Five years ago, I punched my sister in the face and kicked her in the stomach. We were teenagers—I was sixteen, she was seventeen—and we had a huge fight after she reported me for cheating on homework. I had paid someone to do my assignment, and she told the school. I got a serious disciplinary action.
When I got home, we argued, and I lost control. It was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Our parents punished me hard. They took away everything and grounded me for what felt like forever.
I deserved it. But my sister never spoke to me again after that day. A few months later, she moved out. Before that, things were normal between us.
We had the usual sibling fights, but we always made up. We never had any major issues. After the incident, everything changed. She wouldn’t sit at the table if I was there, so I stayed in my room and ate later.
Sometimes my mom brought me food. I stopped going to family gatherings, weddings, birthdays, and vacations so she would go. I didn’t come home for Christmas or Thanksgiving or my parents’ birthdays. I always visited a few days before or after, when she wouldn’t be there.
I tried to apologize many times. Since she wouldn’t talk to me, I wrote letters and slid them under her door. None of them made any difference. After I moved out, I kept sending her birthday gifts through my mom, but she wouldn’t accept them.
I kept writing letters too. I’m not sure she ever even read them. I’ve tried for five years, and she shows no interest in sorting things out. My parents wanted to go to Italy this summer for a week and asked us both to come.
I really wanted to go—I hadn’t had a vacation with my parents in five years—but I knew that if I went, she wouldn’t. I didn’t want her to miss this chance because of what I did. So I was ready to tell my parents to take her instead. I started wondering how long I had to keep making sacrifices for that moment of madness.
One night, I dreamed my grandfather died and I missed the funeral for the same reason. I wished she would just punch me back twenty times and we could move on. People online had mixed opinions. Some said I’d done enough, that I should stop accommodating her and do what I want.
Others said I hadn’t done nearly enough. My parents had tried talking to her, but she didn’t want to discuss it. I told them to stop pressuring her. It had to be her decision.
Last year, I was very sick and had a couple of surgeries. She didn’t visit or call. My parents were upset, but I asked them not to hold it against her. I could have died.
If that wasn’t enough for her to reconsider, maybe nothing ever would be. Some people reminded me that I assaulted her. She had every right to stay away. If I were her boyfriend, no one would push her to forgive me.
Being a sibling didn’t mean I got a free pass. I agreed. I even said my parents should have involved the police. It would have sucked for me then, but I think it would have been better for everyone in the long run.
I had written her more than five hundred letters. Most of those came in the first year, many of them during the second. My parents made me write a letter a day, sometimes more. In the last couple of years, I wrote maybe one every few months.
I wasn’t asking for forgiveness in them. I just told her how sorry I was. But people said I was pestering her. They said she didn’t have to forgive me.
They told me to leave her alone. That confused me. I had gone out of my way to stay away from her. I missed weddings, graduations, parties, vacations.
If I didn’t send the letters, people would say I wasn’t letting her know I was sorry. But if I did send them, I was harassing her. I felt damned either way. I thought about everything for a long time.
Then I made my decision. I realized that reaching out to her wasn’t the right thing. The letters I gave my parents every couple of months weren’t showing her I was ashamed. To her, they were further abuse.
Not only had I assaulted her, but I was now writing to her, asking for forgiveness she didn’t want to give. I thought I was ending the cycle of abuse, but I was just being the typical abuser who keeps hurting people. So I stopped writing to her completely. She had made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with me.
I wasn’t respecting her boundaries. About Italy, it was obvious. Why should she miss that opportunity just because her abuser wanted a holiday with the parents? That wasn’t fair.
So I told my parents I had commitments during the summer and couldn’t come. It would have been nice to go on vacation with them for the first time in five years, but I didn’t really deserve it. Maybe one day I could afford to take them somewhere. But it would be wrong to use their resources to have fun while effectively denying my sister the same chance.
I decided to keep staying away from family gatherings and events. My sister clearly needed me not to be around. My parents loved both of us and didn’t want to make the tough decision, so it fell on me. I asked my boss if I could be transferred somewhere else, preferably a different state.
I thought that would be possible in a couple of months. I told my parents I was leaving for a better job and salary. I would still meet them a few times a year, or they could come to me, or we could meet halfway. I wasn’t cutting them out of my life.
I was just adding physical distance so my sister could feel safer. Finally, I recorded a video for my sister. I told her this would be the last time she’d hear from me. I explained everything, wished her well, and promised there would never be further contact.
I emailed it to her. Surprisingly, she replied. It was the first time I’d heard from her. She said, “Hi, wish I could forgive you and trust you again, but I can’t.
Don’t think I haven’t tried. It’s too much. I think what you’re doing is for the best. I hope you find happiness away from us wherever you go and maybe our family here can also move on in your absence.
Farewell, little brother. ”
At least I had closure. I could move on. I hoped to be a better person in my new place, and I would do everything I could to never hurt anyone again.
It wasn’t easy to realize I hadn’t only been a physical abuser five years ago, but an emotional abuser ever since. But people had different views on her reply. Some said she was manipulating me, that she was pushing me away from the whole family because of her own needs. They said I was martyring myself, that I was a kid who made a mistake and shouldn’t be exiled over it.
They told me to go to Italy anyway, to stop letting her control me. They said my parents had failed us both by never getting us therapy, by making me write hundreds of letters instead of dealing with the real issues. Others pointed out that there had to be more to the story. Why did my sister go straight to the school to report me instead of going to our parents?
Why was she so quick to cut me off completely? Why did she hit me sometimes, and why didn’t my parents react to any of it? There were probably ongoing issues long before that fight that were never addressed. Maybe the punch wasn’t the beginning.
Maybe it was the final straw. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I had made my decision, and I had her reply. I was moving away.
I was going to try to be better. That was all I could do. I just wished things had been handled differently from the start. Maybe then we could have all healed.
But that wasn’t the way it happened. In the end, I had to accept that some things can’t be fixed. I hurt her in a way she could never get past.
All I could do now was leave, and hope that in my absence, she could finally move on too.
