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?

But, like you say, you know where you stand.

I agree with all of this.

So many people are busy raking up the past, they aren't living.

Nobody's perfect, no parent, no children.
My parents had their flaws but I could never have cut them off.
I accepted them warts and all.

To cut them off would not have achieved anything at all.

It is very common when having children to revisit your own childhood and think - I would never do that to my own child.
Of course you can have no idea what other mistakes or negative outcomes there could have been instead. That does not mean you have to just accept everything that did happen and have no negative feelings around it.
I think OPs child did have a difficult childhood. It was a lot to go through.

"Nobody's perfect" doesn't quite cover all the bases, does it? I guess by your standards survivors of every kind of abuse should just throw their hands up, admit that nobody's perfect and get over it.

Yours is one of the most ridiculous comments I've ever read.

Very odd comment.

Yes, adults really would be happier getting on with life, and not constantly raking over the past.

Oh how so much of this resonates. In this situation I am the daughter, and growing up feeling like you don't quite belong anywhere is really damaging. Feeling that love is conditional, and that you are noone's priority.

However, this really doesn't sound like any of this was deliberate - it's unfortunate, children can become collateral damage when big things happen, such as marriage break downs, divorce, death, new relationships, new homes, etc.

I went through many of the things the OP's daughter talks about, BUT, I know while my mum and stepdad did get things wrong, it was never intentionally to cause pain or because they didn't care enough. My dad, however, has repeatedly chosen to prioritise himself and various partners over his child again and again - that is a very different situation.

Like the OP's daughter, I had therapy to unpick up some messy thoughts and feelings. Talking to my mum, she was quiet, understanding, keen to listen, and when she'd taken it all in, apologised for where she had got it wrong, believed my experiences and empathised with how hard it must have been for the child me, and told me she wished she'd done better but she had always tried to do the right thing with the right intention, though she could see where it hadn't looked or felt like that for me. That conversation healed me.

My dad and I have continued to have a difficult relationship and when I recently told him how his actions, or lack of, made me feel (then and now), and the reaction was the exact opposite. His new wife sent an email full of rage, accusing me of wanting to cause hurt, telling me what a disappointment and embarrassment I am and how this hysterical, ridiculous drama must stop and to stay away. He has remained silent, and our relationship is over.

OP, your daughter had a painful time as a child. She's still carrying it now, and she's looking to you to help her. This shows her love for you - she's asking you to listen, to hear her and to help her heal. If you meet her with anger or defensive explanation, your relationship won't recover. If, however, you really listen, empathise (just saying 'sweetheart, that sounds really hard' or 'I can see why you felt so alone' will make the biggest of differences) and apologise (even if it's a 'I am so sorry you felt like this for so long' or 'I am so sorry that I didn't see this at the time', this is absolutely repairable.

Listen properly and try to understand - this isn't about her blaming you, this is about her trying to make sense of a deep-rooted unhappiness, and needing to hear you say that you wish you'd done differently. Don't let it ruin what you have now.

I would actually suggest that your petulant comment above that "I guess by your standards survivors of every kind of abuse should just throw their hands up, admit that nobody's perfect and get over it" is more ridiculous. You are fully aware that nobody is suggesting that. What is being suggested is that people whose childhood was not perfect but not abusive might not want to burn their family relationships to the ground without careful thought.

Losing a grandparent is normal for most children, and that alone is not the issue.

Having a deadbeat dad who has nothing to do with you is a difficult enough rejection for a child to deal with, but add to that mum prioritising starting a new relationship/family and you always feeling on the outside of that too for your entire life and it is tough.

Broken and blended families don't always work. Only you will truly know if you did the right thing for your dd or if she was collateral damage of you doing the right thing for you.

I'm "fully aware" of what they wrote and that's clearly what they believe. It's ridiculous and insulting to anyone who's life has been irrevocably damaged by abuse.

The posters saying ‘’’if your childhood wasn’t abusive then you should just get on with it’’ are basically basing that opinion off a snapshot of someone’s life that’s been put forward by her mother. We have no idea what else has happened, or indeed whether OP has overlooked other things that may have contributed to her daughter feeling the way she does.

