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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I dont want to speak to my daughter ever again

168 replies

notsodarlingdaughtersmum · 31/12/2013 01:43

Instructed to meet her off the 1.30 bus 4 days before Christmas (day 1) I waited in the car in the rain while she appeared 2 buses and an hour later. Was she pleased to see me after 3 months, no she said, she had called her dad (we are divorced) to pick her up as she wasn't sure I was coming and she wanted to stay with him anyway. (Agreed plan had been for her to stay with me before Christmas) What about the play tickets I have booked tonight with your brother and I, I said. Why not ring your dad and tell him I'm here and come home to lunch and come to the play. She said she would come along later. She didn't turn upto the play (which she had known about for a month) She turned up the following day (2) at lunchtime with her suitcase. The following day (3) in the morning I was told by her on waking that she didnt want my controlling breakfast or to be told what to do. Make sure you are ready to leave for the opera at 5.30 pm I said. She wasn't. I left. She and her brother turned up outside Convent Garden 30 mins after the opera started. £79 tickets. Booked 3 months previously. She had texted her brother telling him the wrong time for the start of the opera. I gave them their tickets and went home tired and distraught. The following day (4) ie Christmas eve they went to their dads parents as planned for 5 days. I dont want to speak to her again. It is not just the play and the opera, it is the precious family time that has been destroyed. I was looking forward to it so much. I am so upset. I brought her up badly. She is 20. AIBU. What shall I do?

OP posts:
Dromedary · 31/12/2013 11:18

I wonder whether buying a charity present is her way of not wanting to get her mum a personal present, because she doesn't like her at the moment. I don't think it's a good sign.
If I were the mum I think I'd try to concentrate very much on my own life without daughter, and not make a huge deal of times when the daughter does come back to the family home. And treat her as an adult - not doing much for her anymore, and not spending a lot of money on her.

BoneyBackJefferson · 31/12/2013 11:22

Isn't your son old enough to make his own decisions?

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 31/12/2013 11:22

"Perhaps your daughter didn't want to go the play or the opera."

Well, sometimes in life we have to do stuff we don't want to, we can't just not turn up because we don't fancy it.

Unless we are totally selfish.

I think there is something bugging her too.

Which was my idea behind sending her an email, to explore what is going on, not just to give her a bollocking.

TaraLott · 31/12/2013 11:33

Can I check in catfromjapan?

Not particularly stressed but it sounds like a gas.

thecatfromjapan · 31/12/2013 11:37

Yup. You are all welcome. I'm thinking that there might be a wing of the building that gets quite bouncy. Might have to name it the "Mumsnet Wing".

Meerka · 31/12/2013 11:38

re-read a couple of bits and the OP has left the thread, she said.

TaraLott · 31/12/2013 11:39

Nooo, that sounds far too frumpy, The Bat Shit Crazy Wing?

TaraLott · 31/12/2013 11:41

I would just say that I can't stand The Opera and wouldn't have wanted to go when I was 20.
I think there's probably a lot more to this.

sashh · 31/12/2013 11:59

OP

Nothing useful to say but in a totally unuseful way if you ever want to buy opera tickets I'd love to come along.

I'll even call you mum and buy the drinks in the interval.

CarolineKnappShappey · 31/12/2013 12:06

I was a bit of a brat in my early 20s coming back from uni, or London to spend Christmas with my family.

It was just as someone described above. I had finally moved from a very controlled environment where I had no privacy, to a life that I could finally call my own.

When I went home my mother used to organise lots of social engagements. She only wanted to show me off because she was proud which is really nice but it felt too much like being a child again.

However, the worst thing was she used to ask "where did I go wrong in raising you? I found, and still find, that incredibly insulting. It takes away any sense that you are your own person and not just a product of your parents care. It also sounds that you are a complete fuck up and always will be.

Please just be careful what you say to your daughter. Look at it from her point of view; she missed a couple of engagements, she bought your present and you haven't spoken to her since Christmas day.
She will go back to uni thinking she had a rubbish Christmas and she will not like you for it. She will not think she is in the wrong.

dorothyparka · 31/12/2013 12:25

Your daughter’s not being malicious, she’s just being young and thoughtless (and we’ve all done it!).
If it makes you feel any better, my mother’s always moaning that she and my father never go anywhere or do anything so for Christmas I got them tickets (costing nearly £400Xmas Shock) for her favourite opera. At the last minute my father decided he was too tired to go (so I went instead) ... and my mother slept through most of it. Still speaking to both of them (just!) Xmas Smile

BoneyBackJefferson · 31/12/2013 12:50

Meerka

I suspect that the OP has left the thread because it is no longer going all her own way.

Lifeisaboxofchocs · 31/12/2013 12:58

Springy, my children are younger.

However, I was 20 once and I had a wonderful relationship with my mother and wouldn't have dared, nor would I have wanted, to have treated my mother like the op's daughter.

So speak for yourself!

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 31/12/2013 13:01

D

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 31/12/2013 13:01

Oops.

Me too. It is possible to be 20 and respectful.

