How can I get my sister to get over me being gay?

Sorry.

I don’t know that there’s anything that YOU can do. This is something that she’s going to have to deal with in her head & accept you as you are. It’ll be her loss if she doesn’t. Try to have patience with her & give her time. Hopefully, she’ll come around.

You cannot make her get over it. You cannot control her thoughts or her behavior.

All you can control is your own behavior. Tell her that you are tired of being harangued about your orientation, and that it is no longer up for discussion. If she calls you and talks about it, you will hang up on her. If she shows up at your place to talk about it, you will show her to the door and lock her out. If she emails you about it, you will delete the emails without response. And so on. And then, do it.

She will probably spend some time continuing on, but after you have hung up on her and deleted her emails often enough, she will get the hint.

Ignore it if possible. You can’t change or control what other people do or say, but you can control yourself. I would imagine that if you stop dignifying her ridiculous behavior, eventually she will stop. It sounds like she’s young, immature, and parroting the crap her church friends are feeding her. Hopefully one day soon she’ll realize that she’s hurting you and herself by treating you this way and she’ll stop. Good luck :)

@cwilbur Jinx

I’m sorry….I just hate it when “Christian” people take stands like that, not realizing how unforgiving and uncompassionate and unchristian-like it is…..I’m a Christian BTW…..is there no such word as uncompassonate or did I just make that up??!! Hopefully time and maturity will allow her to come around.

She obviously has issues. I’m sorry but she’s not going to get over it anytime soon. Sadly, there are people like your sister in the world who feel the need to project their stupid beliefs on everyone. They are immature and you can’t change them.

Block her number and live your own life.

@cwilbur – You must be psychic. You wrote exactly what I was going to write.

Huh!

@DesireeCassandra – What cwilbur says, and the others that agree.

@cwilbur What am I thinking? Huh, huh, huh?

@Zen You’re thinking how really handsome you look and how good you are at racing The Enterprise. Am I right??

@Dutchess12 Nope.

Take this as bad advice, but find something about her to be intolerant of and give her a taste of her own medicine until she backs down.

@kevbo Ha, like beat her down for being overly righteous and judgmental? Could work…

More likely with a “flaw” that she is already prone to feel guilty or insecure about.

should I be worried that this comes to me so naturally?

the problem is that she believes for reasons that what you’re doing is a choice and that it is a bad choice. the only way for her to stop hating what you are doing is for her to become convinced by new evidence that her opinion is old school and silly.

specifically, whatever bible verses and interpretations she relies on to prove her case have to be shown to not hold water. also, her ideas about homosexuality in nature have to be changed. she needs to know that homosexuality occurs in nature. she has to become convinced that homosexuality is not at all a free choice just as she has no choice but to be your biological sister.

she’s been convinced by bad evidence and bad logic. she needs to have these exposed. right now you’re a wrongfully convicted person in the jury of her mind. the only way you can be exonerated is with a new trial and a better case for yourself.

Tell her to go read her Bible again because she’s obviously misinformed.

Oooh. Tell her that instead of expending so much effort trying to talk you out of being gay, she should use that energy to pray to God that you’ll see the light.

All of these answers are awesome. It gets so hard to not read her emails! I have one in my inbox right now… I am so tempted! We have been internet fighting for weeks!

@kevbo “should I be worried that this comes to me so naturally?”

Yes. But I love it. I’m in a snarky mood today and you’re making me laugh.

@Zen: you really don’t want me posting it here. It would cause drama.

BTW, I agree, but I think he’s married and she’s unlikely to be interested, and I don’t think knees bend that way.

@DesireeCassandra, be sure to let us know how things shake out.

@kevbo Well, I caved, I read her most recent email. it said i was an idiot,, and blah blah.. I told her to get out and stay out of my life if she is going to act like this. Thanks for your good answers.

@DesireeCassandra Good job girl! Don’t let her get to you.

sigh..

i just don’t think you should punish her for believing something.

