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Reconciling Sibling Relationships

The tipping point into estrangement happened for both of us in 1982 in Breckenridge, Colorado, when our parents invited us to spend Memorial weekend with our grandmother. For my husband, Bob, and myself, it was a trip to reconcile with my parents, who had strongly disapproved of my marriage. For my sister, who had not felt close to our parents for 25 years, it was a gathering to support family intimacy, the lack of which had driven her to severe depression over the years.

“Breckenridge was a shock,” Marcia is telling me in an interview for this article. “My sense of survival was threatened. You had always been an ally, a way for me to be safe with Mom and Dad. I relied on that alliance against what I perceived as their misguided values and expectations. But you didn’t come to my rescue. You sat there silently, and the bottom fell out for me.”

As Marcia is telling this story today, however, I am feeling joy instead of hatred. A woeful lack of communication had set the stage for years of her torment and my anger. I didn’t like the way she treated our parents or seemed to judge my lifestyle; she felt unseen and abandoned in her desire to find her authentic voice in the world.

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