To stipulate minimum number of nights at home for DD?

Of course its not a coincidence that she wants to spend far less time with you and a 3 year old sister now she has a boyfriend. At 18 her boyfriend is going to be a far more exciting person to spend time with especially in the early stages of a relationship. That doesn't mean she has stopped caring about you and her little sister it just means she is going through a different life stage right now. She should wipe the shower after use and do her own washing. Don't push her to be spending more time with you. Just be bright and breezy and carry on your day when she is there. If you are making a coffee or something to eat ask if she wants anything but don't make her feel pressured. She will come and chat if she wants to.

My DC are now in their twenties.I think she is behaving pretty normally for an 18 year old who is probably in love for the first time. You can't compete with that so let it run its course. She should be clearing up after herself but I think any other demands will backfire at the moment. She’ll be back to her usual self within a few months and I would wait patiently until then.

Aw I feel your pain op. I'm going through a similar thing with my teen dd who's almost 17. No boyfriend for my dd as yet but she also never wants to spend time with me anymore so i can relate. dd will happily go to her dad's and has lots of time for him when dd is home she spends 99% of her time in her room i only see her at meal times. I know when she's at her dad's she's sat downstairs with him having family time. it hurts. Dd and I do get on well, but whenever I suggest doing anything together it's always a no or I get a tut and an eye roll. No idea why mothers don't really matter to teen dc and we're always second best.

This sounds very similar to a situation with my cousin when we were about the same age. Mt aunt out rules in place and effectively pushed my cousin away - and didn’t see her for years.

If you can find it in yourself, leave everything exactly as it is, leave her room and stop with the conversations about how she should move out. I understand you’re hurting from this, and feeling taken for granted but stick with it - welcome her home every time with a smile, and no fuss or drama, cook lovely food and create a lovely atmosphere for her to experience.

Then a few things might happen - you’re relationship with her starts to be more fun for both of you as you really cherish the time she does spend with you, chat when you’re being a taxi etc. she might even choose to spend more time with you and at your place as she genuinely enjoys being there.

and please keep telling her you love her no matter what and she is always welcome at home, whatever and whenever she needs (you need to be there if they break up, if nothing else).

Try to enjoy each other again and set a lovely pattern for your relationship with her as a grown up adult..

I'm not sure sobbing since 6am or being put on medication (which sound like tranquilisers) is a normal reaction to parenting an 18 year old spending most of their time at their new boyfriend's for 8 weeks, swearing once and not wanting to spend time with their infant sibling?

I think many posters are genuinely not trying to be facetious or dismissive when they say they think OP needs to seek more mental health support.

As someone who has cPTSD with associated panic attacks, depression, anxiety etc., I have complete sympathy with your struggles with mental health.

However, your daughter, just like my now adult children, are not responsible for your mental well being.

You need to separate the two issues out. As I have read this, by pinning what you see as awful changes to your daughter into the boyfriend, it means you are making him out to be the focus for all of your issues. ‘

‘DD always out with boyfriend -> she’s rarely here with me -> the bathroom isn’t tidy -> I’m crying myself to sleep with having panic attacks -> therefore the boyfriend must be the issue!’.

However, from an external perspective we can see that you have an independent 18 year old daughter, who is not only doing A Levels with the aim of going to University but is also holding down a part time job, has a boyfriend, keeps a relationship together with her Dad and her Auntie on a seemingly regular basis, has several younger siblings from both Mum & Dad she loves and also feels secure & comfortable enough to be a pretty normal 18 year who wanders back to Mum for laundry/advice/a good feed and a change of clothes.

Saying that your 3 year old is upset when 18 year old DD doesn’t come around sounds a little ‘laying it on thick with a trowel’ (as my Mum would say, oh the irony) in order to provoke sympathy. My then 3 year old DD was upset one day because she’d dreamed she had a pair of fluffy pink slippers, only to find out that her real fluffy slippers were purple when she woke up, but because she was 3 then, by having a hug & reassuring her, then redirecting her with an activity to stop her from focussing on her imagined apocalyptic level slipper trauma.

And I mean she was almost inconsolable that morning. You’d think King Herod had slaughtered her firstborn by the wailing that ensued. By not focussing on the bloody slippers, and continually reminding her about the blooming pink dream slippers, she was absolutely fine.

