Daughter still hurt over childhood

[Gran648]

My daughter and I have a good relationship and we live close by so I see her and my 18 month old grandson most days.

A few years ago, she started going to therapy and soon after brought up how much her childhood had affected her, which I took very personally. I feel bad now but rather than listening I got very defensive and lashed out back at her.

I had my DD1 (now 35) when I was 23, her dad didn’t want to know when she was born. We lived with my mum/step dad who supported us until she was around 5/6 so they were very close and like parents to her. Sadly, my mum became ill with cancer and passed away when my daughter was 7. This had a huge impact on both me and her. A lot of grief. Around this time I had started a new business and my partner of a year or so moved in with us in a new place (now married) and a few years later we had another DD. My partner was a lifeline for me when my mum died and we all became close to his family. Around this time my DD also started seeing her dad again and she would go there every weekend. Her relationship with him hasn’t been great for various reasons. In the early years, DD1 also didn’t have a great relationship with my partner.

My DD is now saying how isolated and segregated she felt and as though she had lost her family unit when my mum passed away, and I had a new one with my partner and DD2 and also a business that I was running. She feels as though she wasn’t given enough support and it was hard for her to blend into a new family. This hurts me very deeply and something I had never intended. It seems she has carried this with her for years and now I feel as though I am the focal point for her anger. We’ve had several arguments about it.

I just wondered if anyone else has any experience of anything like this and aibu for getting defensive about it?

I’m sure you did the best you could at the time, as most people do, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult experience for her. My parents did their best, but their best was woefully inadequate, and it was, frankly, a damaging childhood whose lasting impact is still something I’m struggling with aged 51. Despite a lot of therapy. I don’t talk to them about it. There’s no point. They weren’t parented adequately themselves, and have no idea there was anything lacking because we had food and clothes.

I think you should listen to your DD, and acknowledge her feelings about her childhood. The early stages of therapy, and having a child yourself, can bring up anger about your own childhood, and objectively, hers sounds difficult, with an absent father, the death of a key ‘parent’ figure, and her mother moving in quickly with a new partner in the aftermath.

It's a shame that your initial reaction set the tone. When you are a LP, something has got to give and you've got to forge a life, which can mean somewhat letting your children down. It starts with deciding not to abort, would dhe have preferred that? Therapy is all well and good, but it can ignore the reality of the lives of the key players, namely you and your mum's death, then the other side of the family not foung their bit. A lot of that was outside your control. Accept and apologise for the bits you could have done better on. Admit your failings, but ultimately she needs to move forward. We generally get through life as best we can.

Her relationship with him hasn’t been great for various reasons. In the early years, DD1 also didn’t have a great relationship with my partner.

^^ in what way did your partner and DD (who I’m assuming was around 8 at the time?) not have a great relationship.

I would encourage you and your DD to attend therapy sessions together.

In the early years, DD1 also didn’t have a great relationship with my partner.

So she was 7, 8 years old? It's quite odd that you phrase it that way, as if the onus was on her to foster a relationship with him rather than the other way around. Maybe you should have a think about how it was from her viewpoint at that time.

I think both things can be true.

You feel like you did your best, and in the circumstances, perhaps you truly did.

She found these experiences to be difficult and if you take a step back and pretend a random mumsnetter was listing absent father, new step father, grieving and busy mother, I think you can see that this may not have been the idyllic childhood of her dreams. That doesn’t mean that this is all your fault, but you should acknowledge her feelings.

In all honesty this is above Mumsnet pay grade and you both could probably benefit from a joint therapy session as you both would benefit from trying to gain understanding of the other’s perspective.

Tbh I think you have missed the boat now for working it out. I had some times in childhood where I was feeling very unsupported and hated my mums bf. This came out in therapy, I did mention it once and like you she was very defensive. I now refuse to discuss anything deeper than how was your day. This will not change. I don't have emotional trust in her now not to lash out at me.

I won’t say YABU for getting defensive because it’s a natural reaction and we all do it at times. But I think you should go back to your DD and apologise for being defensive and be willing to just listen to her talk about her feelings. You don’t have to fix them (you can’t fix them) but you can hear her out and just listen empathetically and accept the part you played in it all - however unintended that might have been.

My Dad caused some major, major issues for me and my brother during our adolescence and when we tried to raise it with him it didn’t go well. He died not long after so it’s never been resolved. I just wish he’d said ‘I understand why you would have felt like that, and I’m sorry’ - instead of just minimising.

All parents make mistakes, god knows I am probably making them every day with my own DC, and you can’t change the past - but you can listen and acknowledge and not fight back.

I hope you can work through it together.

