Difficult adult daughter

I do not feel so strange and alone, and that I did something terribly wrong, now that I have heard that others here have had the same problems. I just met a lady that has a daughter that does not speak to her, and another daughter that does. I guess it is more common than one would think. Thanks for the post, rporter, you hit the nail on the head! I am going to back off, and let her come talk to me. Words have been spoken on both sides, though, and each of us are very slow to forgive those words spoken to each other in anger, so it might be a while. I am wrestling with trying to forgive her, since I feel it is my duty to be the one to forgive her hurtful words. This is the really hard part.
 

Petula said:
I do not feel so strange and alone, and that I did something terribly wrong, now that I have heard that others here have had the same problems. I just met a lady that has a daughter that does not speak to her, and another daughter that does. I guess it is more common than one would think. Thanks for the post, rporter, you hit the nail on the head! I am going to back off, and let her come talk to me. Words have been spoken on both sides, though, and each of us are very slow to forgive those words spoken to each other in anger, so it might be a while. I am wrestling with trying to forgive her, since I feel it is my duty to be the one to forgive her hurtful words. This is the really hard part.
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Petula, you are not strange and you are NOT alone! Many of us have these problems with our adult kids. We did our best to raise them, made sacrifices, struggled with things that came up in life, and yet here we are in our "golden years" still sad sometimes and wondering what to do. This Forum is a great place to share. I don't like the members who pick on others and blame them for things they know nothing about. Remember, these children are either our flesh and blood or our chosen ones. We care about them. If today were the last time you were to speak to them, what would you want to say? Keep that in mind when your child finally does contact you. Forget the past hurts. We can't change them. They're over with. All we have is today. Love to you.
 
Twixie said:
Now I suffer from ''smother'' sons.I have 3 in Italy..2 in the South of France..my youngest one lives here with me after a disastrous marriage..

My sons it Italy..''Mama..come here..we will buy you a flat next to the sea...you don't need to pay nothing..It's warm here Mama..

My sons in France..''Come and live over here..we want you here..we will send you a plane ticket, don't bother to pack nothing..(sic)..
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Sounds like you're a very lucky mom Twixie!
 

What IS this about mother-daughter relationships? So many mothers with this problem.
 
avrp said:
Thanks guys. I really appreciate your replies. ClassicRockr, my 17 yr old granddaughter is the same way.... so I just don't take pics of her unless she wants me to :)

My daughter has temper issues and anxiety issues, which doesn't help matters.
A few times she blamed me for a lonely childhood because she was an only child and we lived out in the country.
I feel like her punching bag. When she left her husband she moved in with me. That's when it all began and she moved out hating me and disowning me, and since that 6 month separation I've toughened up because I found out that she is not the child I thought she was. It took all my strength and some therapy but I didn't try to contact her. I waited for her to make the first move. Things were better after that. We got along great (still do at times) and have had so much fun together.
Probably the last year or so Mary has slowly began to be disrespectful. I don't know...maybe it's about her home life....happiness or lack of.

I find it difficult to be the mother of this adult child. I want a relationship with her ... but I won't let her disrespect me. So it's up to me to find that balance, even if it's loving her from afar and not getting so emotionally attached.
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Dont let too much time pass, I've not seen my eldest daughter in 8 years and she's not spoken to me in 3 years. She'll see my husband maybe once a year. He is saw her last week and she asked him for $20,000 and to co-sign on a lease for her for an apartment (my husband is 70 years old). This same daughter owes me $250,000. When time to re-pay, she 'couldn't afford it'. Oh, she lives less than 10 miles from us. We've been blamed for every single lousy mistake she's made in her life. I've stayed away with arms opened hoping she'll come to her senses and with a hole in my heart missing her. I do feel extremely guilty that with her absence, all the 'drama' she carries in her life is not part of ours and not our problem. Time is short, we're getting old(er). My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed in 90 days, would of thought this life lesson would of been remembered, it wasn't.
 