@ninjacolin Why not? Her sister is punishing her for believing something. Tit for tat, right? Especially when it’s obvious that being a logical human being isn’t working with her.

It’s not her belief that’s the problem. It’s her behavior.

Seriously: You asked us “How can I get my sister to get over me being gay?”

Why is she so mean that she doesn’t want to see you happy? I don’t understand the insensitivity of some poeple.

she believes that her sister is a sinner but she also believes that she must behave this way to her. either way it’s her beliefs that are the problem. the behaviour is just the product of those beliefs.

where’s Jayne when you need him? we need the thought police to weigh in.

I think ninjacolin is right. If you start to behave just like her, you will be out a sister. If she did not love you and care about you she would not be doing any of this. I am not siding with anyone, I just think that she has her beliefs and they tell her to try to minister to those who she sees are “sinning”. (not my judgment) I think you should tell her how this is pushing you away and that she is in danger of losing a sister. I think if you take the advise of push back even harder everyone will be losing.

Well, if she’s really that serious about it, and she’s making you feel like a bad person for being who you are, and won’t accept you for who you are, then I’d suggest breaking all contact with her.

yea, i’m not opposed to that, mangeons.
if it were me, however, i would argue her to teh death until she stopped wanting to hang out with me! :)

@DesireeCassandra: If she’ll even listen to you, ask her to read the book UnChristian.

As a Christian myself it’s sad to see other Christians come across as arrogant, self-righteous, and uncaring – the opposite of how Jesus engaged outsiders. I’m not so sure that you will be able to change her beliefs but you might be able to get her to act civil and Christ-like if she truly is a Christian. I’m not sure if breaking all contact with her is a good thing though (of course I’m not a psychologist either). It’s probably difficult to see but I think she is nagging you and being judgmental because she cares about you. Unfortunately, she is expressing it the wrong way. Maybe tell her exactly how you feel and threaten her by saying if you don’t stop harassing me I will never talk to you again. If she truly cares about you she will stop and realize that what she is attempting to do, is not working. Hopefully, she’ll realize that your companionship is more important to her rather than being God’s little proseltyzer.

I haven’t read all the responses yet so my sincerest apologies if I repeat anything that has already been said.

What I think is that you should just be her friend. Try talking to her and connecting with her on levels that have nothing to do with your sexuality. And, although it really sucks, do not involve your partner. When your sister bring it up just ignore it and have a good time. This helps because the more she connects with you the less she will want to be at odds with you. It is called cognitive dissonance and most of us try and work that out.

Now I also agree with the idea of bringing new evidence to her attention. However this could interfere with your connecting. You may want to save this until you have established a good bond for awhile. Or perhaps send it to her anonymously. When she comments to you about it say “that’s odd I’ve been getting the same thing”. I know its a fib but heck it might work.

Another thing that might work is to simply validate her. She probably feels that she isn’t being heard by you. When she brings it up again say “ya sis I hear ya on that. I understand you feel like…... And that…..” And just leave it at that. Do not pass any judgments on what she feels or try to convince her otherwise. Just leave it. It is a therapy and mediation technique. It seems simple but it has a way of working. Just validate her and repeat what she said to you so she knows you heard her. Do it whenever you feel strong enough to do it.

I’m sorry you have to deal with this. Just have faith that in time she will come to understand. In the meantime try your best to keep up your relationship. But don’t put too much stress on it, say devote a specific amount of time to this, like one day each month and nothing more.

Perhaps it might help to keep in mind that she’s worried about you because she loves and cares about you. Maybe it will help to write her a letter acknowledging this, and also that her relentless badgering is pushing you away. See if she is willing to agree to disagree, for the sake of love and family.

You can’t but you can only hope by your continued acceptance of yourself she will also accept you. Don’t waste your time on people who judge you- “People that judge don’t matter, people that matter don’t judge.”

