Dear Katrine,

it also seems to me that your sister uses other people to promote her agenda, so to speak. Because you said one of her friends called you after you couldn’t make it to the meet-her-boyfriend event, and accused you of being passive aggressive because you didn’t come. So it’s not that your sister called you directly, but she probably spoke badly of you and convinced her friend to call you on her behalf. Her friend was her “emissary” and acted on her behalf. That’s called triangulation.

It seems she is doing it with your father too: she called him a week after her boyfriend’s birthday party and told him how upset she (and others) were with you, and that there would be consequences. Again, she didn’t call you directly, but she used your father to be her mouthpiece.

So it seems to me that she likes presenting her as the victim and turning other people against you. And your father has unfortunately played to her tune, it seems, because he took her side in conflicts. For example, when she accused you of using the wrong tone of voice, claiming that that was the reason for her tantrum, your father believed her and accused you as well (my dad refused to believe that there wasn’t anything in the tone of my voice). He didn’t tell her something like “throwing a tantrum is not an acceptable behavior, even if your sister used a wrong tone of voice.” He automatically took her side.

And I believe it was regularly like that, because you said he was emotionally detached most of the times. Such people prefer to be left out of conflicts and just enjoy their “peace”. So I can imagine he often blamed you for disrupting that peace by “upsetting” your sister. He wasn’t interested in deeper reasons behind the conflict, he just wanted “peace” in the house, and in his mind it was you who was responsible for upsetting his peace. Would you say this is how he behaved: detached, and then accusing you if there was conflict?

Your mother was probably different, but maybe she too expects you to be on good terms with your sister, no matter how your sister treats you? (my mom was devasteted when i told her i am keeping my distance now.) Has she shown any empathy, any understanding for your side of the story, or she blames you for wanting to keep your distance?