Not sending my estranged daughter a birthday card?

[MumNoMore]

My 25yr old daughter and I reconnected 4 years ago after she chose to cut contact at 13 after her father’s and my divorce. I couldn’t have custody due to severe physical and chronic illness but it broke my heart.

I thought we had rebuilt a very good relationship with regular contact, until January when she suddenly cut me off again with no explanation or response to my messages and calls, that left me very confused and distressed since only the week before she told me how much she loved me.

She did send me a printed card from moonpig on my birthday, with a gift she knew I could not use (bath stuff..no bath) but no personal contact.
She posted across social media how much better she felt having made the decision to just focus on herself, and not have to think about anyone else.

That confused me (I’m on the spectrum) as I had always made the point of never complaining to her or asking for any help, ever, as I did not want to burden her with my health difficulties and depression which she did know about.

Its her birthday on Tuesday, and as much as I try to do the right thing, I cannot bring myself to send her even a card as I am still so very hurt and angry.

I have lived life with ‘you either love and care about me and are in my life, or you don’t and you aren’t” which means I have no contact at all with any family and never will, once a door is closed, it’s closed for good.

All the opinions seem to be to send one anyway as a good (even if unwanted) mother, to keep the door open in case she changes her mind and wants a relationship again. For me, that can never happen as I can’t forgive or trust her and risk my mental health being destroyed again.

It broke me to near suicide, and cannot spend the rest of my life anticipating for months and waiting to see if she sends a Xmas, Mother’s Day or birthday card again, reopening wounds of distress when she doesn’t respond to thank you messages I look for in the following days and weeks.

Is it selfish of me to be so protective of my unstable mental health that is already so challenged with being bedbound, depressed and alone, or does the fact she is my daughter trump all that as a priority I should put first and acknowledge as a mother?

Any opinions or advice is welcome, but you don’t have to tell me how crap I am at relationships, I am only too aware my autism makes me think and act differently that seems right to me, which is why I am reaching out.

PS if it helps from an autistic point of view… the absolute rule for parents to their child is unconditional love. Your daughter doesn’t have to earn it and can’t lose it for poor behaviour. That’s what she needs from you. If you haven’t given her that then she will feel aggrieved with you because you have broken a key parent code. She will be nursing some very deep wounds that may never fully heal. All you can do now is be consistent in your unconditional love.

Why do people always automatically assume that if an adult child cuts contact with their parent it's always the parent's fault?

And no, I am not in this situation in either direction so not projecting.

I get that you do get damaging, narc parents but damaging, narc adult children also exist.

I completely disagree with you that it's the OP's problem. She can't change who she is and her black and white thinking. Her daughter is 25, an adult and, I understand, neurotypical. She is not a kid and should be able to understand, by now, how the spectrum affects her loved ones.

I think we will have to agree to disagree on that one. My father’s ASD did not just affect him it affected all of us children too. We adored him and made allowances left, right and centre for him as you should with people you love but his behaviour deeply affected my childhood and my childhood development. The story of our estrangement is for another thread.

As parents we work on black and white thinking with my DD all the time. We have taken her to an excellent therapist and she has developed much better skills in this area. The OP could open herself up to that experience too, as an adult she has that choice, but she gets safety and certainty out of choosing to extricate herself from difficult unmanageable relationships.

I would send her a card. The regrets I have in life are about the things I have not done and cannot change.

Sometimes there isn't a choice. I know children whose parents divorced who were told a pack of lies by their other parent (of either sex) which then affected their relationship for many years. If a teenager doesn't want to talk to you there is a limit to what you can do to force them to.

That's not what I said. Her daughter has probably been dealing with her moms "oddness" for a long time. But the difference between being a child and adult is having the cognitive resources and emotional experience to recognise her mother isn't just odd, unable to communicate effectively or being emotionally in sync. Her mother has a disability that impacts how she perceives her own world and impacts all people around her.

People on the spectrum are the most genuine, sincere and loyal people I've ever met. It's not easy dealing with them, their disability needs to be understood for families to have a good relationship. It takes time but it begins with the people around them, their parents, their children, their spouse really understanding the spectrum, caring for them and how to communicate effectively.

Send her a card. Don't over think it. If she sends one to you then great. Keep sending the cards to keep communication open.

There maybe many reasons why she can't or won't send a card back or be in touch but you do your thing. Remember even though she's 25 you are the parent in this relationship, she is the child.

Send her a card for Christmas too if you want too.

I’m incredibly low contact with my parents.
I send them birthday presents and cards

I get a card occasionally

it fucking hurts.

my psychiatrist said not to send them anything. But I have to do the “right” thing for my own peace.

send the card, your the grown up, her feelings will be the 13 year old. You know all those complicated feeling am you have about her not sending you something. She will feel them too, you can ease that for your daughter, even if she doesn’t for you.

I would send one too.
It’s very telling when you say I have lived life with ‘you either love and care about me and are in my life, or you don’t and you aren’t” which means I have no contact at all with any family and never will, once a door is closed, it’s closed for good
That really sounds brutal.
I would be interested to hear your DD’s side of the story, I imagine she’s been through some very traumatic and difficult experiences since her early childhood.

I'm estranged from my mother, in large part because I spent much of my childhood having to be her mother, because of her mental health problems and addiction.

