to think I've utterly failed my daughter?

[EveryNameITryIsAlreadyInUse]

For 17 years I've done the very best I can for her. She has been really hard work and despite my efforts she's always seemed so unhappy.

Now I have a new baby of 6 months. I love him so much. My heart melts just thinking about his precious little smile. The feelings I have for him are overwealming. I never thought it was possible to love another person so much.

What terrifies me though is that I now see that I've never had these feelings for my daughter. :( I feel like the worst parent in the world just writing that. I do love and care for her but there's something missing and I think it's always been missing. I just didn't realise it until now. For 17 years I've been going through the motions, telling her I love her, but I see now that my heart wasn't in it. No wonder she's been so unhappy.

When I was pregnant with her my now ex husband turned extremely violent. It took me 2 years to escape. During that time I think a part of me shut down in order to survive. I had treatment for PTSD a few years ago and counselling throughout this pregnancy because of the wounds that were being opened up. I think all of that, plus being in a loving relationship, has meant that I have been able to bond with this baby in a way I didn't even know was possible with my daughter.

I wish I could go back and start again with her. :(

If there's any blame anywhere, it's solely to the man who abused you and his unborn baby. Babies can be affected in utero by their mother's stress and distress of domestic violence, and that may be some of your daughter's issues, no fault at all of yours and all credit to you who not only came through that abuse but then successfully raised a child from that situation and dealt with the counselling and PTSD in this pregnancy.

You may like to look at some of the resources out there for adults who experienced trauma in those very earliest days, or through their mother's trauma, they may be of help to your daughter in the future and it may help her feel connected to you to know what you and she went through together. You also have years ahead of you to build your relationship with your daughter. As an adult I've been able to build a relationship with one of my parents that I was never able to have as a child, I think we both had to be adults to be able to communicate and connect.

I've just got back from my mum's. Posting here gave me the courage to finally tell her how I've been feeling. She flipped her lid. She said that that bastard robbed me of the joy and happiness of being a new mum, DO NOT let him do the same this time round.

She's raised 8 children and says she's never once doubted how much my daughter is loved. Like other posters have said, it may not be the fluffy kittens and rainbows type I get to enjoy now but it's still there. She too has felt broken hearted at how sad my daughter has been but she feels this is because she has been struggling to come to terms with being abandoned by her father and acceptance of her stepdad. The fact that she's thrown everything she can at us over the years shows how safe and secure she feels with us and she is coming out the other side now. Last year she started referring to her stepdad as 'my dad' rather than 'mum's husband'.

She then reminded me of how I used to sit by her bed for hours holding her hand and watching her sleep.

I love my mum.

I'm another with a mother similar to this, and I see hope in OP's situation. I think it's great that you have recognised this is yourself and you can try to fix things now. I agree that you do love your daughter, you just need to work on believing it and showing it to her.

I cut contact with my mother at the beginning of the year. In her latest email she claimed that perhaps I had reacted to the death of my sister (a year before I was born), and that was why I felt unloved. How she is blind to the illogic of that I don't know, but she very definitely wants it to be my fault, rather than her realising that maybe her reaction to the death of my sister, and subsequent behaviour with me, may have something to do with it. So I think this is a very important step for you - if you can see where/why you shut yourself down (which I completely understand, it sounds like a terrible time for you) then you can start to make steps towards opening up again.

She is wise :)

x-posted. I'm glad you were able to talk to your mum about it. She sounds like a great support.

Awwww OP - what an encouraging post. Your old ma is very wise. xxx

Lovely post.

Your mum's ace.

its hard to reply to this post, i feel so sorry for the OP and everything you have been through. however my empathy lies with your DD.

I was hard work apparently, I over heard my mum say i was difficult to love. i was a challenge and she had such love for my brother that it didn't compare. It wouldn't have mattered if i didnt here her say it, i felt it every day.

I felt and still feel that from my mums perspective its a shame i was ever born, and for her it would have been better if i died. it wasnt one big thing, it was every day little things chipping away at me. it wasnt obvious to others, but it was there all the time. I was never good enough to be loved like other children.

my mum and dads relationship wasnt good and broke down when my younger brother was 4. while i can see that things were hard for her it doesnt make up for the way i was raised.

I love my mum, but dont really like her, I dont think this is the way a good person behaves and treats an innocent child. I first wanted to die when i was 11. I wanted to have cancer, I wanted to be told I had 6 weeks to live because then my mum would have to love me and spend time with me. my 11 year old logic really thought if i could be loved for 6 weeks then dying would be worth it.

I hope you have done a better job of hiding it OP and im not in any way saying your dd feels like i did. but the posters kicking Bridget and offering hugs to the op should be ashamed, her post might have been blunt but its an honest post form someone who has survived a similar childhood. Some compassion and balance would good.

your post about your mum has brought a tear to my eye (and I'm at work!).

Agree - lovely mum you have there

You have a great mum OP, and it sounds like she knows her stuff - you had a tough time but you are not and have never been a bad mum.

Looking back 17 years is a long time - maybe you don't remember all the nice fluffy bits because life was so stressful and you remember the awful painful bits that are etched on your soul.

