To stipulate minimum number of nights at home for DD?

[teenmumstress24]

DD turned 18 a few months ago. Her 18th birthday coincided with her meeting a new boyfriend who she is inseparable from. She spends around 1-3 nights per fortnight at home, and that's only to sleep / occasionally grab food or a shower. She doesn't converse with anyone (unless to ask for lifts or to borrow cash), and she certainly doesn't do any housework. Since this time there have been numerous issues and arguments; mostly around the following themes:

• constant requests for lifts from me or partner (although this has declined since her boyfriend passed his driving test a few weeks ago as he's seemingly the taxi now)
• never doing any housework
• never being at home long enough to converse with anyone and all her interactions being requests for something
• letting me and her little sister down after agreeing to do something with us and then dropping us in favour of the boyfriend (little sister is only 3 so doesn't understand and gets very upset about her big sister not being there)
• more recently me and my partner (her step dad) we're both told to "fuck off" when we were unable to facilitate a lift whilst juggling bedtime and household tasks between us after work one evening (she later apologised for this; but it's left a very sour taste)
• boyfriend got involved in disagreement following the above incident, and whilst I was the on the phone to her during a heated discussion about that, I was apparently on loudspeaker as I could hear the boyfriend chirping up "just hang up on her" (to my daughter about me)

I'm at my wits end and I can't take anymore. I've contact the GP for some medication to take the edge off because I feel so low and as though I've basically lost my daughter. I've tried telling her miss her, I'm sad about it all, I want her to spend more time at home, etc. She still doesn't. All I get from her is, "it's normal for me to want to be at his house more often he's a new boyfriend". However, she makes time for her dad, her dad's side of the family, my sister (her aunt who's she close to), her friends, and her boyfriend. The only person she lets down and seems to not want to be around is me.

She pays no board (she's at college and works part time earning only about £70-100 a week so I've never taken any money off her). I pay for her phone contract. She doesn't contribute to the food shop here but does buy her own takeaways etc . Her only regular bill is a gym membership.

I've suggested to her since she appears to not live here anymore that she moves out and pays her boyfriends mum board? The response was "I don't want to move out". But 1-3 nights here a fortnight on average would suggest she pretty much has moved out. She has the largest room in the house and it's just wasted space, it's never occupied.

My AIBU is, would I be unreasonable to stipulate that if she wants to continue to live here that I put in place the following rules:

1- she actually occupies her room more regularly than 1-3 times a fortnight? So set a minimum number.
2- she pulls her weight with household tasks and until I see her doing so on a regular basis without any prompting or nagging, I will charge her board. I will stop charging board once she pulls her weight regularly.

Does this sound reasonable? My head is a total mess with it all, I'm struggling to disentangle the emotion from the practical side, so it may come across as garbled. I'm not a good place with it all tbh as I feel so lost and as though she just dislikes me for some reason 😔

Any help appreciated.

This is definitely a wind up.

There is a teen section in parenting on here - it's quieter but tends to be less abrasive than AIBU section.

I found Y13 and first year Uni trying and upsetting and at times deeply hurtful - and that's with out a trauma background - you just have to pick your battles and hold on - and try very hard not to lash out or push them away permanently.

It's not unreasonable to expect her home much more - but she may not be interested in her 3 year old sister as much as she once was - her life -work study boyfriend are all big things right now she technically an adult but actually still on cusp and learning how to balance aspects of her life and how to behave and isn't always going to get it right.

You need to be the safe port not another stressor - you can pull up unacceptable behavior but don't pick unnecessary battles as that is counter productive.

