It's the trust that dies.

I don’t think it’s the love that dies. I think it’s the trust that dies. When a loved one repeatedly, over the course of many years, strikes us in our most vulnerable spots, we can’t help but instinctively protect ourselves from anticipated future assaults. We stop being as open. We no longer talk freely. And, eventually, we start to avoid the company of those who have hurt us. It’s not that we no longer care. We do. We just can’t let this person hurt us anymore.

That’s what I thought of tonight when my sister called. She complained that she was doing all the talking and that I never had much to say. Well, she has never seemed all that interested in what I have to say, and I know that if I do mention something that’s important to me, her response might be caustic.

When I was about 12 years old, I invited a boy from the neighborhood to sleepover at our house. When we were alone in my room with the door shut, I took off my clothes in front of him and danced a little bit. I knew I was gay, and what I did was a foolish, misguided attempt to get him to notice me. It just so happens that my father walked in right at this point and caught me. I’ll never forget the look of disappointment and disgust in his eyes. He didn’t say anything. He simply left the room and shut the door.

He never mentioned that incident to me. He never wanted to understand why I would do such a thing. And, of course, he never had any helpful advice to give me concerning how I might let a boy know I liked him while maintaining my self-respect. But he didn’t simply let the matter drop. Instead, he told my sister about it. He actually told my sister.

My sister is three years older than me, so she was 15 at the time. She was a sophomore in high school. She was old enough to realize that the situation was delicate and that she could easily humiliate me beyond words and destroy my self-esteem. So did she rise to the occasion and show a little compassion? No. She began teasing me the next day. And she periodically teased me about that until I graduated from high school, and she was in her twenties. She used this information against me as a weapon, and she honed that weapon until all she had to do was say two words: dance naked. She knew if she said those two words, I would be horribly and instantly embarrassed. Just for the hell of it, she would drop that bomb when I least expected it–when we were at our grandparents’ house, when we were eating at McDonald’s, when we were watching TV.

This is an especially egregious example of my sister’s insensitivity, but there were many others over the years…maybe not as soul crushingly awful, but many other examples. In fact, she still tries to put me in my place now and then.

I now realize that my sister had–and maybe to some degree still has–a terrible case of sibling rivalry. I was the punk who came along and stole her position as the baby of the family. And she had the same dysfunctional parents as I did, so it’s not like they were much help in assisting her to get over it. I have long ago accepted that she is simply like that. I don’t want an apology, and it wouldn’t help anyway. And I don’t want to talk it out with her. That would be useless. She is who she is. I also don’t want to have long telephone chats with her and tell her about my feelings and private thoughts. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want revenge. I do, in fact, love her and want her to be happy. And I think she loves me, too, in her own way. I just don’t want a close, intimate relationship with her. The trust is not there, and it’s not going to be. It’s too late for that.