@ninjacolin Its not like i want to stop talking to her. She acts like she is so much better than me. Says she isn’t judging me, but she is. Its kind of like she wont listen to what I have to say, I understand she cares about me, but that also seems very sudden. We were never really that close and I have tried for so long to teach her things and be her friend but she has always denied my friendship. For example, when I lived in the same town I would ask if she would like to see a movie or go to a show with me. She would respond “No, why would i want to hang out with you?!” Honestly, thats what she would say if not that something very close to it. She is 18 now about to graduate, I am 22. I have a plane ticket to to go her graduation, here is no way I am not going. But i just wish I could get her to stop seeing me as less of a Christian.

That’s terrible.

I’d just remind her every time she started with me that ‘we are all God’s children, and it is not her place to judge but to remember to love, forgive and respect all of her brothers and sisters. Whoever they may be and whatever they may do.’ If she continues to push the subject, warn her you will end the conversation, and if that fails, make sure it wasn’t an empty threat.

You are her sister.
She’ll either get the message, and change. Or she won’t.
Either way, you’ll need to move on.

Live your life to the fullest.
Have deep meaningful relationships. Be happy and be a good person. How can she argue with what she sees right in front of her face?

When she begins to preach to you, tell her you will not be abused. Set your boundaries. If she wants to be in your life, make her treat you like you want to be treated.

Just like all things, she will adjust as time goes by. And if not, you might need to reevaluate the type of relationship you have with her.

If she really loves you, she’ll accept you for who you are. If she’s going to act like your feelings are worthless, then maybe she’s not such an important person to have in your life.

@DesireeCassandra, someday she will come around. She’s young, and it’s easy for young people to get wrapped up in dogma (Yes we can!) And that antagonism is likely to burn off someday. Siblings are hard. You don’t have the same buffer that you do with other people, and conflicts are much easier to trigger. In the meantime, you survive either by being the bigger person or not or vacillating between the two. Either way, it will be difficult not to feel shortchanged. The good thing is that the day you reconcile, 90% of that will be swept under the rug. Just keep the door open from time to time.

(sorry if this is disjointed—I’m multi-tasking)

She’ll either get over it or she won’t. Either way you get along with your life.

My husband’s baby sister went through a phase like this, where she constantly badgered us to be more “Christian” and follow her ways, and so on. We simply refused to rise to her bait and simply smiled and wished her well. Eventually, she matured enough to see that her aggressive tactics were making the space between us larger and she has pretty much stopped.

Of course, as man and wife we don’t represent the level of “sin” that a homosexual couple would so we had it easier. However, it is tough to bite one’s tongue when someone doesn’t bother to do the task they said they would because, as they say after the fact, that God told them we would fill in for her (be nice if she had at least left us a phone message). And the form letters demanding donations to her church were a bit over the top, especially because it was one of those enormous non-denominational mega-churches with its own multi-story parking facility.

One thing you might try, if you don’t wish to sever all ties, is to simply tell her that you are not ready to open up about these things yet, but that she could help by praying for you. However, you don’t want to risk contaminating her spirit with your sinful ways, so she should pray without you. That might make her feel as if she is making progress, while keeping her busy and out of your hair.

Or maybe not. However, time will probably calm her down.

I’m sorry you have to go through that :(

I think it’s time for an ultimatum. Tell her she has to choose between remaining in contact with her sister and trying to change you. Make her understand that any more discussion about your sexual orientation will result in her being completely shut out of your life. Tell her you appreciate her point of view, that you understand where she is coming from, but that it is no longer up for discussion. If she chooses to keep the subject open, then you have to follow through on your warning. It may be painful for you, but just because someone is family doesn’t mean that they should remain in your life.

There isn’t much you can do about her actions,but you can control yours:)That is what is the best part as you don’t have to pick up the phone when she calls or if you do and she starts in on you,tell her you don’t want to hear it and if she continues,you will hang up.Then do it.Repeat as needed.She will eventually learn either way.It works!Good luck :))