Estranged daughter 29 is pregnant

[karesalot]

Its a long story which I will keep brief. I'm a 54 year old female.
I divorced my now ex-husband in 2009, We had 3 children together. At the time their ages were 15 (Boy) 12 (Girl) and 9 (Girl).
I have since been happily remarried since 2012.
For the last 9 years I have been estranged from my eldest daughter who is now 29. She refuses any contact with me. When I last saw her she was 20 and our meeting was very strained. She afterwards denied me any contact- this was based on the fact that a) she doesnt like my new husband and b) the fact that her younger sister, now 26, has (through her own choice) had no contact with her father since she was 9.

My eldest daughter now lives and works abroad and has done so for 9 years, and has no intention of returning to the UK / living back here, other than returning for short visits to visit her Father.
She also has had a very strained relationship with her younger sister and they barely have spoken over the last 5 years or so. But she has just messaged my youngest daughter (who lives with me) telling her she is pregnant.
She is apparently very happy which is good to hear but I am concerned about her and just want to be there for her during her pregnancy. But I made her a promise 9 years ago to not make contact and to respect her boundaries as she said that was important. Not only have I done this but I also have no way of contacting her as she has changed her number, blocked me from all social media and I dont have her address or email. So I have not made any contact with her for 9 years now. On discussing with my younger daughter she said that the older one would not have let her know about the pregnancy without her accepting that I am going to find out from her. So I am in two minds whether to contact her and send her a message using the phone number for her which my youngest daughter now has. I want to let her know I am thinking of her and wish her all the best for her pregnancy with no strings attached and no expectations - but if I contact her I feel I am breaking the boundary which I promised and have stuck to all this time. so I really dont know what to do.
I have a very fractured and extremely poor relationship with her Dad (whom she is still very close to) and short of asking him what to do or what she would want - which to be honest I dont want to do as would rather keep him out of it - then I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'd really appreciate peoples thoughts ideas etc.

I feel very badly for you OP, and for your daughter too.

The fact is though, that when she probably needed you most as a youngster, when her life was upended by the divorce, you had an unwelcome male move into the family home. She was young and vulnerable, and you did not heed her.

Even if you do take full responsibility now, and indeed, see it through a different perspective, it may be too late. Saying sorry is one thing. Making amends is much more.

If you daughter lived in this country it would be easier. You could make small , continuous, non invasive efforts over time. As she lives abroad, it is hard to see how amends can be made.

I am sorry for you.

I wish you all the best and hope you can somehow regain her trust and reconnect with her.

This is extremely sad and my heart goes out to you. My experience of MN is that commenters are unduly harsh most of the time. You’ve done nothing wrong. I think many women dream of having daughters but it’s a fact that the mother/daughter dynamic is often the most volatile and they experience the most amount of fall outs. Women also process anger differently. Men are more likely to slam a door and shout the odd swear word and then get on with it. Women tend to rethink and replay scenarios in their mind, and so hold a really long grudge when it suits. You’re not alone. Many women I know don’t get on with their mothers and it’s just a sad reality of life.

There’s obviously a lot gone on.
She’s made a decision when she’s 20. She sounds impulsive (who moves out in the day of their grandma’s funeral)
She may be absolutely sure of her decision and stick by it for rest of her life.
She may have been an impulsive young person, perhaps ND like her mum? She may want to reconcile but unsure how to dig herself out of entrenched position she’s in.
I’d at least want her to know you’d welcome her getting in touch if she wished to but you’ll respect her decision and not contact her.

"You chose a man over your child, and this is the price you pay"

Reaching this conclusion based on her post is absolutely bullshit. You have no idea what happened so stop the judgment based on made up scenarios in your head.

I swear there’s something very wrong with a lot of people of MN. Either that or this site is full of unhappy women who just want to project their misery onto others. It’s like they imagine the worst case scenario and run with it.

Quite one-sided here with most posts against the OP.

We don't know anything about the daughter's personality - e.g. she disliked OP's new husband (only got together after her husband had had an affair) - was that because the new partner was unreasonable or because she was/is a prickly individual. The eldest daughter also chose to estrange herself from one of her sisters.

I'm not sure but this daughter MIGHT be one of those types who actually are the problem themselves. I'm not saying that is the case, but it's worth considering. It's not always the person who is left behind's fault - statistically it can't be.

Sounds like a bloody awful situation to be in.

