DD20 says she would still live with me if I had given her that option

[Mastmw7g]

I want to ask if I was unreasonable for allowing the way DH encouraged her to move out, but that's probably an unreasonable thing to ask. I felt sometimes like he was almost manipulating her. So it was her choice, but she was very hesitant to make that choice.

Living with her was awful. It wasn't good for my younger children, so I know it was the best choice for the rest of us. But I doubt it was the best choice for her. I've had this surge of anxiety since she moved out and even started therapy. It's possible I'm codependent. Why else would I worry about her when I should be sleeping?

Regardless, yesterday I went over her home and she said she would still live with me if I had given her that option. In therapy I was asked if she chose to leave or I made her leave and I truthfully didn't know the answer, but I suppose now I do. I made her leave because she felt she had no option to stay. Now I'm still distracted from everything I do because I'm nervous and worried for her, but I also feel deep guilt for making her fly before she was ready to leave the nest.

You’re doing very very well, extremely well done!

Keep going! With such efforts and both of you getting the support you need to handle this situation, things will improve, I assure you! Keep believing and keep trying! It will be really great for her to see you believe in her and are expecting good from her.

Big hug, it’s going to be okay. 💐

Thank you for these suggestions. I've been taking over food once a week, but mostly with the intent to share a meal together. I think it would help her if I did more because she mentioned that she keeps getting takeaway while she's at work. That might be because she wants to be like everyone else at work and she's socializing with them. Or it might be that she needs help preparing meals.

She seems to be doing well with washing. Her home is very clean, but it is empty. She has a bed, but no other furniture. When I come over we stand in the kitchen to eat.

She has no furniture and not even a table and a couple of chairs to sit down for dinner, have friends over for a chat and so on? These are normal every day things. I am sorry, but your husband filled in paperwork for her rental for her to move out, now he is practicing boundaries (also known as not supporting you or her at all now), and he and you haven’t even made sure she has a table and chairs?
How badly does someone have to behave that you would not make sure they have a table and chairs to eat off?

Sorry, I get that you have had a difficult time and that your DD’s behaviour is not straightforward, but I feel very sorry for this young woman and not very sympathetic to your husband. You seem quite passive between his views and your DD’s behaviour and stuck in the middle.

Can you check charity shops for some furniture? I get you may not want to get brand new if it’s temporary accommodation. Involve her in the search, have her do it while you sit beside and gently encourage… she will be learning.

And I think your time would be better spent cooking together very simple meals in her home, so she can learn and feel confident in this also… it needs to extend to the supermarket shop, putting things away, how to use the pots and pans.

It will help you to imagine that she is still a young child… these are the things she missed out on being coached in… now is a good time to do it, and it will help you bond. Don’t move on to a new dish until she’s mastered the first.

I think more than once a week would be more helpful.

Your husband can look after his other kids if he’s abandoned yours, you need to help her.

Couldn't you and you husband help buy her some furniture? Or even help her source a 2nd hand sofa, often people give them away for free on freecycle etc. It's her first flat and she doesnt seem to be coping well, I would be doing more to help her settle. Even a few bean bags to sit on would be a start!

She has a dog we take care of while she's working, so she is still over to drop off the dog before work and then stays after work when she comes to collect the dog, so there's a lot of contact with us still. She mostly talks to my husband when she's over, so I value the time I have with her once a week at her home.

She's often angry about work when she comes to us, so I feel like we're still walking on eggshells and have to say the right thing or else we make her angrier. But she eventually goes home, which has made things more peaceful.

I joined an online failure to launch type website and a book keeps being recommended on every post, so I'm going to see if I can borrow it, and buy it if I can't.

I'm coming to the conclusion in therapy that much of the worry I feel is because she is coming to me now instead of him. I admit I was jealous of how she always went to him, but it's hard work being the one she always comes to. I never had to say no to her much before because she always had someone saying yes to her. And she asks for a lot. Even when she's working she sends messages saying she wants to quit her job and asks me to help her find a better job, one where she earns more. She says she'll do anything where she earns more, and I'll ask if she wants to look at jobs with me and she'll say she'd love to, but then she'll come over after work and not be in the mood or say she's too tired and only wants to talk to my husband about her day. So he must still be serving as emotional support even though he's practicing boundaries.

I'm so sorry you had those experiences. That's so many things all at once. How did you cope and navigate independence at the same time?

I will talk to her about it. She is very reluctant right now to seek a new diagnosis because she thinks she'll be pressured to take medicine. But I think it will be easier to get her in the room for diagnostic purposes if she thinks she'll be evaluated for adhd and not other MH diagnoses.

