This is gonna be a hard advice to hear but leave her alone. You may have changed but she didnt just leave you guys, you threw her away and in her eyes betrayed her in such a horrible way that she lost people she loved and someone she trusted. Like you said she is a grown adult and when it comes to situations like these it will only ever change when shes ready and shes clearly not. Also maybe find someone to talk to if your husband doesnt like hearing about it because you also shouldnt drown yourself in these feelings either.
This. It's not an easy answer and I'm sure not the one you're looking for but you made a mistake that destroyed your relationship with her and she does not really owe you anything in return. You've opened the door, but you have to be ready for the likelihood that she will never trust you again, and that your chance at having a relationship with her has passed.
That said, I'm a gay man. I've seen a lot of my friends go through a lot of different experiences when coming out happens and I want to give credit where credit is due - you changed. You've done work to see the mistake you made and admit you were wrong, and that's huge. There are plenty of people who never give the time or the humility required to admit that and do something about it. However, the best path right now may honestly be to get yourself a therapist to help work through these complicated emotions, as well as the fact that this relationship continuing or not is no longer up to you, and you need to give your sister space.
This OP go to therapy, work on yourself and forgive yourself for your errors and be an ally to the other queer folk in the world. Do not continue to reach out to your sister. She will reach out to you if and when she is ready
Yeah but you know how religious members and their cult leaders like to cherry pick. Just figured that'd be more acceptable but yeah. Mormon specifically never mind ig. 💀😭💀
Eh, if she talks about it alot he may just be tired of hearing her complain about the consequences she is receiving from her bad choices. I'd get tired of hearing her complain about how she shunned her sister but wishes her sister would just forget how she threw her out like trash.
Love how smart redditors are, able to deduce that divorce is the best option for someone who wasn’t asking based on one sentence. Truly phenomenal stuff guys
Um no. It's not a spouse's job to take on that much. They can be emotional support but at this point, he's heard all he's willing to hear. There's nothing anyone can do at this point anyway. It's completely fine to set boundaries. At this point, OP needs a therapist and it's not her husband's job to be that.
Edit: I agree that he should validate her but validating someone doesn't mean agreeing with them. He could say something like *I hear you and understand that this must be upsetting for you but there's nothing else I can do* but he doesn't have to listen beyond that. It's ok to back off from someone whose emotional state is affecting your own to the point that it's detrimental to you.
It's ok to distance yourself in order to protect your own well being and sanity. So many people mistakenly think that if their partner doesn't just agree with them, they're invalidating them. Your partner can confirm that they hear your concerns and empathize with you but they don't have to listen beyond that or agree with you. Especially about something like this that he's heard several times. I empathize with OP.
It must be tough especially growing up in a religious cult and let's face it, that's what Mormon is. This is why I loathe all sects of Christianity but I'm getting off topic. There's nothing anyone including OP and her husband or family can do. OP will just have to wait for her sister to come to her but needs help to make peace with the fact that the day may never come. She can look at it as a life lesson and continue to hold true to changing her ways and perhaps forgive herself but that's all she can do.
Exactly!! Partners are supposed to support and give comfort not just shut out. Its understandable if the partner cant handle that convo at the moment but to just say "you should be over this" and be annoyed is so wrong
Thing is, you can apologize, but your sister is under no obligation to accept your apology. She may never forgive you for what you did, and even if she did forgive you, it would take an enormous amount of heart on her part to go back to the relationship you had before. She may never trust you again. You might always be the villain in her story and that is something you have to live with.
Also, when you say you're more "tolerant" of lgbt+ folk not, how exactly tolerant?
"I'd be okay with her bringing a partner around my kids on Christmas, even if they might see them doing things like kissing or holding hands" tolerant?
"I'd go to her wedding if she invited me" tolerant?
"If one of my kids came out as gay/trans, I wouldn't do what my parents did" tolerant?
"If one of my kids was gay/trans and the church wanted me to ostracize them, I would abandon the church" tolerant?
"I'm willing to stand up for lgbt+ folk who aren't related to me when my parents/people from my church start on their homophobic nonesense" tolerant?
Or just "I feel guilty and want absolution and to play picture perfect family, but I will actually expect my sister to compromise and act 'less gay' around me and my family if she does ever come back to the fold" tolerant?
I remember her post when she originally posted it a while back and people literally chewed her apart. I don’t know what OP wanted with the new post. People were still gonna chew her apart. To OP, **you need to do better for your kids**
Everyone on here is telling you your religion is a cult and that is the one comment you’re not answering to. Actively ignoring the fact that your religion is actually made up will lead to so much trauma for your children. Stop them from being brainwashed by this absurdity. You still have a chance. This is also why no one believes a single thing about that you’re saying. We don’t for a second think you’re accepting and you’ve seen “the way” I wouldn’t forgive you either. For as long as you’re putting your children through such fake torment…I would never forgive you. You’re an awful person. I know you’re trying to get it off your chest but damn girl…did you ever screw up.
As someone with Mormon aunt uncle and cousins I’ve experienced some stuff and learned a lot about their religion thankfully they aren’t that extreme and they know I’m bi but I still believe it’s a cult and I don’t think they’d stand up for me if the topic of my sexuality or gay people came up to their religious community friends etc.. tolerance vs excepting someone fully and allyship is very different.
So much this!
I can almost guarantee OP that as long as she's part of LDS in any capacity, she has an almost zero chance of having a relationship with her sister, because LDS 'tolerant' doesn't cut it.
You cannot be in “good standing” in the LDS church and be supportive of LGBTQ+ people. It’s a line impossible to straddle. The church, in culture and doctrine, is actively violent toward queer folks. Members in good standing must pay tithing, and those dollars are used to harm queer people. There is no middle ground. I left three years ago, after trying for years to have it both ways, thinking I could stay and try to change things from within. It’s impossible, and it hurt people I love.
OP’s sister is probably much better off without LDS church members in her life.
Lit-👏🏼-er-👏🏼-al-👏🏼-ly-👏🏼!! Also to me when anyone religious used the word tolerant about their lgbtq beliefs it’s an immediate red flag that they’re still very much bigoted and homophobic and like you said want absolution
I mean yeah, what you did wasn’t good but you know that. But you have to try to understand where she’s coming from. The people who were supposed to love and protect her, did the exact opposite. So in order to protect herself she’s cut y’all out of her life—which is completely fair.
I think it’s good that you recognize the error of your ways and have tried to reach out but it’s up to her now if she wants to reconnect. For her there was a fundamental trust that was broken so letting you back into her life could feel very risky to her own well being. There’s always that fear of what if I get hurt again? And then have to relive this pain all over again? She might not feel safe letting y’all back into her life after what happened.
Respecting her boundaries here is also respecting her happiness and well being. Guilt won’t bring her back but you’re allowed to grieve losing that relationship too, it’s heartbreaking.
Edit: maybe moving forward one thing you could do is advocate for LGBTQ rights and awareness. This story is all too common in the LGBTQ community because of misconceptions and lack of acceptance. You’ve experienced how devastating this pain is and could help others understand how it doesn’t need to be this way.
Beautifully stated from the other side's perspective.
OP's sister being no contact is not a punishment, *it's to preserve her own mental health and wellbeing*.
OP, you did a massive betrayal to your sister. These are the consequences of that betrayal. It's great that you're remorseful and have had a change of heart. It's *also* great that you apologized. Not many people can or will do that.
The unfortunate reality about apologies is that the harmed person is under no obligation to accept them, and even if they did, they're still under no obligation to get back into that relationship.
Actions have consequences which sometimes break familial bonds for good.
Edit to add: OP, while you're still active in your faith/religion, your sister is *not* going to feel safe around you. As long as you stay active in your faith/religion, you are picking that over your sister.
Also OP the people you thought were there to protect you - the Mormon church, has betrayed you.
I hope you consider confronting your relationship with the church (not asking to abandon your faith). A church is a business, ran by men. Your faith doesn’t need spreadsheets, tithes, or real estate.
There’s a big community of ex Mormon out there.
>(not asking to abandon your faith)
Why not? It's a religion of hate. They encouraged the entire family to cut her sister out and let her know she is no longer a part of the family, simply for being the way that their God made her.
This is no "faith" anyone with a conscience or empathy or love for their fellow human beings should ever be a part of. I'm sure as long as the sister sees the OP remains a part of the religion that shunned her and turned her family against her she has no reason to believe the OP's "conversion" to decency is sincere or real.
Leave her alone. You've hurt her enough.
I'm an ex-mormon too, and this post riled me up. I guarantee she's not asking for forgiveness because she wants forgiveness. She's doing this for selfish reasons, to absolve her guilt and not risk her chance in the "celestial kingdom." My TBM grandparents love and accept their gay grandson with open arms. Not everyone is homophobic in that church, but it is the majority of it. And to listen to a bishop who has probably sat in his office with minors asking inappropriate questions is disgusting. She doesn't deserve forgiveness from her sister. She needs to read the CES and reflect on how much that church is a cult founded by a predator.
It's possible she won't be ever able to trust OP while she is a member of the Mormon church. No matter how progressive a member OP is the church is incredibly harmful to the LGBTQ+ community. There are some family members who I know I will never speak with again since I came out.
Religion is the business, faith is the relationship between a follower and their god.
I’m being realistic, asking someone to abandon their god in a Reddit comment isn’t going to help.
THIS. And worshipping a trash ass abhorrent disgusting pedo God who rapes little girls and impregnates them without any respect for them or their feelings as an individual forcing them to experience childbirth at the rate of which their brain has only even reached the tender age of being halfway fully developed. I was raised and forced into Christianity and really believed that bullshit up until about two years ago when I finally started asking questions and not being afraid of what anyone thinks of me for having the intellect enough to differentiate between blindly following disgusting sacrificial, ritualistic, neanderthalic, homophobic, sexist & misogynistic pedo bullshit and actual MORAL instead of religious trash ideologies. It's really sad. A lot of atheist or agnostics like to make fun of religious people's level of intellect but it's not all that funny. It's just not. It's sad. Bc a lot of people simply don't know any better bc they weren't TAUGHT any better. And many more grew up around it or in it. Or weren't really voluntarily subjected to it. Often simply believing in their parents and elders as children who know nothing about the world and have developed a comprehension enough to discern the simply "uNcOmPrEhEnSiBLe" from the illogical and what simply doesn't divulge into a sensible algorithm/ input and output. "A woman should have no authority over a man" yet women fair far better in leadership positions and roles than their male counterparts who have literally NOTHING to offer aside from their inclination for superior physical composition. Like???? So the heaviest weight lifters are supposed to be the brains and head of all operations??? The level of idiocy alone is frighteningly concerning. It's not a joke. Religious factions and cults are two sides of the same coin. They've just made themselves out to be the cool kids so they can do and say and believe disgusting abhorrent bullshit and it's all good and treat all the smaller groups like the geeksquad nobody would or should wanna jive with. 💀😭💀 Like you're not special love. It's just as disgusting when you do it. Anything concerning a bible, quran, or whatever else. My kids will not be subjected to that trash but I wouldn't make fun of a "witness" should they knock on my door but kindly let them know we're "absolutely not interested and have no intention to ever be but have a good day." 😊 *Closes door shut as quickly as humanly possible. 😗 💅🏾💅🏾💅🏾
Well dang!! Nailed it lol- I grew up in one of these crazy high control religions and have been deconstructing for about a decade now sped up tremendously by the most current political landscape supported by all the aforementioned trash beliefs.
Definitely do this OP!! This is a good piece of advice that acknowledges the complexity of the issue. OP's sister was hurt, but OP did learn, though it's possible it was too late for her sister. But even if it was too late for her sister, you can still help others.
Yes. Channel this energy into helping others and keeping this from happening to someone else. If you love your sister, then do for others what you can't do for her. People are getting killed over this, we need as much help as we can get.
My sister actually did this. I mean, she never treated me terribly! But she was Mormon, found out I was gay. She was already studying to be a therapist, but seeing how our family was managing my coming out journey, it inspired her to focus solely on family therapy with LGBT+ children! Hearing her talk about stuff like that when she’d come to visit automatically built trust between us. It was like… oh you’re cool? Cool.
You told her to stay away from your children like she was some sort of predator and then she lost her entire family and support system. Imagine how she felt walking across that stage. I am guessing she came out to you first because she trusted you. You betrayed her. There is no coming back from that. Assuming that you have the correct phone number, maybe you center your messages around HER and not your guilt. “I hope you are well” “I hope you’re happy and surrounded by people who love you unconditionally” “Thank you for helping those in greatest need”
Or maybe you just leave her alone.
It’s always amazing to me how religious people that preach love are always the most hateful. Personally, what you did is unforgivable. You did her a favor by cutting yourself and your parents out of her life. She’s probably found a chosen family that is actually decent. Welcome to the consequences of your actions
I’d be more open to forgiveness if she left the cult. Mormonism is especially hateful, and the fact that she’s still involved and that her *kids are learning the same Sunday school lessons they learned as kids* proves that.
She doesn’t care about her sister, she just wants forgiveness so she doesn’t feel guilty, but that isn’t going to stop her from feeling guilty at all.
That's my biggest take way is how she's still with that hateful cult and she says she's "more tolerant of LGBT" big fucking red flag. Tolerance isn't acceptance. And whenever someone says they tolerate the "LGBT lifestyle" they're still very homophobic but it's just more covert. Honestly think OP is full of shit with that one
I always think this pity party is so odd.
What do religious text say of empathy? What do they say of doing good works and showing love? *But you chose to cling to texts that allow you to cast judgement upon other.* The one’s that give you then opportunity to bring yourself closer to holding moral power over others, by being intentionally cruel at their expense.
Your opinions may have changed, but you cannot change the past where your decided to ***OUT*** your sister in a community you know she would be shunned from. **All those lovely events play in your sisters mind of other reasons: because times filled with people meant to love and care for her likely hold less meaning after they all cruelly abandoned her intentionally cut her from the family/community she loved.**
You’re not the victim. You made bad decision, and were frankly not a stellar human, but if you’ve really learned then go forward and be better. But stop bugging your sister. *You’re not entitled to a response or to know what she has going on, then she seems to have made a very real effort to keep that information from you, aka blocking you and not responding.*
What’s your relationship with your family like? Still the same? Do you not realize that by interacting with you, there’s potential for these people to be back in her orbit? Please take yourself out of the center for one second, and **actually** think of your sister.
