19 yr old dd: difficult relationship, she was in tears today

[Womanlywiles]

She is back home as uni is closed, she is a 1st year student. she loves uni and has made some very close friends. Is unhappy to be home, and has been moody but Ok. We have another dd who will be 17 in May and a DS age 13.
She has seemed very resentful and angry with me for a long time. I do tell her I love her and I have often gone out of my way to make her happy and meet her needs (such as drive her and her friends around kingdom come for years as no public transport near, always welcoming to her friends etc.). We are paying for uni. She is hardworking and saved 5k in the summer from a retail job. We seem to go thru times when we are closer and things are easier to now. We don't fight but today we had words over something minor and I told her she just acted like she doesn't like me and that I am never good enough (rolls her eyes, ignores me, talks over me). She got very upset and said that she thought that I didn't think she was good enough. I said I had no idea what she was talking about and that I always tried to meet her needs and give her what she wanted, helped her get into uni etc. She started to cry and said that I was mean to her when she was little, she left the house and went for a walk. I sent her texts apologizing, saying I was sorry if I had ever hurt her and was willing to listen and talk about it where she was ready, that I loved her and was proud of everything she did. We decided to sleep on it and we will talk about it tomorrow. To be honest although I am willing to do whatever it takes to repair our relationship I am dreading it. Can anyone relate?

Keep the lines of communication open and listen to her. You'll both work out a way.

It's probably not you personally but the fact that she'd rather be living her own life at uni than at home under lockdown. She's resentful and taking it out in the wrong way.

It's good she's said this to you. Please don't dismiss how she feels about her childhood. It might be beneficial to arrange some counselling, I think it's possible to have this online right now.

Well done for not to dismissing how she felt as a child. There are a lot of emotions flying around right now. As others have said, you have let her know you’re available if she wants to talk.

I can totally relate to being the child, who wasn’t listened to and didn’t have her emotional needs (and more) met. But not to being the parent. My parent chose to dismiss me. Whatever you say right now, you’ll be doing better than mine.

Unfortunately both my parents died when I was a teen. My mum was in hospital for most of the year with cancer when I was 12 and then died when I was 13 and had only experienced one period, so barely into puberty. My dad was bipolar and seriously neglectful and emotionally abusive. He locked me out of the house when I was 16, even though I was not causing any problems, and I was taken into foster care. I could not settle with a family as I had been forced to be independent for so long, I had no idea that they even cared if I came home and carried on as if I was an adult, just coming and going. So I started living independently a few months later by living in student halls which my social worker found for me. I was emancipated from local authority care at 18.

I am very happily married, been married for 23 years. I know I am stoic, although my other dd disagrees and said "mum you're not like a stone in the corner". I do worry I emotionally neglect my children by not recognizing their needs and not being expressive. However, my eldest dd has always been able to create very close friendships and has lots of loyal friends and is an A student at college. I don't think she could do all this if I was a completely horrible mum. My middle dd tells me to not take it too hard as she feels her sister has a tendency to always see the glass as half empty. Of course I have tired to make sure she had the security and opportunities I didn't, although I did eventually go to uni in my 20s.

Do you know what she’s talking about, about you being mean when she was little?

I think you’re over worrying and overanalysing.
You’re all stuck together when she should be out learning to be an adult. It’s frustrating and that simmers and builds before pinging and settling down again.

Youngsters say things they don’t mean, in anger, in exasperation, when they feel crowded. Sounds like she needs space and reduced attempts to make everything right, The last thing she needs is pressure for a perfect relationship.

Don’t go down the whole psycho babbling route; build in a glass of wine and game of cards or something else less intense. Let her be the adult sometimes and cook, shop etc.

"I do worry I emotionally neglect my children by not recognizing their needs and not being expressive".

I wouldn't say you emotionally neglect your children and you sound like a caring mum, but do you tend to show your caring by your actions and what you do for them (you mentioned you go out of the way for them) rather than in other ways?

