‘Dear Sister’—One Story of Sticky, In-Family Conflict Resolution

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”I don’t want to talk to you ever again.” The statement was followed by instructions to go through our older sister if I really needed to share something. 

How did we get here? 

It took years, and it took just one email.  

The Kindling of Past Hurts

My sister* is much younger than I am, so we never had a close relationship. Somehow, we grew up with very different value systems. Living overseas, I only saw her once a year, if it worked out, and that actually felt okay. In some ways, she felt more like a cousin or a niece because of the age difference.  

When we were together, I knew that I’d usually end up listening to a lot of complaining and griping, usually about other family members. It was tiresome, at best, and downright hurtful when her stories involved her negative opinion of people I loved. I’d make comments in their defense, but it didn’t seem to help. 

But now, we needed to work together on some tasks that involved our grandmother’s house. I’d written to ask for a simple piece of information and had received an earful (ok, eyeful) of her frustrations, with a request for a call. After a couple more quick email exchanges and requests for calls, I decided to write and suggest some parameters for our conversation.  

I still think it was a well-written letter. I made observations, shared how things affected me, and made specific requests about what I could handle talking about and what I wanted to avoid because of the impact on me. I had my spouse read it and give me tips on how to improve it.  

Then, I got my sister’s response. 

The gist was that, since I’m a “professional listener,” she would have expected more empathy. She remembered me bragging about training others in listening and described my inability to accept her as she was. What kind of “listener” was I, anyway?! The message ended with, “You don’t have to worry about me talking to you anymore.”  

It was designed to wound. 

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Diffusing and Redirecting 

I was amazed at my own response. I felt so much compassion for her. It felt like a miracle that I didn’t get defensive or want to hurt her back. I just felt for her and wondered what it would be like to cut off every relationship that had a conflict or a (often unintentional) hurt.

“I wonder if she has any friends left,” I thought with sadness. 

I let it sit for a few days, and among other voices, Adam Grant’s main point from Think Again kept resonating within me. In my opinion, the whole point of that book was the importance of intellectual humility. I was in need of humility on an interpersonal level.

The subject line of my next email to her was “You’re right.” (I chose something I hoped she’d open, to be honest.) 

Here’s what I wrote:

Dear (Sister), 

I want to say that you are right that I’m not very empathetic. 

I am working on becoming more empathetic, and I think I do a decent job when it’s other people's stories. Part of the reason I train others is that I’ve had to work at learning the skills and growing in empathy and listening well. It doesn’t come naturally.

I’m not so good at being empathetic when it comes to family issues. I get triggered by my own stuff and have a hard time staying present and focusing on the other person.  

I probably did brag. Pride is another area I struggle with. I’m not the best with patience either, to be honest. And I’m continuing to intentionally grow in empathy and in humility. I can’t say I’ve worked much on patience.

It’s actually with these weaknesses in mind, and my own inability to handle certain types of family stress, that I wrote. I’m not very empathetic and knew I wouldn’t be able to be a good listener to you on topics that touch on family issues that are important to me.

One of my strengths is getting things done and working through problems. That’s why I tried to offer to talk about those areas—hoping to help in an area I’m better in.  

So, I’m sorry that my weaknesses have had this impact on you. It wasn’t my intention, but even good intentions can have hurtful impacts. I hope you can forgive me. I know how awful it feels to sit in hurt and pain.  

Love, 

(my name)

A few days later I got a warm letter that included these thoughts: 

“Thanks so much for your response. I felt your sincerity. I will forgive you. I know I have things to work on, too.” 

And 

“Going forward, I’ll try to respect your desire not to talk about the past.” 

Speaking of her first letter, she added: 

“I’m actually grateful you didn’t stop contacting me like I asked you to. I was being rash.”  

One Story’s New Beginning 

Since then, we’ve been working well together on our grandmother’s house issues. I’m sure our struggles aren’t over. We haven’t fundamentally changed as people. We’ll get stuck again.

I still feel so grateful for the inspiration to own my own part in the problem, get my heart into a place of humility, and begin by focusing on what was important or injuring to the other person. In this case, I didn’t even have to bring up anything more about my sister’s mistakes. She did that in a humble response of her own.  

My story isn’t a formula to follow to achieve similar results, and no one should take a humble stance just to provoke a humble response from the other party. It doesn’t work that way. 

I could have just as easily been facing an empty inbox for years to come. However, I would have faced it knowing I’d worked on my own heart and attitude as a starting point, and I know I wouldn’t have regretted that. 

*Note: This is a true story with details changed to protect family confidentiality.