AITAH for keeping my sister at arm’s length after she accused me of letting my niece get into edibles?
I’m looking for honest opinions because this has weighed on me for years.
I (F33) struggle with infertility, and it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. When my younger sister(F31) was pregnant with her third daughter, she was upset that I wasn’t as outwardly excited as she wanted me to be. I explained that I was happy for her, but I was also grieving the possibility that I may never experience pregnancy myself.
Her response was, “I’m not going to walk on eggshells with you just because you can’t get pregnant.”
That comment hurt more than I can describe.
Eventually we started talking again after her youngest was born because the baby had complications at birth and I wanted to be there for my sister.
A few months later, I was driving my niece home after spending time together. The drive was about 30 minutes. We were literally only about two minutes from her house when I suddenly heard her coughing. I looked in the back seat and saw thick saliva coming out of her mouth, and she looked like she was choking on it.
I immediately pulled over, got her out of her car seat, and she seemed very lethargic. I rushed the last couple of minutes to my sister’s house, jumped out of the car, and told her something was wrong.
My sister and her boyfriend kept asking me what happened and what she got into. I honestly didn’t know. She had been completely fine until those last two minutes of the drive. I understood they were scared, so I wasn’t upset that they were asking questions. I told them I thought they should take her to urgent care or the ER, but they decided not to.
My husband and I left shortly afterward.
Later, I found out my sister had been telling family members that I had let her daughter get into my edibles. That accusation was devastating because it wasn’t true.
Months later, my niece had another episode at home. My sister took her to the ER, and they diagnosed her with seizures. From what I was told, she was having the same kind of symptoms she had that day on Thanksgiving. Even after receiving that diagnosis, I never got an apology. Instead, my sister went to my dad and said I had “f’ed up.”
Despite everything, I still tried to keep the door open. On my niece’s birthday, I texted her “Happy Birthday!” hoping to keep the focus on my niece, not the conflict between adults.
Instead, my sister replied:
“Wow I’m surprised you even care… Since you like to let her get into your edibles… you don’t get to tell her happy birthday. You have no idea how much hurt my kids have gone through because of you.”
After that, I stopped trying.
Then this Father’s Day, my dad kept saying he wanted all of his kids together. I reached out to my sister first, and she actually seemed kind. She even texted me that her girls were excited to see me, so I thought maybe we could finally start moving forward.
It was the first time I’d seen them in about a year and a half.
When we got there, it felt incredibly awkward. The girls seemed hesitant around me, which broke my heart because I’ve always loved them. I tried walking over to my sister to make small talk, but every time I started talking she would interrupt the conversation to yell at one of the kids. She never really acknowledged me, and both she and her boyfriend treated my husband and me like we were the bad guys.
At one point she even talked openly about my niece’s seizures right in front of me, and all I could think was that I’d spent the last year and a half carrying the blame for something that ultimately turned out to have a medical explanation. I still have never received an apology for the accusations or for telling family that I let her child get into edibles.
I don’t hate my sister, and I don’t wish anything bad on her or my nieces. I’m polite when I see them at family events, but I don’t really want a close relationship anymore. Between the infertility comment, being accused of something I don’t believe I did, having my character questioned to family members, and never receiving an apology, I feel like the trust is gone.
Some of my family thinks I should just move on because “she’s your sister.”
Am I wrong for keeping my distance?