I'm sorry you are going through this -- it must be very painful for you.

Please take no offense at this, but I would not beg to be allowed to visit anyone. Why would I want to visit them if they don't want me? I'd find some friends and visit with them. I'd also remember that they (the family) didn't want me around when it came to making my will.
 
Butterfly said:
I'm sorry you are going through this -- it must be very painful for you.

Please take no offense at this, but I would not beg to be allowed to visit anyone. Why would I want to visit them if they don't want me? I'd find some friends and visit with them. I'd also remember that they (the family) didn't want me around when it came to making my will.
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I totally agree.
 
My only thought is that if you have a 37 year old married daughter with three children, your days of parenting her are OVER, so back off and let her do her thing as she sees fit, right or wrong.
 
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Butterfly said:
Please take no offense at this, but I would not beg to be allowed to visit anyone. Why would I want to visit them if they don't want me? I'd find some friends and visit with them. I'd also remember that they (the family) didn't want me around when it came to making my will.
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I somewhat agree. But for me, "find some friends and visit with them" is easier said than done. And I would miss my grandchildren.
 
I dunno, does gender play into it? I was not the best Mom...or the worst by far, if anything I let everyone get away with too much. But the boys have been understanding...hey that was then. This is today, no worries. The girls will condemn me till the end of days. May you have a girl JUST LIKE YOU...worst thing you can curse on them. Maybe a couple good beatings and them girls would have figured it out. I'm being sarcastic...I think?
 
Carl B said:
I somewhat agree. But for me, "find some friends and visit with them" is easier said than done. And I would miss my grandchildren.
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I know the "find some friends" thing is a LOT easier said than done, and I apologize; I didn't mean to be flippant. It's just that I've found that many times people will continue to treat you as poorly as you allow them to. And I decided that I am simply not going to let people treat me like crap -- I deserve better than that. If people don't want me around -- I'm not around.

No matter how old we get, we deserve to be treated like a human being who matters, because we do.
 
Butterfly said:
I know the "find some friends" thing is a LOT easier said than done, and I apologize; I didn't mean to be flippant. It's just that I've found that many times people will continue to treat you as poorly as you allow them to. And I decided that I am simply not going to let people treat me like crap -- I deserve better than that. If people don't want me around -- I'm not around.

No matter how old we get, we deserve to be treated like a human being who matters, because we do.
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very well put! Couldn't agree more.
 
Is it her life or yours...ok it's yours. Ask her "Do I try to run your life, then please don't try to run mine". Or "I love you but you have to respect my way an my life
an I will respect yours". Sadly, if she plays the grandchild card there isn't much you can do an hopefully she won't do that. That's a low blow to you an you can't do
squat. My son an his wife do not play that card ever an don't tell me what to do, thank you kids. You ahve to make the daughter realize...''YOUR ALL GROWN UP NOW''.
Good luck an keep us posted on how things go. I'm sure this can be a draining situation.
 
If anybody can solve the problems of the Mother-Daughter relationship please let this father know the answer.

My ex-wife has what I will call 'prickly' relations with our daughters. Even worse, it seems to be overflowing to our grand daughters who are lucky to see their grandmother once a month even though we all live withing a hour's drive of each other.

Families often do things to each other that they would not do to a complete stranger. We must be patient and take a long term approach to these situations. But, it is hard at times.
 
Hmmm. Well, I guess if your ex wants to see the kids she is going to have to try harder to get along. You say prickly, but not sure what that means. Maybe your ex would do better asking to pick the kids up and spend one-on-one time with them. Ask to have them overnight- that often gives parents opportunity to go out for the evening. That will keep contact to a minimum with the daughters. Just a suggestion.
 
avrp said:
Haven't hear from her since. It is so upsetting to me but I refuse to be mistreated. Or am I mistreating her?
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I guess it's more my general attitude than a trueism, but I for myself have long since decided to treat whatever my children throw at my old behind with Zen like patience. They just don't know better. Fortunately, I do :)
 
Byrd said:
I guess it's more my general attitude than a trueism, but I for myself have long since decided to treat whatever my children throw at my old behind with Zen like patience. They just don't know better. Fortunately, I do :)
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I think you are wise. I would not tolerate severe abuse, but it often comes down to "Do I want to be right? Or do I want to be happy?".

