![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Dear Care and Feeding,
I am so sad. My youngest daughter, E (29), is very much estranged from me but requires me to see her a few times during the year. This causes me much distress, but I want to remain present when she wants me to be there. The issue I am having is that she always throws me an offhand comment that has double meanings during these times. Her words hurt me very much. Up until yesterday, I have mostly not acknowledged them. But she stated, “I basically raised myself from 13 on.” I have recently realized that I had made some bad and uncharacteristic decisions from her thirteenth year up to about six months ago. I have had some great revelations in therapy and feel very grounded and future-focused. She’s in therapy too, and I know I am the reason for that.
But she does not want to forgive me. She wants to continue to punish me. I can learn to sit there and take it, allowing her to “get it off her chest,” but how do I deal with the dread that she will not come around and begin to let our relationship to heal? This makes me sadder than anything I ever felt before. I have her in my life in a primarily negative way. This last pushback by me (basically agreeing that I was not the mom she deserved) was not met well. What now?
—Any Chance Again
( Read more... )
I am so sad. My youngest daughter, E (29), is very much estranged from me but requires me to see her a few times during the year. This causes me much distress, but I want to remain present when she wants me to be there. The issue I am having is that she always throws me an offhand comment that has double meanings during these times. Her words hurt me very much. Up until yesterday, I have mostly not acknowledged them. But she stated, “I basically raised myself from 13 on.” I have recently realized that I had made some bad and uncharacteristic decisions from her thirteenth year up to about six months ago. I have had some great revelations in therapy and feel very grounded and future-focused. She’s in therapy too, and I know I am the reason for that.
But she does not want to forgive me. She wants to continue to punish me. I can learn to sit there and take it, allowing her to “get it off her chest,” but how do I deal with the dread that she will not come around and begin to let our relationship to heal? This makes me sadder than anything I ever felt before. I have her in my life in a primarily negative way. This last pushback by me (basically agreeing that I was not the mom she deserved) was not met well. What now?
—Any Chance Again
( Read more... )