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?

This post is exactly the reason I will never bring similar feelings up with my mum. Because I know she will react the same and I've managed 40 years burying it I will continue to do so.

You might have done the best you could at the time, as we all do as parents, but sometimes that will not be enough, or be the wrong thing, or we have prioritised the wrong things, even with the best of intentions "at the time". Its all we can do as parents of adult children to at least validate their experience, surely.

OP@Gran648 If she’s had therapy herself the best option is to find a family therapist to help you both through this….becoming defensive is natural but she’s reliving her own childhood experiences which is really common once someone has their own kids. She actually experienced a lot of trauma at an age when she couldn’t express herself and had no control over the situation so it’s great she’s willing to deal with it now …..ultimately you both need to work through this re-processing.

This
Her feelings are her feelings. Getting defensive is shitty tbh, and totally invalidates her.

@TomeTome True, bereavement does have a big impact.

My own parent died when I was younger than the OP. It was horrible and my own decision-making probably suffered a bit at the time. But I was only making decisions for me, not for a child.

We are all a combination of circumstances and choices.

My own experience is that I didn’t have the attention I needed as a child. I know there are reasons for that, some practical and some emotional. That’s life. My parents did their best, they didn’t mean me harm. But when I asked them to hear how I now feel, they really couldn’t and so it felt like they blamed me again, first for having those feelings and second for raising them. No doubt they couldn’t hear it for their own reasons BUT I am trying not to make the same mistakes with my children. I’ll make others, for sure, but I think all you need to say is, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Unlike others I think it’s NOT too late. Your daughter has come to you, she’s opened up: perhaps you need a space to think about this (ie get your own therapy) but with a bit of understanding and honesty this might help rather than hinder your relationship. After all she is now a parent and she will make mistakes too…..

Sorry, OP, but very gently, you are being unreasonable. It is ok for you to be upset. But be aware that your defensiveness may come across as disregarding or downplaying her feelings.

My mother spent years doing this, with the clear message that it invalidated or disregarded my feelings - she left dad when I was 6, other 2 much older siblings moved out too so overnight I went from the baby of a large family to just me and my dad. Mum later said dad made it too hard for her to be in touch, but I did not hear anything from her until my dad remarried when I was 12 and let my step mother throw me out. Moved into a house where step dad was a problem drinker. Anytime I mentioned anything about how I felt I was criticized, told she had it worse. It almost ruined our relationship until 1. I decided it was more important to have a relationship with her than not, and I had to accept her selfish view of things and 2. she had a life threatening illness after we had had an argument and wrote me a letter apologizing for 'the past'. The apology was so healing - made me think she finally had a glimmer of an idea that my feelings were important too, and that, whatever the reasons she did what she did, I had been hurt by her actions.

You have a great opportunity here to make a stronger relationship. If it is too hard to do alone with her, perhaps ask if you can go to a therapy session with her? Some therapists will allow this. Please remember that you did your best, but that does not mean it did not affect her.

I'd apologise for the initial defensiveness/anger, and I'd offer to attend a therapy session with her to work through the suppressed resentment. No doubt her having her own child has brought a lot of her feelings to the surface. At the end of the day, parents are just people. People are not perfect, and parents are often juggling so much. If you can set yourself up so you are standing alongside her as you both reflect on the past, as opposed to being in opposition, you'll be able to forge a path through it.

I am hurt over a lot of things my parents did in my childhood.

But the reason that we no longer have relationship is not because of these things, but because my parents refused to accept my feelings of hurt, told me they had done the best I could and if I was hurt this was my problem.

If they had said (rather than arguing with me about what I felt - which frankly I know rather more about than they do) that they accepted that I was hurt, that they were sorry, that they could see that some of their choices had bad impacts on me although they were meant with the best intentions, and that they would support me as an adult, we might still have a relationship.

So, the choice if yours OP? Would you rather be "right" or mend your relationship?

I think that's very harsh. The OP's daughter lost her granny, had an unrelated man with whom she "didn't have a great relationship" move on into her home when she was very young, and felt as though she didn't belong either with her dad or her new "blended family". It must have been horrible at that age.

Adults justify blending families with "I deserve to be happy, children are resilient, they'll be fine" - and then when those children grow up and tell them that they weren't resilient and weren't fine, they don't want to hear it.

I think maybe, and I say this as someone who had a good step-parent experience, sometimes parents don't realise quite how horrible it can be to have another adult imposed on you as a child. Your parent loves them, but you don't, and you might not even particularly like them; they are THERE in your home, with their own ways of doing things, and worse, they get to have parental authority over you. It seems like parents sometimes expect their children to warm up to the step-parent too quickly, because they themselves are fond of them. Fondness isn't transferable between people.

It doesn’t sound like she had a great time of it - grandparent she was close to dying, not seeing much of her dad, your new partner moving in and a new half-sibling. It’s a lot to deal with if you’re a child.

None if reflects badly on you though. It’s not like you did anything wrong by the sounds of it. If I were you I’d try listening to her instead of trying to shut her down.

You can't argue about someone's valid feelings.
That's a huge mistake.