Are you sure, in your scenario, that your 3 year old isn’t being reminded by you that her older DD had promised to be there at a particular day or time? Like, “Aww DD, older DD hasn’t come to see you again, oh isn’t it awful!” Or if she asks about older DD you’re not saying to her, “Oh little DD! She hasn’t come around again! How awful she is!”? Because if you are, then all you’re doing is reminding her about the damn dream pink slippers.

What you should be doing is saying, “Oh! Don’t worry! We’ll see older DD another day! Now, let’s go & make mud pies or build an atom bomb!”. You know older DD is mostly in & out, so why perpetually remind your 3 year old that older DD isn’t there, and how unfair it all is?

And as much as you believe your mental health issues are being hidden from your kids, please realise that they aren’t. Kids, even 3 year olds, are very astute and are sponges when it comes to their emotional environment. If you are always angry or upset when older DD is in the house, then your 3 year old will try to placate or make Mummy better by echoing the same sadness back to you, as she’ll see that as a way of empathising with you as a kind of child like solidarity.

Likewise, if you are upset about DD, little DD will be upset about older DD. If you are angry with older DD, younger DD may hyperfocus on older DDs absence as she will see that as being the right emotional thing to do, as heck, that’s what Mummy does, and Mummy is always right, eh?

Continually reminding younger DD that older DD isn’t there or is the reason for younger DD being sad is incredibly unhealthy for everyone.

Going to the GP to get further treatment for your anxiety, panic attacks etc., is a very good first step. Hyper fixation on pinning every issue on either the boyfriend or older DD is neither helpful or healthy. As I said at the beginning, your children are not responsible for your mental health. You cannot demand they do X, Y or Z because you’d find it easier to cope with (and what DD is doing is pretty normal for a teenager if I’m honest). What you need to be doing is finding better strategies for dealing with your own mental health, because that will be having a detrimental affect on not only the 18 year old (could it be of Mum’s always on her back or being blamed for everything she doesn’t feel welcome at home?) but on your 3 year old as well.

You remember I said about the fact I have cPTSD? A healthy chunk of that was due to the mental health issues of both my parents (as well as being SA’d as a child, and adult, plus DV throughout my childhood). They were violent to each other and me. If I wrote everything that happened to me as a kid (and even as an adult by my parents) then I’d be pissing over everyone’s Monday morning. Even when they thought they were being normal, they weren’t.

So as to break that awful cycle I worked hard to accept & find solutions so that I wasn’t going to be the mother whose emotions we all had to tightrope walk around. And the same with my Dad. Everything was always someone else’s fault, and they never took responsibility for anything that happened, ever. Home wasn’t a welcoming place. It wasn’t open arms & comforting hugs when you needed it. If you had a problem, it was always, “Yes, but my problems are so much worse!”. I didn’t spend a lot of time at home as an 18 year old either, and as such became the font of all blame. Mum still maintains that my having a child at 19 (without their help) was the reason my Dad left (and I’m now in my fifties!). So he must’ve fallen and accidentally slipped into the vagina of a younger woman then (multiple times, clumsy Dad)?! I could’ve tidied every inch of the house and I still would’ve done it wrong (and often did, Mum was always in front of the TV with her hand on her forehead in the ‘oh, it’s all so awful and it’s all your fault!’ pose, from my earliest memories until a couple of months ago when I last saw her).

Whereas in reality, I wasn’t at home because it didn’t feel welcome, I worked every hour I could to help set me up for Uni & achieving escape velocity from my parents.

With the greatest of respect, this is not DD’s problem to solve. Please, try & take the advice the majority are giving you. Kids aren’t there to mend us, it’s our job as parents to support them. Teenagers are unconsciously selfish at times because, they’re teenagers (have taught & volunteered with thousands of kids from 5-18). I wish you well.

I have been in this situation with my DD (now 25). I promise you it will pass.

In our case, DD then 16, was basically being controlled and coerced into spending time with said boyfriend and his family. This took the form of threats and threatened suicide. We suspected at the time but she denied it. My greatest fear was that she would fall pregnant and end up with the PoS.

She was also entitled and selfish. I even spend ages decorating her room because she was round his house all the time. I was very stupid.

She finally ended the relationship when she went to Uni in another town and the scales fell from her eyes. She later reported him to the police.

I remember the frustration and upset, but I would strongly advise you not to react or give ultimatums. Perhaps they are both just fucking entitled and selfish.
But anyway, keep inviting DD and bf round for meals or to join you in stuff as a family. It won’t be forever. Bite your tongue and keep her onside.