I am sure your DD knows she is loved. She is suffering because her father abandoned her. One day, maybe not till she is a mum herself, she will realise how great a job you did on your own.

I found myself in a similar situation to you. I have a ds aged 20 that I had when I was 18 and had very little support. I never doubted that I loved him but when I had dd I was in a stable relationship, she was much wanted and the bond I had with her blew me away. I did feel bad about it but she is 5 now and I have a great relationship with ds and I use the new found knowledge to support him now. He even said to me last week that he feels emotionally closer and supported by me now more than he ever has. You cant undo the past but you can make up for it. Ds has loads of great memories of his childhood its just I know how much richer my relationships is with my younger kids. Dont be too hard on yourself. You can do lots to enrich your relationship thats the important thing.

'but the posters kicking Bridget and offering hugs to the op should be ashamed'

How your mum made you feel is beyond awful, but just because you have compassion for the DD doesn't mean anyone who has compassion for her mum should be ashamed of themselves.

How does that work?

I feel it for both of them, should I feel ashamed?

And it's not that Bridget spoke from a different POV, it's that she said the OP should have got rid of her DD and shouldn't have given her a chance at life, totally below the belt.

Agent, if you read my post again i also have compassion for the op, but bridget posted from the perspective of a daughter who has been in that situation. As much as i feel for the OP, many times in my life I wished my mum had got rid of me. It might not make nice fluffy reading, but it is a truth that some people including me have had to face for their whole lives.

Oh lunar your post is so sad :( I hope things are better for you now.

much better for me now thank you Stunt, its my boys I feel sorry for, i never stop hugging them!

my mum has also managed to make a good relationship with them, I had to put some very clear boundaries in place when ds1 was born and again when ds2 arrived as i will never allow them to know what my life was like before.

We do even get on well now, she occasionally says something truly horrible but i pull her up every single time, no matter who is listening so she seems to be learning.

One of my friends mum used to tell her she should go and top herself, when my friend was about 11. She made it clear she regretted having four children, so I'm not unaware of the damage it can do.

But what Bridget said just doesn't sit right with me, I hate it that you've said 'many times in my life I wished my mum had got rid of me' (because I don't like to think of you feeling so distressed, I've wished I wasn't alive too, but it's 100 times worse for you to feel so betrayed by your mum), but you've said it about yourself, and that's different.

I think I mean that you can say it about yourself/Bridget about herself, because you know the nuances of your own situations, but to say the OP and her DD should both feel it was better the DD wasn't there on just the info in this thread, is OTT.

I'm glad you have a happy life now lunar. No one deserves to feel unwanted and unloved.

The very fact that you're upset by this, OP, shows that you have NOT failed your daughter. If you were denying that there had been an issue or focusing on defending yourself, it would be different. You've acknowledged the difference in how you felt then and now, you know why things were the way they were and from what you've said, you've done your very best to make sure your daughter has felt loved all her life. Sounds to me like you've done the absolute best you could. Nobody could ask more.

Wow OP your last post really made me well up! You have a lovely mum and it's quite clear to me that you also are a lovely mum. You've been through a lot and brought your DD through it. The lovely babymoon feelings you're having now for DS don't negate the relationship with your older DC.
My own mum was (and still is) very much along the lines of Wilson and EeTracey. It's taken me a long time but I have come to terms with what she's like and understand that her issues don't mean anything about me as a person. My mum would never bother to worry, feel sad or make any kind of effort to improve our relationship. You sound like a lovely person who is far too hard on herself. I'm glad you have a great mum yourself to help you see things in perspective.

I agree with Fabereeg. I didn't bond well with my first - but the love I felt for later babies - I realised must also be the love I would have for him. So I tried to feel it more & that really helped.
Also teenage girls are not the easiest. I'm not blaming her, but think you may be over-thinking everything.
I hope you getti enjoy both your children

everyname, I think I love your mum, too. what a sensible woman.

She didn't choose to be born, you shouldn't have had her if you weren't in a situation where you could give her a stable home and you didn't really, really want her the way you do your son

Wow! Don't listen to this comment O.P! deeply unhelpful, judgemental and also not true.

My perspective is this: Our capacity for love is dependent on lots of different factors. It is eroded by stress, pressure, depression and other life circumstances.

When our self esteem is good, we ourselves are loved and secure our capacity for love increases.

As someone who has felt unloved, it is hard for us to understand this. We internalise the behaviour and actions of others and interpret them to mean that we are somehow deficient, unloveable and then the cycle continues.

I am 34, a new parent and have just spent a fantastic few days with my own mum. She is remarried and happy and we now have a much better relationship.

It's strange, as I have got older I have become more and more amazed at how my own mum coped in a horrible marriage, financial difficulties, un well parents. As a teenager I was the centre of my own universe and couldn't see anything from anyone elses point of view. Very angry young woman!
I would just say this to you. Don't worry. Whatever happens, your daughter is your daughter, whatever she and you have been through during her childhood will not determine a difficult future. Just be there. Children are incredibly resilient and those that have had difficult times often develop different qualities.

Love is not a static thing, it moves it changes it grows.

My mum said to me this week, love isn't about other people, it's about what is inside us and what we have the capacity for. That is true. Giving yourself a hard time for things in the past is no good for you. Let it go. Be free.