Dear Prudence,
I hit my mid-thirties after dropping the dead weight of a relationship that was more chore than connection. I finally have moments of happiness rather than hopelessness. My sister has been divorced twice and is permanently estranged from her oldest daughter. My sister chose her second homophobic husband over her lesbian daughter. My niece hasn’t spoken to anyone in our family for three years.
Anyway, my sister is obsessed over my single status. She constantly reminds me about my biological clock and how “hard” it is to find a good man after forty. She makes crazy cat lady jokes and lectures me about how I need to be serious about dating. The subject is in every interaction we have. I have tried to brush off her concerns, telling her to drop the subject and that I am happy with my life and wouldn’t be changing it just because she said so. My sister hotly told me I was lying to myself and there was no way I could be satisfied without being married and a mother. I retorted back that it didn’t work out so well for her: Two failed marriages, her sons barely see their father, and her daughter wants nothing to do with her, so maybe she should work on her own life rather than fixating on mine.
It was a low blow. But it was nothing but the truth, and my sister would not let up on me about being single. Well, she cursed me out and now refuses to talk to me. This estrangement has put a lot of stress on our parents and they keep pressuring me to apologize. I have told them I will if my sister will. They tell me that isn’t going to happen because she doesn’t think she did anything wrong and only acted out of love. I apparently just “attacked her out of nowhere.” I am just tired. How do I deal with this?
— Sister Trouble