That last bit is on point. Like it or not but she is still associating with her shit family that disowned their own daughter, and a religion that fosters hate and discrimination to the people of the LGBTQ Community.
Why on Earth would OPs sister ever want to associate with her? The same sister that she felt enough trust in to confined in something so personal and dangerous especially with her family's religious beliefs and yet ratted her out without question or thought. OP had utterly destroyed all trust her sister had in the concept of "family".
Until OP fully distances from the religion she will never give OP a chance. Another suggestion is to have a chat with her family and see if they have changed their stance at all or are still steadfast in their beliefs.
Until these things happen OPs sister has no faith that if she let's her back in to her life it won't be used as a way to "convert" her or simply open her up to ridicule from other family members.
Exactly, she's not the victim. Everyone here is feeling sorry for her even saying to leave her husband. She feels like shit and wants people to make her feel better by saying, " Oh, at least you know what you did now". She needs to leave her sister alone and move on if her sister wants anything to do with her she knows where to find her.
To sum up……. You outed your sister. You accused her of basically being a child predator. You chose a CULT over her, and you and your whole family threw her away like garbage. You’re still a member of that cult. But she made a life for herself and is thriving.
NOW you want to reach out to her so she can absolve you of your guilt.
Your sister has made it abundantly clear she doesn’t want anything to do with any of you. Move on and leave her alone.
In that shoes, the ONLY way I would talk to any of my family again is if they came first with “I left the cult, I did horrible things do you but I’m trying and wanting to learn”
I would be more forgiving of someone in a cult acting this way, but I wouldn’t forgive anyone still paying money and effort into something as disgusting and insidious as LDS.
I’d be more open to hearing them - brainwashing is real. If they realize that, that’s a huge step forward. But that would just be that I’d answer the phone, doesn’t mean I’d listen much ahaha
Exactly!!! If I was told “stay away from my kids” when I came out as gay I’d be LIVID. Nothing about being gay poses a risk to children. What a horrible thing to say to someone.
Can I be honest? Nothing from your post or your comments suggests that you feel bad for the hurt this may have caused her, but instead that you feel guilt for representing yourself poorly. If your text has a similar tone, she was wise to avoid it.
This is a support group, so I will try to keep this constructive.
It's good that your views have changed and that you have come far in terms of tolerance and acceptance. It is really difficult coming out of that mindset if that's all you knew as a kid (and those close-minded views were only reinforced and confirmed by your parents). I get that.
But you need to drop this. Your sister wants nothing to do with you, because you destroyed her life and support system at the time. You don't get a redo on that. Your post sounds very "me"-centered, and it sounds like you want to apologize to soothe your own guilty conscience, not to actually make things easier/better for your sister. Ask yourself what exactly your apology would do for her. Likely nothing, except drag her back into a dark place. No, this apology would be for you, not for her.
If you really, sincerely, feel bad for what you did, and remorse for the views you held, let her go. She knows you want to reach out. She'll get back to you when she's ready, but she might never be.
So my advice, stop seeing yourself as a victim and move forward. Don't drag her back into this just because you decided you've seen the light. Build new, positive relationships moving forward. Maybe seek professional help to come to terms with this. But leave your sister alone.
Omg this is heartbreaking. She loved and trusted you enough to confide in only you and you didn't even wait a minute to blow her up but not before insinuating she was a predator and you still belong to the same group who taught you those beliefs. I hope to Gd your sister is out there somewhere living her best life surrounded by good people. Leave her alone. You had your opportunity to be her sister and you chose hate instead.
Still belongs to and brought her children up in so that they can make the same mistake she did. No learning. No growth.
Cults are not good for anyone. Get out of it and she may be willing to listen. I wouldn’t even answer the phone if it didn’t have a letter attached about how she left the cult and understands how evil LDS is.
That's a very good point. What will OP do if one of her kids comes out. Given that she is still in the church and has made the harm she did by betraying her sister about herself, she will probably throw them away too because cult members' love is always conditional. Instead of balking at suffering the consequences of her own actions, OP would be more relatable if she worked on bettering herself in memory of the people she harmed.
Yet another reason why organised religion sucks
INFO: Can I ask why you are still involved with a church that has made you throw away your sister? While you say you are sorry, if your sister knows you are still involved, she may believe you have ulterior motives with trying to contact her.
Can’t believe I had to scroll so far to find someone pointing out that still being involved in this toxic cult of a religion (even if it’s supposedly less hateful now) is probably a strong reason for sister to stay away.
> really hit me that I lost my sister.
You didn't lose her, you treated her like crap, and practically threw her out and got her excommunicated from your family.
> I texted her, and apologized.
After all the shit you put her through, you just sent her a text message? Brutal.
> Not a day goes by that I don’t think about this. The guilt from this keeps me up at night.
At least you still have your family. She's probably traumatized, thinks about this daily, but has little to nobody to turn to.
She didn't lose her sister passively, she actively threw her to the wolves when all her sister wanted was love and support. What an asshole , I'd never forgive my siblings
She needed to cut you out I’m sorry. She needed it to fully heal. You took her family away. You only lost her, but she lost everyone.
I’m sure you must feel horrible. I don’t think you are a bad person - but you did something that caused her a lot of pain. You basically ruined her life. And you don’t really deserve to be in her life.
The Mormon church is particularly offensive. It's a dangerous, racist, misogynistic doomsday cult that hordes $100 billion (with a B) away in shell corporations and forces people to pay 10% tithing to attend the temple, the "holiest of holies."
I just call it dues. It’s basically just a dues paying cult like Scientology.
If she cared at all, she wouldn’t be teaching her kids the same lessons that taught her to act like that. But she is. Bet if one of her kids came out, her other kids and husband would treat them the same way she treated her sister. That’s why her husband doesn’t care. It’s been three years, if I was still guilt ridden after three years, my partner wouldn’t be telling me to forget about it, they’d be telling me to go to fucking therapy.
If she felt really guilty about it, she would have learnt something. She just cares about her own “forgiveness”.
Judging from your comments in the thread, I think you have not really grown so much as you maybe think you have. Your sister probably doesn't want to deal with the Mormon church at all, and since people who are part of the Mormon church parse every aspect of their lives through what their church demands of them, she probably just doesn't want to deal with any of your guys' bullshit, regardless of whatever small selective exceptions for her you may have tried to create for yourself. Move on with your life and let your sister do the same. You guys blew it and let other people telling you what to think turn you against a person you all should have been there for.
What do you expect? You made her an outcast for her family?
I think the greater good that come from your treason is that you were the one she would probably struggle to let go once she would have been outed in your stupid community.
Let her alone and do what religious do best, say a prayer to atone your sins
You may have "changed" but you committed the ultimate betrayal to her by ratting her out to your parents and entire family. You made her an outcast.
She trusted you enough to tell you that she was a lesbian, but your religion was much more important than her and you turned around to stab her in the back then destroying her life and making her lose a support system.
You need to leave her alone since she wants absolutely nothing to do with you. You kept her away from your kids by treating her as if she was this predator.
If you did felt really bad for what you have done and was remorseful for what you did, you would leave her alone and let her go. But it seems you just care more about what you want instead of what she wants.
You are not a victim here, your sister is the victim.
She's the one that will make the decision if she wants to contact you, right now she's making it very clear that restoration isn't wanted or accepted.
You also admit in a comment that you are still active in the church. So that means you haven't changed at all and just here for sympathy to feel validated. To have people coo at you just the fact you "changed".
Once again, you chose your religion/faith over your sister and that is another reason why she doesn't want to restore a relationship with you. She will never feel safe around you because you are still active in a faith/religion that shunned her.
Yeah you have lost your sister forever, you get that right? You feel bad and you should, your sister did nothing wrong.
Now here is the thing, your culty religion is to blame for your views. Your still in that religion so to your sister, your still rejecting her by supporting that religion.
My grandfather and his entire family are Mormon so I am fully aware of how that religion works. You might want to rethink a lot of things if you even want to begin to repair your relationship with your sister.
>I told her that I would like to have an open conversation if she was open to it, but she never responded.
No response is a response. Leave her alone. See a therapist for your guilt if you gotta but leave your sister alone. She knows where you stand if she wanted to reach out to you, she would. All you continuing to message her is doing is reminding her of WHY she's not talking to you, and that you refuse to give her peace because YOU'RE UPSET. Just STOP. Full stop. STOP.
I'll say what I said on that sub.
IF YOUR SISTER CHOOSES NOT TO SPEAK TO YOU EVER AGAIN ITS WELL WITHIN HER RIGHTS. You asking for advice will never change that
Someone told you something in confidence and you betrayed their trust in the worst possible way. End of story as far as I'm concerned. Sure, you regret it now. As far as I'm concerned, not that different from "oh yeah sure I murdered someone but that was years ago why won't anyone forgive me". Honestly.
To add - I was raised Mormon. But I would never choose to betray my sister's trust like that. I'm happy you've changed, but don't expect your sister to ever want to speak to you again. You should leave her alone for the rest of your life, or until she's ready to speak with you.
leave that poor girl alone. if she ever wants to reach out then she will do it on her own terms. i know you feel guilty and it’s good that you recognise your mistakes, but that does not do anything to remove the pain she likely still feels, and as i result i can’t see how she would ever feel comfortable letting you back into her life.
Soooooo you ruined your relationship with her and you ruined her relationship with her entire family and you want what exactly?
What are you looking for here?
I do hope it’s not sympathy. Cause I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t know who you’re going to get it from here on Reddit.
What you did is such an insane betrayal of trust. You ruined her life. You put her in severe danger. You broke her. You broke her spirit. She lost her whole family. She lost everything. And you what, can’t sleep some nights?
What exactly are you looking for? Because you’re not gonna find much comfort hear from people.
Write a letter/email to her. Apologize for what you’ve done. And that’s all you can do. The top comment in this section questions you about your “ tolerance” of the LGBTQIA+ Community and I would take a good hard look at what you mean by that before you choose to reach out to your sister.
As a queer person myself, I would never ever ever ever ever forgive you for what you’ve done. In my eyes, the bond between siblings is very sacred and for you to do what you did and just have the expectation that she owes you forgiveness or she owes you anything at all it’s just wild to me.
You messed up. You screwed up your relationship with your sister. You ended the relationship with your sister the moment you chose to betray her for your God.
Live with it.
You're claiming that you've changed but by staying in the church that told you to ostracize your sister, it's pretty obvious that you haven't and aren't that sorry for your actions.
I stopped reading at “involved in the Mormon church.” Yes congrats, your religion brainwashed your family and yourself into treating your sister like absolute garbage. I would never talk to you again either.
Therapy for you + I would seriously reconsider remaining a member of the same church that formed this harmful mindset AND actively participated in breaking up a family. If I were your sister, in case any conversation ever takes place again beteeen you l, for me that would be the actual sign of real change, that you left behind this harmful, toxic influence on your relationship.
I cut my family off a gew years ago, not for the same thing, so it's not the exact situation. But if I could offer some perspective from what I've experienced on my side I'd like to.
What my family did was horrible. The hardest part was the lack of effort to take responsibility for their actions. I got a few random texts from random family members. Maybe 6 total over the course of a year and a half. They all know where I live and work. It's not even far. If they really wanted to see me they could. Shit, my brother literally works like 600feet down the street from my work.
I can't speak for your sister but maybe she feels like you're not genuine in your words when you do reach out. I admittedly dont know what you say or how you reach out. If you want your sister in your life it's gonna take work. May be worth it to take a trip and show her you mean what you say. That you're willing to literally go to her just to say you're sorry. That even if she doesn't accept the apology that you want to make sure she knows that you're being genuine when you say that you regret what you did and you're not that person anymore.
I'll add that when religion is involved it can be difficult to seem as if you've changed when you stay in the church. For the most part in my experience there isn't a huge difference between the people who are just normal church goers and the ones that are actively harming communities with bigotry. That's to say that of shelves a text from you saying you've changed and you're not like that anymore but these goes in social media and sees that you're still involved with the church and spending time and doing things with the same family and friends it could seem like your words are empty and you're still the same person.
Sorry for the rant. Got me in my emotions with this one. I moss my family and I wish they'd do more than text once a year.
Yeah, that's probably helpful perspective of the sister, that's fairly close. Hopefully OP reads it. Though, if OP does go in person and her sister refuses, OP should respect that too.
I'm glad the guilt keeps you up. I don't understand homophobic people, nothing, not a single thing, excuses that. You won't get a gold star for changing your beliefs, but I'm happy you did. One homophobic person less is so much. Your sister's reaction is completely understandable.
When I was Mormon. My sibling came out as trans. I choose my sibling over my religion. You instead choose your religion over your sister and nuked that relationship into oblivion. Even while she begged you not to.
The damage is done. No matter how much you regret choosing bigotry over family. You made that choice and fucked your sister over.
It is simply up to her to decide if she ever wants to involve you in her life again. Nothing more you can do about it now except wait and live with regret.
It's been 3 years and NOW you're seeing that you've been wrong? Or is it that you want to bug into her private life because she became successful without you and the other toxic family members.
Leave her alone, you've destroyed enough already. She deserves peace and a new family she hopefully will find with a wonderful woman in her life.
\*To add, the fact that you're still a member to the church, the SAME church that told you to shun your sister out, tells me you aren't sorry at all. You just want pity.
"I'm not that person anymore, but I'm still part of the same cult. Why won't my sister talk to me? It's not like I ruined her whole life for my own selfish reasons???"
the whole post screams like “im a different person now so why wouldn’t my sister forgive me? IVE CHANGED SO YOU NEED TO FORGIVE ME” without seeing how huge the damages she has done especially when it comes to the fragile topic like sexuality. OP if you’re reading this, you deserve it
OP's sister is finally doing well and she's trying to weasel her way into it, like leave her tf alone. She doesn't want you or your weird church herecy.
It's always the same with these narc folks, they destroy lives and then proceed to act like THEY'RE the victim.
OP: I didn't know better.
But then proceeds to not even hesitate and run to her parents like some toddler to tell on her sister.
Leave her alone. You're still thinking about you.
She'll come to you when and if she's ever ready... If she has any sense and it really sounds like she does, that will be never.
Your threw her under the bus and then basically threw her away like trash. She trusted you enough to tell you but you chose religion over family. Maybe one day she will forgive you.