You are getting a hard time!
Empty nest is a real feeling, you lose a bit of yourself and one of your roles in life. Adjusting will take time.
18 is an awkward age especially when still doing school level study. Adult but only just, still living at home but wanting freedom to explore all life has to offer. You can see from the replies on here that there is a split between posters who believe adults should contribute and those who think we mustn’t take money from our children. Going away to uni lets them work through a lot of changes out of their parents sight but this is obviously not the case for you. Again this takes time to work through, I would probably have required a gag!
It is really hard when you are suffering mixed emotions, anger at how you are being treated, sadness at the loss of your previously close relationship, guilt at feeling you have failed and concern at the recent change in your daughters life.
At best she is in the throes of first love and is living in the moment so neglecting both studies and her family. At worst she is in a relationship where she is being encouraged to distance her self from you and to change her plan to go to uni, maybe because that is an alien world to her boyfriend, maybe because he enjoys being in control.
You need to keep communication going, keep inviting the boyfriend over, maybe bite your tongue a bit about things at home for a few more weeks.

Hi OP,
My kids are only young but I feel for you- you put everything into raising them and naturally it hurts to feel rejected, no matter how unreasonable/irrational people may make you feel for doing so.
As mine are only young I don’t have a lot of advice but I do remember someone I know crying to her husband when her daughter was a teenager saying that she felt she had lost her and that she just needed to accept she would never have a good relationship with her daughter. Fast forward past the teenage years and her daughter and her now have a super close relationship where the daughter tells her mum all the gossip and chats to her about everything.
So really my post is just to say hang on in there, grit your teeth and maybe choose your battles with her as more than likely, she and you will come out the other side and be close once more- it’s not as though you always had a bad relationship so logically there’s no reason it won’t return to how it was before in time :-)

Ok, thank you for clarifying, sorry I misunderstood.

@teenmumstress24 I could not care less how you regard me. I hope you get the help you clearly desperately need.

That sort of passive aggressive way of relating comes through in your OP - and will get her back up more and more. I'd suggest just insisting that she's polite and doesn't swear at you, and then just trying to back off a little and, as Sushu said, give her a break. You'll probably be less stressed, and if things go wrong for her she's more likely to come to you for help.

They spread their wings, and it's hard.

It's not just me who regards you that way, and I won't thank you for your disingenuous well wishes. I hope you don't have contact with many vulnerable clients.

@50Balesofgrey
That's how I relate to anonymously strangers on an online forum who appear to be deliberately being unhelpful or unpleasant. Why on earth would you assume that's my relational style with my own children who I love deeply? Very odd to think I'd relate in the same way in both situations.

Yes it's pretty evident that you don't care full stop so basically just posting to be unkind to someone you have never met- talk about 'emotional dysregulation'!

@teenmumstress24 I do, yes. Good luck to you!

It is really hard when you are suffering mixed emotions, anger at how you are being treated, sadness at the loss of your previously close relationship, guilt at feeling you have failed and concern at the recent change in your daughters life.

Thank you! Now this sounds more like a psychologist's response. thank you to this poster for having empathy with my (valid despite being a parent!) feelings.

As you wish

Genuinely terrified for them.
Good luck to them 👍🏻

I can't believe some of the posts in this thread berating OP for trying to maintain a relationship with her daughter while insisting on the even the smallest amount of respect and effort from her.

I can only imagine that some of you have parented the absolute nightmare, entitled young people I seem to be regularly presented with as examples of good candidates for graduate jobs these days.

On one hand there are people saying the daughter is, essentially, entitled to behave however the hell she likes, as an adult, and on the other she's "still a child".

I think I saw it described on here before as an example of 'Schrödinger's teenager'. 😂

This is so true, the young adults who are the most special, most important humans ever to exist.

My daughter is a similar age and I would be far more concerned about keeping up with school work so she does as well as she can in her A levels than anything else you mentioned, given how much time she appears to be spending with her boyfriend. This will hopefully get less intense as she becomes naturally more busy towards her exams and it might fizzle out completely anyway.

Btw, it might just be the BF having a bit of a typical teenage attitude but I’d also be mindful of him encouraging her to hang up on you and if that’s part of a bigger picture of more concerning behaviour like alienating her from you and later on her friends and other family. Don’t get sucked in. Keep the lines of communication open.

One thing I will say though is I wouldn’t be giving anymore lifts unless it’s to college if she’s lucky. I won’t facilitate the social life of someone who tells me to fuck off.