I have seen far to many seniors cut themselves off from children and grandchildren over issues that, in the end, are not that big of a deal. Or could have been handled with that Zen like attitude mentioned above. Or, given over to a higher power. Or, just about anything that did not inflame the conflict.
 
I find this problem with myself and many others with adult children. It appears to me that many of their generation are disrespectful and feel entitled. I have not found anyone that understands their behavior as most have given their children a strong and healthy upbringing. I used to feel that I had done something wrong until these same stories keep surfacing. I refuse to tolerate disrespect and therefore receive little or no contact from them. It is indeed a sad situation for us parents.
 
I think the adult child-parent relationship will change simply because people are living longer. The weaker or more frail parent is a natural evolution of the relationship. Same can be said for many of the problems adult children have which can make an old parent treat their child like a child. To me a lot of stuff goes to back to physical and financial health. If both parties are ok theoretically the relationship should be more equal. It all depends on what people want or expect. To me there are certain lines that one doesn't cross, if it's crossed it's a character indicator. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
 
Reading this thread has been both enlightening and heartening in that I now see how my mom's ordeals with my older sister are not as uncommon or unusual as I thought.

My mom turns 94 at the end of the year. My older sister turns 64 in a little over a week. My mom was born and raised in Germany. Spent the first 28 years of her life there before marrying and moving to America with my dad. She is kind of the classic European, middle class type elderly lady. Very neat, tidy, old fashioned and set in her ways.

My sister was always sort of the black sheep of the family, taking up with kind of "loser" type guys. Her third and last husband passed away a couple of years ago after he had left her for two years and destroyed his health partying, boozing and drugging, then came crawling back after the bottom fell out and he had nowhere to go. Two years after coming back, he was 100% disabled, dependent on oxygen and a cardiologist told him he couldn't do anything for him. She found him dead in his chair after coming home from work one day.

So now she's living in our mom's house, taking care of her. It was pretty rocky for awhile, with both of them going out of their way to set the other one off, but for the past year or so, things seem to have smoothed out somewhat. My sister is still friends with her mil and bil who live about three hours northwest of her. She spends all day Facebook PM'ing with them and talks on the phone with them a lot. And of course, she's nothing but friendly and buddy-buddy with them while treating my mom like she's just an inconvenience. And she still often talks to my mom in an impatient, disrespectful tone of voice.

All this, knowing full well that my mom is leaving the house to her in the will. No sense of appreciation whatsoever.

I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that my sister fancies herself a "good ol' country gal". Likes country music, NASCAR, Florida Gators, etc. Her inlaws are all into that and of course my mom is totally clueless about all of it.

But the main thing about my sister is that she still seems to have a nasty attitude towards my mom and me both. I really have to tread carefully any time I even try to have a friendly, civilized conversation with her, because anything could set her off. She seems to think if I or my mom disagree with her on the slightest thing, we're somehow trying to imply she's dumb and doesn't know anything.

Just this past Friday, I had spent Thanksgiving with them and spent the night. My sister went grocery shopping and bought a pizza for lunch. As she was cutting it, we got into a spitting match over the subject of pizza cutters of all things. I was trying to tell her about a certain unique kind I have when she cut me off saying she'd seen them before and they looked just like any other. I knew that wasn't so and I politely and humorously pressed the point.

Kablooey!!!! Off she went.

I said a couple of rather harsh things in response, she told me to shut up and leave.

Needless to say, it cast a pall on the whole holiday.
 
Toxic folks, YUCK! I give them a wide berth.....life's too short to contend with them.

Yet, you find them everywhere~~~~ in families, church................forums etc.
 

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