are you fighting?

By the way, I notice you didn't bother to ask me what my reservations were when you were so hurt by my lack of enthusiasm. I knew you sensed my reservation, but I also took note that you didn't ask about it. That told me you did not want to hear a dissenting opinion. I took the hint. I didn't force my thinking and emotions onto you. I gave you as much "validation", or whatever, that I could without being dishonest. I figured if you really wanted to know, you would ask. The day finally arrived. You asked. "Tonight she asked me if you two even wanted to meet her. And you know, I didn't know how to answer. Is that something you would even want?" I answered your question honestly and clearly. And then you punish me for it! If there was only one right answer to that question then you should have told me.

When you signed those adoption papers you forever forfeited any right to hold me to any expectation regarding K. You should be treading extremely lightly here. But somehow you have this idea that you have a right to expect me to conform to your ideas in this matter. Where do you get off? Get out of yourself for a moment here and realize that my decisions regarding K are not your business. You are overstepping .... big time.

What you apparently don't remember about the conversation where you first told me that you'd just met K is that simultaneously you were immediately putting on the pressure for us (N and me) to meet her. Big time. You were not subtle. You were a steamroller. You did not for even an instant seem to pause to think that this new development needed to be handled with at least a little respect that the rest of your family may be in a different place in their heads; that they may need time to adjust. I didn't even get one minute to adjust to the idea that K was now in your life before I had to also take in the fact that this meant, in your mind, that she was now in my life. And N's life. This had a dampening effect on my reaction to "your joy" because, frankly, it was too much all at once. All these friends and acquaintances that I'm being compared to are not in the same position as I am. They are not subject to your expectations in this. Of course they were able to express great joy for you. It doesn't cost them a thing because they bear no responsibility toward K. I could have been much more enthusiastic if you weren't immediately bestowing on me your expectation that I now had to instantly act as if K had always been a part of our family. You made me feel like I had no choice in this matter. It made me pull back. You are grossly unfair comparing my reaction to your friends' and acquaintances' reactions. You are also very unfair laying your expectations on me like it is my job to fulfill them. Like it is your right to do so. You have shown no respect or consideration at all for my thoughts and feelings on this from the very first moments of K coming into your life. Can you imagine for just one minute how that makes me feel? How it feels to receive your angry, condescending rebuke the very first time I do try to explain my feelings? You make me feel bullied. And it pisses me off. I think you should know I don't stand still for bullying anymore. Which is why I'm in your face right now. I hope you can understand my words this time around.

I knew you would not tolerate my thinking regarding K. I have truthfully expressed to you that I am happy for you in past conversations....because I really am happy for you because I knew you were happy. I wasn't begrudging of your being happy. I could completely understand it. I expressed that to you. But, again, it wasn't enough. I withheld any dissenting thoughts and my concerns because I didn't want to rain on your parade. I get NO credit from you at all for that. Only condemnation because I didn't express unbridled enthusiasm. You are asking me to be dishonest. I would have to have had a brain transplant in order to react the way you expected me to. I have been living in dread for this moment of truth. I have avoided expressing my thoughts on this because I felt sure you would react as negatively as you did. I am sorry I was so right about that.

As to your vow to "be silent on the matter". Isn't it telling that you couldn't be silent on the matter before you dumped your negative reaction on me? Your silence will now be filled with your shaming and rejection of my right to hold a differing opinion. Thanks.

I have clear and specific memories of things you deny in your response to me. I see you re-painting the picture in order to make me more wrong. I have a problem with that.

You have preached a good game about how people are entitled to have their feelings and not have to defend them or be judged for them. I fail to see you granting one ounce of respect for my feelings on this. Apparently, it is only your feelings that get this consideration. This respect and consideration for feelings has to be a two-way street or else the relationship is out of kilter and someone is getting the shaft.