Lifeisaboxofchocs · 31/12/2013 13:05

Perhaps the OP has left the thread because she is busy?

I mean mumsnet is not the centre of everyone's existence,

wem · 31/12/2013 13:51

The OP has said she's left the thread because otherwise she'd think about it too much Hmm

HECTheHeraldAngelsSing · 31/12/2013 14:27

That is a shame. I think she would benefit from thinking about it. But it can be difficult to take a good long look at yourself and your own part in interactions. Which she would need to do in order to work with her daughter to change their relationship. Theyd both need to look at things.

BoneyBackJefferson · 31/12/2013 17:41

Lifeisa

What stands out for me from your post is that you "wouldn't have dared" to have treated your mother like the OP's daughter has.

Too me it seems like the issues started (as far as the thread goes) when the "D"D couldn't get hold of the OP on the bus.

I wonder if the OP has form for this. Also from her posting I wonder if the DS is held up as the golden child.

CustardoPaidforIDSsYFronts · 31/12/2013 17:51

op stated she left the thread as dwelling on it was making her feel upset ( see last post i think)

your DD is acting selfishly and i think she needs to know in a calm way the way you are feeling

so less finger pointy type conversation i.e. " you didn't turn up...tickets were £79, you spoiled it" type convo

and more

" i felt badly let down, I felt silly that i turned up to pick you up and then i felt silly that i waited for you outside the opera, i feel that you haven't considered my feelings and it is this rather than the price of the tickets or the opera which has left me feeling very hurt. I am your mum, this is true, but i am also a human being, and to be thoughtless in this way has hurt my feelings"

Lifeisaboxofchocs · 31/12/2013 17:54

Wouldn't have dared because my mother was a strong woman who would not have stood for me being rude. She would have told me off, even if i was twenty!

Wouldn't have wanted because i loved my mother so much , and it would have hurt her and made me feel sick with myself. She passed 5 years ago

rookietherednosedreindeer · 31/12/2013 18:02

I don't know if it's bad form to post once the OP has left but I will anyway.

I'm not sure why it's deemed so terrible to buy charity gifts - yes it means the recipient hasn't got something nice to open on Christmas Day, but for a 20year old I don't think it's a dreadful gift. When I was about the same age I sent my DM a birthday postcard on the wrong month for the wrong age - she didn't seem overly devastated. Oh and she gives me truly crap gifts every year - this year it was oven liner ( beautifully wrapped) last year cling film (ditto).

Re the theatre and the opera - I wonder if the OP has a significant other, I suspect not. Hence why these extra special trips are for the DCs, who sound as if they would rather be chilling out over the Christmas break and the over importance of what the DD got her for Christmas.

It was a shame they turned up late for the show - but it doesn't sound like a deliberate action, just a sloppy mistake, not one worth having an hysterical hissy fit over.

Take a few deep breaths OP and just let your DD be. Don't build Christmas or holidays up to be marvellous - just accept them for what they are. If it's any consellation we have hardly seen our DS since we came back from relatives and lodge break as he is always over at neighbours - oh and spent most of lodge break moaning about lack of relatives or neighbours.

Basketofchocolate · 31/12/2013 18:09

She is trying to hurt you or show you that she doesn't need you. If you don't know why she is trying to hurt you, doesn't matter. Don't react negatively to it. Give some time and then continue being nice, but maybe ask what she wants to do. This is a really hard time when you and her need to sort of redefine between parent telling her what to do all the time and being a friendly parent (not friend) who is there to help/fall back on when needed. Sometimes it takes a few years for you two to work out.

I'd also like to point out that just because your divorce was 13 years ago, it doesn't mean that she isn't dealing with it now. She would've been very young when it happened and perhaps the whole thing is sinking in now as it does for many at this time. She is becoming a fully-fledged adult and therefore will have a better understanding of things from an adult perspective. Perhaps she's forming her own romantic relationships and getting a new perspective from those. Also, perhaps she's meeting new friends who talk about a childhood with parents in love and she's realised what she may have missed out on. All of these things will have an effect.

It was your divorce and was over for you perhaps a long time ago, but will be with her for her life. When she leaves home and has to keep in touch with you both, every Christmas coming 'home' to decide which 'home' is 'home', her own marriage or long-term relationship, wedding day, children - with you and your husband becoming grandparents.

I don't have any advice for dealing with it - just that if she's normally a lovely daughter, it's probably stemming from an issue that she's not sharing with you and could be that she dealing with all that right now.

My parents divorced 34 years ago and I still get stressed about Xmas arrangements with the family as do all the siblings involved!

SuperScrimper · 31/12/2013 18:25

thegreylady and you think the daughter is rude?!

'The charity gift I'd ask to see the receipt and then maybe accept graciously. In general she is behaving very very badly indeed and must know it or be shown it. This isn't your fault it is hers.'

Jesus Christ.

greenfolder · 31/12/2013 18:36

My dd is in her first year at uni.she drives me demented. Never getting anywhere on time or indeed caring. So I am just not including her in anything as she was ruining family stuff for her little sister when she herself had enjoyed them unhindered