It may not be entirely within your comfort zone, but yes you need to have an open conversation about why she feels that way way - and not forgetting your own concerns about being made to feel not good enough and that she doesn't like you. Its better than letting things fester and you do need to get to the bottom of it. My 17 year old told me that an incident when she was a child (that I was responsible for, involving a heating argument in a public place that she witnessed) gave her PTSD! She has anxiety and fluctuating mental health - we had a conversation about it and at the end she concluded that it hadn't given her PTSD. We laughed about it and she realised that she had just been trying to find a reason to account for why she was the way she is (social anxiety)

I really don't know what she means. I had a very loving mum and I breast-fed all my three kids for years and was as close as I could be ie did the best I could. I also as a rule don't yell, raise my voice or be obviously abusive. I just know I didn't get enough parenting myself and have not had enough emotional support so I may have done something obviously unintentionally. As I mentioned, her dad and I are happily married and we do love our kids. She is much more emotional, in that she cries easily, than my other two and I have always tried to respect that, and understand that it doesn't mean the sky is falling in if she cries because tears come easily to her, but that's ok with me. She does have a tend to exaggerate too. ie. told a story when she was 17 where me and her dad were having a huge fight and were getting ready to divorce (this never happened) and I put it down to teenage dramatics.

Meeting children's needs is in a way easier when they are younger and the needs are simple things like food, cleanliness and comfort. Older teens start needing things like independence, freedom and their peers. You can't meet these needs, especially under current circumstances.

Obviously I was never a lockdown teen but I went through a bad stage when university was finished and I did blame my parents unfairly for some things.

Listening to her and accepting your limits is best.

I mean, I could pinpoint a couple of occasions when my mum was ‘mean’ to me - it doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things because they’re a) isolated occasions b) I recognise that mum is a human being and doesn’t get it right all the time.

I might have thrown some of that in her face if she’d said what you said. That’s not the day you did the wrong thing by any stretch - just that teens and young adults are not good at taking stock and admitting they might be at fault.

Talk to her tomorrow. You can recognise you may have upset her when she was a child; she’s an adult now and needs to understand her actions are upsetting ^you*.

OP, you sound like an amazing woman to have come through such a tough life and created a great family and marriage.

I have 4 children, 3 of who the glass is half full and the other who I like to say has a bit of a persecution complex at times. Even though we have always done everything we can.
His father indulges it more than I do!
At the moment I have a bit of it going on, pissed off his life is on hold etc.

I listen to a bit of it and then say "its very difficult etc...but everyone is in the same boat and we will just have to get on with it as best we can".

I would be sympathetic and kind to her....to a point....I wouldn't be her emotional punching bag...that doesn't ever do them any favours.

Saying "I'm sorry YOU feel that way, I really did my best".

I certainly have made mistakes...but I was always genuinely doing the best I could at the time for my children.

I wouldn't take a load of abusive from any of them or disrespect from any of them for any reason.

Perhaps some family therapy might help.

But if she's prone to making shit up, that would piss me off too.🙄

Sounds like you have done your best too.

I definitely will do my best to do a lot of listening. Its sounds incredibly corny but after working in customer service for many years I find when people are showing visable anger the number 1 reason is that they don't feel listened to. So the first thing I generally do with others is offer an open ended invitation such as "would you like to tell me what's going on from your POV?" and just listen. I will try to do the best for my kids. I do apologize to them. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I guess the difficulty is, they are not us! They are a completely different person, so what matters to them and what they care about can be things we are oblivious to sometimes. I am sure I will struggle but I will do my best to respond to her. She has a tendency to embellish and dramatize so I think I will try not to critique and just let her get everything off her chest. I definitely don't let my kids disrespect me or be abusive in any way. I do think it's good to remind her it's a very unusual time and a psychological struggle for many of us. Yeah, I am also sure she was very much enjoying adulting and moving onto the next stage of her life and this must feel like a big step back. I just am finding her quite hard work at the moment but hormones are also so intense when you are in your teens and twenties.