DD has said she will never view me as a mum

You don’t know what mental state she was in. And you don’t know you would have acted if you had been in that mental state. Don’t be that person.

Op delete this thread as you will end up feeling worse. See a therapist and slowly build a relationship with your daughter by finding some common grounds.

I agree especially after hearing her daughter says she does not see her as her mum.

op made a huge mistake but op was also in a bad place. I don’t understand what people want op to do. Go down a path of self loathing and shame and attempt another suicide?

My own mother badmouthed my father to me, but I know he deserved every bit of it by making my mother’s life hell and giving her trauma. She could also not be a caring mother. I was raised by grandmother who was very tough. But my mother is a human being too. So I judge her based on her behaviour now, not at her most vulnerable phase. So maybe eventually op’s dd will be able to see her mother with a little sympathy. Op just tell her you would want to be there for her now in whatever way she would feel comfortable with.

You've never given her reasons to think well of you. Given how little you see of her, it would be interesting to explore what she really says about her nomadic childhood to close friends/partners. Is she trying to make you feel better by
saying that she enjoyed the moves? Having been in a similar situation I can see that multiple moves meant gaining an ability to make casual friends easily and I have needed to tell my parents this as they wanted us to be relentlessly positive about our upbringing. What they certainly didn't want to hear were the downsides like not investing in friendships as you knew you would be whisked away from them. The independence they took credit for was born out of the only way of feeling any sense of control of your life.

I wasn't close to my father. I'm a bit closer to my mother as she felt she had to support my father's ambitions and she had to deal with regularly finding new schools and setting up homes. My father never put us first and my mother didn't advocate for us.

You can explain as much as you like but you are wasting your time as she has a clear understanding of you already. All you can do is accept the impact your had on her life and consistently show empathy for what you did. You reap what you sow.

I kind of agree with this. You screwed up but so did you ex. In fact he was worse to have an affair and then brought the other woman in your bed which led to your break down. Perhaps you should have separated from him when you learnt of affair rather than ignoring for 2-3 years. But you can’t change that now and you had reasons.
Your Dd is old enough to understand you had a mental breakdown and couldn’t live in Geneva ( I am assuming that’s the case).
Your ex is not a selfless parent or else he would not be bring his affair woman to his home with you and Dd. Difference is he didn’t say things behind your back to her but then he had nothing to say. You should have never discussed your issues with ex with dd. You can apologise for that. But relationships very long to build and you can’t change that you missed that opportunity. You can briefly tell her your reasons for acting selfishly in an email.
Tell her you regret your decision and would like a relationship but would respect if she wants a space.

I think the fact she could tell you about it is very positive.
I've tried this with my Mum and it's always backfired.
I would absolutely build on the relationship from here and prioritise this relationship as much as you can.
Do not defend yourself, it's already happened and it's in the past. Focus on the future.

I don't know. Parents divorcing is particularly hard for teenagers and you weren't the instigator. Moreover none of us are perfect parents but the important thing now is that she seems to be doing well for herself.

No he had an affair whilst wrong and relationship ending the resulting breakdown I suspect was not just that - it certainly shouldn’t be and the relationship seemed unstable as well which the DD would have seen.

Either way he had an affair on the OP not his DD he continued to be her father and be there for her and support her and still does.

there is no understanding of her DDs needs or awareness of what her childhood was like - she clearly felt unsupported by her mother

I also remember the thread where the mum was upset that her 22-year-old DD, who loved Italy and thought of herself as Italian, had chosen to pronounce her name the Italian way rather than the English way. The mum was insisting that she had given her DD an English name and was cross that her DD considered it an Italian one. At the time I thought the mum was entirely in the wrong: it's up to the DD how she chooses to pronounce her own name! A lot of kids grow up and decide to change their names entirely.

If that OP was also you, OP, then you do need to change the way you perceive your daughter. She is her own person, not an extension of you. Just because you want her to have a positive view of the UK doesn't mean she has to have a positive view. She's allowed to disagree with you. I'm sympathetic to everything you have suffered in the past, but if you want a healthy relationship with your DD, you need to accept her on her own terms and not try to make her conform to your expectations. This is true of all parents and their adult children by the way!

Also, you're keen to insist that growing up in multiple countries was a positive experience for her. It may well have been, but the real issue here seems not to be that she grew up in multiple countries, but that she grew up spending long stretches of time without her mum.

She knows you had a mental health crisis caused by her dad but still choses his side of things. She should be more empathetic to what you've been through surely

I personally think you went wrong when you essentially chose to put yourself first above your daughter by taking the job in Paris, in her eyes you effectively walked out on many parental responsibilities. parents have to make sacrifices

Apologise once. Really mean it.

Love this! Excellent advice

Positive or not, OP, it is really hard to be a third culture kid. It leaves you with a sense of belonging nowhere. It disconnects you from your roots and your extended family, who you may not even know. If the nuclear family is then suffering a disconnect, like yours was, there isn't even that to hold onto. I'd say just acknowledge that your DD has had a hard time, you weren't there for her in the years she most needed a mother to guide her, and apologise for that. She might be too young to be able to appreciate your own journey, but might be more interested when she is older. Acknowledge the short-comings and work on building a stronger relationship from this point.

