![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.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
Dear Any Chance,
You say that you engaged in negative behavior that harmed your daughter over half of her life, up to as recently as six months ago. It’s unreasonable for you to expect her to be ready to forgive you this soon. She is still coming to terms with what your actions meant and how they’ve impacted her, and she’ll be doing that work for years. That doesn’t mean you can’t try and have a better relationship with her, but you have to be willing to understand if that’s not possible at this time. Let her know that you understand that she has many reasons to be upset with you, and that you want to be accountable for how you may have harmed her or fallen short as a parent. Ask her if you all can designate some time to discuss her issues with you. If she turns you down, keep making yourself available to have those conversations until hopefully, she’s ready to speak with you at length.
In the meantime, you’re going to have to accept the fact that until she has found it in her heart to try and forgive you, she is likely going to bring up things that went wrong in the past on a regular basis. I would imagine that when she was 13, she didn’t have the language to address her issues with you; today she does and she has the right to express what’s in her heart. You owe it to her to hear her out, even when it’s uncomfortable. Don’t become defensive or discount her experiences. Let her know that you hear her, you acknowledge what you’ve done, and that you’re sorry.
You can let your daughter know now that you’d like to build a better relationship with her in spite of what’s transpired, but you can’t make her ready for that if she isn’t. Tell her that you want to do all you can to be the parent she deserves now, and let her process her frustrations with you as she sees fit. Hopefully, you have cast aside the behaviors you once engaged in and can prove to her with your actions that you’re a better person today than you were in the past.
Link
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
Dear Any Chance,
You say that you engaged in negative behavior that harmed your daughter over half of her life, up to as recently as six months ago. It’s unreasonable for you to expect her to be ready to forgive you this soon. She is still coming to terms with what your actions meant and how they’ve impacted her, and she’ll be doing that work for years. That doesn’t mean you can’t try and have a better relationship with her, but you have to be willing to understand if that’s not possible at this time. Let her know that you understand that she has many reasons to be upset with you, and that you want to be accountable for how you may have harmed her or fallen short as a parent. Ask her if you all can designate some time to discuss her issues with you. If she turns you down, keep making yourself available to have those conversations until hopefully, she’s ready to speak with you at length.
In the meantime, you’re going to have to accept the fact that until she has found it in her heart to try and forgive you, she is likely going to bring up things that went wrong in the past on a regular basis. I would imagine that when she was 13, she didn’t have the language to address her issues with you; today she does and she has the right to express what’s in her heart. You owe it to her to hear her out, even when it’s uncomfortable. Don’t become defensive or discount her experiences. Let her know that you hear her, you acknowledge what you’ve done, and that you’re sorry.
You can let your daughter know now that you’d like to build a better relationship with her in spite of what’s transpired, but you can’t make her ready for that if she isn’t. Tell her that you want to do all you can to be the parent she deserves now, and let her process her frustrations with you as she sees fit. Hopefully, you have cast aside the behaviors you once engaged in and can prove to her with your actions that you’re a better person today than you were in the past.
Link