Have you forgotten that only a short time ago I called my own mother into account for her over-reaching, her self-centeredness, her unfair expectations, her coming down like a hammer on someone she disapproved of? If I would hold my own mother to account for her treatment of me and mine, what makes you think I'd give you a pass for the same type of behavior? Somewhere along the way you seem to have come to believe there is a commandment that says, "Honor your sister, validate her whenever she wants you to even if it means going against your own convictions, and be sure to grant her expectations." Since I haven't found that commandment yet I'm going to call you on how you're treating me. I'm going to hold you to some account for your unfairness. I'm not going to let you steamroll me with your overt and covert rejection of my position by your implication that I a committing a moral wrong. There is NO moral obligation involved here. This is a matter where reasonable minds can disagree....so acting like I'm wrong to hold to the opinions I do is simply you attempting to manipulate me. I'm too old, too wise and too cranky to not call you on it.

Here's a thought to carry with you. I don't owe you anything. I don't even owe you a relationship with me. I'm not being cruel here. I am stating stark reality. If you really let that sink in then you will find that I will never disappoint you again because you'll take nothing for granted and you'll have gratitude for who I am and what I am willing to give you. You have been presumptuous. You have assumed that I owe you things that I don't, and this has caused you to trample my boundaries. You feel like you can bestow your unfair disapproval freely and I just have to sit here and take it? You shouldn't feel so secure in your relationship with me that you can feel justified in attempting to shame me and to discount my thoughts and feelings like they don't matter, without consequence. I wouldn't put up with that in a friend. Blood relation is not enough for me to give you a pass on it. There is much more weight of obligation in a relationship between a child and parent. I have demonstrated that I am willing end that relationship because of its toxicity to me. You would do well to keep that in mind. I do not have to have a relationship with you. I choose to. Stop taking that for granted. By the same token, I am even less obligated to K. I don't owe her a relationship with me. It is something I get to choose. It is high time you start respecting that reality.

I do choose to have a relationship with K if she still wants one after she has come of age. It is not an unreasonable position for me to take. No, I don't want you to be present at the first meeting. Why? Because you come on like a ton of bricks. You will be an impediment to her getting to know us because you don't know us. Not nearly as well as you think you do. If past interactions with you are an indication, and I think they are, you will constantly be superimposing your version of who we are to each other and will be preventing any real knowing in the process. We don't need you there to tell us how to think about each other. We need the room to get to know each other without you orchestrating our interactions, reactions and impressions. If and when we have a relationship with K, it will be a different kind of relationship than what you have. You need to grant the space for K and us to get to know each other on the terms we strike up between us. You don't get to call the shots here. You need to back off.

I know you consider yourself very emotionally intelligent. I get the impression you think you are superior in this regard to me. You're entitled to think that. But what I find interesting is that you, even after these many years, do not understand me. You are rarely able to enter into my feelings. You always assume that my worldview, my feelings, should be identical to yours and seem truly surprised when I have to tell you that isn't the case. Then you seem to quickly forget what I've said and go back to misunderstanding who I am, what I think and how I feel. Where I'm concerned, you are not emotionally intelligent. You also have freely admitted that you've never been nearly as good at figuring our mother out as I have been. On the other hand, I have evidence that I have a very good idea of what your world view is and can anticipate your emotional reactions in various situations. (Your reaction to my thoughts on meeting K are a recent case in point. I was 99% sure you'd react as you did. I was hoping I was wrong, but alas, I wasn't.) I think I deserve more credit from you for being able to understand people and their emotions than you give me....and perhaps you need to give yourself a little less credit in this regard than you do.

So, how are you going to portray my position to K? Are you going to emphatically state that I DO want a relationship with her in the future as I emphatically stated it to you? Are you going to assure her of my genuine concern for her well-being as what is motivating me in this even though you disagree with my views? I gave you much you could say to her that would not make her feel rejected, even though you are acting like I have rejected her outright and entirely. That is a false assumption that you seem to want to cling to in spite of what I actually am saying. Why are you determined to think that I am being rejecting of K? What's the game here? If you present my views on this to her as simply me wanting to meet her without you being there you would be misrepresenting the issue. If you can't see your way clear to let me tell her in my own words what my thoughts and feelings on this are then it would be best for you to say nothing at all if you truly want K to want to have anything to do with me. I wait to see how you will choose to handle this.

Your sister,
Anna

P.S. Contemplate long and hard before you react to me. If you come at me with more recrimination I won't be open to it. I also not react well to any attempts at self-justification. I'm open to your vow of silence on the matter. I'd be even more open to an genuine apology.