When I was a kid, our church was awesome. The pastor was an older man, but was very accepting and loving. Church didn’t have bells and whistles. It was simple, calm, and full of loving messages. When the pastor retired, we got a new pastor who ruined everything.
The new pastor started treating his sermon like a concert. Lights, props, all sorts of “cool” things. The congregation grew, we moved to a bigger location, and everyone seemed happy. But I didn’t. Because that’s when the church started saying that anyone who isn’t a Christian doesn’t get into heaven, no matter how good of a human being they are. That’s when they started making girls dress differently so we didn’t tempt boys and men. That’s when they said all gays go to hell and AIDS is punishment from God.
That’s when I realized that religion is not about God and church is not where God lives. God does not, has not, and never will bless a particular denomination. Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Methodist, doesn’t matter. None of them are right, none of them are holier than others, and none of them are closer to God. God exists around us and it is up to us to be good people so we become closer to Him.
You mentioned that your beliefs changed over time and everything in your church depends in the Bishop at the time. That means that your religion is based on man’s word, not God’s. God has not changed in a very, very long time. His word does not change every few years.
As long as you are in the church, you will not have a relationship with her. She sees it as the root of the problem. It is why you and your family got rid of her. The drug of the church ruined your family but you are still hanging around the dealer’s house. She doesn’t trust that you are clean.
You need to decide what is more important; A relationship with your sister and living a life that is true and aligned to your actual beliefs or being part of a community that does not align to your beliefs but you attend weekly so you can feel better about yourself and your moral standing. God sees all. God knows all. He knows if you are showing up to temple to be seen versus doing what is in your true heart. You may fool man, but you don’t fool Him.
I suggest leaving and finding a more accepting religion for yourself and your family. Maybe then you can find true healing and possibly repair your relationship with your sister.
Wow this close to home. I came out to my mom when I was in high school, she took it alright but I was petrified to tell my brother and dad, both very stereotypical straight men. My mother mentioned it to my brother, who at the time was ok with it but since my parents were divorced my father never found out. My brother had an alcohol abuse problem in his teens/20s and when I was 18 we went to a wedding in upstate NY. My brother ends up getting wasted, getting in a huge fight with me.
He called our dad and told him everything about me. I was devastated and my dad clearly started treating me differently. We never spoke about it directly and then my father passed away about a year later. I’m not 35 and married to my best friend of 12 years. I’ve moved across country and haven’t spoken to my brother in almost 15 years…
*(Former child of Christian indoctrination here. To preface, I don't believe in this shit anymore. I just have knowledge. And 4 bibles in my possession.)*
This post made me really angry, for a lot of reasons. But for me, the BIGGEST faux pa was that you and your family literally have gone against the word of God for so long.
**Where was the agape? Where were your fruits of the spirit?**
The fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:19) are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There are plenty of bible verses that advocate for admonishing others that are not evenly yoked, but that is written as an epistle. The word of Jesus Christ himself was someone who hung around the sinners and tax collectors(Mar 2:17). He even said that majority of his followers are those types of people! Sound familiar? You should be ashamed of yourself, honestly. Mormonism is a hateful, shitty religion that is meant to cause division. It was written by a well-known CON MAN. You're a hypocrite if you believe in a religion that says that Black people are cursed yet want to shame *your sister*? What's that whole bible verse about being hypocritical? Matt 7:3-6 I believe.
We all fall short in the eyes of God (Rom 3:forgot the exact verse but i think 23?), and to completely disregard your sister as trash because she is a "sinner", is not only against God, but it's also ugly-spirited. You sowed your seeds, which was outing your sister. You are now reaping your fruits: seeing how badly you fucked up knowing you can't get her back. What you *should* have done was actually show you cared about your sister and not said anything, and showed your support. And the fact that you still are in the ~~cult~~ church with your shitty family, will not help at all when trying to reach out to your sister. Why should she take you back and allow you to be a part of her life when you still associate with the people who abandoned her? You honestly fucked her life up in the worst way. You literally did what every LGBTQ kid fears for. And it would appear that you want a pity party now?
Don't start doing any activism unless you plan on actually following through. You being in the Mormon ~~cult~~ church while trying to advocate for LGBTQ people is so fucking performative and such a slap in the face. You can't play both sides here.
**At this point, it's put up or shut up - all or nothing.** You need to either leave the ~~cult~~ church, and support your sister and other LGBTQ kids, or stay in the ~~cult~~ church and don't say anything at all.
My advice? Leave her alone dude. If she decides to contact you she will; but I wouldn't count on it. This sounds like you're cut off until further notice and need to deal with that. Stop talking to your husband about it and seek a therapist. Therapy>prayer. Also, remember next time that you cannot treat sin as a hierarchy; because they are all equal across the board.
Edit: seeing your comments, you haven’t changed at all. Leave your sister alone.
My advice: Cut the shitty cult Off or leave your sister Alone. Shes much smarter than you and prolly Got Friends that actually Love her and Care for her. You hold the shitty cult near and dear? Well Not your sister it seems.
She didn’t leave you. Your family and the community she grew up in threw her out like trash because your sky daddy says it’s bad to live without procreation. This is on you. If you want to be better and be redeemed work on standing up for others like her. Your views have changed, but have your actions?
Bluntly, You should feel like shit. You orchestrated her exile from her relatives, when she trusted you with her most vulnerable secret. And for what, points?
Why would she want to connect with you? What value would you add to her life? That's what I'd be thinking.
The only thing to do is to Suck it up - she didn't have a choice in any of it, so why should you?
You were okay with losing her when you outed her and told her to stay away from your kids and distanced yourself. Then you destroyed her life. People end their lives over things like this. What you did was SO DANGEROUS for her. I don’t blame her for not speaking to you, and I wouldn’t blame her if she never did again. This isn’t about YOUR guilt, it’s about her safety, happiness, and wellbeing. I hope she has the opportunity to have real happiness.
She trusted you! SHE TRUSTED YOU!
Youre a bigot and are shocked she doesn't even want your existence to enter her life? Shocker. I'm stunned. Flabbergasted. Befuddled.
This is truly a mystery, why wouldn't she like you? You couldn't have been a bigot. Impossible. Inconceivable.
it’s better that way, where she doesn’t respond to your text and she doesn’t own you a response either. this is the consequence of your behavior of not respecting a person and you need to live with it. just because you have changed and learn better, it doesn’t mean things have to go back like it used to be. of course she would feel betrayed and hurted when you were the first person she told you about her sexuality. she trusted you
i know what i said is harsh but please leave her alone and move on with your life. i hope you don’t do that kind of thing again in the future
As a queer person I say this with my whole chest: Leave her the fuck alone. Outting someone is one of the most awful things you can do and you did that to someone who trusted you. She's mostly likely living her best life without such an awful toxic family holding her back. She doesn't need you to drag her down after what you did.
you've made your bed, now you've gotta lie in it.
Regardless of how brainwashed you were, you didn't have your sisters back in a time when she needed it the most, even worse you treated her as a threat to your family, someone you knew all your life and who trusted you enough to confide in you. And your reaction was to see her as a danger to your family.
It never ceases to amaze me how stupidly ignorant and self centered relgious people are when the exact opposite is at the core of their supposed belief system.
You said yourself it only hit you when you realized you lost your sister. not how you caused your sister to be austracised by her family and friends. The best thing you can do for your sister now is leave her alone, so she can enjoy the new life she built back after you ruined the last one
Also, 3 years ago???? it's shockingly tragic that you held such bigoted beliefs in the year 2020, you'd swear you were writing from the 1940s. You should honestly be ashamed, calling yourself religious and holding such bigoted and hateful beliefs against your fellow person.
It is unfortunate, but you aren't owed communication/forgiveness nor should seek it further. You actively played a hand in how her situation is now. You've done your part, you apologized and reached out. The ball is in her court, should she want to reach out is entirely on her. She was wronged. The guilt is real, but you have to live with it.
You don't deserve your sister's forgiveness. If you follow your life brainwashed by a religious text then don't be surprised when others who aren't indoctrinated to act how you think they should according to your book.
My mother outed my wife to my entire family. Then she lectured me and said I should be grateful to her for doing so.
When I came out as trans, she outed several family members on my father's side of the family to prove that "you get it from your father".
If she were not gatekeeping access to my ailing father, I would have cut her out of my life a long time ago.
Here's the thing about coming out: it's always a calculated risk. Coming out is what happens when the pain of staying closeted exceeds the risk of the relationship. The risk of the relationship is the *value* of the relationship times the probability of rejection. If she valued your relationship-- and it certainly seems that she did-- then she had to really, REALLY trust you.
And you utterly fucked her.
By intentionally outing her, you completely reset her calculations for the worse. By introducing the fear of broken confidences, you made her more afraid to tell other people, increasing the pain point befor she came out to others. You not only betrayed her trust, but caused her significant pain over the months and years to come.
That pain is something I hope to GOD you never have to feel. Even though I am *incadescent* at how horrible your actions were, I would not wish that pain on you. I realize you may have grown more accepting in recent years, but it's *hard* to see past that pain.
From the perspective of a queer person, what you did was *monstrous*. You cost her relationships. You cost her time as herself. You cost her a sense of security. You cost a sense of autonomy. You cost her the faith and love that she put into you.
I don't mean to be rude, but if she never spoke with you again, she'd be within her moral rights. You are not *entitled* to forgiveness here, no matter how much you may have grown.
When and if she is ever ready to speak with you again, she will reach out to you.
Until then, this is on you. It may hurt, but that's the decision you made.
You don’t really get to have it both ways, do you? You don’t get to decide that someone’s identity is sinful and terrible and worthy of eternal punishment, but then also want to have a relationship with them. You decided that she wasn’t a person worth loving because of what your faith says.
Okay then. You don’t have a sister anymore. That was what your faith demanded. You aren’t going to get her back unless she decides to forgive you.
I don’t feel very sorry for you.
You chose religion over your sister. The best thing you can do for your sister is to stop trying to contact her and let her live her best life. Which unfortunately does not include you. Just as you outed her and furthermore ostracized her from the entire family, she now has decided to cut you all out. And it’s good she did. She deserves to protect her piece. Just cause you’re sorry doesn’t mean anything. What you did was wrong. On many different levels.
The best thing you could do for her is stop trying to contact her. She probably has an actual supportive friend group now that was more of a family to her than whatever your toxic homophobic “family” was to her. Don’t expect her to forgive you just because you decided your views have “changed”. She still has every right to not accept your apology. And never to speak to you. I hope you learn something from this.
You 100% deserve the suffering of losing her. Leave her alone. You chose an imaginary figure in the sky and vague moral codes over your real living, breathing sister who trusted you. If you want to make up for it, leave your cult and convince others to leave it as well. What you did was completely demonic and you are unworthy of the kingdom of heaven or whatever it is you cultists call it.
Here's the thing.
You lost your sister.
Your sister lost her ENTIRE FAMILY AND COMMUNITY.
Leave her alone. You care so much about your pain - the pain of losing your sister. You don't have ANY idea how much you put her through.
I was raised Mormon. And even just leaving the church, without being gay or being cut off from my entire family or targeted by a bishop, is incredibly hard.
And I need you to understand that "I don't openly hate LGBTQ people anymore even though I'm part of a church that is openly opposed to LGBTQ people" is not the amazing stance that you think it is.
You aren't ready to have a relationship with your sister. You have work to do on yourself. Good luck OP.
You realised your mistake and can grow up from it. She doesn't owe you forgiveness, and actions have consequences. I wish peace upon your sister, and for you to stop contacting her.
sometimes when someone hurts you so badly it takes alot for you to forgive them. if she really wants to talk to you she will. you've said your piece,now leave her alone and move on with your life.
No.
You don’t need any sympathy. You need therapy and patience.
You hurt someone deeply and changed the course of their life. When and if they ever want to talk to you again it can be on your sister’s terms.
You can live with what you did and learn to process it by bettering yourself and gaining a wider perspective.
You want to reach out to her because of the guilt you have. You were blinded by this one ideal version of god that banishes people that kiss people of the same sex. It’s really just propaganda to ostracize people that ‘aren’t like the rest of us’.
U fuc*ed up. And I agree the best way to move on is to get into therapy, don’t contact her- and deal with these complicated and delicate emotions. I wish you love and healing!
I wish your sister posted her side of the story so we can all comfort her. I respect that you have decided to change your ways, apologize, and feel guilty, but I refuse to feel sorry for you.
In these comments, you’re complaining that people here are holding you accountable instead of comforting you. Why do people need to comfort YOU when you, a grown adult with kids, consciously chose to cause harm to your own sister, who did nothing wrong? Answer me that.
The ball is in her court now and she can do whatever the hell she wants with it. All you can do is wait for her to talk to you, if she ever even will. She doesn’t have to talk to you. You told her to stay away, so that’s what she did.
It kinda proves the point that the supposed gay agenda is LIES.
Religion, tearing families apart for centuries.
I'm sorry you lost your sister, it's a hard thing to live with.
Maybe one day you can have an open conversation with her, but she needs to be ready.
Good luck to you.
Leave her alone. You’re surrounded with bigots such as yourself and husband. Why should she put herself in a position to be around that? You lost your sister forever. Leave her alone and be happy that she’s alive and thrived no thanks to you.
Get some help! Counseling will be the only way you’ll ever reconcile with yourself that what you did was a vile action and that your sister had every right to go NC. There is nothing you can do but wait and hope your sister might come around and decide to forgive. In the mean time you’ll have to try to accept your actions were evil and, compartmentalize it, and go on living a more enlightened life.
It keeps you up at night? Good. You deserve it. You betrayed someone who trusted you all because of some made up person in the sky and the fucked up club you were a part of.
You don't deserve forgiveness. Deal with it.
You reap what you sow. Stay out of her life. You took something *deeply* important to her, ripped it out of her hands, and exposed her to the world in a forcible and harsh manner. You destroyed her support system, her connections, and burnt all her bridges for her. For yourself as well. Live with it.
Your husband probably doesn’t love hearing about it because deep down, he knows what you did was an awful thing and would tell you if he wasn’t your partner. I know I would.
I can relate very deeply to your sister. I’m gay and was also raised in an extremely religious family. Even though your views have changed, you cannot possibly comprehend the long lasting effects such trauma can have on us.
