estrangements

They seem to run in our family. My mother is estranged from one of her sisters, my step-dad is estranged from his two daughters, two of my siblings are estranged from my dad, and I'm estranged from one of my brothers who himself was estranged from the whole family for almost four years.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, as some of you know, I'm attending my niece's wedding this Friday and it will be the first time I see my brother again. I'm not particularly looking forward to that (am a bit apprehensive actually), but don't want to miss the wedding because of it. How we got to be estranged is, not surprisingly, a long story, but the final incident that clinched it was when said brother uninvited me from the family Christmas dinner he was hosting in 2003. To add insult to injury, he left a message on my answering machine saying that if I apologized to his wife for being rude (which I hadn't been), they'd reconsider uninviting me, but that they didn't care whether I was there or not. His last words to me on tape were, "Oh, and a piece of advice: get a job, get a life." Click.

Needless to say I was not amused, and apart from a letter I wrote, we haven't had contact since. Now obviously there was a fair bit of bad blood between us already because estrangements don't develop overnight, or in a vacuum. But they are definitely one of our family patterns, and one that I wanted to explore. Which is why I'm writing about otherwise personal and private matters, and also why a few years ago I bought family members copies of Laura Davis's book I Thought We'd Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation. It's a good book, and one of the appendixes includes a self-assessment quiz called "Are You Ready for Reconciliation?" I'm going to include it here because I think it's quite valuable and could be of benefit to others. You are to answer "yes" or "no" on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being no and 10 being yes.

1. Has a relationship with someone you once cared about ended because of anger, betrayal, or miscommunication?
2. Do you miss the other person and wish he or she could still be in your life?
3. Have you worked through your own feelings enough to approach this person in a new way?
4. Are you ready to take responsibility for your role in what happened?
5. Have you developed a sense of compassion for the other person?
6. Have you moved beyond fantasies of revenge and retaliation?
7. Could you move forward even if you received no apology or acknowledgment that you were wronged?
8. Are you being realistic about the other person? Have you stopped pinning your hopes on a fantasy?
9. If a limited relationship is all that is possible, would that be acceptable to you?
10. Can you be in this relationship and still feel good about yourself?
11. Given the risks involved in reaching out, are you willing to face the worst possible scenario?
12. Do you have what it takes to rebuild this relationship?

My own answers revealed that I am not ready to pursue reconciliation, and that I'm closer instead to accepting that our relationship is probably over. Other family members have tentatively begun taking small steps to reach out and while I wish them success with that, I have no interest in doing the same. Still, I have to see my brother on Friday whether I like it or not, so it could be an interesting evening indeed.