Now began the wait for her reply. Thirteen days it took for her to try to fashion a perfect response. I admit it was an artful effort. It failed spectacularly, though, because I can't be baffled with bull-shit anymore. Notice how I even gave her the option of not saying anything more. If she had just stopped here she would probably still be in my life. But, no, she couldn't keep from saying more. She was so sure of her ability to maintain a "righteous" position by faking an apology. Trapped in her narcissistic world-view she couldn't see the proper path to take. Only looking at the world through her own eyes she continued to be unable to comprehend how things look from another person's eyes. Her loss, my gain. I expended a lot of words to impress upon her that she was in an extremely tenuous position with me. I know she did comprehend that fact. Her next response reveals the ultimate choice she settled upon...that she thought she could have it all. She over-estimated her ability to fool me with her smooth speech and artful lies. She thought she could continue to protest her innocence and keep me in her life. She thought wrong.

Sister Reacts to My Email

I continue now to pick up the story of the last straw event with my sister. The first round of emails between her and me is posted here.

Sister's next email came only a few hours after my measured and reasoned answer to her question about whether or not I wanted to meet her biological daughter.

She betrayed her anger in her next email, although I could clearly see she was trying to disguise her anger in her reply. My sister looks down on the overt expression of the emotion of anger. She thinks it is always wrong to show one's anger. Probably because creating scenes with her self-centered anger was one of her frequent failings in life. So, rather than be honest when she has the emotion of anger, she will try to subvert and disguise it. That means it comes out in other ways. Like defensiveness and condescension. Here is her next email sent April 1st at 12:57 p.m.:

Dear Anna,

I am sorry you feel as if I have been putting pressure on you to know K. In fact, you need to know the pressure isn't coming from me. It is coming from her. And she is beginning to feel the rejection that comes from not being wanted and accepted by my family. That is why I asked. I will not ask again.

I have known for some time that you have had an issue with K being in my life at this time. I wasn't sure why, and I was deeply hurt that you were not willing to share my joy. Friends and even acquaintances were so happy for me and expressed great joy. The contrast with how you received the news was so great I couldn't help but notice. So now I understand where you are coming from and I will have to accept it.

Just so you know, P is completely fine with me and with my relationship with K. After K told her what it would mean to her, P was the one who orchestrated it. She has told me that K needs to know her family of origin to become the complete person she is designed to be. Having known me all along, P also sees that K and I are very similar in so many respects. K and I are blown away at how genetics are so much at play with who she is. I have told P that I am grateful beyond all belief that she allowed K the love and nurture that was needed to become the person she was designed to be and not an injured person like myself.

As a result of K being with me for these several months, I have been able to help nurture and develop a greater appreciation in K for her mother. K needed to know some things and understand the greater picture. She needed to know what her life could have been as apposed to what it is now. She needed to hear of P's kindness to me and of my great admiration of P. K's impatience and irritation of her mother have vanished as a result of her relationship with me. I would never do or say anything to take away from her love of P or D [K's adoptive father]. They know that and trust me. Everything I have done in the past speaks to my integrity on this issue. I would never do or say anything to take away from what I sacrificed so greatly for K. To undermine her attachment to her adoptive family would be to make all the years of sacrifice and pain of no value. I am not willing to do that.

One thing you need to know about K is that she operates from love. She loves people. She loves to be around people. She is not outgoing in the usual way but she has to have people in her life. And family is of great value to her. " Tell Anna I love my family." I remember feeling such joy when our extended family got together. It just felt right to me. The continual estrangements in our extended family caused me great sadness and still does. So I understand K's longing to know you. And it is a longing. Not at all brought on by me. In fact, I do not speak of you to her at all. I have taken your lack of sharing in my joy and lack of interest in talking with me about it as a sign that you potentially did not want anything to do with her. So I have kept silent. She is the one who speaks of you to me.