However given that the sisters relationship is strained I do not think you can use that for contact - so it's still NC.

If she wanted to change that she knows where you are.

Why do people keep repeating this? Her adored dad married the other woman he was having an affair with, and the daughter thinks it´s great, as their relationship is good. So there must be more to it than that.

So true.

I really don’t think it’s that simple as’OP put her new husband above her child.’ Daughter may have liked him to start with then changed her mind. Daughter may have been someone who liked nobody and nothing at the time.
I think this is just a chance to have a go at OP. Very MN.

at most I'd ask Dd3 to ask Dd1 if shes ok with you knowing

Agree with this. She sounds impulsive and it’s possible she wants different now as she’s grown up. The fact that she’s abroad means she could be low contact with you. I would ask the the sister for her contact details explaining that you just want to wish her well. Could even ask to make amends if she’s open to it but also give the option of just being in contact casually. I’m saying this as a woman who is low contact with her mother and lives abroad.

I'm estranged from my parents.
If they got in touch with me, expressly against my wishes, this would just show that they hadn't changed and hadn't taken accountability for any of their actions.

If I was too confused, too scared or too unsure to get in touch with my mother myself, then it would not be a good time for me to do it and I would not react well to her getting in touch.

There is no situation where OP getting in touch will not make things worse.
Since it does seem to be open as partial line of communication I will agree with some posters that asking the younger daughter if she can get in touch is the absolute limit of what OP should do. And if she's done this multiple times before already, then don't even consider it.

I completely agree with this, particularly after seeing the updates. If the daughter chose to go nc because she didn’t feel prioritised by the OP, then not attempting any contact now at such a life-changing time might just deepen that hurt. I would reach out, keep it simple. ‘No pressure, just know that I love you’. Be prepared to be ignored, but that’s better than looking like you don’t care enough to reach out. You’re still her mum, OP. Let her know you love her and then back away again.

Exactly, am a child of a divorce and I hated both partners my parents had afterwards, now decades later, I like my mums but find him irritating and hate my dads. It can just change overtime.

This

This is exactly the right way to handle it. As PP said, the fact that she has told your youngest daughter with whom she doesn’t have a close relationship, yet is aware she lives with you, seems to me to be a tentative step towards you.
My step sister did exactly this until pregnant with her first, (only to her father for marrying my mum when she was 15. ) the sudden realisation of having her own child and imagining that child cutting her out of her life made her reassess the situation as a parent and adult rather than a stroppy teenager.
She retuned to the family when her child was 3 months old. (Emotionally not physically - as was married by this point ) and we all enjoyed a really close loving relationship together until our parents died in their mid 80s - along with grandchildren and great grandchildren.

@karesalot
Please ignore the snippy and quite cruel comments about ‘choosing a man over your child’ .

This is MN where women are expected to sacrifice ever having another relationship until their children have left home, even then you are expected to adhere to any veto. Not to mention always living your life as according to a teenager, who we all know are incredibly reasonable at all times. 🙄.

It may well be that you married a man who was unreasonable and unkind to your DD, but given that she was 15 when you married and she left at 20 I am happy to give you the benefit of the doubt.

I really hope it works out the way you would like. x

Maybe she likes her dad's new wife. She was also not forced to live with her dad's new wife as OP got custody and then moved herself and the children into her new man's home very quickly. It might not be just about the speed of moving in together either, but that it's very hard for a teenage girl to live with a grown man she is not related to. I know that impacted mine and my mum's relationship when she got into a new relationship when I was a teen. It was awful having to share bathroom, sofa, holidays etc. with someone I definitely didn't choose.

I hope you read Op's update.
An apology on the way is it?

Ffs god forbid that a woman leaves her abusive and adulterous husband and finds love again.

One good parent? That would be the father who ended the marriage due to an affair and later married the OW?
OP I am more sympathetic than some posters but I think it’s a bad idea to try to make contact.
Your daughter obviously felt strongly enough to become estranged. There is no reason to think that her own pregnancy has changed this view.

I am estranged from adult DS. Circumstances here are different. He tried to defraud us via a POA when DH was diagnosed with demwntia and made a social services compliant when it was removed. My advice is however the same.Let go for your own good accept that this relationship is no longer something you have.

I would leave it & respect her privacy. We don’t know why she chose not to have contact with you, she could have taken her dad’s side during the affair and is just closer to him or there could be other reasons.

If she feels she wants contact with you then she knows where you are.