My DD is now saying how isolated and segregated she felt and as though she had lost her family unit when my mum passed away, and I had a new one with my partner and DD2 and also a business that I was running. She feels as though she wasn’t given enough support and it was hard for her to blend into a new family. This hurts me very deeply and something I had never intended. It seems she has carried this with her for years and now I feel as though I am the focal point for her anger. We’ve had several arguments about it.

Honestly, OP, I do think YABU.

You're saying that your daughter has carried this hurt with her for decades and your reaction is to argue with her about it and be defensive.

She feels the way she feels and getting angry with her and trying to defend whatever happened isn't going to make her feel better about it.

Look at it from her point of view - she obviously felt/feels traumatised to some extent by her childhood and you are now reacting by being annoyed with her fro that. I'd feel very sad if my DD was going through this, not angry with her.

I feel bad now but rather than listening I got very defensive and lashed out back at her.

We’ve had several arguments about it.

This is why your daughter is still upset about it. Acknowledge that during her childhood you didn't think about how these things affected her, that you can understand that a child losing incredibly close grandparents and being thrust into a whole new family, as the outsider, was difficult for her. Accept how she feels and apologise. Then she can heal.

It sounds like that there was a lot of upheaval for her in a short amount of time. Your post suggests that he moved in around the time that your mother passed away. It must have been a comfort for you but I think it’s unbelievable that you moved in a man who dd didn’t have a great relationship with for years. Dd has a right to be pissed off about that if that is true. I can see why she thinks that you moved onto a new family unit.

As an adult you probably know about other factors that made her feel like crap. Eg the contact with Dad If her relationship with him isn’t great either then I can see why she might have it easier to blame you 100% rather than assign him some blame too.

Most importantly you need to remember that she was a young child at the time and wouldn’t have realised or thought about some of the pressures that you were under because you probably protected her from many of your worries. You shouldn’t be angry at her about that - you were being a good mum. Some of her memories might be wrong too. I don’t mean that she’s lying, more that little kids can perceive things incorrectly which is an innocent thing.

In what way did your new partner and her not get on?

I think you need to take some responsibly here. You said you struggled with grief after your mother died (completely understandable) but you don’t seem to acknowledge that your daughter did too. You then quickly moved in a man she didn’t get in with, had another baby and was very busy with your business. Sounds like DD1 wasn’t your priority at a time when she needed you.

I would ask her if she would consider joint therapy but only if you’re willing to accept that you may have been in the wrong at times and know this will be a hard process.

You can have done your best and she can have been deeply affected by her childhood. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Have you apologised? She was tiny when she ‘didn’t have a good relationship’ your DH… their relationship was entirely on you and your partner, not on her. She was a hurt little kid.

I think becoming a parent really sharpens your thoughts around your own childhood and you see your own experiences quite differently.
Therapy sounds like a good idea.
But, if that's not accessible for you - maybe you need just to listen and not push back. Let your DD talk to you and reflect on it before you answer.
I think you might need to change your mindset on this a bit - you probably did what you could at the time but your DD is hurting and perhaps needs you to acknowledge that the situation let her down.
Neither of you can change the past. Being defensive does rather indicate you feel some guilt over this though?

My mum gets defensive too. It's the main blocker in our relationship being as deep as I would like it to be. I too have tried to raise things that happened in my childhood and either get defensiveness or "well I'm sorry I'm so crap, I can't do anything right" followed by tears. It's such a destabilising reaction because it does the opposite of what your daughter needs. She needs to feel heard and listened to. She needs to know you understand and you are sorry for her experience. It's truly not about you and whether you did your best or how you may feel. Your child is telling you what they need (to vent and be heard). Listen to her.

My childhood was an utter shit show. I have done my best as a parent but I have come to the conclusion that, often, our best simply wasn’t good enough and when my children come to me, telling me the damage my parenting did to them, I’m hoping to offer a heartfelt apology. We are all human, we make mistakes and no parent manages to do it without causing some degree of damage to their offspring.

The new partner was for you not her, you need to own that

Even though you probably did your best at the time, you should have expressed sadness that she felt those negative feelings for years. You didn’t intend for her to feel that way and it’s sad that she couldn’t express it a long time ago when you might have been able to do more to reassure her. Instead of defensiveness, some sympathy might have helped.

Honestly, I don't know anyone who grew up in a blended family who didn't find it difficult. Some more difficult than others. I think it's a risk that parents accept when they choose to get into new relationships/have additional dc.

I don't think that being defensive about it is helpful, as it will just damage your relationship with your dd in the long run. She has the right to feel what she feels, even if you see things in a very different light. It's hard not to be defensive, of course, but resist the urge if you possibly can and try to hear what she is actually saying. The fact that she found it difficult doesn't necessarily mean that you did anything wrong... I'm sure that you were doing the best you could at the time, and you had your own life to live as well as your dd to think about so those choices will never be easy.

