The dilemma: I am estranged from my sister and wonder if I should create a relationship with her again. I am in my forties, married and live with my wife and young son. My sister is a year younger, divorced and lives abroad. We have few relatives; both our parents are dead and our only other sibling died 20 years ago. Our adult lives have been punctuated by periods of extremely close friendship (speaking on the phone daily) and longer periods of non-communication and unanswered emails. If people are unable to offer any succour for her emotional and egotistical greed, she dumps them. It is my belief that humans should not live off each other but with each other. Our philosophies conflict totally. We last fell out after my father died and I was taking care of his estate, planning my wedding, starting a new job and bringing up a very young son as well as offering my sister what emotional support I could - and she told me I was not concerned with her feelings! Maybe it's pointless trying to rebuild our relationship, as she will only drain me emotionally. However, she is my only living family, probably lonely, and my son's auntie and only link to that side of the family.

Well, you'll certainly have to stop acting the martyr. You may have been shouldering all the responsibility, but if that's the role you chose you can hardly blame your sister. You are just about to do it again by imagining her to be lonely and getting in touch in order to 'save' her instead of just because you fancy saying hello. It's one of the worst mistakes we all make with family and close friends. We set ourselves up to play a particular part, a bit like being cast in a movie, and then wonder why everyone presumes that's who we are. I've seen it so many times, particularly in the complicated connections among siblings. One is the irresponsible one, another the selfish one, another the carer. As long as no one upsets the status quo, whole lives can be played out in this way. Each of us has qualities that define us, but it's often only by ripping up the script that we can take charge of our own lives and reinvent our relationships. The fact that you were juggling all those responsibilities post your father's death comes as no surprise: it's probably as much a part of your act as it is for your sister to play the needy, emotionally greedy one. I bring this up not because I'm unsympathetic to your dilemma, but because one of you has to recognise what goes wrong each time you are reunited. For example, there's an awful lot of 'I' in your letter for someone who is married and part of a now-depleted family. There were at least two of you involved in planning your wedding, I presume (unless you've adopted a similar role in that relationship, too), and all adults who have children take on the job of raising them, so no surprises there. Adding those two chores to your list of preoccupations marks you out less for sympathy and more as a bit of a myopic martyr. Could it be that you share some of those qualities that you so dislike in your sister? You're certainly after some sort of recompense or gratitude for your efforts, judging by the way you describe them. Yet thanks is the last thing you're going to get for doing what other people expect of you. So many letters I receive are about the people writing them rather than the problem they describe. You're a good example. You and your sister have extended your sibling rivalry and dysfunctional patterns too far into adulthood. Instead of disengaging and working on something more emotionally mature, you're both still out there, gloves at the ready.

So yes, in answer to your question: it seems a shame you two can't make your relationship work, and it would be good to try again. The only way to do that is to totally reinvent the way you communicate with each other and drastically alter your expectations. Can you detach yourself emotionally and approach this as a new chapter? A less indulgent reunion that doesn't involve intense daily contact would be the best place to start. How about maintaining communication at arms' length? Your sister's philosophy won't change, and I daresay neither will yours, but if everyone we loved behaved as we wanted we'd probably die of boredom. Don't put yourself in a situation where you become her support again, and try to deflect or even avoid topics of conflict. That way her demands and her whole way of interacting with you will have to change. For both of you that's got to be a good thing. Bear in mind, too, that some families just don't connect. So should you be unsuccessful in your bid for a workable reunion, it's a shame but not a tragedy. The path to misery is littered with tenacious optimists who refuse to accept that fact.

If you, too, have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk