DD has said she will never view me as a mum

This. Its so obvious that for both of you career came first, never her.

Im not surprised she feels the way she does, the pair of you were continually ripping her away from wherever she called home so you could move on to the next job you wanted.

Why did she have to choose Paris or Luxembourg at 16. Why could she not have stayed in Geneva, why could her needs not have come first for once?! She no doubt left friends behind.

And why at the point of marital breakdown could you not have stayed in Geneva too? You didn't have to move to another country!! It's not a normal choice as a parent to move to literally another country away from your daughter. That decision was based on your needs and yourself and what you wanted, not what would be best for your child.

The thing is though his affair
affected the marriage not his parenting. And the bit that did the OP covered for him.

telling your side is just going to be more excuses which she doesn’t need.

Acceptance of what she says apologise and see if you can rebuild a relationship at her pace

I don’t think these replies are harsh at all. I’m surprised the OP hasn’t been given a real roasting.

Op, apologise for the way you handled things. Explain that your mental health was shot and you were justifiably angry at her dad for the affair, but that those aren’t good enough reasons for the way you handled things and looking back you’d do things very differently as you appreciate the harm it’s done to her, and you understand why she feels like she does. That you didn’t like hearing what she’s just said but it’s made you reflect and you can completely see why she’s said the things she has. You are truly sorry and know that it will be difficult but you’d like to try to build a different relationship going forward with the help of some joint counselling perhaps.

You’ve got to accept and tell her, that this is all on you. And that she’s done incredibly well surviving the way she has, given the terrible damage you’ve caused her.

Neither of you have ever put her first. Everything was about what you wanted.

Her dad is the only constant parent in her life.

(Why did you leave when you caught your husband in bed with his mistress.)

Even when she was living with you in Paris, you weren’t available to her as you had found someone else.

How long after her moving in did it take before you took a bf
If you wanted to repair the damage then being there for her and making yourself available was going to take time
It sounds like you gave it a couple of months and then said sod it and started a new relationship

People take time to get comfortable and bring the barriers down.

If you are honest with yourself did you not see the consequences of leaving your child with a man you called evil and cruel then moving to a different country. If Paris to Geneva was a doable distance why didn’t you see her every weekend, why only holidays.

I think you both failed her thinking more about your work than her wellbeing. But you will be judged more severely because you expect more from your mum. I know I was hard with my mum for things in my upbringing while I never told my father anything because I didn't think he was capable of doing better.

Honestly, I’m reading this back from your dd point of view and feel like she should be directed to the stately homes thread.
it doesn’t sound like either of you really put her first during her later childhood and you are still very much focussed on feeling sorry for yourself and getting us to feel sorry for you rather than wondering what life must have been like for dd.

I’m sorry to be harsh but if you want to salvage your relationship with her stop whining, crying and telling her that your feelings are hurt and start taking some real responsibility for what you did, and looking for ways to heal things between you.

I don’t think OP has received a kicking. She’s been rationally told she messed up and given advice on trying to repair and build a future relationship.

Does she know your ex had an affair and brought the OW into your marital bed @Strangersev ? Not the thing you would share at the time but now she’s an adult, without trying to make excuses for your choices and without turning it into just bad-mouthing for the sake of it, you could say there was a lot to it and on both sides. You can apologise without accepting it all as being your fault? As while you have made some questionable choices, I don’t think it was all on you, although I don’t know all the story.

"I told her that her dad was evil and cruel..."

'Evil' and 'cruel'? Those are very strong words to use to describe your daughter's father. Yes, your ex had an affair but that made him 'disloyal' or 'unfaithful' within the framework of his marriage to you. You shouldn't be dragging your daughter into that and expecting her to take sides. Her relationship with her dad is separate and by the sounds of things, stable.

You've played the parental alienation game.

And lost.

There’s no way easy way to say this but you’ve put yourself front and centre of everything since this child was born. You’ve moved her from country to country like a piece of luggage, you’ve moved from job to job, never thinking of what was best for your child, you’ve bad mouthed her father repeatedly. You’re lucky your daughter will even meet you for the odd lunch. I’m not surprised she doesn’t see you as a mother. I can’t really see how you can turn this around.

It's like a more screwed up version of that Cat's In The Cradle song. She feels how she feels so concentrate on the future.

It’s all very me, me, me, me, me.

Genuinely wondering why you had a child when it sounds like neither your marriage or lifestyle were set-up for it.

All you can do now is listen to her, and help her access supports such as therapy to process her feelings.

I think you should apologise for crying. You definitely should NOT try and put your side, that will only invalidate her experience

Agree. Do not make her emotions about you. You're merely proving her experience that you can't put her first.

