My sister wrote a letter about me to the guardian.....

[FergusSingsTheBlues]

It got published. It was full of wild accusations and assumptions and was really unfair.

I only just found out.

She's pretty much permanently depressed so I cant really go mad, but I'm so hurt I really don't want much to do with her. I'm had a go at her yesterday, shouted at her for the first time ever, then ended up consoling her over a cup of tea. I always suck up this sort of thing. And we've always been really close....I thought.

To make things worse, she told my best friend who couldn't face telling me so it's double humiliation. For some reason that's made me much more upset.

I'm mortified because anybody who knows me will have read it as all my friends read the guardian....

What do I do now?

I wish people who were commenting on this thread would get a handle on what kind of letter this is!

It's like a letter to an Agony Aunt. Totally anonymous. I can understand the hurt, op, but at the same time you refer to your sister as "an idiot" so to me it doesn't sound as though you are particularly solid.

You seem to have more to gain by your sister being in your life than not. Perhaps sit down and have a honest conversation together and set some boundaries that you will not tolerate something like this happening again and make it clear how it will hurt your DS if he knew his mum and aunty were arguing like this

I would be fizzing, particular as she has stabbed you in the back, but continues to take the 'victim' role - how very dare she?

I would distance yourself emotionally & physically. See her less, engage with her less. Her shit is not your shit. You don't have to stop your son seeing her, but you can gradually lessen the amount she does - have him busy doing other things.

She sounds toxic and I think she could be really bad news for your son as he gets older - do you really want a teen being close to someone who obviously bitterly resents his mother? I would gently start lessening that bond now.

You both experienced your parents, you owe her nothing on this one. Start peeling of the tentacle like grip she seems to have over your emotions.

Oh no I don't agree with that, don't blow this up.

And yes this is an anonymous letter. The person who emailed it to you, are they aware what they have done?

Drop contact? Does that actually do the op any good?

I imagine that yes, restricting contact with someone so bitter and spiteful and self-pitying would do Fergus some good.

It doesn't have to be forever, but drawing some clear boundaries after this unjustifiable behaviour seems to me a course of action with a lot to recommend it.

For a start, OP says she doesn't want to see her sister much at present. Her own feelings matter and she is allowed to act on them.

Also it might to her sister some good to realise that other people have feelings and are important and that her own narrative of woe isn't the only story.

Forgiveness can come from strength, but forced forgiveness offered out of a sense of obligation to someone who isn't sorry (and she is only sorry for herself at this point) is not about strength, it's about capitulation to being manipulated.

Fergus - you can pull back and lick your wounds and make some space for yourself.

You don't owe her anything after what she chose to do to you. Her tears are all for herself.

Let her figure out what she did wrong by herself, and be open to forgiveness if she is every genuinely contrite.

Fergus our backgrounds do sound similar! My dad was awful but that's another (very long) story!

I don't think you need to drop your sister, but develop some boundaries and don't continue to just suck up whatever she throws at you. It sounds as if you do that because of FOG - fear (of what will become of her), obligation and guilt. That's not an equal, adult relationship. I know how tough it is, I was like this for such a long time with both my sister and my mum. But since I've found the strength to say no, it hasn't turned out as bad as I feared.

I still see my sister, I just don't take any crap and say what I think. So she barely speaks to me and just interacts with the dc, which they enjoy. That's a result, and I am much less stressed.

I wouldn't let her off so lightly. She is an adult, and unless she has more mh issues than occasional depression she has just deliberately been horrible about you in a national newspaper. She wouldn't be eating my Sunday roasts again this year.

I think you have the right to be hurt and it is not your job to console her. All the time you thought you were having fun she was quietly seething with resentment and jealousy. I don't think I could get over that quickly.

"The Guardian-wrong about everything, all the time" as the tshirt says.

OP, have you considered that your sister's letter may not actually be all her own work? When the buggers were c&ping the Family boards on GUTalk, they weren't above creative editing.

As for forgiveness, "not seven times but seventy times seven" as the Man said.

I have read letters from this column before, I am familiar with how it is supposed to work.

It's an obviously questionable type of content, to ask people to anonymously defame people they are privately pissed off with.

They had a particularly nasty one recently where a man wrote a vitriolic letter to the teenager who had "falsely" accused him of rape. Fucking dreadful stuff.

In this case it wasn't anonymous, because the OP was recognised.

Both the sister and the guardian are responsible for that.

Lurcio ... That's just awful.

Minty...I'm well entitled to call her an idiot. That's how she's behaved, she's basically bitten the hand that feeds her, emotionally speaking.

I have absolutely no intention of dropping her. Limiting contact, yes.

I think whoever emailed it to you is a shit stirrer.

I could never forgive my sister for that tbh.

To go to a newspaper rather than try to talk things through.

For me, whether she had a point at all wouldn't come into it.

I'd be considering keeping my child away from her!

I do wonder why this was forwarded to the OP now rather than soon after publication. Her friend's actions have again been cowardly here and her friend could not initially face telling the OP. Some friend that person was and is.

"It's an obviously questionable type of content, to ask people to anonymously defame people they are privately pissed off with"

Not all the letters in that column are like that at all, there are some very moving ones there and those are certainly not full of bitterness or hate.

No way.

Making sure someone knows they are being defamed online is what a friend does for another friend.

E-mail is the obvious way to do it.

Calling the friend a "shit stirrer" when the sister was spreading shit about the OP all over the public domain is laughable

People should just leave stuff where they are. An anonymous letter in The Guardian, which having looked at the letters is therapy for most of the writers, just leave it.

But again, why was it sent to the OP much later after publication?. Also this friend could not face telling OP initially which suggests an awful lot about this particular friend.

Agree that the person emailed the letter was stirring.

the emailer might've just seen it on the site. It came up as a suggested link on the guardian mobile site when I was reading an different article a month or so ago.

The point about the Letter to column is that it allows people to say what can't be said in RL. Therefore OP - if this letter really was written by your sister, it's all about HER feelings. You may not agree with them but you don't get to say how other people feel. Is it the letter from June last year btw? Because if so you need to be honest with yourself. If your friends recognised you in that, then why don't you?

why was it sent to the OP much later after publication?

It's online.

It's permanently published.

Maybe she just came across it now?

It doesn't count as "anonymous" if the writer and subject are identifiable.

Remember when writing anonymous letters about people was considered a dreadful thing to do?

Now apparently it's fine, not only to write and send them, but to have them published to a potential audience of millions and have them archived and accessible by anyone for years.

All those letters are venting, one sided versions of reality. That's the point of them.

No idea why you'd get involved with someone else's family stuff.

The point about the Letter to column is that it allows people to say what can't be said in RL.

Yep, it allows people to say what can't be said due to laws against slander and libel, but offers fake anonymity as a justification.

Publishing poison pen letters - stay classy Guardian.