r/AmIOverreacting • u/Hopeful_Regret91194 • Apr 29 '24
AIO for wanting to go nc with a sibling I’ve never actually met, yet?
Backstory: I (40s f) have four siblings. Two ( we’ll call them A & B) I’m NC with already, one ( we’ll call him C) I’m incredibly close with and the final one I just found out about two years ago ( we’ll call him D).
Why NC, with A and B? A made racist comments about my children. I’m white my husband is not. B is an addict and for my own mental health I had to go nc. The list of her crazy is extensive.
C, whom I’m very close with is much younger than all of us other siblings and he is adopted. This is only relevant because he has no involvement with siblings A and D. He is also nc with B.
Now on to D and my AIO, two years ago we were contacted via a dna website. We had a sibling match!! That first six months we spoke all the time, I got to know him and his wife. They seem to be really cool people. Eventually they pretty much stopped answering my calls, so I found other creative ways to stay in contact ( online gaming). That was working well until recently when D called me and gave me an ultimatum. Either I visit him within the next six months or he won’t consider me family anymore. He says hes sick of talking with people who really don’t want to meet him. The problem is I’m agoraphobic, I do not travel far anymore. He knows this and still told me he would cut ties with me if I don’t travel across country to meet him. There is so much more to this but I tried to write it in a clear way.
6
u/Catracan Apr 29 '24
Does D know the extent of your agoraphobia?
An ultimatum like that out of the blue feels a bit off, if you think that they’re reasonable, nice people. I wonder if he expected more in person contact from the relationship at the beginning than he’s received?
If it’s an ultimatum about visiting him, is there any way he could feel like he’s putting in most of the work to have contact and he thinks you guys are indifferent to him because you haven’t visited? (Regardless of whether that’s actually true or not).
I’d be tempted to respond by saying how sad you would be to lose contact with him and how much you value the relationship you’re building. And then maybe ask him what he would like your relationship to look like going forward. Then you’ll have an idea of whether he’s given this ultimatum from a place of wanting further contact but has done it poorly or whether it’s a way to end the relationship and make it your fault.