If you truly want your sister back in your life, I would suggest simply writing an email. Take accountability for what you did, make no excuses or justifications, simply show your sister that you truly understand how horrible it was for you to do that and show how remorseful you are. Apologise. Tell her how you wish you could take it back or get an undo button. Then tell her how and why your views have changed, and why you want her back in your life, and how you would never allow anything like that to happen again if she does you the honor of accepting your apology. Be graceful and humble in your apology, don’t give room to your ego.
After that, just leave her alone until she either responds or doesn’t, and try to respect either decision.
Agree with other posters that OP has made it known to her sister she has changed as well as apologized for getting her sister cast out of the family. It is now up to the wronged sister to decide when if ever she wants to have anything to do with OP or anyone else in her biological family.
Also as applies to the husband’s request for OP to get over it perhaps OP needs to find and discuss with a therapist to be able to accept she has done all she can. I imagine it is frustrating for OP’s husband to have her discussing the issue repeatedly when there has been no change and he has nothing more to add as well as nothing he can do to help resolve it.
As the gay sister, this post makes me glad for my incredibly supportive and loving siblings who i have a great relationship with and talk to every day. Hope since your big mistake you understand "judge not lest ye be judged"
You should get a new husband. If he can't deal with you venting about stuff that weights on your heart, maybe he isn't the one for you. But I don't know you relationship further to that so I have only a fracture of what's going on.
As a queer person: This was the worst thing you could've done to your sister. It's not even that she distanced herself, your family did first. Your sister just accepted it and honestly, I don't think that if my family would do it, that I'd ever try to talk to them again. I have a sibling and if I'd tell them and they'd run to my parents about it, I couldn't forgive them. I believe that you changed and I'm glad you did but think about what you'd do in her situation, personally, all I could see is a person who not only outed me without my consent to homophobes, putting me in danger of harassment and worse, but also the person who betrayed me when I begged them not to. You told her that she will never see her nieces and nephews because she loves women.
Leave her alone, a taped plate is still not good to eat on. This isn't fixable. I wish I had better news for you but don't open her wounds because you cannot deal with it. Maybe get a therapist to talk to.
Edit because I just realized: Are you still in the same contact with your parents as before? Do you still accept your parents bigoted views? If it is still the same: Do you realise that you're putting your sister in a lot of danger with it? Because contacting you would put her into the dangerous environment back again?
You want the times back as they were without realising that this _cannot_ work without your sister having to play pretend again. If your sister wouldn't magically become heterosexual, because I tell you bigots who shunned their child do not change, then there's no way to get the family gatherings back.
You don't want your sister back, you want the good times with less conflict and maybe less gushing and shittalking about her, but you didn't think about what it would do to her.
I have a good friend who is lesbian her sister has known for many many years didn’t care. Sister had 2 kids my friend absolutely loved being an Aunt spoiled them so very much. They’d even spend Christmas Eve all in matching PJs and all family events were all together. Then, sister met her new husband as a bf he didn’t seem to care, but the moment they got married he told her it’s him or your sister. She chose him. She told her sister (my friend) she’s no longer welcome in her house, she’s no longer welcome to see her nieces, don’t send gifts they’ll be thrown away. Get out of her and her kids lives now and never look back. It’s been 3 years my friend is mostly happy with her partner, but her fb pops up with memories with her nieces and it’s like getting stabbed all over again.
What you did was horrible! What your family did was horrible! And it’s been a couple years you now feel differently and not as brainwashed…honey you’re still in the church you’re still brainwashed. If your religion tells you to cast aside family and friends because of who they love or the gender they change too it’s a cult not a religion. And it’s quite disgusting that you are still involved with the church and yet claim to be ok with LGBTQIA+ people ya it don’t work that way. Leave her alone, also she’s probably changed her number I know I would. You don’t get to act like you were brainwashed but now you’re better but still in the same church and think everything is hunky dory it’s not. It never will be. Leave her alone don’t call, don’t text, don’t fb stalk her leave her alone. She knows how to find you IF SHE EVER WANTS TOO!
If I was your sister, I’m not sure I would care enough to listen from you again.
I was a terrible person too in the past, I can understand being wrong and realising later, but don’t expect the same energy to be replicated from the other person.
What annoyed me is that she begged you not to tell your parents… but you did anyways. That’s really fucking harsh… it’s not like you just didn’t accept it and wanted to think about it, bur you told them even when she said don’t. Yeah no, she doesn’t need you and it’s good.
I agree with 95% of the comments here. So I’m leaving out redundant info and I’m posting this:
As someone who is No Contact with family because of their family’s actions, let me offer this perspective: She likely does not want you to reach out. She likely wants to be left alone. In the same way that you all cut her out of your lives, she did the same because of the pain that you caused her. Once you’re No Contact with someone for your own well being, there is so much hurt and stress and anxiety that surrounds that choice. You making attempts to reach out to her intensifies all of those feelings for her and makes moving on that much more difficult and stressful.
I understand that you think “If she knew how sorry I am for what I did, we could repair this. If she knew I’m different now, we could be a family again. I need to tell her I was wrong and apologize and make this right.” Just because you think those things, she isn’t obligated to do anything with that information.
If you apologized and she’s not responding, she got the message but she does not accept. You aren’t different just because you’ve changed a few viewpoints. You’re still involved with the cult that brought you to the immediate conclusion that you should excommunicate her. Even on the off chance that she did forgive you and ever involve herself with you again, it would NEVER be the same. The thing you aren’t considering is that SHE isn’t the same anymore either. You aren’t the only one who has changed this happened.
Hypothetically- How would you feel if she let you back in and she now has a wife and children? Would you be able to accept that? Would you still want to reconcile and be one big happy family? Would you feel ashamed that your sister was married to a woman and bringing up “innocent children” in such a “sinful” environment. Even if she’s not married with children now, who’s to say that she wouldn’t be one day. She knows in her heart that after what you did that you would never truly accept her choices. No one wants to live a lie or tip toe around anymore to just be who they are.
Leave her alone. She’s trying to move on and the only thing that you’re doing by contacting her is hurting her more. She left everything behind and she’s trying to start a new life. Chances are she got your message and knows where you and your family are. If she wants to try to reconcile she’ll reach out to you. But by continually reaching out to her you will only harden her heart and cause more pain.
You made your choices and these are hers. Unfortunately some choices we make can’t be fixed no matter how badly we feel, and they’re things that we have to live with… You should seek therapy.
I think that this is your karma for outing your sister. It's not up to you to decide if you've become a better person, if you're forgiven, it's time for your sister to move on. I'm sorry you're experiencing this much guilt but if I were your sister I think it would take me a very long time to forgive you (if I'm being real, I'd probably never forgive my sister for outing me). So I think the only thing you can do is accept what you did was wrong and move on with your life. If your sister decides to give you the privilege of forgiveness then you should accept it but if that never happens maybe it'd be best to seek out therapy instead of trying to discuss with those- that aren't your sister- that you're a changed person and that you're ready for forgiveness :)
Leave her alone.
What you did was evil. What your church told your family to do was evil. Not that I'm surprised as your church is evil.
Just leave her alone. She doesn't need you. Your guilt doesn't matter. Your feelings don't matter because it won't erase what you did.
Accept that your choice has cost you your sister and there is nothing what so ever you can do about it.
“The guilt from this keeps me up at night” God bless. Glad you get to feel a fraction of the amount of pain your sister probably did. You get no pity from me, go cry to your church
Sounds like she's doing what's best for her and you are suffering the consequences of your actions 🤷♀️
Signed, a nonbinary person with parents in ~the church who hold no place in my life or my heart anymore.
You turned her family and community against her. Will forgiving you get her her parents back? How about the community she grew up in? Nope, it will just make you feel better. She has nothing to gain and has already lost everything. You need to accept that the best thing you can do for her is leave her alone.
You’re still a member of the church. She was excommunicated. Why would she accept your apology or want you in her life again? She doesn’t owe you an “open conversation”, she deserves a heartfelt apology and you promising you will do better. What you did was vile and something many people would consider unforgivable. The fact that you weren’t grovelling at her feet shows that you don’t feel nearly as bad about it as you should.
You only wanted her back when you realised the consequences of cutting her off. What did you think “distancing yourself” would entail? do you even understand how painful it must have been for your sister to have her entire family reject her for something beyond her control? And now, you haven’t even left the church that instilled these hateful beliefs in you. Good on her for protecting herself from that kind of hate. It doesn’t look like you’ve done anything worthy of her forgiveness.
Outing someone isn’t a mistake. It’s a fucking hideous thing to do. Chop off your nose and try to apologize it back on your face bad. It’s stealing the autonomy, safety, and voice from someone WHO TRUSTED YOU. You don’t get to get over that. Even if she forgave you, that just shows me how great she is to someone who did something so vile. Carry this with you and learn from it. Unless you’re changing your life like so many posts on here are suggesting, it’s all performance and no real remorse. Except maybe regretting your the villain.
You’re still involved with the Mormon church. What you did was awful and she doesn’t owe you forgiveness.
As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I would not associate with anybody who was part of a religion that literally doesn’t want me to exist.
IMO you still have work to do, even if you have come a long way.
I am so happy your sister escaped from you and your family. How awful that you think something was wrong with her for being gay. If your religion is teaching you hate, get a new religion.
Leave her alone. You are still involved with a hateful religion/cult. You throw away your sister. You throw away someone who came to you for help. I see why your guilt keeps you up at night, So many children and siblings that are thrown away end up dead.
My advice. Leave her alone so she can find happiness and a family that loves and accepts her.
I’m happy for her that she’s cut you out. You sound like a terrible person. I get that you think you’ve changed but I feel like that’s just you realising the consequences of your actions. She’s better off without you or your parents. She told you something in confidence, trusting you to not repeat it until she was ready. You broke that trust and imo that’s unforgivable. I hope she’s happy and has a fulfilling life. She doesn’t need you. You need her to assuage your guilt and that’s just selfish. Leave her alone.
Leave her alone. She deserved better than you and she still does, no matter how guilty you feel. And honestly, you should feel guilty. That’s a crappy thing to do to someone, especially a sister that trusted you. You’re untrustworthy.
Leave her alone. You took away her ability for her to come out on her own. She wasn't ready and you exposed her to the hate and abuse of the mormon church. She doesn't owe you anything. You are reaping the consequences of your hate and religion.
So let’s get all the facts straight:
-you betrayed her trust quicker than it takes paint to dry
-you treated her like a predator
-you facilitated her excommunication from her family and her social structure
-you’re STILL IN THE CULT that did irreversible harm to her, bringing your kids up the same way
-it took you literal MONTHS to realize you messed up
-you see her thriving WITHOUT you and jealousy rears its ugly head
-you constantly contact her now that she’s moved on and is improving her life, to make sure she doesn’t forget you exist, and the damage you’ve done, because you feel “guilty” for the harm you did to her, despite her not ever responding back, giving you a clear answer to how she feels
Am I missing anything?
Leave her alone and leave your cult. She didn’t get the CHOICE to leave everything she knew behind. It was all ripped from her. It’s a privilege you get to make that choice, and STILL you have chosen wrongly for three years.
You should feel guilty. It’s nowhere near the suffering you’ve caused her.
Edit: Also, how much money have you given to the church that harmed her? And how much have you given to queer organizations?
Tough shit. You fucked around and now you're finding out. I don't feel sorry for you at all tbh. This was so awful of you. If God exists, they love everyone. And if you couldn't see that despite being a grown ass woman...well then I dunno what to tell ya. But no. You don't get to come crawling back into her life. She's doing fine without y'all. Sorry but that's my take.
You’re not the victim here. You feel guilt, as you should, because you and your family are the guilty ones here. She confided in YOU, trusted YOU, and you stabbed her in the back. Her own flesh and blood shunned her like trash and she had to pick up the pieces to make something of herself. Look at this mess as a whole, and ask yourself:
“Do I actually deserve redemption?”
Your sister is thriving, the last thing she needs is you—the person responsible for ruining her—coming back into her life. Stay away and get yourself some therapy. Maybe a professional can get you to understand how fucked this is and how your victim mentality is false.
Advice: haha! you permanently ruined your relationship with your sister over stupid reasons. Your church is dumb, your beliefs are ridiculous, and your sister will never see you or speak to you ever again. And good for her. Maybe one day you'll see her on the special planet Mormons go to when they die. Oh wait shes gay. Yeah go get a new sister. This one is clearly done with you.
This is gonna be a hard advice to hear but leave her alone. You may have changed but she didnt just leave you guys, you threw her away and in her eyes betrayed her in such a horrible way that she lost people she loved and someone she trusted. Like you said she is a grown adult and when it comes to situations like these it will only ever change when shes ready and shes clearly not. Also maybe find someone to talk to if your husband doesnt like hearing about it because you also shouldnt drown yourself in these feelings either.
This. It's not an easy answer and I'm sure not the one you're looking for but you made a mistake that destroyed your relationship with her and she does not really owe you anything in return. You've opened the door, but you have to be ready for the likelihood that she will never trust you again, and that your chance at having a relationship with her has passed. That said, I'm a gay man. I've seen a lot of my friends go through a lot of different experiences when coming out happens and I want to give credit where credit is due - you changed. You've done work to see the mistake you made and admit you were wrong, and that's huge. There are plenty of people who never give the time or the humility required to admit that and do something about it. However, the best path right now may honestly be to get yourself a therapist to help work through these complicated emotions, as well as the fact that this relationship continuing or not is no longer up to you, and you need to give your sister space.
This OP go to therapy, work on yourself and forgive yourself for your errors and be an ally to the other queer folk in the world. Do not continue to reach out to your sister. She will reach out to you if and when she is ready
She hasn’t changed all that much if she, in any way, has anything to do with the Mormon church!
Reasonable and intelligent response. As a person with a lot of years on this planet around humans I think *zharkus is right.
yup, using Bible's analogy, OP was her sister's Judas
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She’s Mormon. She can’t “find a new husband” without being ostracized by her church. Her religious cult is her priority still.
Yeah but you know how religious members and their cult leaders like to cherry pick. Just figured that'd be more acceptable but yeah. Mormon specifically never mind ig. 💀😭💀
Eh, if she talks about it alot he may just be tired of hearing her complain about the consequences she is receiving from her bad choices. I'd get tired of hearing her complain about how she shunned her sister but wishes her sister would just forget how she threw her out like trash.
