Feeling used and let down by daughter....

smartpicture

If you want to be less giving in the future that's fine - but I don't agree with cancelling the theatre. You said it was part of her Xmas present, and you don't take back a present just because you feel differently a bit later on.

pigpen

I'd let her stew in her own bile and let her come to me.. Hell would freeze over before I contacted her again.

She obviously has no respect for you.. she may love you in some twisted sense of the word but has behaved inexcusably.

If I have a problem with my mother I say 'Oi! That REALLY annoyed me.. blah.. blah..'

It is aired and it is dealt with and life moves on.

She is basically being a normal member of your family by the looks of it.. She is copying everyone elses behaviour.. is that so shocking?

She grew up with auntie not talking to grandma, auntie and uncle not talking to mum, grandma not talking to grandad... and you are shocked she is not talking to you??

No doubt all these other feuds are over imagined sleights too.

Sounds like your whole family needs to get a grip and grow up about 25 years!!

She has you right where she wants you.. dangling on a string at her beckon call..

determined_new_ms

Errata wrote: »

HTH - counselling will help you sort out actions and a way forward as well as your thoughts and emotions. Don't dismiss it out of hand, it could be a great source of help.

hi sorry to hear u've had a rough day {{hugs}} I've been having a really hard time with my daughter and I am seeing a counseller and its really helped me alot. Its helped me sort out stuff about how I feel, and see myself as a person in my own right not just in reflection to my relationships with my children. This in turn has helped me be stronger in my relationship with my daughter. I'd recommend,however I'm still waiting for the pay off...

Savvy_Sue

whenelephantsfly wrote: »

Thanks, I am not sure a counsellor would help to be honest, he/she is not going to be able to tell me the right thing to do. Just talk thorugh my feelings - I guess I am asking what the right thing to do is.

None of us can tell you the right thing to do, any more than a counsellor can. However, what a counsellor can do (probably better than us!) is explore with you what you WANT to do, and what the RIGHT THING FOR YOU TO DO might be, and what you might do if things then don't go the way you hoped / wanted.

I find it very liberating to talk things through with my counsellor - nothing as painful as this, but just having someone help me explore how I feel about life, the universe and everything, and how I can change MY entrenched patterns of behaviour.

Actually, there was a time when my mum wasn't talking to me. I ignored the fact that she wasn't talking to me, and made a point of talking to her whenever I saw her. As this was invariably in front of other people and she didn't want to lose face by admitting that ours wasn't the perfect family because I'd done something to upset her so she'd stopped talking to me, she had to start talking to me.

sparrer

My daughter went out of our lives some 15 years ago, saying she could live without the family. I saw her and the children in the street once or twice, when I approached her to try to be friendly she pulled the children away and marched off. My then husband made some headway, visiting her and slowly trying to bring her round, but her OH found him in their house one day and told him to leave. That was the last time we had any contact at all.

I've blamed myself many times, cried, wondered where I went wrong, prayed for some sign that she wanted to see us, but nothing. As a teenager she stole from all of us and our business, ran away, got into scrapes, had the police pick her up on a few occasions, she always came back only to do it again. She was an A* student so goodness only knows why.

My other two children tell me it wasn't me, it was just the way she was but I always wonder. However, the one thing I absolutely will not do is try to find her because I won't give her the opportunity to slam the door in my face again.

You have to decide if the hurt is worth it, if you think there's a chance she will come back, but my advice would be don't give her any more ammunition to shoot you down. Only you know how much you can take but there comes a time when you have to stop trying for your own sanity and for the sake of your relationship with the people around you who you care about, and care about you. I hope you can get back to a proper mother/daughter relationship, but if not try not to blame yourself. Good luck
S

Pee

Counselling sounds a good idea to me. I think we all have to realise that our parents and our children may not be the people we want them to be, they may not be people we would usually choose to be friends with and we have to decide how we want to deal with this for ourselves.

My mum and I do not have a good relationship. Although I try to stay calm about it, the littlest thing she does can really annoy me - texting me whilst I am at work and it turns out to be really unimportant with we haven't heard from you for a few days, when I sent the last text. There is a big issue that we fell out over - she has never liked any of my boyfriends and the one I am now living with is no exeption. We deal with it by pretending that he doesn't exist. I go round to see her and never mention him. This is easier than you would think it might be, but it does mean that there is very little to say.

With everything else in my life, I am really calm and laid back and grown up and responsible. She winds me up like noone else on earth can, and makes me feel like a teenager, sometimes.

I make an effort and she makes an effort, but I doubt we will ever be close. I doubt we ever can be close. We are both fiercely independent and would rather walk 35 miles in the rain than ask the other for any assistance.

I presume that you can afford the theatre tickets. If so, go, hopefully you will have a nice time together and make some progress.