She has never sent me a word since. That is (irrationally, I know) sometimes difficult for me, because it's clear that she's estranged me right back. But I prefer it that way to her sending cards or whatever and reminding me of what I worked so hard to escape.

There's no easy answer here, but people do not estrange themselves from their parents for no reason. I'd be inclined to say don't send the card, but in doing so you may reinforce in her mind that once people are cut off from you, that's it.

She sent you a card and present, so I’d say she is open to the sort of relationship where you keep in touch with cards. So I would send her a card unless she has explicitly asked you not to.

I have no relationship with my mum and have explicitly asked her never to contact me again. I see cards as harassment at this point. But she hasn’t asked you never to contact her again. Interestingly, my mum also has no relationship with any of her family and her partner is largely the same (his dc and grandchildren are NC). In these sorts of situations, there is a common denominator and it isn’t the children and grandchildren. 🙄

That said, you’ve made this all about you and what you need and your pain, and said very little about what your dd has been put through having a parent who couldn’t care for them and hasn’t been present in her life due to mental illness and other issues. I can understand why she would focus on the people in her life who have been there for her, for reasons similar to why you have cut off your family. These cycles repeat themselves until someone is brave enough to take a stand and put a stop to them.

Send one

Send a card; do not expect anything in return. The differential in a parent/child relationship is not equal, nor is it reciprocal.

Your mental health and wellbeing cannot be dependent on someone else's responses. That is unfair on both you and her.

You need to be what you call 'selfish', in that you need to attend to your mental health - not by demanding someone else act a certain way, but by attending to your own inner world and needs. That's not an easy task but it's your task.

It sounds like you really need some support and help. If you're in England or Wales, you can self refer through the NHS. There are many things to try - medication, meditation, counselling, therapy, exercise (yes even when bedbound), spirituality/religion, creativity, nutrition, etc. Keep trying. Just keep going. Expect setbacks and dead ends and occasional failures as part of the process. Your life is your life's task.

Once you feel on a stronger footing yourself then perhaps you will be better able to offer your daughter the steady, reassuring presence she needs.

It's not easy, OP. Life can be very difficult and there is much we can't control. But we can control our responses to situations, we can learn to frame things differently, we can learn to both accept what we can't change, and work at the things we can change to improve them. Sending you my best.

I was estranged from my late father, my choice. The last thing I wanted was a card from him. If you love her, respect her decision.

Good advice

I am estranged too and I don’t want cards but the OPs DD has sent her a card so I think she is in a different place to mine or yours.

I suspect the DD can only have a very light touch relationship due to the past and ongoing trauma the relationship causes for her.

You've said you will never trust her again despite the fact she did send you a birthday card and present. That is an extreme position to take and if that is the way you behave then perhaps your daughter picks up on that.

She will have her own trauma and - rightly or wrongly (no idea of the backstory) she may have felt abandoned by you when she was in some of her most informative and vulnerable years. She might not ever be able to get over that. She has evidently tried and is having to step back.

I don't think you seem to see things from her side.

It also important to remember that someone can be neurodivergent but also a terrible parent. I have a family member who is neurodivergent. He sexually abused his daughter. The narrative within the wider family as pushed by his partner is that his ND means he wasn’t able to understand what a normal healthy boundary was with his daughter and therefore sexualised her and in his mind she became like a ‘wife’. He was a successful professional who navigated life and social norms and interactions with women in everyday life perfectly fine. He didn’t abuse his child because he was ND, but because he was a creep and a perv. He very well understands right from wrong. He just chose to do what he wanted. And it’s caused immense damage to the entire family but especially his dd’s who have been vilified for ‘not understanding his neurodiversity’ by reporting the abuse and cutting contact.

I think you should send the card, your daughter made the effort for your Birthday and like other posters have said, you are the parent in this.

I know you don’t mean that being 25 makes everyone magically understand autism. No. My point is that ASD is very complicated and just being older doesn’t necessarily give you a valuable understanding, and then even if you understand it’s not easy to cope with and OP’s daughter might have her own difficulties.
Some people with ASD can behave very self centered and selfishly in certain situations so you need to have mental strength and capacity to have a relationship with them. Some people don’t have it, maybe OP’s daughter one of them and who can blame her, it doesn’t sound as her (daughter’s ) life was simple and rosy. And she is only 25.

First post nails it.

My poinr is that ASD is very complicated and just being older doesn’t necessarily give you a valuable understanding,

It should if the person suffering it is your own mother.

It's not clear what happened but you have confirmed that she grew up primarily with her father. There will have been a reason she cut contact with you (not sure if fathers influence or your behaviour). Ultimately you are the parent, whether you were able to parent or not, she never asked to be born. There's is no judgement in my post. I am saying that her damaged childhood was not her fault. I am surprised as a parent you are questioning whether to send a card and stay in touch.
You are hurt and angry? So is she. You and her father created the environment she grew up in.
Maybe you should cut contact as you show zero empathy towards your (adult) child.

no, actually it’s even worse as you have your own feelings of a child plus they were estranged for a while.
Your view as very black and white - the reality of life is not like this.

The OP view of the world is black and white. Not my view, not yours, not her daughters. It's HER world and she can't change it.

If her daughter wants a relationship with her mother, she needs to understand ASD and change the way she relates to her. Not the other way around.

My last post on this thread.