It's certainly not perfect but it's hardly beyond the realms of normal. A grandparent dying is sad but not an unusual occurrence.

I honestly don’t think her daughter’s word is the only thing that matters. I think that’s an outrageous way to think about life.

I think it is perfectly normal to feel defensive when someone criticises you. That doesn't mean she is wrong. It doesn't mean her recollection is 100% accurate either.

OP, your DD has given you a real gift here by opening the conversation with you. You can reopen it by apologising for your reactive (entirely understandable) defensive response and offer to talk through things with her. This is going to be a series of conversations rather than one big one, isn't it. You can accept that your daughter's early life was difficult - your life was difficult then too, wasn't it? You probably made mistakes, too, just like the rest of us do. If you can do this in an open way - admitting that you probably will get defensive and upset, who wouldn't? - I think your relationship will become even better than it is now.

Honestly I think your daughter's therapist should be careful here. Your daughter feels how she feels, and some of that comes from her childhood (which, like most people's, was imperfect) and some of it comes from herself and where she is in life and how she feels about that. I have seen several friends pick apart loving family relationships because their parents could never be sorry enough for things that were never within their control. In no case has this helped the friend - it has left them with a sense of self righteousness and isolation.

Yes, but she's not angry at the OP for her grandmother dying, she's angry that the OP moved in a man she didn't like while she was grieving.

Notice you didn't quote the whole post to give some context - which was that random people on the internet do not know more about the DD's childhood than DD herself does.

I think it's pretty outrageous to think that a random opinion based on a one sided summarised version of events should have more weight.

She didn’t see her DF, her DGM died, you had a new business to presumably busy, you had a new DP, then a new DSis, then she spends whole weekends with DF, reducing her time with you. Shes bound to be affected by all that - but it’s not really your fault - though she could have possibly had more attention from you - but I can see why she feels upset but much of it eg DGM death,DF not stepping up initially is nothing to do with hou

Every weekend to her Dad suddenly, a Dad who had only just come into her life? Not even EOW? How could she not feel pushed out? How could she blend in with your new family with so little leisure time together? It's not suprising to feel defensive on your part at first but now's the time perhaps to put yourself into the shoes of that little 7 year old and acknowledge how lonely and hard her life felt at that time and how that experience shaped her relationships.

It's tricky.

Her feelings are real. But her feelings are not facts. If you want to move forwards, you have to acknowledge that she feels a certain way and that you're sorry that she's hurt.

My sibling often refers to how they were overlooked and not given enough attention, and refers to our terrible childhood... it's funny because I remember it as the opposite, that they were so loud they were the centre of everything and I melted into the background to facilitate them.

But I'd never get anywhere if I tried to argue it, as they've had so much therapy they insist the world is out to get them. So I just go along with it and grit my teeth for an easier life.

As a daughter myself... When my parents stopped arguing that whatever hurt me never happened, that I don't remember things correctly, that it was all for my own benefit and finally admitted that indeed it was hard, indeed it was unfair, and they are SORRY (no ifs', no buts', not trying to compete in grief that it was hard on them too), when I finally got an apology and validation, it all changed. Like a flick of a light switch, turning off all the negatives, case closed, boom .

Life is not one thing or another, it can be true that we do our best and that still did affected someone negatively. This thread is full of examples of people whose parents have denied or invalidated their feelings by taking your kind of view. OP does not have to go down that route if she is brave and takes some responsibility.

That's not what's happening here though. OP has not told her DD that she is sorry for what happened to her or tried to understand her point of view. She has argued that she is wrong.

of course it's possible to be sorry for things not within your control. I can be sorry that my friend is ill and misses out on doing a thing she wanted to. She is allowed to be sad and upset about it. I wouldn't tell her that there is nothing anyone can do about it so she's not allowed to have those feelings.

I had an awful childhood with a very selfish mother. So I do understand where your daughter is coming from, she wants her bad experiences seen, recognised and not dismissed. Many grown children from my generation feel similar, there are many of us who feel we had to grow up too quickly, put aside our feelings as children to support the adults around us. I suspect your daughter feels the same way, she simply had to accept huge changes in her life which she had no choice or control over and now she’s trying to find some closure you’ve become defensive. By doing so, it instantly regresses the situation back to her feeling like that child who felt displaced rather than an adult who’s trying to move on.

I do understand from the other side as well. My mother used to say ‘I am a person in my own right!’ during my childhood, often to excuse inappropriate or selfish behaviour. But there is a truth to it, I am a single parent now and it does feel like being a parent is wholly who I am at times. It can be so difficult to separate giving yourself completely to the children you have and remembering you’re allowed to be an adult with their own wants and needs at times. The compromises are huge and can be unfair. You feel guilty all of the time and sometimes it can be easy to bury that in order to put your wants first. You had a right to move forward with your adult life but it did impact your daughter and it’s only right to recognise that. Whilst you were rebuilding your family/adult life and planning the future after a very difficult few years, you may have not recognised that young children live in the moment and such huge changes were just too much for her. She’s entitled to use the voice she didn’t have back then, as hard as it may be to hear now.