Should I attend funeral of sibling with an abusive past?
DEAR CAROLYN: I have a sibling who did some pretty bad things to me growing up. Stole money from me, told many lies to friends about me and my other siblings, all to probably build up his own self-esteem and tell an interesting story to his friends that made him look good. For that reason, we were never very close but were cordial at our few-and-far-between family events.
He is now very ill. When the time comes, do I go to the funeral, or would that make me a hypocrite? It will be awkward since most of his family is aware of the situation with our relationship, but not in detail. Not sure what to do, and any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
— Struggling Sibling DEAR READER: If funeral attendance hinged on having a recent, close, functional relationship with the deceased, then a lot of us would be escorting ourselves to the beyond.
I actually mean this as encouragement. People are messy and complicated. If we want to honor a life, then we need a better reason than its messiness to keep us from doing that.
If the deceased matters to you, if someone close to the deceased matters to you or if someone close to you mattered to the deceased, and if you’re able and willing to go, and suspect you’ll regret not going, then go.
How his family will feel about your being there is a valid point to consider; you don’t want to muscle past your ambivalence about attending just to antagonize the family. But that’s for high-level wrongdoing and feuding, not childhood resentments that have long since settled into “cordial” avoidance. With those, showing up is the generous act. The Aug. 8, 2005, “This I Believe” essay on NPR explains why better than I can.
Your brother did his worst while you were still kids, if I read you correctly. He’s grown now, you’re grown, too, and he’s ill. Maybe the real struggle is not how to handle the funeral, but how to put a difficult relationship emotionally to rest before you ever thought you’d have to?
I don’t mean to overstep, and I don’t have an opinion myself about what you do. I suggest only that if you have any impulse at all toward an attempt to make peace with him, act on it now. Don’t waste time trying to reason it out.
DEAR CAROLYN: When did it become fashionable to not apologize? There have been two times in the recent past when I have been wronged blatantly, and no apology has been forthcoming.
When you’ve been attacked, what do you do? You pull back. You lick your wounds and wait for an apology to make everything right so you can renew your relationship.
So what happens when that apology doesn’t happen? I know it’s hard to admit you’ve hurt someone. But not apologizing only serves to compound the pain. I find myself not only hurt but severely disappointed in these people. I still love them, but I don’t want to, and I wish I didn’t because it would be so much easier.
The older you get and the more this happens, the more you question if you are too sensitive, or if they are just not worth it. And I have to force myself to steer clear of them, which goes against my natural inclination to love.
When I was younger, I noticed that when people in my mother’s generation got older, their worlds shrank and they didn’t socialize as much. And I always wondered why. Is it the accumulation of all these insults and injuries that were never resolved? — L.
DEAR READER: If they’re all just sitting home feeling wounded and waiting for apologies, then that could explain the social die-off.
But it’s the waiting that mystifies me, not the lack of apologies.
People often fail to apologize because they don’t know they need to. You say you were “wronged blatantly” and “attacked” as if there’s such a thing as a universal, objective scorekeeping service to which we all subscribe. But all we have is perception.
That means your two friends could be waiting right now for their apologies from you.
If your modus operandi upon taking offense is to cease all communication until you’re made whole, then you have no idea what anyone else is thinking or why.
Next time you feel wronged, do whatever wound-tending you feel is necessary, then get back out there: “I’ve thought a lot about our argument,” you say to your perceived attacker. “When you said/did X, that really hurt.” Find out whether it’s even possible to agree on what happened, then figure out who owes what to whom.
Getting through that conversation with courage and a mind open to your friend’s perspective, and without making rash accusations (“You always … !” “You never … !”) or losing your cool, is the path to understanding — which is more effective than an apology at getting friendships back on their feet. The ones worth saving, at least. Not worth it: people who simply will not admit fault.