*Louise*

Your situation sounds very similar to my mum and sister, they barely get along. My mum did start the problem, but even though she apologised, after 10 years my sister still holds a massive grudge about it and will kick off a problem now and then. The rest of us don't get involved or take sides, we all just try and maintain an even keel.

However, in your situation, the fact that most members of your family are willing to hide things from you (including your OWN mother) says more to me than just your daughter not speaking to you. We only have your side of the story, but to me there has to be more to it.

Not that I'm asking you to tell us - I just think that if the situation is this bad, then perhaps family counselling is the way to go, because this runs deeper than two people.

With regards to the theatre - you have already said you would take her, so unless you want things to deteriorate further, I would still have the intention of going. If it was me, I would contact her asking her to confirm she still wanted to go.....if she says no, or doesn't answer then at least no one can blame you for any more problems. (Or use it as an excuse not to speak to you again)

I really hope you can get things sorted.

newcook

I wouldn’t take her to the theatre – I don’t care if it was meant to have been part of an xmas present! The way she is acting/behaving, santa should have bought her a lump of coal!!!

I suggest the same as another poster and when she asks about going say that as you hadn’t heard from her you thought she no longer wanted to go.

People – no matter what the relation – need to know that they cannot treat others like carp and expect to receive gifts/treats

Kay_Peel

Your daughter must have so much bitterness and resentment in her heart. Even though she has told you that she over-reacted and that a line had been drawn in the sand, the underlying cause of her hurt has not been laid to rest. Possibly, she is having second thoughts about letting you off so easily. Her failure to respond to your messages is evidence that she is still brooding and still wants to punish you.

I presume that you've said sorry to her for the real or imaginary damage that you were responsible for - whatever it was. And even with an apology, your daughter hasn't forgiven you and still feels the need to crush your hopes of a true reconciliation.

I would avoid at all costs the use of Facebook, email, texts and other non-personal means of communication. They are very poor substitutes for real face to face conversations. Personally, I would turn up at her doorstep with a sleeping bag and tell her that I wasn't leaving until we had raked over the past and buried it.

It's time for you to face the music, I feel.

whenelephantsfly

Thanks for the messages, I hoped to have got a message from DD but nothing still.

I'd really like to put more details here and I appreciate that there are 2 sides to every story and I am telling you what I can, if I put all the details down someone will realise who I am and I do not speak to people about this. I have an in-law who has been through the same thing with her oldest child and she tells me that I should stop giving, let her walk away and she will come back when she has grown up a bit more and when she is ready, this is what she has done and it works.

I'll run through some bits that have been posted though if I can answer them witout going into too much.

We live different ends of the country so I cannot just drop everything and go and see her as I have a disabled child. I also cannot go and see her due to the violence I'll face when I get there and I am scared to go there. I am not going there so if that is bad of me then so be it. I cannot call her as she does not answer. The only way she speaks to me is through Facebook.

As for what is going on with my family. You know what, I have no idea either. This is more than likely my sisters way of 'getting back at me'. Again, not going into history because... all I'll say that something happened to my sister to humiliate her big time, she even had to move, and she now seems intent on humiliating me instead. What happened to her was nothing whatsoever to do with me but she hates to think that she cannot be one rung higher than me and so does stuff like this. I think my family do not have the balls to tell her because she can be like this and everyone is worried about upsetting her. Pretty pathetic really.

Have I told her I am sorry - yes of course, even though I was not sure what I was supposed to be sorry for, but I said I was sorry for anything that might have happened and wanted to put that behind us and move forward. I did go and see her face to face just after it all happened and I thought everything was OK.

As for her punishing me - she has a, qualifications, a job, she is almost an adult - surely she needs to grow up now?? If she wants to walk away then do it instead of dangling me on the end of a string. She is doing that to get things from me.

There has been a lot of abuse in my mums family so some of them got out whiel they could. Even I could not even tell you who they are but because I was pretty much left to my own devices from the age of 16 we never had much family contact with my side of the family. My sister just seems to have contacted her in the last few years and she is now doing all of this. It is all bit odd as my daughter did not even know who she was, she just accepted she was my sister (who we never saw when DD was a child at all) and suddenly they were BFF. She could have been anyone. Scary really.

sparrer, I know it has not been 15 years but I really relate to your story. When I would not give things to her she stole them, I found out and had a go at her and told her to empty her bag and took them back. She then said she was not going to see me for a bit. I told her to go off and think about it but we have drifted apart since then really, but why should I be worried about putting something down in my own home in case she nicks it? That is unacceptable and she did need to be told not pander around her in case I upset her.

You know, I've thought on this some more and I think I am going to say that we have to postpone this time because something else has come up but if she still wants to go another time I'll see what has happened in-between. If she only asks about the trip I'll end up telling her I am not taking her because she does not ask anything else and so does not deserve it.

Thanks for listening and for helping me put things into perspective.