Yes it will be awkward to meet her at first. She will just smile at you and you will not know what she is thinking. But I have learned that she mostly is just trying to know you and observe you. Which for me was most uncomfortable. But she has always been the one to initiate visits with me. Now that she drives she will be making trips to see me even more often. At first I couldn't understand why she wanted to see me at all when she hardly talked. But now I understand her much better and I know that she just needs to know me. By knowing me, she feels as if she knows herself better. And it is healing the unspoken rejection that is harbored inside every child who has been given away.

K is innocent and naive, but she is also very strong willed and independent. She is kind and sensitive as well. I will pray about how to explain your position this to her. I feel as she may be hurt by the e-mail so I'm not sure I will have her read it. I will ask P's opinion on the matter. P knows her and how she would take it. Am I right to assume that you would prefer to meet her without me present. Perhaps that will be the take I will give it.

Thank you for letting me know your position. I will be silent on the matter from now on.

Love,

D

In the comment exchange on the last post I did on my sister someone portrayed K as being helpless. Quoting now, "In fact, the 'sympathetic character' from my point of view is indeed... your neice. [sic] She is the one most helpless in the situation..." This is a false argument. K was and is totally empowered from beginning to end in this situation. She was the one making all the choices. Her adoptive mother asked K if she wanted to meet her biological mother. Answer, yes. She could have said no. At any point along the way she is empowered to cut off all contact with her bio mother. She is not being forced in any way to stay in contact. This child is well-loved by her adoptive mother. Even my own bitch of a mother never could find anything mean to say about this adoptive mother. That is saying something. If K decided to have nothing more to do with my sister then she would have the means and power to make that happen. So to portray this young woman as disempowered and being carried about on the winds of life without a rudder is an assumption on the part of the commenter, not on the facts of the case.

Because there are people who seem eager to take every word my sister utters at face value, I'm going to dissect the above email a bit and explain what I know and how I understand what she is saying. All of you only have the naked words and not the history and knowledge that informed me as I read it. My reply to this email did not directly confront every thing she stated because I knew it would be useless. Therefore, my responding email will not fill in some of the facts for the outside observer. I will try not to be redundant. What I addressed in my response to her I will leave alone for now.

I am sorry you feel as if I have been putting pressure on you to know K. In fact, you need to know the pressure isn't coming from me. It is coming from her. And she is beginning to feel the rejection that comes from not being wanted and accepted by my family. That is why I asked. I will not ask again.

This entire paragraph is lie-based. First of all, notice her non-apology. She is sorry for how I feel. Apologizing for someone's feelings is never an apology. A non-apology is a form of a lie. It is a deceptive device aimed at soothing someone's irritation while the "apologizer" knows they are not giving anything up because they are not giving a sincere apology. She is using this "apology" for how I am feeling as a preamble to telling me that my feelings are misplaced and wrong. That is another sign of an insincere apology. Discounting the other party's feelings.

She smoothly transitions from her non-apology into her next lie. She claims the pressure to want to meet me is coming, not from her, but from K. Sister is indeed the one putting the pressure on me to meet K. Seeing as how K and I were not in any communication, the only way I could feel pressure is if my sister was the one exerting it. Then there is this reality: sister told me how much she would talk about me and my daughter to K, extolling our virtues and then reporting how it made K excited to meet us. Who is the originator of K's desire to meet with me? My sister. Because sister hasn't been asking me directly, only obliquely hinting and hoping I would just come out with a statement about how I want to meet K, she feels her constant manipulations have gone unfelt by me so she makes the mistake of thinking I hadn't noticed what was going on. She forgets all the many accounts she has given me of how much she has talked to K about me and how she has been the one to pique K's interest in meeting. Sister repeats this lie when she says,

"So I understand K's longing to know you. And it is a longing. Not at all brought on by me."

and again:

"So I have kept silent. She is the one who speaks of you to me."

Those are just bald-faced lies. She thinks I am fooled, but has not fully appreciated how well I listened to her phone calls and how I remember her own accounts of how things actually happened. She is full of shit.

