Accusations of Abuse Lead to Estrangement

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: My 25-year-old daughter has stopped talking to me. She said I need counseling to discuss the abuse during her childhood. I asked, "What abuse?" She won't say! I can't think of any. She was never spanked. She was given anything she asked for and allowed to join any club or sport she was interested in.

The only thing she finally mentioned was that my husband and I had arguments. We didn't argue often. I'm at a loss. Should I step back and leave her alone? I send texts and call her once a week. Most go unanswered. When she does answer, she asks if I have started counseling. Please advise. -- CUT OFF IN INDIANA

DEAR CUT OFF: Tell your daughter that you are open to counseling, but only if it is joint counseling with her to figure out why there is such a disparity in your -- and her -- memories of her childhood. If you do, it may -- I can't guarantee -- resolve what's happening now.

https://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/2021/2/10/2/accusations-of-abuse-lead-to-estrangement#disqus-comments

Comments

[conuly]

You know I love those tasty missing missing reasons!

So, first of all, if you want to bang your head against a brick wall for a while, then by all means go to the comments at uexpress.

Secondly, I think we all know "She was never spanked, she got everything she [directly] asked for, she was allowed to join clubs or sports" leaves a whole lot of really big gaps for abuse to fall into. The few commenters at uexpress who aren't just buying this hook, line, and sinker are suggesting that the most obvious gap is verbal or other emotional abuse. Given that the one thing LW remembers her daughter saying about this abusive childhood is frequent parental arguments, I wonder if covert emotional incest is part of the pattern here - though, really, simply witnessing lots of knock-down fights could be part of it.

Abby loses points here for suggesting that LW's daughter go to therapy with her abuser. Bad advice columnist, no cookie. And she loses more points for not telling LW to stop harassing her daughter. If somebody doesn't want to talk to you - stop calling and texting them!

(Also, there's somebody in the comments at uexpress ragging on Cristina Crawford for talking about the abuse she withstood at the hands of Joan Crawford, and that jerkface can just kindly drop dead.)

[frenzy]

Ugh. Terrible advice. Who is worse: Abby or Annie?

[tielan]

Oh LW,honey.

Just because the way you brought her up doesn't register as 'abuse' in your terms doesn't mean it's not actually abuse. You are the accused abuser, and what you might have considered totally rational (withholding of affection, withholding of freedoms, withholding of financial independence) might actually...not be.

If you are honest about this, then you may want to go into counselling, by yourself, and talk very specifically about the manner in which you brought your daughter up. If you are not, and are just looking for reassuring cookies, the comments section of your letter's publishing will probably suffice you.

[kiezh]

Hmm, LW. Have you considered... going to counseling, yourself, to talk about your family history in detail with an outsider? Like your daughter asked you to? Have you considered... listening to what your daughter says and treating her like a credible human being who says meaningful words?

That whole "I reject my daughter's reality and substitute my own" routine LW has going on is really all the reason necessary for LW's daughter to nope the hell out. This is the kind of pattern that would have been there all 25 years of her life - nothing she says matters or means anything, the only reality that counts is what her parent thinks/feels/remembers - and it is, in fact, an abusive pattern. Right there in the letter, LW is replicating it. She's so crazy and unreliable! Nothing she remembers actually happened that way! Everything she asks of me is unreasonable and unnecessary! Obviously I can't possibly have done anything wrong ever - why would my ungrateful child make up such wild stories?

I'm glad LW's daughter figured out she didn't have to live like that, and walked away. Maybe if LW actually goes to counseling in good faith, they might eventually come to some insight about their dysfunctional family patterns. (I'm not holding my breath though.)

[green_grrl]

Have you considered... going to counseling, yourself, to talk about your family history in detail with an outsider? Like your daughter asked you to? Have you considered... listening to what your daughter says and treating her like a credible human being who says meaningful words?

How was this not the response? It’s pretty damned obvious.

[naath]

your daughter *does not want to talk to you*, it doesn't matter why, STOP CALLING HER. You may not have abused her as a child, I don't know, but you are abusing her NOW by not respecting her wishes. Not sure what counselling can possibly do, if the LW doesn't want to engage. Just drop it. Don't harass people who don't want to talk to you, and find people who actually do want to talk to you to spend your time on.

[falkner]

As someone who has been in a very similar situation (my mother genuinely not realizing the abuse she put me through) and who did get a joint therapy session done... it will most likely not resolve anything, but in my case it did at least give me some peace of mind in that I realized my mother would never become a better person and I could stop hoping for it.

What I'm saying is that I think the advice is actually not bad, but probably for the daughter and not for LW...

[foxfirefey]

I'm sure everybody has read this but someone once made a study of estranged parent forums and has an essay on this very specific topic--Issendai: The Missing Missing Reasons

The beginning to the set of essays writes:

For several years now I've followed blogs about narcissists and other abusers, written by victims of abuse. They're powerful tools for recovery, and powerful testimonials to the impact of emotional abusers on other people's lives. What's been missing is the abusers' perspective on the abuse. The narcissists I see online don't write about their relationships with their children and close friends; they hardly write about their own partners, except as props in the narcissist's ongoing drama. I assumed that there was no way to get the abusers' side of the story, that abusers are smart enough to not incriminate themselves in their own blogs, and like hell would they get together with other abusers to discuss abuse.

I was wrong.

The keywords to find abusers' support communities are "estranged parents" and "grandparents' rights."

That doesn't mean this specific person was an abuser, but it does mean that people who did abuse their family members often display the same "missing reason" rationale.

[conuly]

When I can be bothered with the comments to the columns proper, I have cause to link to Issendai at least once a week.

[foxfirefey]

yeah I'll repeat "sick systems" over and over like some sort of parrot given half the chance