She can’t really say anything other than that she was OK with the country moves, because she has never known anything else and it has made her who she is today, as has your parenting, or lack thereof. It does seem that you prioritised your career and expected your dd to fit around that, and you have clearly taken more of a distant interest in her life than an actual active part in it for many years. Most significantly, at a time in her life that she needed stability, you fell apart, then patched yourself together by yet again prioritising your career and badmouthing her father, who besides her school was the only stability and predictability she had left. You did not at any point appear to realise that your daughter might also have needed support and patching up. It’s not surprising she is very self-possessed and emotionally reserved - she had to internalise her feelings, because you were too busy externalising yours for her to be able to do anything else with her own.

None of this means she doesn’t love you, but I doubt you will ever be someone she associates with safety, reliability, nurturing or stability. I wouldn’t try to explain - it’s obvious she already knows what the explanation is, as she lived through it all, too. Better just to apologise for the harm you recognise you caused and to let her know you love her dearly and would like to be there for her in the future.

@Strangersev I think the saddest and most telling part is that it is on reflection you have seen her 6 times in 3 years and you didn’t know she had a partner.

That is hardly anything I have seen my best friend around the same amount of times and I feel guilty that we haven’t been able to see her more.

and it seems that it hasn’t crossed your mind that you hadn’t seen her that much

No doubt the suicide attempts plus the badmouthing of her Dad are the catalysts behind her telling you that she doesn’t see you as a mum. There is obviously a lot of heartbreak there from her childhood. All you can do is apologise for your part in this but forgive yourself as your ex doesn’t come out brilliantly from this either. Does she know about his cheating?

Hopefully in time you can rebuild a relationship with her. Paris is not miles apart from Italy so make an effort to visit and move forward. I hope your mental health is better now.

I'm sorry but it's obvious to me that your focus was on you, when it should have been on DD and you are now seeing the effects it has had on DD.
She sounds a bright focussed independent young woman
she has achieved well, where many wouldn't duringsuch an unsettled childhood

Jesus Christ, OP.

You broke her trust and shattered the foundations. This is the outcome. The fact that you seem surprised speaks volumes.

Tbh I think you have got off pretty lightly on here, considering.

I’ll also add that the reason she’s disassociated from you and doesn’t feel a maternal attachment is a defence mechanism. You tried to kill yourself three times. Children instinctively rely on their parents as their primary source of love and protection. She will probably feel that she wasn’t enough for you to want to live to give her that love and protection so that has damaged the attachment between you both. She will likely feel that you didn’t want to stick around for her. I’m not blaming you, I’m attempting to explain where your relationship has fundamentally gone wrong. You need to start again from scratch with low expectations of her. As the parent, it is your responsibility to fix the relationship, not hers and it is not her responsibility to filter her words for fear of hurting you when you have never acted out of your primary responsibility as a parent- which is to protect her. Her father had equal responsibility to her, but this isn’t about her relationship with him, it’s about you and her.

You managed to defend yourself without also answering the direct question you quoted from PP. You are the problem.
Give your daughter a heartfelt apology without “but me, myself and I” or leave the poor girl alone.

I think you’ve been a terrible parent and I don’t blame her for wanting to stay away from you and also her not viewing you as a Mum. 6 times in 3 years is appalling.

Everything else aside, her words reflect the reality. A mother is someone there, mostly, listening and nurturing, mostly, taking an interest, mostly. We could all be exhausted, struggling with mental health, divorce, work that takes us away. But mostly, despite everything, we fill the motherhood cup enough on good days that on bad days or weeks, our children know they are connected with and loved. It doesn't sound like your daughter has ever felt able to turn to you for comfort, connection, guidance or help.

I was that super independent capable.girl. My mother was an emotional mess throughout my childhood, largely due to my dad's affairs I now know. I have some sympathy for her. But she didn't ever mother me and we simply don't have a relationship now as through necessity I sought that care and attention from others.

I don't know if it helps to imagine the bigger picture, but she is now more stable and is able to enjoy being a granny to my kids.

It’s easy to spot the absences of being a parent, or beat ourselves up about what we could have done better. Every mum has a huge number of things to beat themselves up with.

the first thing that stands out to me is her ability to talk to you. I could no more say this to my mum than sprout wings.

she feels she can be honest with you which

1. Says a lot. 2. Means she sees a relationship with you that’s worth being honest.

its clear from what she has said that she doesn’t want to upset you, but would rather have a relationship with you that’s based on honesty. That means a lot.

shes an independent woman, who’s been given opportunities plenty of women would dream of. She’s bright, articulate and communicative. You’re winning.

take it on the chin, use it to build a proper relationship with her - ask her what she’d like to do with you, then do it.

wow people are mean here. OP I think it’s actually a good thing she’s being open with you about how you’ve hurt her, it gives you an opportunity to explain and apologise and try and make it up to her.

You should only apologise profoundly if you really mean it and I don’t think you will.