She's not messy. She can cook and clean. I wondered if she had an eating disorder because she wouldn't eat with us unless my husband cooked her food and played her meal. But she would always eat what was placed in front of her, so that seemed incongruent with an eating disorder. And in her own home she hasn't had any issues preparing her own meals. So that dismisses my old theory. Perhaps inattentive adhd is more fitting. I will speak to her.

It's difficult for me to give examples. But he helped her with school work no matter how old she was, he wouldn't risk letting her fail. He would drive her around at all hours even when she was asking so that she didn't have to remain sober. If she didn't eat, she would stand in front of him and show him that her hand was shaking from not having eaten and he would immediately make her food, whatever she asked for. She would ask for a different meal than the rest of us were having and he'd cook that for her or leave to go pick up what she wanted. If she was unhappy he would take her out and get whatever treat she wanted to eat. When she refused to portion out food from serving dishes he would do that for her. He cut her meat for her until she was a teenager. I know I'm talking too much about food, but those are the first examples I've thought of. My youngest daughter would always get upset because she said having her sister here meant her dad was always gone getting her things or taking her places.

You're right that I would be unreasonable if I didn't support her if she decided to move in with her father's family. I wasn't thinking of being unsupportive, it's just not something I want and I would feel sad with that outcome.

@GreenCycler Thank you for the kind words. It really means a lot to me.

No, she doesn't have any furniture besides a bed. She does have savings. I went with her to a charity shop, but she said I sucked at finding things. She said she visited charity shops a couple times with a guy she met at work. I'm hoping they're more successful, but she said she didn't find anything that matched her aesthetic. I go online often to look for secondhand furniture but it's hard because she's picky and I don't know what she wants. I've told her what websites I'm looking on and offered to have her look with me when she's over my house to pick up her dog, but she hasn't said yes. Sitting at a computer and clicking and scrolling can seem overwhelming to her after work, so I'll suggest we do it when I go to her home and that we use her phone to look together.

I did ask since it's been a month whether we could buy her furniture. I didn't even finish my question before he said no. But she also hasn't asked, and she does have more in savings now than we have, so he has a point. We might have made a mistake in getting her the exact bed she wanted. It began this vision she has and perhaps made her more reluctant to compromise and choose the secondhand furniture available to her. My mother has asked her to fill out an Amazon wishlist for furniture, but she hasn't done that. Maybe I can help her get that started.

I did go with her once to a charity shop and she didn't find me an appropriate shopping partner. She met someone at work and he must be able to find things better than me, or has a better eye for what she likes because they went together again on Tuesday. She did but two kallax TV benches to put under the windows next to her fireplace. She got them from ikea. And she has a tv, pots, pans, and dishes.

I'll try to encourage her to go online and look at secondhand items since she hasn't found anything in shops yet.

She can cook, and probably better than me.

She comes over twice a day Thursday through Monday (Tuesday and Wednesday are her days off) because we take care of her dog while she's working, so the most she would be home for me to come over would be twice a week, and she's not always there both days since she goes out. I think she enjoys the ritual I started of coming over on Tuesdays, but also prefers socializing with those she's met, so she isn't hesitant to make plans that keep me from coming over, which is ok.

We bought her bed and the sheet, duvet, a knitted blanket. She bought a rug on Amazon, so many cushions to sit on from a charity shop, and two tv benches from ikea. I asked my husband "Since it's been a month and she still doesn't have furniture, do you think we-" and he interrupted and said no before I could finish. I'll make more of an effort to talk to her about secondhand furniture. We've had some conversations and she has a specific "look" she has in mind, which isn't matching what she's been able to find on her own. So I'll try to show her more options online, and perhaps speak to her about lowering her expectations.

Your updates are really not helping paint a very good picture of your daughter here. It may not be entirely her fault that she's spoiled, manipulative, entitled and not functioning as an adult very well, as you and your husband have brought her up that way. But she is an adult now and you are still doing it and that's not helping anyone, least of all her.

Your husband may have handled it badly by suddenly drawing some boundaries but he's not wrong that she needs them. You're still trying to baby her or letting her manipulate you - back off a bit. Even if she does have ADHD or a mental illness or whatever, it can't go on like this as she isn't developing as a independent young adult.

Let her learn, make mistakes, make her own choices - even if they aren't great ones. I know its hard. Help a little when asked and where reasonable but I think you are doing too much and need to stop jumping in to 'save' her and don't take over. For example if she's being picky about buying furniture and that means she doesn't have a table and chairs, that's her choice. You've made helpful suggestions; now sit back and let her do it, or at the least ask for your help.

