Dear moonlight,

good to hear from you again, and thank you for your kind words!

I am 8 months pregnant and things are looking up for me I am so excited to meet my baby and have so much to do before the baby arrives, I’m so worried about getting sucked back into all of this drama which I extricated myself from in the last year. What do I say to my sister? Do I just ignore her or do I tell her I dont want to talk to her? I dont want to be hurt anymore by what she has to say, so I dont want to say anything that could make her hurl vitriol at me.

You are right that you want to protect your peace of mind and your mental health in the last month of pregnancy – so by all means remain firm in your decision not to meet your sister and mother/monster! Your mother doesn’t deserve it at all, she tortured you physically, mentally and emotionally throughout your childhood, and in your adulthood, she never expressed interest in you, never visited you, but only used you for doing her paperwork.

This is what she told you:

“So now that you’re married you think you’re better than the rest of us” and “Now that you married a rich guy you think you can just cut out your family like that” and “you dont deserve to have your own family because you treat your current family like crap”

She accused you of treating her and the rest of your family like crap, when in fact she was the one who treated you in most despicable ways, since the moment you were born. She accused you of cutting her out, when in fact it was her who cut you out from the rest of the family, from the time you can remember. She did a great injustice to you, and is still treating you despicably, so indeed the only thing to do is to cut all contact with her.

Unfortunately, your sister agrees with her, she is repeating her words about you cutting them out, and you treating them like  crap. When you opened up to her and explained your reasons for stopping contact with your mother, your sister didn’t have  any compassion or understanding for you, but accused you of being the guilty one.

I see no reason why to keep contact with your sister because she unfortunately is completely blinded by your mother’s narrative. Perhaps it suits her to have you as a black sheep in the family, so she can throw rocks at you and keep your mother’s wrath from turning on her.

I dont want to be hurt anymore by what she has to say, so I dont want to say anything that could make her hurl vitriol at me.

I understand that your sister’s words hurt you because you do love her and care for her, and you wanted a closer relationship with her. But unfortunately this is not possible, at least for now, until she is in her current mindset. Try not to take her offenses to heart – as in, don’t believe what she is accusing you of!

You are a good, kind and loving person, not a selfish and uncaring one, as your sister and mother are portraying you. You are the one who was reaching out and was kind to your mother all this time, but she was heartless and cruel to you. Now she is portraying herself as the victim, because you decided to not tolerate her abuse any more. You decided not to be a doormat, and this makes you a bad person in their eyes. Well, don’t trust that, moonlight, don’t believe their words! Know your worth and your heart – know that you are a kind, loving person – and you will be able to deal more easily with your sister’s accusations. It will be easier to stop all contact with her.

You can decide how to stop contact – whether to ignore her messages or to tell her something – but important is to stop all contact without having a sense of guilt. Don’t feel guilty about it, because it’s none of your fault. You have the right to stop contact with your abusers.

I wish you determination and strength. I think you love yourself enough to be able to do it. I am rooting for you!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Tee.