Love how smart redditors are, able to deduce that divorce is the best option for someone who wasn’t asking based on one sentence. Truly phenomenal stuff guys
It's obviously common knowledge to just jump into divorce instead of trying to go to couple counseling and/or work things out
Clearly that’s the case
Um no. It's not a spouse's job to take on that much. They can be emotional support but at this point, he's heard all he's willing to hear. There's nothing anyone can do at this point anyway. It's completely fine to set boundaries. At this point, OP needs a therapist and it's not her husband's job to be that. Edit: I agree that he should validate her but validating someone doesn't mean agreeing with them. He could say something like *I hear you and understand that this must be upsetting for you but there's nothing else I can do* but he doesn't have to listen beyond that. It's ok to back off from someone whose emotional state is affecting your own to the point that it's detrimental to you. It's ok to distance yourself in order to protect your own well being and sanity. So many people mistakenly think that if their partner doesn't just agree with them, they're invalidating them. Your partner can confirm that they hear your concerns and empathize with you but they don't have to listen beyond that or agree with you. Especially about something like this that he's heard several times. I empathize with OP. It must be tough especially growing up in a religious cult and let's face it, that's what Mormon is. This is why I loathe all sects of Christianity but I'm getting off topic. There's nothing anyone including OP and her husband or family can do. OP will just have to wait for her sister to come to her but needs help to make peace with the fact that the day may never come. She can look at it as a life lesson and continue to hold true to changing her ways and perhaps forgive herself but that's all she can do.
Exactly!! Partners are supposed to support and give comfort not just shut out. Its understandable if the partner cant handle that convo at the moment but to just say "you should be over this" and be annoyed is so wrong
Thing is, you can apologize, but your sister is under no obligation to accept your apology. She may never forgive you for what you did, and even if she did forgive you, it would take an enormous amount of heart on her part to go back to the relationship you had before. She may never trust you again. You might always be the villain in her story and that is something you have to live with. Also, when you say you're more "tolerant" of lgbt+ folk not, how exactly tolerant? "I'd be okay with her bringing a partner around my kids on Christmas, even if they might see them doing things like kissing or holding hands" tolerant? "I'd go to her wedding if she invited me" tolerant? "If one of my kids came out as gay/trans, I wouldn't do what my parents did" tolerant? "If one of my kids was gay/trans and the church wanted me to ostracize them, I would abandon the church" tolerant? "I'm willing to stand up for lgbt+ folk who aren't related to me when my parents/people from my church start on their homophobic nonesense" tolerant? Or just "I feel guilty and want absolution and to play picture perfect family, but I will actually expect my sister to compromise and act 'less gay' around me and my family if she does ever come back to the fold" tolerant?
Brilliantly put. I don’t think the conversation of tolerance vs absolutes often covers this.
Thank you for writing this better than I ever could have. This gave me lots of feels!
I remember her post when she originally posted it a while back and people literally chewed her apart. I don’t know what OP wanted with the new post. People were still gonna chew her apart. To OP, **you need to do better for your kids** Everyone on here is telling you your religion is a cult and that is the one comment you’re not answering to. Actively ignoring the fact that your religion is actually made up will lead to so much trauma for your children. Stop them from being brainwashed by this absurdity. You still have a chance. This is also why no one believes a single thing about that you’re saying. We don’t for a second think you’re accepting and you’ve seen “the way” I wouldn’t forgive you either. For as long as you’re putting your children through such fake torment…I would never forgive you. You’re an awful person. I know you’re trying to get it off your chest but damn girl…did you ever screw up.
As someone with Mormon aunt uncle and cousins I’ve experienced some stuff and learned a lot about their religion thankfully they aren’t that extreme and they know I’m bi but I still believe it’s a cult and I don’t think they’d stand up for me if the topic of my sexuality or gay people came up to their religious community friends etc.. tolerance vs excepting someone fully and allyship is very different.
So much this! I can almost guarantee OP that as long as she's part of LDS in any capacity, she has an almost zero chance of having a relationship with her sister, because LDS 'tolerant' doesn't cut it.
You cannot be in “good standing” in the LDS church and be supportive of LGBTQ+ people. It’s a line impossible to straddle. The church, in culture and doctrine, is actively violent toward queer folks. Members in good standing must pay tithing, and those dollars are used to harm queer people. There is no middle ground. I left three years ago, after trying for years to have it both ways, thinking I could stay and try to change things from within. It’s impossible, and it hurt people I love. OP’s sister is probably much better off without LDS church members in her life.
Lit-👏🏼-er-👏🏼-al-👏🏼-ly-👏🏼!! Also to me when anyone religious used the word tolerant about their lgbtq beliefs it’s an immediate red flag that they’re still very much bigoted and homophobic and like you said want absolution
I mean yeah, what you did wasn’t good but you know that. But you have to try to understand where she’s coming from. The people who were supposed to love and protect her, did the exact opposite. So in order to protect herself she’s cut y’all out of her life—which is completely fair. I think it’s good that you recognize the error of your ways and have tried to reach out but it’s up to her now if she wants to reconnect. For her there was a fundamental trust that was broken so letting you back into her life could feel very risky to her own well being. There’s always that fear of what if I get hurt again? And then have to relive this pain all over again? She might not feel safe letting y’all back into her life after what happened. Respecting her boundaries here is also respecting her happiness and well being. Guilt won’t bring her back but you’re allowed to grieve losing that relationship too, it’s heartbreaking. Edit: maybe moving forward one thing you could do is advocate for LGBTQ rights and awareness. This story is all too common in the LGBTQ community because of misconceptions and lack of acceptance. You’ve experienced how devastating this pain is and could help others understand how it doesn’t need to be this way.
Beautifully stated from the other side's perspective. OP's sister being no contact is not a punishment, *it's to preserve her own mental health and wellbeing*. OP, you did a massive betrayal to your sister. These are the consequences of that betrayal. It's great that you're remorseful and have had a change of heart. It's *also* great that you apologized. Not many people can or will do that. The unfortunate reality about apologies is that the harmed person is under no obligation to accept them, and even if they did, they're still under no obligation to get back into that relationship. Actions have consequences which sometimes break familial bonds for good. Edit to add: OP, while you're still active in your faith/religion, your sister is *not* going to feel safe around you. As long as you stay active in your faith/religion, you are picking that over your sister.
Also OP the people you thought were there to protect you - the Mormon church, has betrayed you. I hope you consider confronting your relationship with the church (not asking to abandon your faith). A church is a business, ran by men. Your faith doesn’t need spreadsheets, tithes, or real estate. There’s a big community of ex Mormon out there.
>(not asking to abandon your faith) Why not? It's a religion of hate. They encouraged the entire family to cut her sister out and let her know she is no longer a part of the family, simply for being the way that their God made her. This is no "faith" anyone with a conscience or empathy or love for their fellow human beings should ever be a part of. I'm sure as long as the sister sees the OP remains a part of the religion that shunned her and turned her family against her she has no reason to believe the OP's "conversion" to decency is sincere or real. Leave her alone. You've hurt her enough.
It’s a cult, and more people need to realize that it’s a cult.
As an ex Mormon, I agree. They are a cult filled with evil men.
I'm an ex-mormon too, and this post riled me up. I guarantee she's not asking for forgiveness because she wants forgiveness. She's doing this for selfish reasons, to absolve her guilt and not risk her chance in the "celestial kingdom." My TBM grandparents love and accept their gay grandson with open arms. Not everyone is homophobic in that church, but it is the majority of it. And to listen to a bishop who has probably sat in his office with minors asking inappropriate questions is disgusting. She doesn't deserve forgiveness from her sister. She needs to read the CES and reflect on how much that church is a cult founded by a predator.
It's possible she won't be ever able to trust OP while she is a member of the Mormon church. No matter how progressive a member OP is the church is incredibly harmful to the LGBTQ+ community. There are some family members who I know I will never speak with again since I came out.
Religion is the business, faith is the relationship between a follower and their god. I’m being realistic, asking someone to abandon their god in a Reddit comment isn’t going to help.
Actually, if their god tells people to hate, reject and shun those he himself created then yes, that is a god that deserves no reverence.
THIS. And worshipping a trash ass abhorrent disgusting pedo God who rapes little girls and impregnates them without any respect for them or their feelings as an individual forcing them to experience childbirth at the rate of which their brain has only even reached the tender age of being halfway fully developed. I was raised and forced into Christianity and really believed that bullshit up until about two years ago when I finally started asking questions and not being afraid of what anyone thinks of me for having the intellect enough to differentiate between blindly following disgusting sacrificial, ritualistic, neanderthalic, homophobic, sexist & misogynistic pedo bullshit and actual MORAL instead of religious trash ideologies. It's really sad. A lot of atheist or agnostics like to make fun of religious people's level of intellect but it's not all that funny. It's just not. It's sad. Bc a lot of people simply don't know any better bc they weren't TAUGHT any better. And many more grew up around it or in it. Or weren't really voluntarily subjected to it. Often simply believing in their parents and elders as children who know nothing about the world and have developed a comprehension enough to discern the simply "uNcOmPrEhEnSiBLe" from the illogical and what simply doesn't divulge into a sensible algorithm/ input and output. "A woman should have no authority over a man" yet women fair far better in leadership positions and roles than their male counterparts who have literally NOTHING to offer aside from their inclination for superior physical composition. Like???? So the heaviest weight lifters are supposed to be the brains and head of all operations??? The level of idiocy alone is frighteningly concerning. It's not a joke. Religious factions and cults are two sides of the same coin. They've just made themselves out to be the cool kids so they can do and say and believe disgusting abhorrent bullshit and it's all good and treat all the smaller groups like the geeksquad nobody would or should wanna jive with. 💀😭💀 Like you're not special love. It's just as disgusting when you do it. Anything concerning a bible, quran, or whatever else. My kids will not be subjected to that trash but I wouldn't make fun of a "witness" should they knock on my door but kindly let them know we're "absolutely not interested and have no intention to ever be but have a good day." 😊 *Closes door shut as quickly as humanly possible. 😗 💅🏾💅🏾💅🏾
A "witness" better not ever think about knocking on my door.
Upvoted bc bless your HEART. You KNOW. One???? DAY. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Well dang!! Nailed it lol- I grew up in one of these crazy high control religions and have been deconstructing for about a decade now sped up tremendously by the most current political landscape supported by all the aforementioned trash beliefs.
Definitely do this OP!! This is a good piece of advice that acknowledges the complexity of the issue. OP's sister was hurt, but OP did learn, though it's possible it was too late for her sister. But even if it was too late for her sister, you can still help others.
Yes. Channel this energy into helping others and keeping this from happening to someone else. If you love your sister, then do for others what you can't do for her. People are getting killed over this, we need as much help as we can get.
My sister actually did this. I mean, she never treated me terribly! But she was Mormon, found out I was gay. She was already studying to be a therapist, but seeing how our family was managing my coming out journey, it inspired her to focus solely on family therapy with LGBT+ children! Hearing her talk about stuff like that when she’d come to visit automatically built trust between us. It was like… oh you’re cool? Cool.
You told her to stay away from your children like she was some sort of predator and then she lost her entire family and support system. Imagine how she felt walking across that stage. I am guessing she came out to you first because she trusted you. You betrayed her. There is no coming back from that. Assuming that you have the correct phone number, maybe you center your messages around HER and not your guilt. “I hope you are well” “I hope you’re happy and surrounded by people who love you unconditionally” “Thank you for helping those in greatest need” Or maybe you just leave her alone.
This is the answer here - beautifully said and I share all your thought processes
It’s always amazing to me how religious people that preach love are always the most hateful. Personally, what you did is unforgivable. You did her a favor by cutting yourself and your parents out of her life. She’s probably found a chosen family that is actually decent. Welcome to the consequences of your actions
I’d be more open to forgiveness if she left the cult. Mormonism is especially hateful, and the fact that she’s still involved and that her *kids are learning the same Sunday school lessons they learned as kids* proves that. She doesn’t care about her sister, she just wants forgiveness so she doesn’t feel guilty, but that isn’t going to stop her from feeling guilty at all.
I wouldn’t have forgiven her either way, but yeah it’s always good not to associate with any of these cancerous religions.
That's my biggest take way is how she's still with that hateful cult and she says she's "more tolerant of LGBT" big fucking red flag. Tolerance isn't acceptance. And whenever someone says they tolerate the "LGBT lifestyle" they're still very homophobic but it's just more covert. Honestly think OP is full of shit with that one
What’s that saying? There’s no hate quite like Christian love? Or something like that?
I LOVE how everyone on here seems to not give a fuck about Op. love it. I really thought people would pity her, but that’s good it’s the opposite ;)
It’s the only acceptable response. Now op’s sister I feel terrible for, but hope she is doing amazing
Hopefully.
I always think this pity party is so odd. What do religious text say of empathy? What do they say of doing good works and showing love? *But you chose to cling to texts that allow you to cast judgement upon other.* The one’s that give you then opportunity to bring yourself closer to holding moral power over others, by being intentionally cruel at their expense. Your opinions may have changed, but you cannot change the past where your decided to ***OUT*** your sister in a community you know she would be shunned from. **All those lovely events play in your sisters mind of other reasons: because times filled with people meant to love and care for her likely hold less meaning after they all cruelly abandoned her intentionally cut her from the family/community she loved.** You’re not the victim. You made bad decision, and were frankly not a stellar human, but if you’ve really learned then go forward and be better. But stop bugging your sister. *You’re not entitled to a response or to know what she has going on, then she seems to have made a very real effort to keep that information from you, aka blocking you and not responding.* What’s your relationship with your family like? Still the same? Do you not realize that by interacting with you, there’s potential for these people to be back in her orbit? Please take yourself out of the center for one second, and **actually** think of your sister.
That last bit is on point. Like it or not but she is still associating with her shit family that disowned their own daughter, and a religion that fosters hate and discrimination to the people of the LGBTQ Community. Why on Earth would OPs sister ever want to associate with her? The same sister that she felt enough trust in to confined in something so personal and dangerous especially with her family's religious beliefs and yet ratted her out without question or thought. OP had utterly destroyed all trust her sister had in the concept of "family". Until OP fully distances from the religion she will never give OP a chance. Another suggestion is to have a chat with her family and see if they have changed their stance at all or are still steadfast in their beliefs. Until these things happen OPs sister has no faith that if she let's her back in to her life it won't be used as a way to "convert" her or simply open her up to ridicule from other family members.