Don't explain, OP. Acknowledge her feelings and ask what you can do to make things better between you. You can't change the past but you can make a better future and the fact that you have some sort of a relationship is a good thing. She clearly wants you in her life, so take comfort from that.

OP, this is so difficult. I can see why your daughter has said what she said but it doesn’t mean that you can’t go on to build a better relationship
with her in future.

I think you can explain. As long as it’s not a way of avoiding a proper apology She is old enough to understand why you did some of the things you did.
It doesn’t sound like you were ‘Mum’ish’ at all but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a positive relationship with her.

There are plenty of ‘Mums’ that might look like perfect mums on paper that aren’t very nice.
Arguing in front of your daughter and being horrible about her Dad (however much it was deserved) are obviously very bad things to have done. You really need to own that and apologise.
Were you bad tempered or controlling with her? Did you have fun with her?
We moved to several different countries for work and my husbands relationship with our 4 kids suffered for it. He was well
meaning but he was just too tired and busy to be present. IYKWIM. Our kids are now in their 30’s and my husband has now retired - as the years go by I see him getting closer to the kids. It’s nice to see. We’ve always acknowledged the fact that moving about has negatives as well as positives and openly question whether we got the balence right.

What a terrible thing to say! A child isn’t selfish for choosing to try to salvage her relationship with her mother during still formative years.

I think you should apologise for crying. You definitely should NOT try and put your side, that will only invalidate her experience and make you look petty.

She needs to know you accept what she says, you acknowledge how much you let her down and you intend to be present in whatever way she wants in the future. And mean it.

Your side of the story as you've expressed here is not likely to make her feel much better about things. If she would go to family therapy with you that might help her to express her feelings to you in a supported way.

I realised that in the 3 years she has been living in my home country I’ve only seen her 6 times.

It geniunely hadn't occurred to you before then??? You just hadn't noticed you only saw your only child once every 6m???

Honestly she has a valid point
She was being honest with you and it sounds like you were a poor mother.
Teen years are formative.
You ran off for half of it and then was shagging some bloke during the equivalent of her a levels you seem to blame her for "going off most weekends" you were adult.

Out of interest has the 'new relationship" gone the distance and are you still together?

Her honesty is a gift if you want to you can now put the time energy and work in to building your relationship if you want to

Tbh this is how I viewed my mum, who was unhappily married. There were a lot of rows. But that said we did have a decent enough relationship in her later years, (with a bit of effort on both sides). I had some counselling and I miss her as a person in my life, rather than a mother. You do have some relationship with your dd, so that is a start.

He had an affair on his wife not his child, and the child is entitled to think what they want

OP, I actually think there are some positives to take from the situation.

Firstly your daughter hasn’t gone off the rails, despite a difficult and disruptive childhood, in fact she’s done really well for herself and may have a bright future ahead of her.

Secondly she’s still talking to you and hasn’t cut you off completely - the past can’t be changed but at least there’s still a relationship there which you can start to build on and make stronger.

As others have said, don’t explain your side of the story to her unless she asks to hear it. Definitely don’t criticise her father to her. If you feel you need to offload then perhaps look at therapy if you haven’t already? And focus on the future with your daughter and how you can play a positive role in her life as it is now.

@Strangersev build on the relationship you have with her now. Acknowledge and validate her feelings

Make sure you see her at least X times a year.

It's clear that both you and your DH both prioritised your career over a stable childhood for your DC. You had a breakdown, it's a shame you had to be physically apart from your DC during this incredibly difficult time for you and her.

When my ex died my son said the one thing he was truly grateful for was that neither of us ever rubbished the other to him. So I would say stop trying to be negative about her father, what he did or didn't do to you isn't the point, he was there for her when you weren't. There may be reasons, justifications but that's just how it is and all you can do is say you know you weren't there for her, you regret that but at the time you didn't feel able to do anything else.

Be honest about things, even with Christmas with her father and summers travelling you could have seen her more than six times in 3 years. Paris to UK is a train ride to most of the UK and a short flight to anywhere in the UK.

Whatever you do do not say anything negative about her father, if you make this a competition he is going to win and all you are doing is pushing her away. Go out of your way to see her, Paris to Italy isn't that big a jump, go for weekends even if she says she can only see you for lunch on Saturday. Invest some time and energy in rebuilding your relationship, she may never feel a typical mother daughter bond but as time passes and wounds heal you can rebuild a relationship.

IF you really want to have a relationship with your daughter, you must acknowledge her pain and apologise.

There is no profit from you trying to explain yourself, it is irrelevant and she doesn't want to hear your excuses!

And fgs, STOP badmouthing her Dad