Of course it normal, but words like ‘bereft’’ and ‘intensely’ and needing medication are a pretty extreme response, don’t you think? It’s not a criticism of the OP, by the way. I feel sorry for her as she’s obviously really upset.

You haven't lost her. This is just the cycle of life! Our children will never love us as much as we love them. They're not designed to. They stay with us while they need us, and then the less they need us the more they pull away to start their own lives. It's not instant. It's a gradual process. It has nothing to do with doing something wrong as a mother. This is just the way it's supposed to be. Trying to stop that process will cause issues for your future relationship.

You can ignore it if you like but acknowledging it might help you to get things in perspective.

In the scheme of things DD is doing well - A levels, job, bf. She’s finding her feet as an independent person which is exactly what she’s supposed to be doing at this age. That means she will be well prepared for adult life, to leave for uni, to go out into the world etc.

And this is for some reason sending you into a meltdown.

The swearing is not ok and from the mess she leaves it seems you haven’t trained her to clean up after herself. But she’s not dropping out of school, doing drugs, binge drinking, hasn’t got an eating disorder or an anxiety disorder or a self harm habit so far as we know.

She’s doing perfectly ok. It’s simply that you seem dependent on her attention, company, approval - for reasons that are not clear.

It sounds vaguely normal but I wouldn’t put up with being told to fuck off by her. Could be a phase depending on what she’s like normally? I look back at some of my behaviour at that age and I don’t know what I was thinking (I was definitely a bit of an asshole). Lack of maturity and the mistakes we make as we’re growing up and trying to figure our who
we are. I really wouldn’t push her to make a choice or move out. That really will burn bridges. I think you have to play the long game here.

Sorry but I think this analysis is highly dramatic, she's a Mum of an 18 year old, one that is still College age, her concerns are completely normal and look nothing like codependency. It is completely normal to miss the childhood days, you just have to learn to process it and then realise the next chapter has begun!

We were so close for so long, and now I just feel bereft without that relationship. It's only because I love and care about so much that I feel it so intensely.

I’d suggest your previous trauma is contributing to those intense feelings - you’ve said as much yourself. Feelings of loss are very natural as relationships shift and change the way they do as kids move into adulthood - they’re yours to deal with though, it’s not for your daughter to fill the gap.

And the feeling that I've done something wrong as a mum to have suddenly lost her like this, that guilt, is what's eating me up 😔

I don't think you've done much wrong based on what you've posted here. All our kids are different. My DD is a lovely teenager (currently!) but I can't be sure it's all due to my fantastic parenting. I've always had no problem with saying no to her but she's never really pushed boundaries in a serious way so it's been a lot easier! If she suddenly started being arsy maybe I too would struggle?

Why do you think people haven’t been there with their own mothers and their own kids?

I have been there, three times and I do have empathy, but still recognise your statement as being very unhealthy and codependent. I can feel your pain, but urge you to seek some professional support.

She's 18, it's a phase she's going through. I would just relax about it and let her get on with it. You're being a bit dramatic, she will come back around.

I think you just need to be there for her - she's an adult and is making her own decisions whether you think that they are right or wrong. I never heard my daughters swear in front of me (everyone knows I hate swearing) though realistically they did to others) but I've been told to sod off a fair few times by them. I've said things that they didn't necessarily want to hear. They were defining their own boundaries. I've shared in their disappointments, their hurt and their joys.

I had a mortgage at 19 and married at 20 (still married). I had three children between the ages of 25 and 29.

I hated it when my older daughter started staying out with her boyfriend. One night a week gradually increased to seven. She'd sometimes turn up unexpectedly and I'd not prepared meal for her and she'd seem upset. But there'd been many meals wasted at first. We mainly kept in contact by text messages after that. She came home to see us at least weekly and we would have a catch up. We eventually met the 'chap' and found out why she hadn't brought him home previously (notorious family). I would see her driving about and wave and she looked well and happy. That's all I want - my children to be happy and healthy. I've always been there to help with guidance (and money). Gradually, her belongings disappeared from her room and her younger sister claimed it as hers and suddenly I had a spare room which had a single bed and my craft stuff, finally organised, in it. My older daughter is now a single mother to three children with additional needs (similar to hers) in her 30s. She has a mortgage, an immaculate 4 bedroom house, her children are beautifully dressed and I love spending time with them all. She is happy. She now hates men. She has been quite fierce, fighting for the health, education and welfare of her children and I am very proud (of all my children). Things worked out in the end because we've accepted the outcomes.