We all want to give our dcs the perfect childhood but few if any of us will actually measure up to this in reality. Ultimately, it will be for our kids to judge what we did well and what we didn't do so well, and that judgement can be hard to hear. You can't change what happened in the past but you can change how you choose to respond to it now. Personally, my priority would be to preserve the relationship going forward, so I would listen to what my dd was telling me about her experience of her childhood, respect how she felt about it and express my sincere sorrow/regret for any pain that my actions/ choices might have caused. Hopefully, our kids will be confident enough in the love that we have for them to appreciate that none of the bad stuff was intentional.

Why are you arguing with her about it? She's still that 8 year old girl when she's telling you how she felt back then and you're just dismissing her feelings and telling her how she felts/feels is wrong rather than accepting that's how SHE felt at the time.

Would you agree to go to counselling with her and actually talk it out so you can accept that her feelings are real and she can listen to your perspective too and try to understand you were just doing your best and didn't realise how left out she felt

Marrying and having another baby might have been the best thing for you at the time, but I can certainly see her point of view.

She loses her grandmother, her home, has to adjust to a sister after being your only child for 8+ years, sees you being loved up with a ‘new family’ and has to live with a man she doesn’t like. That’s a lot for a young child to take on and you can’t make her pretend to be happy about it now to spare your feelings, even though a lot of time has passed.

I think joint counselling is the best way forward.

She has given you an opening by being honest - if you don’t take it then she will withdraw and your relationship will change for the worse.

i think pp’s suggestion of joint counselling is a good idea, if you can afford to attend it. It would help you to really listen to each other, work through distortions/selective memories and opposing perspectives and find a path towards rebuilding a relationship that works for both of you.

You did your best in difficult circumstances; you are allowed to be human. You should acknowledge frankly that things weren’t great at times but life deals us a shitty hand sometimes. And whilst you loved her, wanted to keep her safe and give her the best opportunity in life, you weren’t always able to deliver perfectly. Simply acknowledging that might be enough to enable her to move forward. “You’re right, I should have done a better job and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to. I made the best choices I could, some of them didn’t have the best outcomes and that had a negative impact on you. Times were very different 20 years ago, there wasn’t much help or awareness of MH issues and I struggled. I didn’t realise how isolated you felt in our blended family, I’m truly sorry you ever felt that way as I always wanted you and loved you. I know it was sometimes difficult with dp and we can talk more about that, and why I wasn’t able to solve that problem for you. I hope we can work through this together, I will try to be less defensive and understand your feelings better in future.”

@Gran648 find your own therapist, if you possibly can afford it. You can have someone help you see your daughter’s point of view without your damaging the relationship further - you work out your defensiveness with the therapist. Just a suggestion. My mum and I had a similar interaction years ago and I have avoided trying for more than a surface level relationship since: I’m no longer angry with her but I am sad we can’t have a more authentic relationship, because she hears anything other than gratitude/affirmations as personal attacks.

It starts with deciding not to abort, would dhe have preferred that?

Do NOT ask her that under any circumstances!!! I had a rubbish childhood, my mum and dad subsequently divorced when I was a young teen and I thought things would be better. My mum pretty much immediately took up with another man and I was left at home in the "care" of my Nan, who lived with us and was deaf, very old and really quite ill at a critical time in my life.

I've never discussed it with my mum because there would be crocodile tears and "Oh, I'm such a bad mother, sob sob sob!" whilst expecting me to forgive and forget. If she asked me if I'd have preferred she had aborted me, I'd say a resounding yes, absolutely... There's no coming back from that!

I think as parents, even when your “child”’is grown up, the onus is on you to listen to how they feel and not get defensive.

Yes, you probably did the very best you could at the time, but it doesn’t mean everything you did was perfect or that your Dd can’t feel hurt, and that he valid.

I also agree that some of your phrasing is odd. You say “she didn’t have the best relationship”’with her step dad at first. The onus was not on her to foster that. It was on you not to bring a new man into her life when she wasn’t ready. You also say he was “a lifeline “ for you - but have you considered that she needed you to be a lifeline for her?

Hi OP

My kids suffered when they were teens. It was and wasn't my fault.

I had a major accident when they were 13. It impacted my whole life. I couldn't walk at all for a year and even after that not much. I still use a wheelchair now and expect to for the rest of my life.

I tried my best. I stayed in work to earn money to pay for their activities and for tutoring when my DS needed it for English gcse. I got back driving fast so I could keep taking them to school and get back to normal as much as possible.

But it isn't normal to have a mother who is constantly in pain and who is visibly in pain. And my kids lives were disrupted and they did really struggle. My then H really struggled as well and that really impacted them.

They have raised this with me as early 20s adults.

I was upset. I did do my best. But I know it impacted them and I have told them that I am really sorry for mistakes I made, and that I know it must have been difficult for them. I have told them that I love them and I will be there for them as much as I can.