As children, we were at the total mercy of adults. There was ultimately no choice in the matter whether our parents decide to bring a random unrelated man into our homes who we don’t like, or whether they send us to places we don’t want to go etc, we have to put up with it.

Resilience is not built by not being listened to, it’s built by an emotionally available parent that makes you feel secure and heard like the human being you are, not like someone who should shut up and do as you’re told and put up with whatever the parent wants because they’re the adult and know best.

Taking any conversation about childhood experiences which were imperfect but not abusive and screaming "ABUSE" to "win" the argument is equally shitty as the parents mentioned by a previous poster who meets every attempt to discuss the past with "Oh yes, we're shit. We did everything wrong. We're terrible people who should never have had children."

It is a way of trying to end the argument without engaging with what is being said.

Mixed bunch? Yes, like any profession including those where life and death decisions are made. I have certainly seen colleagues who cannot separate their personal experiences from what they offer clients. And others I would trust with my life. Lots of us have experiences in our lives which were difficult. And lots do not. All motivate to help others. And for the PP saying we make good grift from it - I earned a lot more in my previous career than I have achieved during my work as a therapist.

In my experience over 25 years, therapists are very, very careful about alienation. I have posted on MN before about how difficult family estrangement can be for MH and how many people regret becoming estranged. I am not saying it is never ok, just that it has a lot of consequences which are very painful, even if the person making the decision remains sure it was the right thing to do.

I have never advised anyone to cut off relationships (unless the situation was actively dangerous). And believe me, there have been many situations where I wanted to tell clients that a lot of their problems would be solved if they were not around toxic spouses, parents, etc. Where client discussion involves parents, I also explore motivation and intention, and most of my clients end up concluding that their parents were doing their best, and did not mean or understand the impact it had on their children. Some go on to discuss it with their parents, others not because of the kind of attitudes reported here.

Its healthy to understand the impact of negative experiences on you, to express your feelings and to try to help people understand you. Its not healthy to obsess or dwell on the past, use bad experiences to excuse bad behaviour, or to try and force others to change.

IME people take what they want from therapy and will forget or ignore what does not match. Sometimes that is very different from what the therapist intended or thinks may be best for them.

As there is no time machine I wonder if, in a moment of calm, the OP could ask her daughter what it is that she wants now as a result of sharing her feelings about her childhood. If she can't answer that then it is possibly something to discuss with the therapist before raising further issues with OP.

I can of course totally understand how the situation OP has described could have been difficult for a young child, but I also have enough empathy to see how it was also really difficult for OP too.

It sounds like you have had a hard time. Yes so has your daughter, but she’s focused on her own pain and has not got around to the part where she thinks about your pain or tries to understand why you did what you did. In time she will, especially with the help from her therapist as that’s part of healing. Maybe you should ask if she would like you to go along to a session with her therapist to see if that would be helpful?

This^^

Ridiculous post. Who gets to decide what constitutes ‘not horrendous’? Do tell what might constitute, in your opinion, an acceptable level of ‘traumatic or awful’.

I feel sorry for DD - this doesn't sound like an easy upbringing to me.

I'd apologise to her for lashing out, and try to emphasize with her over what happened. It sounds like the new family - you, new partner and new child - was priotised in her eyes.

Oh everyone goes to therapy these days and decides all issues in their life are someone else's fault. All anxiety is because of mum. All anger because of dad. All unhappiness because of that one school teacher.

In reality, (most) parents do their best. You probably did your best. Or would DD1 have preferred if you didn't have a business, didn't have a new family but gave her 100% of your attention whilst living in poverty (due to not working or business, as that takes away attention from DD) and you be single forever. Would she agree to be single forever to keep you happy, if you requested?

Easier to blame someone else for your problems that realise you're the origin of your own issues.

There isn't one right answer to anything like that because each situation is different.

