AITA for ignoring my sister?
I have a half-sister. We initially grew up for the first 4-5 years of our life before my mother and her father split. She lived with her father, I initially went with our mother (this will matter later).
My mother is a troubled woman. She severely neglected me as a kid (to the point where I was malnourished, lived in literal trash, and was not bathed and the school had to intervene), she stole from every family member she could, got a job as a caregiver to special needs people so she could steal from them, and stole the identities of other family members. Eventually another family member stepped in as my guardian.
As my sister & I grew up we would see each other every few weeks as we lived in the same town. As I grew wiser, I cut all ties to my mother (haven’t seen her in ~15 years), and around that time I coincidentally stopped seeing my sister. I haven’t seen her since I was in my mid teens.
Since then, my sister’s moved halfway across the country, had a baby, engaged, and a few health scares of her own. Over the past few years she’s been trying to reconnect and stay in touch. She has my number, texts me every holiday, sends me 2-3 Facebook friend requests per week even though I don’t accept/deny (or use Facebook). I’m slowly beginning to get frustrated, and have contemplated blocking her because I don’t want to be reminded of it.
She also is in contact with our mother, who is all but dead to me.
I have no bad blood with my sister, but I have never once responded to her messages. I just don’t feel there’s a reason to hold onto an arbitrary connection or wasting my energy on it. I also don’t want to be in touch with anyone connected to my mom. I have closer relationships that I struggle to manage as it is.
While I believe the right thing to do would be to tell her straight up “I’m not interested in talking to you,” that’s a lot easier said than done and sounds cruel.
I’m not trying to punish her or be petty - I don’t secretly want a relationship with her but too “scared” to go about it. I feel bad for keeping myself out of the picture…but I don’t think there’s anything there, and if I regret this when I’m old and gray then that’s my burden to bear.
So…AITAH for ignoring her?