Then my sister ups the guilt factor by telling me how K is starting to "feel the rejection" because I haven't met her yet. This is entirely the doing of my sister. I had done nothing to make K feel rejected. K is being fed information by my sister and basing her views of me on what her bio mother chooses to say or not say. My sister is the one setting K up to feel rejected by me because she is the one working K into a lather of excitement before my sister ever bothers to ask me what my thoughts and intentions are. I see that as cruel on my sister's part. She was not looking out for K's best interests by playing the game as she did. She was deliberately setting the circumstances up to make me feel I had no choice but to accede to her will when she finally decided to corner me. She would use this child's curiosity and expectations which were deliberately fed by my sister to make me jump when sister wanted me to jump. I find such manipulation of this child to be utterly vile. This child is not faulted by me for being curious. That is natural. But my sister with intentional deliberateness fostered this natural curiosity into much larger proportions while never once making sure I was on the same page.

Then there is the reality that I did say "yes". My sister is telling me how rejected K is starting to feel even though I had just said YES. WTF? I didn't say yes the right way. That is the reality of it. Therefore, my sister plays like I said no and proceeds to try to ratchet up the guilt. Unseemly.

Sister claims that K's adoptive mother is "just fine" with K being in my sister's life. She apparently forgot that she told me otherwise on another occasion about a year earlier. Her memory may be short, mine isn't. Maybe P has gotten over her insecurities about her daughter being so involved in her birth mother's life. (I know you anti-adoption types hate that term "birth mother"...tough...it is a descriptor that clarifies relationships.) Nevertheless, she at least one time demonstrated discomfort and fear over it. My sister is pretending that was never the case. I call that a lie.

She pretends that she and the adoptive mother have had an ongoing relationship:

Having known me all along, P also sees that K and I are very similar in so many respects. K and I are blown away at how genetics are so much at play with who she is.

This is also a lie. There were only a few face-to-face meetings during my sister's pregnancy and immediately after the birth. There were no more than a few phone calls in the immediate months after K's birth. Then the only contact was one-sided....the package of pictures and a note each year. That does not constitute P knowing my sister.

I have told P that I am grateful beyond all belief that she allowed K the love and nurture that was needed to become the person she was designed to be and not an injured person like myself.

This is an admission from my sister that K had been loved and nurtured by her adoptive family and that K had realized her potential as a human being without being "injured". Sister, later in this email, says that K being able to meet her birth mother has enabled K to heal from the "unspoken damage" every given away child feels. So, apparently K was "injured" because she was adopted. Sister says K has been "healing" from that "unspoken damage" by meeting her birth mom. If K has been healing by just associating with her birth mother then meeting extended family is merely icing...not the cake...if I choose to go along with my sister's line of reasoning.

As a result of K being with me for these several months, I have been able to help nurture and develop a greater appreciation in K for her mother. K needed to know some things and understand the greater picture. She needed to know what her life could have been as apposed to what it is now. She needed to hear of P's kindness to me and of my great admiration of P. K's impatience and irritation of her mother have vanished as a result of her relationship with me. I would never do or say anything to take away from her love of P or D [K's adoptive father]. They know that and trust me. Everything I have done in the past speaks to my integrity on this issue. I would never do or say anything to take away from what I sacrificed so greatly for K. To undermine her attachment to her adoptive family would be to make all the years of sacrifice and pain of no value. I am not willing to do that.

This all sounds really good, but I know it is a crock of shit. My sister's early reports of K's relationship with P were all positive. My sister would go on at length about how loving and attentive to her adoptive mother K was and what a loving relationship they had. It was only later on that the kid started having complaints about her adoptive mother. The grass was starting to look greener on the other side of the fence, er, the state. This is an instance of a narcissist creating the problem so she can fix it and look like the heroine. K's "impatience and irritation of her mother have vanished"...this is a completely upside down version of the truth. My sister's high claims to integrity and sacrifice and resolve to not undermine K's attachment to her adoptive family are contradicted by my sister's behaviors. The words and behavior do not match. I believe the actions. My sister's email was a work of revisionism and fiction. She was angry at me and it shows in her defensiveness. People who are defensive are very likely angry. She, in an attempt to circumvent my scruples, gets preachy on me and would instruct me on how I am wrong on every point. She could not graciously grant me a right to my opinion. She preached at me and then pretended she would "remain silent on the matter from now on". In other words, she wanted to get the last word. Slap me around and then shut down the conversation.

The other problems I had with my sister's response are dealt with in my next email to her.