I remember as an adult approaching my dm, normally very understanding, about something that had hurt me deeply when I was 8yo. On the face of it, it sounds really silly petty and childish, but it was how it was done that hurt me. First dm said I wasn't really bothered at the time, then when I brought up how I'd begged to allowed to do something connected (and wasn't allowed) to show how much I had been bothered, her response was "maybe I should have let you do that then" which wasn't really my point.
I've never brought it up again, because there's no point, but I really believe if dm had simply said "I hadn't realised how you felt, I'm sorry" it would have lost all power.
The reason why it hurt me was it made me feel much less important than my siblings. I'm sure it was totally unintentional, and one of those things where as a parent you have what seems like a good idea for one child, but you don't see how it effects another because you don't look at another side. Unfortunately that feeling did colour my childhood, and particularly effected my relationship with my brother. The denial that it mattered to me hurt again.
I very rarely admitted to my parents that something had upset me, and it had taken a lot of courage to bring it up as well.

So from that I'd say that acknowledging that as parents accepting that something we did, did cause hurt is important. As parents we don't need to grovel, and constantly apologise but admitting that we can be wrong, and what we did, however unintentional, did hurt is not saying we are a failure as a parent, but simply we are human. Sometimes we do something that seems right at the time, or right for one of our children isn't necessarily right overall. Sometimes there isn't a right answer. But acknowledging that hurt was caused is part way to healing it.

However I also remember dm coming to me and asking if I'd thought our childhood was generally happy? Yes it was. We had what we needed, even if we were frequently on an "economy drive" (dad's term), and rarely had treats that others took for granted.
Dm was very good at using her imagination to get us what we wanted/needed with the little money we had, and we played games, and generally we knew we were loved and they wanted the best for us. No, we didn't always get what we wanted, but that's not always a bad thing.

Well what had happened was one of my siblings had ripped into her about what a dreadful childhood we'd had. I can't definitely remember which one, but I think it was dsis (I was the middle, and both of them had a temper that tended to come out when things didn't go their way, whereas I tended to hide my feelings).
They gave specific examples of how something had been particularly unfair to them, and in all honesty it took my breath away because it wasn't just that they'd taken a totally different take on it from mine, but actually I could remember discussing many of them at the time and they'd had a totally different view then too.
They didn't hold back on their feelings if things weren't going their way, so I think it was unlikely that they had such a different view at the time, nor as an adult was their view particularly reasonable. Some of the incidents were totally off the reality, (I'd kept a diary at the time, and I went back to check what I'd written) and at least one had been done giving them the advantage rather than their memory of being thoroughly discriminated against, and most of the others didn't advantage any of us particularly.
I've never discussed that with them, but I have absolutely no idea where they were coming from. I'm sure they thought they were right, but I know they weren't.
I'm not sure what the right thing to do as a parent in that situation. If you apologise then you're validating their false memory, which may not be helpful either.

My dc are adults/getting towards adulthood. When they've brought up things, I've always gone for apology, acknowledge that as parents sometimes we do things that aren't the right thing looking back. Sometimes I've been able to tell them my reasoning, and normally they've been happier knowing my reasoning, and can at least see why the decision was made. And sometimes it's been a case that I've said it was a snap decision that I had to make in 5 minutes and so wasn't necessarily thought all the way through.
I still am refusing to buy a tank or an Apache helicopter for security for ds though, even if he does think I'm unreasonable for the rest of his life.

Absolutely, most parents do their best, but their best isn’t always adequate.

(And your example doesn’t really work — the OP needed to make a living, but didn’t need to move in with her boyfriend of a year. That’s too soon to introduce a child to someone, far less move in with them.)

Your ‘’own issues’’ come primarily from your upbringing. I mean, you literally learn from your parents from the second you are born, they play a primary part in how you view the world, how you cope with situations, how resilient you are.

Yes, there are variations and other people at play, personality differences etc, but the adults are the ones who show you how to be, essentially. I think that’s the thing people are struggling to grasp here. Your parents are responsible for setting a tone for you subsequent behaviour when you have to face the world as an adult.

Well I’d imagine the OPs DD did get on with him originally, and then didn’t. By which time the OP had a daughter with him, so not much to be done.

As for the business.. she had to earn a living to support her kids.

This is not to say the OP doesn’t need to engage with and listen to her DD, or that she didn’t make mistakes, but there’s no point approaching that from an unrealistic position.

Why do you imagine this?