Now both of my daughters have daughters and they're realising that, one day they will leave. Whether they sidle off with a boyfriend or go onto university is down to various factors. (My older daughter would never have gone to university at that point in time because she has autism, dyslexia and other chronic conditions. She was not supported at college to go further than level 2 as she could not attain above that level. Her reading/writing levels remain quite low. She felt abandoned educationally - whereas now there seems to be more support available.)

My older daughter's daughter, who is in year 4, was wanting to play with friends on the green (can be seen from her house) this summer and she had the first pangs of realising she was growing up and away.

As parents we can only be there to support/guide when needed and be ready to pick up the pieces if required.

It's very hard to let go, especially if it happens in drips and drabs (not the finality of 'Mum I'm leaving home next year to go to university/move in with my partner').

I poignantly remember my dear old dad asking me to visit more regularly as mum had felt low for a time when I left home. It happens to us all.

Bullshit. The problem is not the boyfriend, it's her. The majority of young adults at 18 are either going to university while working 2-3 afternoons to pay for board at home and having their own pocket money, doing apprenticeships getting paid, or in full time work.

What they don't do is verbally abusing their mother for trying to implement some boundaries in her own home.

Well that's good but yes, it is worrying that she may miss out on achieving her best. It is definitely ok to want your teenager to think of others, even if you know they at a stage in their life that is naturally self centred. I agree about not wanting to feel used, you a person in your own right as well as a Mum and I'm clear about that with my teens. Late teens do need to understand that their adult parents have emotions and feel things IMO. Yes, when they are young children, you mostly shield them from that but ultimately as you are a person in your own right it's fine for late teens to realise that and I think it is a normal transition into an adult orientated relationship with them. I am not perfect and my DH isn't and that's ok surely that's how teens develop empathy and compassion in the safety of the family home.

I have an 18 year old. Almost overnight she turned from a lovely, compliant, amenable daughter who spent lots of time with the family, to one who was out all the time, meeting loads of new people, only came back to sleep, left messes around the house, and sighed and rolled her eyes a lot. And there was no boyfriend in her case.

This is normal. The boyfriend will have opened her eyes to a world beyond that which she was previously accustomed too. It's exciting, new and fresh. Of course, she wants to immerse herself in that world and not a world where she has to play with a 3 year old (however much she loves her) and do household chores.

Let her go. Absolutely pull her up on the worst of the behaviour (the being told to fuck off in your case) but accept that a lot of it is just growing up. Ask about her plans and say you hope she enjoys the whatever it is. Don't mention that you hardly see her. In my experience they come back of their own accord but pushing makes them go further away.

It sounds like you are grieving for her in a way OP, but it is perfectly natural for her to want to do her own thing at 18, trying to force her to follow rules about minimum number of nights at home etc will only drive her further away, it sounds like she has got plenty of places to go.

It's a horrible position to find yourself in, but there is nothing you can do to force this now. Besides, it's only been a couple of months, the novelty will wear off with the new boyfriend and she'll settle into a pattern, or even come home, threatening to switch her bedrooms after a couple of months of her sleeping elsewhere almost sounds like a punishment and she will certainly see it that way, that you are doing it to get back at her. If after 6 months the pattern remain then talk to her then about swapping things as it is more practical.

In the meantime, drop the rope, stop asking her to things that she will flake on, stop paying for things for her, and if she isn't cleaning up after herself then it's an automatic no to any lifts. Respect has to work both ways.

My daughter was a bit like this. She has now split up with the boyfriend, and she’s back to normal.

Give it time, and allow her room to grow.

She shouldn't be rude and swear to you, but I think you do need to give her some space at the moment it you'll end up alienating her more.

She needs to know that her boyfriend is welcome at her home, make him feel included so that she doesn't have to choose between spending time at home or with him.

If she's got college, working, boyfriend, and spends time at her dads, she's got quite a busy life. She needs to know you're there for her, even if she's not utilising that now. In the same way that young children need to know that they can run back to you, she needs to feel secure at home as well. I'd totally take the pressure off for a bit, encourage her to bring BF round, and let her try to integrate this new 'important person' into her family.

I haven't reacted teenager stage yet (and dread it) but a lot of kids go through stages like this as teenagers. They usually bounce back as long, and I think trying to just calmly ride it out probably helps. This BF could be round for years, or (more likely) in a few months time you'll be supporting her through a break up, and repeat, repeat. If things get tough, you want to make sure she still knows that she can rely on you, that she's got a home, her bed, her stuff, and that you'll be a nom judgemental shoulder to cry on.