Hi Anita,

To answer your question, I’m not sure about bonds I would be breaking if I went ‘no contact’ with my sister. I know I wouldn’t be welcome at the family home anymore, but I could live with that. The family home (which is not where I live) doesn’t hold many happy memories for me.

Both myself and my sister have children who are now grown up adults. I suppose I don’t really want to cause a rift that would make future encounters my children may have with my sister awkward and uncomfortable for them. Mostly they go round to see their Grandmother, our mother – on her birthday, at Christmas, and so on. Big occasions where family have to be together, like my father’s funeral last year.

I’m trying to save them from all the awkwardness of having to take sides. Perhaps I should talk to them about this, as it concerns them if I do go no contact.

I have a friend who has the same problem with her sister, and went no contact some years ago. Between ourselves, we call it the ‘divorced sister’s club’.

I also worry that by going no contact, that she will try to turn my own family against me. She will not blame herself for the rift between us. She would never apologise to me for her behaviour, as in her own eyes, she is never wrong.

So perhaps I am also worried that any blame will land on me, as it will. I will be blamed and become the guilty party, and she will make sure that everyone knows it is ‘all my fault’ (as it has always been!), and not her who has caused the rift. She cannot and will not accept responsibility for her own mistakes, she has a victim mentality.