It has been 15 days since I got a terrible letter from my sister, Tu, telling me off for not being grateful for my b.i.l.’s help in buying our first house. The gratitude she says is being withheld is our refusal to follow Don’s lead in everything – decorating our house, voting his way, refusing to be indoctrinated into what he believes … somehow he has her convinced that since he is “right” – that we owe it to him to be his followers and to abdicate our own beliefs -- it is "for our own good.” Don once even launched into a litany of what he had done for us when I refused to follow his hair-styling tips. You can see how insane this all is.

This latest episode concerned, of course, the election and that I wouldn't listen to him. He is a foam-at-the-mouth Republican.

What you learn when you accept favors from Don (in what we thought was family helping family) is that there is a price, a steep one. The “help” in buying the house was that Don had the right to sell it for the owner and did not take a commission. Since in 1994, I loaned my sis and her husband $5,000 (this while widowed and not yet remarried and struggling myself) and never asked for it back. Basically I forgot about it. Don forgets this while he whines about our ingratitude and that he “walked away” from the commission in order to help us. Incidentally, his share of a sales commission, had he sold it to one competing buyer, would have been $4950. That is just one defense against others in the letter that I could easily demolish.

Even if Don had bought the house himself and handed it to us as a total gift, that would not give him the right to own us. Neither of them understands this.

I have written about five or six responses to Tu’s twisted, uninformed and “righteous” diatribe and they sit in my computer. In my responses I gently demolish her argument, but tell her she is welcome to come to me and I will not refer to the past. We have been very close. She is ill and in constant pain and on constant medication and spaces out. I am reluctant to cut her off entirely. Her memory is severely out to lunch (it isn’t Alzheimers – she does very well with crosswords and other mind games) – she has, since childhood, abandoned daily thinking because it is painful for her to live in a harsh world she can’t deal with. This is her survival mechanism. Her letter was full of detail dictated to her by Don. If I were to ask her, she’d insist, no, no, it was her idea. She can’t remember what doctor she visits just after she returns home but expects me to believe that she remembers what car we were driving in 1999. It was an old Mazda, thus “proving” that we were poor and Don’s help saved us. I was really p.o’d about that car and told Ed no more riding in heat with a non-functioning a/c and he gave in and bought the SUV we now drive, paying $22,000 cash.

Since I have not responded to that letter and have ignored Don’s signals that it is all right to come over (a honk on the car horn as he passes me while I walk, a wave one other time) I am wondering what SHE thinks. I am not willing to go to their home again. Don’s tantrums will eventually recur. All I ask is that she remain neutral, but he convinces her that she should tell me off because it is “for my own good”.

Do I send a letter basically telling her she is welcome to come over, that I will not refer to the past, and that I will be good to her? My fear is that she will succumb to congestive heart failure while we are alienated and that I will have remorse over not reconciling. And if I am not remorseful, that will be bother me, too.

Or should I just wait for her to realize as the days go by, that she must do something, a visit (if she can manage in spite of her pain – it’s a 6-minute slow walk) or a phone call)? Tu was overjoyed when Ed and I moved down here. Each time I see her, she re-expresses her gratitude that we are here, that she gets to see me, that mother in Heaven is thrilled we are together, and how much she loves me. I tell her, “Don’t get all mushy on me.”

Please give me your thoughts. Is continued inaction the best course?

Xx, Teal