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Just wanted to say THANKS for this excellent web site. You really hit the nail on the head in helping me to understand my own situation as an abused adult child. I needed this web site 30+ years ago.

I’m sorry if this is an inappropriate thing to ask.

I’ve read and often recommend your work on estranged parents forums, and I know from experience that you’re right about it applying to that kind of abuser in general; not just parents. My sibling is just like what’s described, but my sibling is that way toward our parents, who have estranged from them. Sibling was seriously exactly the same way both leading up to the estrangement and continues to be the same post-estrangement.

My sibling is capable of growth and change, they’ve demonstrated it, but once their defenses go up, that capability disappears. So if I walk on eggshells, nod along to an ever-changing history of how evil our parents are, and am very gentle in any advice I give, I can occasionally nudge my sibling in a better direction, but it would take lifetimes to do enough nudging to actually fundamentally change the problem. I know I can’t make my sibling become a better person, but I also know that people like my sibling can change, and anything I can do to increase the odds of that happening, even if the increase is basically negligible, is something I’m interested in.

And my sibling is someone who will absolutely do research, and the estrangement is the primary thing they talk about so me providing a resource for them to look at would make perfect sense.

So, here’s what I’m looking for recommendations on: do you know of any (preferably written) resources on estrangement and reconciliation that would apply to my sibling* that are for abusers?

Something that’s for people who will not admit that they’re part of the problem and is written to try to gradually get them recognize that they are and start fixing what’s wrong with them, but framed in some kind of, “You have to do this even if/though you were completely blameless, because it’s a necessary part of the process,” way.

I don’t know if such a thing exists, and if it does I’m sure it only helps an incredibly small amount of the time, and it could be my sibling would stop reading at the first speedbump, but I do think there’s a (slim) chance an authoritative seeming textual resource could get them to start making changes in how they approach things. Specifically text, because sibling would just repeatedly derail someone trying to say the same things to them directly.

The fucked up thing is that one of our parents was emotionally abusive when we were kids (and sometimes still is, but it legitimately looks like real improvement with instances of backsliding, whereas it used to be constant), but my sibling places almost all of the blame on, and directs almost all of their hate and vitriol at, the parent who was never abusive, was being abused at least as much as we were, and finally put an end to the abuse (present instances are outside non-abusive parent’s control since the two are divorced and it’s rare for them to be in the same place at the same time.) My sibling used to defend me from the abusive parent. My sibling swore that they’d never become like the abusive parent. My sibling is acting exactly like our abusive parent did at that parent’s worst. It’s not directed at me, but it’s fucking painful anyway.

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* I don’t mean exact details, I just mean that it can’t be . . . honestly, I mostly mean that it can’t be specifically for parents looking to reconcile with their estranged children, because my sibling would see parents wanting to end estrangement as evidence our parents are exceptionally terrible for estranging from them.