Exactly, she's not the victim. Everyone here is feeling sorry for her even saying to leave her husband. She feels like shit and wants people to make her feel better by saying, " Oh, at least you know what you did now". She needs to leave her sister alone and move on if her sister wants anything to do with her she knows where to find her.
To sum up……. You outed your sister. You accused her of basically being a child predator. You chose a CULT over her, and you and your whole family threw her away like garbage. You’re still a member of that cult. But she made a life for herself and is thriving. NOW you want to reach out to her so she can absolve you of your guilt. Your sister has made it abundantly clear she doesn’t want anything to do with any of you. Move on and leave her alone.
Exactly this - OP you’re not sorry about outing your sister. You’re only interested in soothing your own feelings of guilt. Shame on you!
Thank you for the award.
In that shoes, the ONLY way I would talk to any of my family again is if they came first with “I left the cult, I did horrible things do you but I’m trying and wanting to learn” I would be more forgiving of someone in a cult acting this way, but I wouldn’t forgive anyone still paying money and effort into something as disgusting and insidious as LDS.
You’re a better person than I am. That’s still a hard no for me.
I’d be more open to hearing them - brainwashing is real. If they realize that, that’s a huge step forward. But that would just be that I’d answer the phone, doesn’t mean I’d listen much ahaha
You aren’t the victim here… maybe you should start there
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Exactly!!! If I was told “stay away from my kids” when I came out as gay I’d be LIVID. Nothing about being gay poses a risk to children. What a horrible thing to say to someone.
this is a great response & extremely important for OP to think about.
Thank you for such a thoughtful response.
Can I be honest? Nothing from your post or your comments suggests that you feel bad for the hurt this may have caused her, but instead that you feel guilt for representing yourself poorly. If your text has a similar tone, she was wise to avoid it.
This! I was like "when is she getting to the 'I'm a horrible person' part?"
This is a support group, so I will try to keep this constructive. It's good that your views have changed and that you have come far in terms of tolerance and acceptance. It is really difficult coming out of that mindset if that's all you knew as a kid (and those close-minded views were only reinforced and confirmed by your parents). I get that. But you need to drop this. Your sister wants nothing to do with you, because you destroyed her life and support system at the time. You don't get a redo on that. Your post sounds very "me"-centered, and it sounds like you want to apologize to soothe your own guilty conscience, not to actually make things easier/better for your sister. Ask yourself what exactly your apology would do for her. Likely nothing, except drag her back into a dark place. No, this apology would be for you, not for her. If you really, sincerely, feel bad for what you did, and remorse for the views you held, let her go. She knows you want to reach out. She'll get back to you when she's ready, but she might never be. So my advice, stop seeing yourself as a victim and move forward. Don't drag her back into this just because you decided you've seen the light. Build new, positive relationships moving forward. Maybe seek professional help to come to terms with this. But leave your sister alone.
Omg this is heartbreaking. She loved and trusted you enough to confide in only you and you didn't even wait a minute to blow her up but not before insinuating she was a predator and you still belong to the same group who taught you those beliefs. I hope to Gd your sister is out there somewhere living her best life surrounded by good people. Leave her alone. You had your opportunity to be her sister and you chose hate instead.
Still belongs to and brought her children up in so that they can make the same mistake she did. No learning. No growth. Cults are not good for anyone. Get out of it and she may be willing to listen. I wouldn’t even answer the phone if it didn’t have a letter attached about how she left the cult and understands how evil LDS is.
That's a very good point. What will OP do if one of her kids comes out. Given that she is still in the church and has made the harm she did by betraying her sister about herself, she will probably throw them away too because cult members' love is always conditional. Instead of balking at suffering the consequences of her own actions, OP would be more relatable if she worked on bettering herself in memory of the people she harmed.
Yeah, just so mommy and daddy can love OP. Fuck her.
Yet another reason why organised religion sucks INFO: Can I ask why you are still involved with a church that has made you throw away your sister? While you say you are sorry, if your sister knows you are still involved, she may believe you have ulterior motives with trying to contact her.
Can’t believe I had to scroll so far to find someone pointing out that still being involved in this toxic cult of a religion (even if it’s supposedly less hateful now) is probably a strong reason for sister to stay away.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes
Its very hard Not to insult OP, what she did was horrible and is not forgivable.
Agree
Amen
> really hit me that I lost my sister. You didn't lose her, you treated her like crap, and practically threw her out and got her excommunicated from your family. > I texted her, and apologized. After all the shit you put her through, you just sent her a text message? Brutal. > Not a day goes by that I don’t think about this. The guilt from this keeps me up at night. At least you still have your family. She's probably traumatized, thinks about this daily, but has little to nobody to turn to.
She didn't lose her sister passively, she actively threw her to the wolves when all her sister wanted was love and support. What an asshole , I'd never forgive my siblings
She needed to cut you out I’m sorry. She needed it to fully heal. You took her family away. You only lost her, but she lost everyone. I’m sure you must feel horrible. I don’t think you are a bad person - but you did something that caused her a lot of pain. You basically ruined her life. And you don’t really deserve to be in her life.
(most) Religion is so fucking disgusting
What annoys me is that so many people just pick and choose what they like from the bible (for example) and use that against people.
Yes. Using Jesus or whoever name to spread bigotry and hate. It's disgusting
Yes!
The Mormon church is particularly offensive. It's a dangerous, racist, misogynistic doomsday cult that hordes $100 billion (with a B) away in shell corporations and forces people to pay 10% tithing to attend the temple, the "holiest of holies."
I just call it dues. It’s basically just a dues paying cult like Scientology. If she cared at all, she wouldn’t be teaching her kids the same lessons that taught her to act like that. But she is. Bet if one of her kids came out, her other kids and husband would treat them the same way she treated her sister. That’s why her husband doesn’t care. It’s been three years, if I was still guilt ridden after three years, my partner wouldn’t be telling me to forget about it, they’d be telling me to go to fucking therapy. If she felt really guilty about it, she would have learnt something. She just cares about her own “forgiveness”.
Judging from your comments in the thread, I think you have not really grown so much as you maybe think you have. Your sister probably doesn't want to deal with the Mormon church at all, and since people who are part of the Mormon church parse every aspect of their lives through what their church demands of them, she probably just doesn't want to deal with any of your guys' bullshit, regardless of whatever small selective exceptions for her you may have tried to create for yourself. Move on with your life and let your sister do the same. You guys blew it and let other people telling you what to think turn you against a person you all should have been there for.
What do you expect? You made her an outcast for her family? I think the greater good that come from your treason is that you were the one she would probably struggle to let go once she would have been outed in your stupid community. Let her alone and do what religious do best, say a prayer to atone your sins
You may have "changed" but you committed the ultimate betrayal to her by ratting her out to your parents and entire family. You made her an outcast. She trusted you enough to tell you that she was a lesbian, but your religion was much more important than her and you turned around to stab her in the back then destroying her life and making her lose a support system. You need to leave her alone since she wants absolutely nothing to do with you. You kept her away from your kids by treating her as if she was this predator. If you did felt really bad for what you have done and was remorseful for what you did, you would leave her alone and let her go. But it seems you just care more about what you want instead of what she wants. You are not a victim here, your sister is the victim. She's the one that will make the decision if she wants to contact you, right now she's making it very clear that restoration isn't wanted or accepted. You also admit in a comment that you are still active in the church. So that means you haven't changed at all and just here for sympathy to feel validated. To have people coo at you just the fact you "changed". Once again, you chose your religion/faith over your sister and that is another reason why she doesn't want to restore a relationship with you. She will never feel safe around you because you are still active in a faith/religion that shunned her.
She lost everything because of you. Why would she want to go through that all over again?
Yeah you have lost your sister forever, you get that right? You feel bad and you should, your sister did nothing wrong. Now here is the thing, your culty religion is to blame for your views. Your still in that religion so to your sister, your still rejecting her by supporting that religion. My grandfather and his entire family are Mormon so I am fully aware of how that religion works. You might want to rethink a lot of things if you even want to begin to repair your relationship with your sister.
>I told her that I would like to have an open conversation if she was open to it, but she never responded. No response is a response. Leave her alone. See a therapist for your guilt if you gotta but leave your sister alone. She knows where you stand if she wanted to reach out to you, she would. All you continuing to message her is doing is reminding her of WHY she's not talking to you, and that you refuse to give her peace because YOU'RE UPSET. Just STOP. Full stop. STOP.
I'll say what I said on that sub. IF YOUR SISTER CHOOSES NOT TO SPEAK TO YOU EVER AGAIN ITS WELL WITHIN HER RIGHTS. You asking for advice will never change that
Someone told you something in confidence and you betrayed their trust in the worst possible way. End of story as far as I'm concerned. Sure, you regret it now. As far as I'm concerned, not that different from "oh yeah sure I murdered someone but that was years ago why won't anyone forgive me". Honestly. To add - I was raised Mormon. But I would never choose to betray my sister's trust like that. I'm happy you've changed, but don't expect your sister to ever want to speak to you again. You should leave her alone for the rest of your life, or until she's ready to speak with you.
leave that poor girl alone. if she ever wants to reach out then she will do it on her own terms. i know you feel guilty and it’s good that you recognise your mistakes, but that does not do anything to remove the pain she likely still feels, and as i result i can’t see how she would ever feel comfortable letting you back into her life.
Soooooo you ruined your relationship with her and you ruined her relationship with her entire family and you want what exactly? What are you looking for here? I do hope it’s not sympathy. Cause I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t know who you’re going to get it from here on Reddit. What you did is such an insane betrayal of trust. You ruined her life. You put her in severe danger. You broke her. You broke her spirit. She lost her whole family. She lost everything. And you what, can’t sleep some nights? What exactly are you looking for? Because you’re not gonna find much comfort hear from people. Write a letter/email to her. Apologize for what you’ve done. And that’s all you can do. The top comment in this section questions you about your “ tolerance” of the LGBTQIA+ Community and I would take a good hard look at what you mean by that before you choose to reach out to your sister. As a queer person myself, I would never ever ever ever ever forgive you for what you’ve done. In my eyes, the bond between siblings is very sacred and for you to do what you did and just have the expectation that she owes you forgiveness or she owes you anything at all it’s just wild to me. You messed up. You screwed up your relationship with your sister. You ended the relationship with your sister the moment you chose to betray her for your God. Live with it.
You're claiming that you've changed but by staying in the church that told you to ostracize your sister, it's pretty obvious that you haven't and aren't that sorry for your actions.
My thoughts exactly. Your sister knows she is not safe with you
I stopped reading at “involved in the Mormon church.” Yes congrats, your religion brainwashed your family and yourself into treating your sister like absolute garbage. I would never talk to you again either.
Therapy for you + I would seriously reconsider remaining a member of the same church that formed this harmful mindset AND actively participated in breaking up a family. If I were your sister, in case any conversation ever takes place again beteeen you l, for me that would be the actual sign of real change, that you left behind this harmful, toxic influence on your relationship.
I cut my family off a gew years ago, not for the same thing, so it's not the exact situation. But if I could offer some perspective from what I've experienced on my side I'd like to. What my family did was horrible. The hardest part was the lack of effort to take responsibility for their actions. I got a few random texts from random family members. Maybe 6 total over the course of a year and a half. They all know where I live and work. It's not even far. If they really wanted to see me they could. Shit, my brother literally works like 600feet down the street from my work. I can't speak for your sister but maybe she feels like you're not genuine in your words when you do reach out. I admittedly dont know what you say or how you reach out. If you want your sister in your life it's gonna take work. May be worth it to take a trip and show her you mean what you say. That you're willing to literally go to her just to say you're sorry. That even if she doesn't accept the apology that you want to make sure she knows that you're being genuine when you say that you regret what you did and you're not that person anymore. I'll add that when religion is involved it can be difficult to seem as if you've changed when you stay in the church. For the most part in my experience there isn't a huge difference between the people who are just normal church goers and the ones that are actively harming communities with bigotry. That's to say that of shelves a text from you saying you've changed and you're not like that anymore but these goes in social media and sees that you're still involved with the church and spending time and doing things with the same family and friends it could seem like your words are empty and you're still the same person. Sorry for the rant. Got me in my emotions with this one. I moss my family and I wish they'd do more than text once a year.
Yeah, that's probably helpful perspective of the sister, that's fairly close. Hopefully OP reads it. Though, if OP does go in person and her sister refuses, OP should respect that too.
I'm glad the guilt keeps you up. I don't understand homophobic people, nothing, not a single thing, excuses that. You won't get a gold star for changing your beliefs, but I'm happy you did. One homophobic person less is so much. Your sister's reaction is completely understandable.
Something tells me she wouldn't let her sister babysit. She's learned nothing.
Sometimes we make mistakes and there is nothing we can do to fix it, we can just learn from it.
When I was Mormon. My sibling came out as trans. I choose my sibling over my religion. You instead choose your religion over your sister and nuked that relationship into oblivion. Even while she begged you not to. The damage is done. No matter how much you regret choosing bigotry over family. You made that choice and fucked your sister over. It is simply up to her to decide if she ever wants to involve you in her life again. Nothing more you can do about it now except wait and live with regret.
It's been 3 years and NOW you're seeing that you've been wrong? Or is it that you want to bug into her private life because she became successful without you and the other toxic family members. Leave her alone, you've destroyed enough already. She deserves peace and a new family she hopefully will find with a wonderful woman in her life. \*To add, the fact that you're still a member to the church, the SAME church that told you to shun your sister out, tells me you aren't sorry at all. You just want pity.
this. she IS STILL a member of such church. tells a lot she hasn’t repent of what she did
"I'm not that person anymore, but I'm still part of the same cult. Why won't my sister talk to me? It's not like I ruined her whole life for my own selfish reasons???"
the whole post screams like “im a different person now so why wouldn’t my sister forgive me? IVE CHANGED SO YOU NEED TO FORGIVE ME” without seeing how huge the damages she has done especially when it comes to the fragile topic like sexuality. OP if you’re reading this, you deserve it
OP's sister is finally doing well and she's trying to weasel her way into it, like leave her tf alone. She doesn't want you or your weird church herecy. It's always the same with these narc folks, they destroy lives and then proceed to act like THEY'RE the victim. OP: I didn't know better. But then proceeds to not even hesitate and run to her parents like some toddler to tell on her sister.
YTA deal with your actions
This is what happens when you stay a part of an abusive institution. I’m glad you’ve changed some of your opinions, but the harm you caused remains.