Wise up, she's 18. She simply doesn't want to spend time with you or her toddler sister, it's just how their brain works at that age.

You're talking about taking her room away, they've only been together 8 weeks!!

If there's a "main washing pile" of course she's going to use it? If you do your partner's washing why wouldn't you do your daughter's?
Parent and child (which she is, she hasn't even left school) relationships are not supposed to be reciprocal, she literally didn't ask to be born.

You are being completely unreasonable. You understandably have a lot of feelings of loss but you're hooking into silly little things, creating a battleground in her own home and pushing her away. Why would she want to be at yours if it's constant scolding and negativity. You're trying to guilt her into spending time with you and I'm afraid that won't work.

💯

I thought you said you were leaving? 🤔

Hi again OP. Please try to filter out some of the spiteful projecting on this thread. It's the internet - who knows who is posting.

I admit I was surprised you hadn't mentioned any concern about the impact of all this on school in your early posts. But you say you have posted elsewhere about this and I know it's hard to sum up a complex situation in a few paragraphs.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, you have not 'lost' your daughter. On the contrary, she is treating you like this because she knows you are the one person in the world who will be there unconditionally. Maybe she's testing that, as teens do. But if she really genuinely thought, for one second, you would give up or throw her out, I doubt she would behave like this.

The likelihood is, this new relationship will end very soon and she'll be back home, needing your support.

Let's hope this is sooner rather than later. In the meantime, try to stay calm. Offer (repeatedly if necessary) to have the BF at your home. Don't sweat the small stuff, like washing or cleaning, for the time being. You can pick that up when she's back home again. For now, choose your battles.

It's ok to tell her you miss her. It's ok to ask her to spend time with you. I get that it's hard when you feel repeatedly rejected though. But she's not really rejecting you - she's just so caught up in this new relationship that she can't see the wood for the trees. One day she will look back on this phase and cringe.

Having said this, it is possible that she's struggling, in some way or other, with the impact of your second partner and DD. Saying that is not to blame anyone - just to acknowledge that this is never easy for a child and just because she didn't 'act out' aged 9, or 15, isn't to say she won't now, or in the future. It's definitely worth you being open to this possibility without hearing it as a personal criticism. It doesn't mean you're a bad mother or did anything wrong. It is what is but she may have some feelings / emotions that she needs to process and it really helps if your mum has the capacity to acknowledge that without becoming defensive.

Maybe offer to take her out (again) and tell her that you never want her to feel pushed out; her home is always there and ask the BF and her to spend time at your house. It may not yield results immediately, but in time she will remember that you tried.

I've not read the whole thread. But I wouldn't try to enforce how often she stays at home nor would I ask her to do housework if she is barely there. I wouldn't encourage her to live with her boyfriend either.

I'd aim to make home welcoming so she wants to be there. Nice meals/hanging out together etc.

I would give lifts if it suited but I wouldn't be doing it regularly. I wouldn't lend her money nor would I tolerate rudeness. Hopefully it won't last as he does not sound like a good influence

I won’t be wasting my time engaging with the OP, but I am going to support those posts which cut through the enabling nonsense of this thread 🙂

I literally already feel like an awful mum, I've said I feel so guilty and responsible for her not wanting to be around me anymore and why the sudden change. I'm awake all night beating myself up about what I got so wrong, and how I've lost her.
And I've got people saying stuff like that to me. Like seriously, how can anyone be that unpleasant.

Oh OP, I know it's hard but ignore the twats on here, your mistake was posting on AIBU, there seems to be a general attitude that people should just suck up the abuse if they post on this topic.

I don't think for one moment that your daughter doesn't want to be around you any more. You were both fine before the BF so clearly he's the her current obsession (as is common with teens). It'll fade at some point and she'll return to you but for now, let her do her own washing, tell her to clean up after herself, tell her swearing isn't going to make you keen to do favours for her and then bite your tongue. Again all things must pass, but I know it must be hell while it's happening.