Dear Eric >> My sister (85) and I (80) have been estranged for about five years. My niece invited us for Thanksgiving dinner just before this fallout. She was also inviting relatives of her fiancé who are active Scientologists, a religion that has a well-documented distaste of homosexuals.

I am in a long-term same-sex marriage, and I expressed some queasiness to my sister about being in this company. When she told her daughter, the daughter became hysterical crying and disinvited us the day before the event, fearing that we would make the group uncomfortable.

The shrinks always suggest writing a letter explaining all your feelings and then not sending it. I wrote a long email to my sister, but I sent it anyway. I expressed my belief that my sister has always coddled her daughter and should have stuck up for us because this fear was misplaced. I also believed that my sister had lied in this instance, plus other personal observations. Without my permission, she shared it with my niece. All Hell broke loose.

It’s one thing to have differences of opinion that can lead to estrangement but how can you ever reconcile with someone who you now feel cannot be trusted? I don’t see this as an isolated incident.

If one of us dies it might be unfortunate that this was left unresolved but that’s where we are. I guess some things just don’t get fixed. Perhaps once anyone dies, sooner or later, does anything matter? What do you think of all this?

— Estranged Sister

Dear Sister >> The shrinks are onto something with the whole “writing the letter but not sending it” thing. When we’re in conflict with other people, it’s helpful to first get it all out for ourselves. This shows us what’s on our side of the street and what’s on the other person’s side.

Your email became a repository for a lot of different pent-up issues you have with your sister. Her sharing it did violate your trust but consider she likely felt that she and her daughter were being maligned by you.

There’s a lot of pain to go around. I sense that this relationship does matter to you and if you want to salvage a part of it, a good first step is taking an inventory of what you might have done differently, owning up to the things you did that might have hurt or offended her, and reaching out — by phone, preferably — to start an amends. See if you can keep the conversation centered on ways that you can reconnect and put some of this behind you, rather than relitigate what’s past. It’s not going to help you to criticize her parenting, for instance. But it will help to say that you care about her, you want her in your life, and you want to find a path forward.

Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com