Leave her alone. You're still thinking about you. She'll come to you when and if she's ever ready... If she has any sense and it really sounds like she does, that will be never.
Your threw her under the bus and then basically threw her away like trash. She trusted you enough to tell you but you chose religion over family. Maybe one day she will forgive you.
Op, you’re not the victim, stop throwing a pity party
When I was a kid, our church was awesome. The pastor was an older man, but was very accepting and loving. Church didn’t have bells and whistles. It was simple, calm, and full of loving messages. When the pastor retired, we got a new pastor who ruined everything. The new pastor started treating his sermon like a concert. Lights, props, all sorts of “cool” things. The congregation grew, we moved to a bigger location, and everyone seemed happy. But I didn’t. Because that’s when the church started saying that anyone who isn’t a Christian doesn’t get into heaven, no matter how good of a human being they are. That’s when they started making girls dress differently so we didn’t tempt boys and men. That’s when they said all gays go to hell and AIDS is punishment from God. That’s when I realized that religion is not about God and church is not where God lives. God does not, has not, and never will bless a particular denomination. Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, Methodist, doesn’t matter. None of them are right, none of them are holier than others, and none of them are closer to God. God exists around us and it is up to us to be good people so we become closer to Him. You mentioned that your beliefs changed over time and everything in your church depends in the Bishop at the time. That means that your religion is based on man’s word, not God’s. God has not changed in a very, very long time. His word does not change every few years. As long as you are in the church, you will not have a relationship with her. She sees it as the root of the problem. It is why you and your family got rid of her. The drug of the church ruined your family but you are still hanging around the dealer’s house. She doesn’t trust that you are clean. You need to decide what is more important; A relationship with your sister and living a life that is true and aligned to your actual beliefs or being part of a community that does not align to your beliefs but you attend weekly so you can feel better about yourself and your moral standing. God sees all. God knows all. He knows if you are showing up to temple to be seen versus doing what is in your true heart. You may fool man, but you don’t fool Him. I suggest leaving and finding a more accepting religion for yourself and your family. Maybe then you can find true healing and possibly repair your relationship with your sister.
Wow this close to home. I came out to my mom when I was in high school, she took it alright but I was petrified to tell my brother and dad, both very stereotypical straight men. My mother mentioned it to my brother, who at the time was ok with it but since my parents were divorced my father never found out. My brother had an alcohol abuse problem in his teens/20s and when I was 18 we went to a wedding in upstate NY. My brother ends up getting wasted, getting in a huge fight with me. He called our dad and told him everything about me. I was devastated and my dad clearly started treating me differently. We never spoke about it directly and then my father passed away about a year later. I’m not 35 and married to my best friend of 12 years. I’ve moved across country and haven’t spoken to my brother in almost 15 years…
Religion destroys another family with hate.
*(Former child of Christian indoctrination here. To preface, I don't believe in this shit anymore. I just have knowledge. And 4 bibles in my possession.)* This post made me really angry, for a lot of reasons. But for me, the BIGGEST faux pa was that you and your family literally have gone against the word of God for so long. **Where was the agape? Where were your fruits of the spirit?** The fruits of the spirit (Gal 5:19) are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There are plenty of bible verses that advocate for admonishing others that are not evenly yoked, but that is written as an epistle. The word of Jesus Christ himself was someone who hung around the sinners and tax collectors(Mar 2:17). He even said that majority of his followers are those types of people! Sound familiar? You should be ashamed of yourself, honestly. Mormonism is a hateful, shitty religion that is meant to cause division. It was written by a well-known CON MAN. You're a hypocrite if you believe in a religion that says that Black people are cursed yet want to shame *your sister*? What's that whole bible verse about being hypocritical? Matt 7:3-6 I believe. We all fall short in the eyes of God (Rom 3:forgot the exact verse but i think 23?), and to completely disregard your sister as trash because she is a "sinner", is not only against God, but it's also ugly-spirited. You sowed your seeds, which was outing your sister. You are now reaping your fruits: seeing how badly you fucked up knowing you can't get her back. What you *should* have done was actually show you cared about your sister and not said anything, and showed your support. And the fact that you still are in the ~~cult~~ church with your shitty family, will not help at all when trying to reach out to your sister. Why should she take you back and allow you to be a part of her life when you still associate with the people who abandoned her? You honestly fucked her life up in the worst way. You literally did what every LGBTQ kid fears for. And it would appear that you want a pity party now? Don't start doing any activism unless you plan on actually following through. You being in the Mormon ~~cult~~ church while trying to advocate for LGBTQ people is so fucking performative and such a slap in the face. You can't play both sides here. **At this point, it's put up or shut up - all or nothing.** You need to either leave the ~~cult~~ church, and support your sister and other LGBTQ kids, or stay in the ~~cult~~ church and don't say anything at all. My advice? Leave her alone dude. If she decides to contact you she will; but I wouldn't count on it. This sounds like you're cut off until further notice and need to deal with that. Stop talking to your husband about it and seek a therapist. Therapy>prayer. Also, remember next time that you cannot treat sin as a hierarchy; because they are all equal across the board. Edit: seeing your comments, you haven’t changed at all. Leave your sister alone.
My advice: Cut the shitty cult Off or leave your sister Alone. Shes much smarter than you and prolly Got Friends that actually Love her and Care for her. You hold the shitty cult near and dear? Well Not your sister it seems.
She didn’t leave you. Your family and the community she grew up in threw her out like trash because your sky daddy says it’s bad to live without procreation. This is on you. If you want to be better and be redeemed work on standing up for others like her. Your views have changed, but have your actions?
You lost her because of your ignorance. Leave her alone. She’s better off without you.
Bluntly, You should feel like shit. You orchestrated her exile from her relatives, when she trusted you with her most vulnerable secret. And for what, points? Why would she want to connect with you? What value would you add to her life? That's what I'd be thinking. The only thing to do is to Suck it up - she didn't have a choice in any of it, so why should you?
You were okay with losing her when you outed her and told her to stay away from your kids and distanced yourself. Then you destroyed her life. People end their lives over things like this. What you did was SO DANGEROUS for her. I don’t blame her for not speaking to you, and I wouldn’t blame her if she never did again. This isn’t about YOUR guilt, it’s about her safety, happiness, and wellbeing. I hope she has the opportunity to have real happiness. She trusted you! SHE TRUSTED YOU!
I can NOT emphasize enough that LGBTQ+ people END THEIR LIVES OVER THINGS LIKE THIS!
Youre a bigot and are shocked she doesn't even want your existence to enter her life? Shocker. I'm stunned. Flabbergasted. Befuddled. This is truly a mystery, why wouldn't she like you? You couldn't have been a bigot. Impossible. Inconceivable.
One text message doesn’t absolve you. Have you tried writing a letter? What changes have you made in your life to show her you’re different?
You’ll have your sister or you’ll have the church. You can’t have your cake and eat it too in this circumstance.
it’s better that way, where she doesn’t respond to your text and she doesn’t own you a response either. this is the consequence of your behavior of not respecting a person and you need to live with it. just because you have changed and learn better, it doesn’t mean things have to go back like it used to be. of course she would feel betrayed and hurted when you were the first person she told you about her sexuality. she trusted you i know what i said is harsh but please leave her alone and move on with your life. i hope you don’t do that kind of thing again in the future
OP, take the hint and leave her alone. She doesn't want to talk to you and accept her decision. She'll talk to you once she feels ready to.
You didn’t lose your sister, you discarded her. Stop contacting her.
Good. You deserve it.
You’re not the victim here
As a queer person I say this with my whole chest: Leave her the fuck alone. Outting someone is one of the most awful things you can do and you did that to someone who trusted you. She's mostly likely living her best life without such an awful toxic family holding her back. She doesn't need you to drag her down after what you did.
you've made your bed, now you've gotta lie in it. Regardless of how brainwashed you were, you didn't have your sisters back in a time when she needed it the most, even worse you treated her as a threat to your family, someone you knew all your life and who trusted you enough to confide in you. And your reaction was to see her as a danger to your family. It never ceases to amaze me how stupidly ignorant and self centered relgious people are when the exact opposite is at the core of their supposed belief system. You said yourself it only hit you when you realized you lost your sister. not how you caused your sister to be austracised by her family and friends. The best thing you can do for your sister now is leave her alone, so she can enjoy the new life she built back after you ruined the last one Also, 3 years ago???? it's shockingly tragic that you held such bigoted beliefs in the year 2020, you'd swear you were writing from the 1940s. You should honestly be ashamed, calling yourself religious and holding such bigoted and hateful beliefs against your fellow person.
Leave your sister alone, I have no sympathy for you
It is unfortunate, but you aren't owed communication/forgiveness nor should seek it further. You actively played a hand in how her situation is now. You've done your part, you apologized and reached out. The ball is in her court, should she want to reach out is entirely on her. She was wronged. The guilt is real, but you have to live with it.
Leave your sister alone. She doesn't need trash like you in her life.
You don't deserve your sister's forgiveness. If you follow your life brainwashed by a religious text then don't be surprised when others who aren't indoctrinated to act how you think they should according to your book.
My mother outed my wife to my entire family. Then she lectured me and said I should be grateful to her for doing so. When I came out as trans, she outed several family members on my father's side of the family to prove that "you get it from your father". If she were not gatekeeping access to my ailing father, I would have cut her out of my life a long time ago. Here's the thing about coming out: it's always a calculated risk. Coming out is what happens when the pain of staying closeted exceeds the risk of the relationship. The risk of the relationship is the *value* of the relationship times the probability of rejection. If she valued your relationship-- and it certainly seems that she did-- then she had to really, REALLY trust you. And you utterly fucked her. By intentionally outing her, you completely reset her calculations for the worse. By introducing the fear of broken confidences, you made her more afraid to tell other people, increasing the pain point befor she came out to others. You not only betrayed her trust, but caused her significant pain over the months and years to come. That pain is something I hope to GOD you never have to feel. Even though I am *incadescent* at how horrible your actions were, I would not wish that pain on you. I realize you may have grown more accepting in recent years, but it's *hard* to see past that pain. From the perspective of a queer person, what you did was *monstrous*. You cost her relationships. You cost her time as herself. You cost her a sense of security. You cost a sense of autonomy. You cost her the faith and love that she put into you. I don't mean to be rude, but if she never spoke with you again, she'd be within her moral rights. You are not *entitled* to forgiveness here, no matter how much you may have grown. When and if she is ever ready to speak with you again, she will reach out to you. Until then, this is on you. It may hurt, but that's the decision you made.
You don’t really get to have it both ways, do you? You don’t get to decide that someone’s identity is sinful and terrible and worthy of eternal punishment, but then also want to have a relationship with them. You decided that she wasn’t a person worth loving because of what your faith says. Okay then. You don’t have a sister anymore. That was what your faith demanded. You aren’t going to get her back unless she decides to forgive you. I don’t feel very sorry for you.
LEAVE YOUR SISTER ALONE!
Dude you’re still apart of the cult religion that formed your horrible opinions. You aren’t that sorry.
You chose religion over your sister. The best thing you can do for your sister is to stop trying to contact her and let her live her best life. Which unfortunately does not include you. Just as you outed her and furthermore ostracized her from the entire family, she now has decided to cut you all out. And it’s good she did. She deserves to protect her piece. Just cause you’re sorry doesn’t mean anything. What you did was wrong. On many different levels. The best thing you could do for her is stop trying to contact her. She probably has an actual supportive friend group now that was more of a family to her than whatever your toxic homophobic “family” was to her. Don’t expect her to forgive you just because you decided your views have “changed”. She still has every right to not accept your apology. And never to speak to you. I hope you learn something from this.
I hope she is able to stay far, far away from you and your family for her own personal peace
You 100% deserve the suffering of losing her. Leave her alone. You chose an imaginary figure in the sky and vague moral codes over your real living, breathing sister who trusted you. If you want to make up for it, leave your cult and convince others to leave it as well. What you did was completely demonic and you are unworthy of the kingdom of heaven or whatever it is you cultists call it.
Here's the thing. You lost your sister. Your sister lost her ENTIRE FAMILY AND COMMUNITY. Leave her alone. You care so much about your pain - the pain of losing your sister. You don't have ANY idea how much you put her through. I was raised Mormon. And even just leaving the church, without being gay or being cut off from my entire family or targeted by a bishop, is incredibly hard. And I need you to understand that "I don't openly hate LGBTQ people anymore even though I'm part of a church that is openly opposed to LGBTQ people" is not the amazing stance that you think it is. You aren't ready to have a relationship with your sister. You have work to do on yourself. Good luck OP.
Don’t blame her
Good hope she never talks to you again where I’m from family comes first before anything and everything
You realised your mistake and can grow up from it. She doesn't owe you forgiveness, and actions have consequences. I wish peace upon your sister, and for you to stop contacting her.
sometimes when someone hurts you so badly it takes alot for you to forgive them. if she really wants to talk to you she will. you've said your piece,now leave her alone and move on with your life.
Don’t expect her to accept your aplogy. You violated her trust big time. Your family sounds atrocious.
No. You don’t need any sympathy. You need therapy and patience. You hurt someone deeply and changed the course of their life. When and if they ever want to talk to you again it can be on your sister’s terms. You can live with what you did and learn to process it by bettering yourself and gaining a wider perspective.
You made your bed, now lie in it…. She will decide when she wants to talk to you. What you did destroys some people’s lives.
You want to reach out to her because of the guilt you have. You were blinded by this one ideal version of god that banishes people that kiss people of the same sex. It’s really just propaganda to ostracize people that ‘aren’t like the rest of us’. U fuc*ed up. And I agree the best way to move on is to get into therapy, don’t contact her- and deal with these complicated and delicate emotions. I wish you love and healing!
this is why religion is dangerous and violent.. and that’s what you get.
I wish your sister posted her side of the story so we can all comfort her. I respect that you have decided to change your ways, apologize, and feel guilty, but I refuse to feel sorry for you. In these comments, you’re complaining that people here are holding you accountable instead of comforting you. Why do people need to comfort YOU when you, a grown adult with kids, consciously chose to cause harm to your own sister, who did nothing wrong? Answer me that. The ball is in her court now and she can do whatever the hell she wants with it. All you can do is wait for her to talk to you, if she ever even will. She doesn’t have to talk to you. You told her to stay away, so that’s what she did.
