What do you do when a sibling insists on your not ever writing about your family?

[pnwmom]

I'm not writing a memoir; I'm writing a children's novel with a gay dad, so it is relevant that my own parents were in a mixed-orientation marriage. Today my sister told me if I ever mention our dad being gay to anyone from our hometown, even on Facebook, I will purposely be ripping off her scab and making her bleed. (I guess she's talking about the parental-divorce-scab, when she was 23.)

I told her that most friends in that town already know about our parents, and don't care. She said that doesn't matter. She doesn't want anyone to have any reason to think about our dad being gay ever again.

I hung up while she was yelling at me, for the second time, that if I ever outed our family on FB, that would be the end of our relationship.

We have different last names, live in different time zones, and have 95% different friends. Doesn't matter. If I ever go public about having a gay father, that will be the end of our relationship, or so she says.

P.S. I have people I'm close to that have serious health issues, and it is scary to think about losing them someday. I didn't need this threat from my sister, on top of everything else.

[elleng]

1. Ignore.

[Eko]

2. You gotta be you, she has to be her.

You are only responsible for your emotions not hers. Take care of yours.
Eko.

[multigraincracker]

3. I have only one living relative,

a brother. If I never heard from him again I’d be just fine.
You can not pick your relatives.

[dweller]

4. Just write

her out of the story …




✌🏻

[pnwmom]

5. She's not in it. What she doesn't want is me to publicly mention that I have a gay father,

because that would tell her friends that SHE has a gay father.

[dweller]

10. Consider

a pseudonym …

✌🏻

[Tetrachloride]

6. Allow me to start from left field for a moment

This happens to me.

A character brainstorm hits. A character personality or something they meet. Fun but shallow.

The character becomes more rounded and you are proud of it.

The character becomes essential. And you are bulletproof against what your sister says.

hope this helps.

[pnwmom]

7. It's not a character I'm talking about. It's the fact that our father existed in real life

and that he happened to be gay. My sister was beside herself at the idea of my dragging her out of the closet she wants to remain in.

[Tetrachloride]

8. yes. my idea is your pride is what makes you bulletproof against her threats

[msongs]

9. dont mention his name. end of problem for you. sis will never have an end to it anyway nt

[pnwmom]

13. Publishers want authors to have a social media presence. So even though I wouldn't need

to mention his name, she's upset with the fact that her friends from our hometown who know me would learn about him being gay.

But most of them already know! She's been in deep denial.

[marble falls]

11. Do what I did: "I'm not writing history, I'm writing a story."

[pnwmom]

14. That works for a story. But the fact that my real father was gay is biography.

And it's a biographical fact she wants left out.

[pandr32]

12. She is making clear...

your relationship is already over. There really isn't anything to hold on to.
I am so sorry.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Rifts can be permanent.

Siblings see things different ways. But they can't dictate to one another. Everyone does their own thing.

[Blue Owl]

16. Why would she have to even know?

[pnwmom]

17. We have some mutual friends from our hometown, and my sister is a FB friend of mine.nt

[Chainfire]

18. There are worse things in life than divorcing yourself from a sibling.

Blood relations do not give people license to run your life.

[MuseRider]

19. JMO

You are under no obligation to never mention what was important to you about your father. She cannot hold what his truth was over your head. I suppose if it was not important to you it would be different but she is living in a closet that does not belong to her. For goodness sakes, in her opinion everyone with a gay family member is shameful?

Do what you think is right knowing she might just leave. As you obviously know there is no shame in your father or what your mother and father had as an agreement. They would not be the only people who have lived that agreement.

Again IMO your sister needs to grow up and you do not have to live under her cloud.

Good luck, I do not envy you this as you obviously care about her.

[pnwmom]

20. Unfortunately, my parents didn't have an agreement.

They were faithful young Catholics with zero experience. And it worked out the way the Church planned --- with multiple babies in a few years, with hardly any effort. Back in those days there weren't jobs for women like my mother. So by the time she learned about my father (several babies into the marriage) she was trapped.

But he didn't do it on purpose. I don't think he really understood himself at the time he married. They were living in a perfect Don't Say Gay world.

I do want to be able to talk about them because they are the perfect example of why Don't Say Gay hurts everyone involved. But I hate to think this means I'll lose my sister.

[MuseRider]

24. I understand.

I am really sorry for the decisions you are having to make.

I hope you write your book. All of this needs to be said loudly and frequently.

[pnwmom]

29. I just remembered something she said a few years ago

when I first told her I was writing a novel about a girl who had a gay dad.

"You can write anything you want. Just don't use your real name."

I was taken aback. Did she really mean it? I didn't think so, but I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

Apparently she meant it.

[Deuxcents]

21. Be true to yourself and your project.

She wants you to distort your words so she’ll feel better but it’s not about her…she’s making it about her. Good luck

[Liberty Belle]

22. Think carefully if it's worth this. Do you have nieces and nephews you'd be barred from seeing?

It is unfair of her to make this request of you, and you have a right to write anything you want. I think your book idea has merit and could help others, but at what personal cost to you- and to any children you and she may have now or in the future.

If it's hurtful enough for her to shut you out of her life, it could mean losing other family members,too.

[pnwmom]

23. It's not about what I'm writing. She wants me to never leave the closet that our parents built

while they were married, and that my mother remained in till she died.

She wants me never to disclose to any of our mutual friends about our dad being gay.

Her children are all adults now, so she can't really bar me from seeing them. But I don't have a strong relationship with them anyway, except to tell the youngest she could always come here if she needed a good place to "camp."

[qwlauren35]

25. A simple tweak

Put different siblings in it. Instead of two sisters, have two brothers. Or maybe fraternal twins. Then it can't be about your family.

I have noticed how my stories might start off with situations that I know about first hand or second hand, but the direction they take is completely fiction.

If it's just a story, even if it has elements from personal experience, there are easy ways to move it away from her.

[pnwmom]

26. The story is NOTHING like our family -- complete fiction. The problem is that my sister

doesn't want any of our friends to know that, like my character, I had a gay dad. So she was ordering me never to mention that on Facebook or other social media.

Both of our parents died years ago, but she wants me to remain in our family's closet forever, so that she can.

[qwlauren35]

27. Oh, now I understand.

She doesn't want you to voice your reality. It really has nothing to do with the story.

She sounds pretty homophobic.

You may want to "come out" to the people you love for starters, and then as you are able to keep your family and friends close to you, you can confront your sister about her homophobia and let her know that that's not how you want to live your life.

[pnwmom]

28. Once my mother had died and I wasn't afraid of hurting her anymore, I felt free to share

with everyone close to me. The problem is that my sister, 2,000 miles away and in a very red state, has apparently never recovered from the way our family fell apart. It was at the beginning of the "gay plague," so you can imagine what that was like. (Though my father didn't catch the virus, most of his friends did.) She had loved the family and home we had and hated what happened to it. And she's still burdened with a sense of shame about our family, so that's why she exploded the way she did.