DD is my only child and in her early 20s. She has been estranged from her father for 9 years due to his bullying and selfish behaviour towards her. He left when she was 6 to live overseas and up until she was 13, she had regular annual visits with him during her summer break. The last one ended in tears due to his behaviour and she terminated the visit and flew back early. They haven't spoken since and he has only make one attempt to contact her in all this time to ask for her apology for leaving on her final visit. Apart from that, no birthday or xmas cards, no emails, no financial support. Nothing.
In the past few weeks, his wife has initiated contact with DD in an attempt to try and reconcile her with DF. Everything was going quite well, they were exchanging pleasantries and catching up on life, until she started blaming me for the breakup of her relationship with DF, said she hoped DD had been able to get away from me and find her own place, was saddened by the fact I denied her a university education, that I'd manipulated her and made sure she had a jaded and false impression of her DF. She told her she was too young to remember how I preyed on her youth and vulnerability to get my own way.
None of this is true. I have always put her best interests at heart and encouraged her to have a relationship with him but she was always adamant it wouldn't happen. In the past 12 months, she has even changed her surname, something I felt was taking things too far but that was her choice.
DD has had therapy to help deal with the trauma of his behaviour and has politely said she wishes them all the best but she won't be dragging up the past as it's something she's worked hard to overcome. The wife, however, is constantly spinning this narrative of how I behaved towards him, how I'm to blame for their fallout, dangling incentives to her to go live with them, they will pay for her college, they will take her on holidays she could only dream of, they will do this, that and the other. Why now I ask myself when he's done absolutely nothing for her, ever.
It's starting to look like manipulation from someone who has been completely brainwashed by DF and I'm worried that DD gets sucked into it. She said she could never have a relationship with them unless he stands up and takes accountability for the way he behaved and agree that they won't bring up the past. But she isn't telling the wife that. She's just making polite small talk and avoiding all the comments she makes in the hope they will get sick of saying it and give up.
Tonight the wife said that DD's psychiatrist probably wasn't any good and she should go over and live with them so they can have her assessed by a proper one. It never stops.
DD and I have different personalities and she's all for ignoring the narrative in the hope they give up. I'm less composed and am really hurt by the comments as I gave my DD the best life I could and always put her wants and needs first, including encouraging a relationship with her DF but just hit a brick wall. I had to take him to court for child support, and again when he didn't pay it. I tolerated him really well and collaborated successfully every summer so that he could see DD. I didn't even ask him to pay for child support for 3 years after he left so he could afford to journey back and forth to see her.
I want to write the wife an email and lay out the facts from the past (she was never around at the time anyway) but that's really to help me feel better and DD probably wouldn't like it. WWYD?