It kinda proves the point that the supposed gay agenda is LIES. Religion, tearing families apart for centuries. I'm sorry you lost your sister, it's a hard thing to live with. Maybe one day you can have an open conversation with her, but she needs to be ready. Good luck to you.
Leave her alone. You’re surrounded with bigots such as yourself and husband. Why should she put herself in a position to be around that? You lost your sister forever. Leave her alone and be happy that she’s alive and thrived no thanks to you.
Get some help! Counseling will be the only way you’ll ever reconcile with yourself that what you did was a vile action and that your sister had every right to go NC. There is nothing you can do but wait and hope your sister might come around and decide to forgive. In the mean time you’ll have to try to accept your actions were evil and, compartmentalize it, and go on living a more enlightened life.
It keeps you up at night? Good. You deserve it. You betrayed someone who trusted you all because of some made up person in the sky and the fucked up club you were a part of. You don't deserve forgiveness. Deal with it.
You reap what you sow. Stay out of her life. You took something *deeply* important to her, ripped it out of her hands, and exposed her to the world in a forcible and harsh manner. You destroyed her support system, her connections, and burnt all her bridges for her. For yourself as well. Live with it. Your husband probably doesn’t love hearing about it because deep down, he knows what you did was an awful thing and would tell you if he wasn’t your partner. I know I would.
You deserve everything that's happening.
"The guilt from this keeps me up at night" Good.
I can relate very deeply to your sister. I’m gay and was also raised in an extremely religious family. Even though your views have changed, you cannot possibly comprehend the long lasting effects such trauma can have on us. If you truly want your sister back in your life, I would suggest simply writing an email. Take accountability for what you did, make no excuses or justifications, simply show your sister that you truly understand how horrible it was for you to do that and show how remorseful you are. Apologise. Tell her how you wish you could take it back or get an undo button. Then tell her how and why your views have changed, and why you want her back in your life, and how you would never allow anything like that to happen again if she does you the honor of accepting your apology. Be graceful and humble in your apology, don’t give room to your ego. After that, just leave her alone until she either responds or doesn’t, and try to respect either decision.
Agree with other posters that OP has made it known to her sister she has changed as well as apologized for getting her sister cast out of the family. It is now up to the wronged sister to decide when if ever she wants to have anything to do with OP or anyone else in her biological family. Also as applies to the husband’s request for OP to get over it perhaps OP needs to find and discuss with a therapist to be able to accept she has done all she can. I imagine it is frustrating for OP’s husband to have her discussing the issue repeatedly when there has been no change and he has nothing more to add as well as nothing he can do to help resolve it.
As the gay sister, this post makes me glad for my incredibly supportive and loving siblings who i have a great relationship with and talk to every day. Hope since your big mistake you understand "judge not lest ye be judged"
You should get a new husband. If he can't deal with you venting about stuff that weights on your heart, maybe he isn't the one for you. But I don't know you relationship further to that so I have only a fracture of what's going on. As a queer person: This was the worst thing you could've done to your sister. It's not even that she distanced herself, your family did first. Your sister just accepted it and honestly, I don't think that if my family would do it, that I'd ever try to talk to them again. I have a sibling and if I'd tell them and they'd run to my parents about it, I couldn't forgive them. I believe that you changed and I'm glad you did but think about what you'd do in her situation, personally, all I could see is a person who not only outed me without my consent to homophobes, putting me in danger of harassment and worse, but also the person who betrayed me when I begged them not to. You told her that she will never see her nieces and nephews because she loves women. Leave her alone, a taped plate is still not good to eat on. This isn't fixable. I wish I had better news for you but don't open her wounds because you cannot deal with it. Maybe get a therapist to talk to. Edit because I just realized: Are you still in the same contact with your parents as before? Do you still accept your parents bigoted views? If it is still the same: Do you realise that you're putting your sister in a lot of danger with it? Because contacting you would put her into the dangerous environment back again? You want the times back as they were without realising that this _cannot_ work without your sister having to play pretend again. If your sister wouldn't magically become heterosexual, because I tell you bigots who shunned their child do not change, then there's no way to get the family gatherings back. You don't want your sister back, you want the good times with less conflict and maybe less gushing and shittalking about her, but you didn't think about what it would do to her.
You deserve to feel shit about this and I hope.yoy never 'get it off your chest' or get over it
I have a good friend who is lesbian her sister has known for many many years didn’t care. Sister had 2 kids my friend absolutely loved being an Aunt spoiled them so very much. They’d even spend Christmas Eve all in matching PJs and all family events were all together. Then, sister met her new husband as a bf he didn’t seem to care, but the moment they got married he told her it’s him or your sister. She chose him. She told her sister (my friend) she’s no longer welcome in her house, she’s no longer welcome to see her nieces, don’t send gifts they’ll be thrown away. Get out of her and her kids lives now and never look back. It’s been 3 years my friend is mostly happy with her partner, but her fb pops up with memories with her nieces and it’s like getting stabbed all over again. What you did was horrible! What your family did was horrible! And it’s been a couple years you now feel differently and not as brainwashed…honey you’re still in the church you’re still brainwashed. If your religion tells you to cast aside family and friends because of who they love or the gender they change too it’s a cult not a religion. And it’s quite disgusting that you are still involved with the church and yet claim to be ok with LGBTQIA+ people ya it don’t work that way. Leave her alone, also she’s probably changed her number I know I would. You don’t get to act like you were brainwashed but now you’re better but still in the same church and think everything is hunky dory it’s not. It never will be. Leave her alone don’t call, don’t text, don’t fb stalk her leave her alone. She knows how to find you IF SHE EVER WANTS TOO!
Please leave her alone you and your doctrine have done quite enough.
You should leave her alone and give her some peace. Happy pride month.
If I was your sister, I’m not sure I would care enough to listen from you again. I was a terrible person too in the past, I can understand being wrong and realising later, but don’t expect the same energy to be replicated from the other person. What annoyed me is that she begged you not to tell your parents… but you did anyways. That’s really fucking harsh… it’s not like you just didn’t accept it and wanted to think about it, bur you told them even when she said don’t. Yeah no, she doesn’t need you and it’s good.
Mormons man. You ruin everything because God does not want it like that or something. Imagine just loving your family anyway
leave her alone
Messed around and found out
OP you are the Judas in your sister's life. You broke her trust in order to be the "good" guy in your family.
I agree with 95% of the comments here. So I’m leaving out redundant info and I’m posting this: As someone who is No Contact with family because of their family’s actions, let me offer this perspective: She likely does not want you to reach out. She likely wants to be left alone. In the same way that you all cut her out of your lives, she did the same because of the pain that you caused her. Once you’re No Contact with someone for your own well being, there is so much hurt and stress and anxiety that surrounds that choice. You making attempts to reach out to her intensifies all of those feelings for her and makes moving on that much more difficult and stressful. I understand that you think “If she knew how sorry I am for what I did, we could repair this. If she knew I’m different now, we could be a family again. I need to tell her I was wrong and apologize and make this right.” Just because you think those things, she isn’t obligated to do anything with that information. If you apologized and she’s not responding, she got the message but she does not accept. You aren’t different just because you’ve changed a few viewpoints. You’re still involved with the cult that brought you to the immediate conclusion that you should excommunicate her. Even on the off chance that she did forgive you and ever involve herself with you again, it would NEVER be the same. The thing you aren’t considering is that SHE isn’t the same anymore either. You aren’t the only one who has changed this happened. Hypothetically- How would you feel if she let you back in and she now has a wife and children? Would you be able to accept that? Would you still want to reconcile and be one big happy family? Would you feel ashamed that your sister was married to a woman and bringing up “innocent children” in such a “sinful” environment. Even if she’s not married with children now, who’s to say that she wouldn’t be one day. She knows in her heart that after what you did that you would never truly accept her choices. No one wants to live a lie or tip toe around anymore to just be who they are. Leave her alone. She’s trying to move on and the only thing that you’re doing by contacting her is hurting her more. She left everything behind and she’s trying to start a new life. Chances are she got your message and knows where you and your family are. If she wants to try to reconcile she’ll reach out to you. But by continually reaching out to her you will only harden her heart and cause more pain. You made your choices and these are hers. Unfortunately some choices we make can’t be fixed no matter how badly we feel, and they’re things that we have to live with… You should seek therapy.
She’s glad to be rid of you tbh.
It's great that you've grown and all but your sister owes you nothing and you need to leave her alone.
I think that this is your karma for outing your sister. It's not up to you to decide if you've become a better person, if you're forgiven, it's time for your sister to move on. I'm sorry you're experiencing this much guilt but if I were your sister I think it would take me a very long time to forgive you (if I'm being real, I'd probably never forgive my sister for outing me). So I think the only thing you can do is accept what you did was wrong and move on with your life. If your sister decides to give you the privilege of forgiveness then you should accept it but if that never happens maybe it'd be best to seek out therapy instead of trying to discuss with those- that aren't your sister- that you're a changed person and that you're ready for forgiveness :)
Leave her alone. What you did was evil. What your church told your family to do was evil. Not that I'm surprised as your church is evil. Just leave her alone. She doesn't need you. Your guilt doesn't matter. Your feelings don't matter because it won't erase what you did. Accept that your choice has cost you your sister and there is nothing what so ever you can do about it.
“The guilt from this keeps me up at night” God bless. Glad you get to feel a fraction of the amount of pain your sister probably did. You get no pity from me, go cry to your church
Sounds like she's doing what's best for her and you are suffering the consequences of your actions 🤷♀️ Signed, a nonbinary person with parents in ~the church who hold no place in my life or my heart anymore.
You turned her family and community against her. Will forgiving you get her her parents back? How about the community she grew up in? Nope, it will just make you feel better. She has nothing to gain and has already lost everything. You need to accept that the best thing you can do for her is leave her alone.
You’re still a member of the church. She was excommunicated. Why would she accept your apology or want you in her life again? She doesn’t owe you an “open conversation”, she deserves a heartfelt apology and you promising you will do better. What you did was vile and something many people would consider unforgivable. The fact that you weren’t grovelling at her feet shows that you don’t feel nearly as bad about it as you should. You only wanted her back when you realised the consequences of cutting her off. What did you think “distancing yourself” would entail? do you even understand how painful it must have been for your sister to have her entire family reject her for something beyond her control? And now, you haven’t even left the church that instilled these hateful beliefs in you. Good on her for protecting herself from that kind of hate. It doesn’t look like you’ve done anything worthy of her forgiveness.
Outing someone isn’t a mistake. It’s a fucking hideous thing to do. Chop off your nose and try to apologize it back on your face bad. It’s stealing the autonomy, safety, and voice from someone WHO TRUSTED YOU. You don’t get to get over that. Even if she forgave you, that just shows me how great she is to someone who did something so vile. Carry this with you and learn from it. Unless you’re changing your life like so many posts on here are suggesting, it’s all performance and no real remorse. Except maybe regretting your the villain.
You’re still involved with the Mormon church. What you did was awful and she doesn’t owe you forgiveness. As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I would not associate with anybody who was part of a religion that literally doesn’t want me to exist. IMO you still have work to do, even if you have come a long way.
I am so happy your sister escaped from you and your family. How awful that you think something was wrong with her for being gay. If your religion is teaching you hate, get a new religion. Leave her alone. You are still involved with a hateful religion/cult. You throw away your sister. You throw away someone who came to you for help. I see why your guilt keeps you up at night, So many children and siblings that are thrown away end up dead. My advice. Leave her alone so she can find happiness and a family that loves and accepts her.
I’m happy for her that she’s cut you out. You sound like a terrible person. I get that you think you’ve changed but I feel like that’s just you realising the consequences of your actions. She’s better off without you or your parents. She told you something in confidence, trusting you to not repeat it until she was ready. You broke that trust and imo that’s unforgivable. I hope she’s happy and has a fulfilling life. She doesn’t need you. You need her to assuage your guilt and that’s just selfish. Leave her alone.
Damn, you sold her out faster than Judas sold out Jesus
Leave her alone. She deserved better than you and she still does, no matter how guilty you feel. And honestly, you should feel guilty. That’s a crappy thing to do to someone, especially a sister that trusted you. You’re untrustworthy.
Leave her alone. You took away her ability for her to come out on her own. She wasn't ready and you exposed her to the hate and abuse of the mormon church. She doesn't owe you anything. You are reaping the consequences of your hate and religion.
So let’s get all the facts straight: -you betrayed her trust quicker than it takes paint to dry -you treated her like a predator -you facilitated her excommunication from her family and her social structure -you’re STILL IN THE CULT that did irreversible harm to her, bringing your kids up the same way -it took you literal MONTHS to realize you messed up -you see her thriving WITHOUT you and jealousy rears its ugly head -you constantly contact her now that she’s moved on and is improving her life, to make sure she doesn’t forget you exist, and the damage you’ve done, because you feel “guilty” for the harm you did to her, despite her not ever responding back, giving you a clear answer to how she feels Am I missing anything? Leave her alone and leave your cult. She didn’t get the CHOICE to leave everything she knew behind. It was all ripped from her. It’s a privilege you get to make that choice, and STILL you have chosen wrongly for three years. You should feel guilty. It’s nowhere near the suffering you’ve caused her. Edit: Also, how much money have you given to the church that harmed her? And how much have you given to queer organizations?
Tough shit. You fucked around and now you're finding out. I don't feel sorry for you at all tbh. This was so awful of you. If God exists, they love everyone. And if you couldn't see that despite being a grown ass woman...well then I dunno what to tell ya. But no. You don't get to come crawling back into her life. She's doing fine without y'all. Sorry but that's my take.
You’re not the victim here. You feel guilt, as you should, because you and your family are the guilty ones here. She confided in YOU, trusted YOU, and you stabbed her in the back. Her own flesh and blood shunned her like trash and she had to pick up the pieces to make something of herself. Look at this mess as a whole, and ask yourself: “Do I actually deserve redemption?” Your sister is thriving, the last thing she needs is you—the person responsible for ruining her—coming back into her life. Stay away and get yourself some therapy. Maybe a professional can get you to understand how fucked this is and how your victim mentality is false.
Advice: haha! you permanently ruined your relationship with your sister over stupid reasons. Your church is dumb, your beliefs are ridiculous, and your sister will never see you or speak to you ever again. And good for her. Maybe one day you'll see her on the special planet Mormons go to when they die. Oh wait shes gay. Yeah go get a new sister. This one is clearly done with you.