I know someone very like your husband with the same sort of relationship with his daughter. All through her teenage years he mollycoddled her both practically and emotionally. The food examples sound very similar too. He and I argued once as he wrote an important university essay for her and I thought that was morally wrong (he backtracked and said it was only proofing her draft...). She self diagnosed as dyslexic when really she just couldn't be bothered doing all the required reading (admitted as much). Unsurprisingly she has grown up very dependent on him and now on her 'rich husband'. Her mother was much less sympathetic about her various dramas and got annoyed with him a lot - I'm sure it didn't help their relationship (now divorced).

This all sounds very tiresome. Do either of you remind her that she's now an adult and she also has to try and solve issues herself?

I have a (just) 20 year old, away at uni. She didn't want to work. However her course is not over demanding, and she has expensive tastes, she needs a job. We just put the reminder there that while we are happy to support her at uni, we are not happy to fund her going out 2 or 3 times a week while not working, so she needed something. She sulked a bit, then realised that she wanted the kind of social life she wanted, so went looking. She found a job, no she doesn't like it, but she likes what the money can do for her.
She needed a dentist appointment. She asked me to ring, as she doesn't like making those calls. I reminded her that I was at work, busier than her at that moment, and as she was almost 20, they probably wouldn't accept me calling anyway. She realised she needed to crack on, and did it.

The point I'm trying to make is at that age, I think that they would quite happily let you do everything for them. But what good is it going to do? That's not to say don't help them, but surely you have boundaries. For example the job hunting, you went researching, she couldn't be bothered. Why are you researching, not her? If that was me, I would be telling her that if she found some things she liked the look of, then I would happily work with her to look through her CV and help write a covering letter. But how is she supposed to actually do the job if she's not even having to take the stress of looking for it?

As for the furniture, I think I would point out that it takes years of work before a house is exactly to your taste, so if it was me, I would buy something cheap and cheerful, until I could save up for the right one, and that life is a lot happier with a sofa to sit on with a friend. But, at the same time, I would realise that she is an adult, so if she would rather go without than have the perfect one, that's her decision to make, and not one that makes you a bad parent, she is an adult with enough of a brain and enough money to make that choice.

Your updates are really not helping paint a very good picture of your daughter here. It may not be entirely her fault that she's spoiled, manipulative, entitled and not functioning as an adult very well, as you and your husband have brought her up that way. But she is an adult now and you are still doing it and that's not helping anyone, least of all her. This exactly. There's a book I remember people being recommended on here, it's for teenagers but think would be useful called something like, 'mom I hate you get out of my life, but first take me shopping to the mall'?

Am I the only one who finds the way your husband has babied your daughter immensely weird 😳

You seem to be pathologising her a lot. It reminds me of a case in The Examined Life when the family bring their anxious unruly child to a therapist; as the child becomes happier and more confident the rest of the family falls apart as they had always located the 'bad' in her.

I wonder if you can't answer the therapist honestly because it is painful to acknowledge how things really may have played out.

It's easy to say yes she was awful, whilst not thinking about what may have made her that way.

Absolutely.

I feel so sorry for your daughter.

Your DH sounds odd and completely controlling. You soundvery passive.
But I am clearly in the minority. Good luck to DD and you.

Yes, this sounds sensible.
if she has a table and chairs, she has more options for bringing friends over for dinner and cooking together.
it is her first flat, it does not have to be perfecf. She is in a bit of a chicken and egg situation as she is wasting money on takeaways probably because she doesn’t want to cook for one person (herself) but for as long as she is wasting money on takeaways, she cannot save up for the furniture she wants. So if she has somewhere to sit down and have her meal, maybe invite a friend over, that will help her also save for what she wants.
Equally, I am not sure why you would need your husband’s permission to buy your DD some basic furniture.

@AdriftAbroad1 I'll join you in the minority

It reminds me of the kind of interactions you have with a narcissist, where the relationship is all love-bombing and they cannot do enough for you, and they are everything you want, and then they start to move the goalposts, devalue the things which are important to you, and remove affection/love.
But it is the DD being devalued in the OP’s eyes and the daughter having the affection and love removed. The DD has not only been babied but she has then been completely cast off by the DH here.

I honestly wonder whether you are worried Mastmw7g that the love, affection and support will be removed from you too if you don’t go along with what this man says.

I do agree that it is controlling. I mean, when you get to the point you are having to ask whether your own child can have furniture, when she is expected to sit on the floor on cushions, there is a problem which is not just of the DD’s making.

No, youre not. Very strange family dynamic.

@Nssdth said it fair better than I could.