DD has said she will never view me as a mum

[Strangersev]

Hi all, this could be long and I want to say straight away I know I messed up, I just don’t know how to reply, I’m not looking to minimise my actions.

So background, my ex husband and I both had jobs which involved moving relatively frequently, we had one child, and over the 18 years of her childhood she lived in 5 countries (Canada, Italy, Singapore, Switzerland, and France). I am British, her dad is Italian.

For the first 10 years of her life I’d say we were a very happy family, we lived in Italy for 7 years which provided a real period of stability. We then moved to Singapore, this was more for my sake than my ex husbands but much like Canada in the early years he was willing to make a compromise for my career. However here is where cracks started to form. We lost our way with parenting, would have loud and dramatic fights and often our poor little DD would be witness. I regret this period deeply and 2 years later we moved to Switzerland, this was meant to be a happy middle ground, good career opportunities for us both and DD hadn’t really enjoyed life in Singapore so we thought this may be more familiar.

My ex husband immediately started having an affair, I knew but for 2 years just allowed it to happen. I lied to our DD about him working late when I knew he was with her, I didn’t question or press him on where he was, however 2 years in I came home to them in our bed. This was my breaking point, I spiralled, had a mental breakdown and went into a deep depression. I decided for 6 months I’d move back to my parents home in the uk, my husband and I agreed we would divorce. We spoke to DD and she insisted she wasn’t moving again, she liked Geneva, she was happy at school. I accepted that 6 months apart from her would be a sacrifice worth making. The 6 months passed and I was offered a dream role in Paris. My mental health wasn’t great still, I felt selfishly like I needed to make a decision that was best for me, so I took the job. I asked DD to move with me, she refused. Geneva to Paris was a very manageable distance though, I spent all the holidays with her and we had a lovely time. I do realise now I was saying horrible things about her dad to her during this time and that was immature and cruel of me.

Once DD finished that phase of schooling at 16, her dad got offered a job in Luxembourg which he decided he was going to take. DD was offered Paris or Luxembourg for her diploma years and settled on Paris. I think upon reflection this was very little to do with me and more that for a 16 year old girl Paris is perhaps the more inspirational place to live. I thought her living with me again would be wonderful but the reality was she took 7 subjects for her diploma instead of 6 (wanted to take all her languages) and the time taken up by other elements of the IB diploma meant she was never really home, distance grew between us massively in this time. I started a new relationship which at the time I didn’t feel guilty for as she was really never home in the week and on weekends she’s often want to go to her dads.

DD then took a gap year, and after that went to university in the UK. She is now graduating this summer.

I met up with her for lunch yesterday. She told me about the masters she will be doing, how excited she is to move back to Italy. I realised that in the 3 years she has been living in my home country I’ve only seen her 6 times. She always spends Christmas with her dad, spent summers travelling so it felt difficult to see her. I asked her jokingly if she felt more “British” after her 3 years and she said not at all. She is a third culture kid but If asked to pick she would always say she is Italian. I was hurt by this initially and told her this. She then said “I don’t even really view you as a mum”. This broke my heart I started to cry and she said she was best going.

She messaged me this morning explaining that she can’t view me as a mum as when she was 14-16 I messed with her head. I told her that her dad was evil and cruel yet I left her with him alone. She listed all the ways her dad has been a more selfless parent and more supportive parent.

I am now sad heartbroken and stunned, I don’t really know how to reply? Of course I can and will apologise and I don’t plan to defend my version of events but I feel like I should at least explain?

AIBU to feel like I should explain my side of the story to her? Or have I been ridiculously selfish and this is a result of my own actions?

Any advice much appreciated/

On the plus side she sounds incredibly switched on and mature, so that’s something.

It's actually a trauma response.

She learnt from a very young age that no one was there for her so she had to be there for herself.

She may also struggle with interpersonal relationships (friendships and romantic) because she hasn't learnt how to be vulnerable safely with people she trusts and who were there for her.

She'll likely be described as confident, independent and a high achiever too. All of which are fantastic when they are rooted in a deep security and sense of self and belonging but are just another trauma response when not. They might look the same on the surface to the outside world but with very different root causes.

Well that's what happens when you parent the way that you did. You made choices, prioritised yourself, and moved away from her when she really needed stability and support. You haven't been a mum to her in the way that a child needs.

Explain what? You left her, only saw her during holidays and when you did see her, you spent the time saying awful things about her dad… the man who stayed and raised her and got her through her teenage years.

Some people have really shitty parents, and we all listen and believe them. For that to be true then there actually do have to be shitty parents out there existing in the world (and thinking they actually weren’t that bad if only they could “explain”) and it turns out that you are one of those. You can’t fix it, and you don’t have the right to sit there crying when you were meant to be the adult and she was the child and it was your job to put her first. You didn’t, and these are the consequences.

no she shouldn't, how will that help? Well yes I was rubbish but your dad was worse - what an emotionally immature way to view things. The child wasn't married to the dad, she's looking at the relationship through a different lens.

IF you really want to have a relationship with your daughter, you must acknowledge her pain and apologise.

There is no profit from you trying to explain yourself, it is irrelevant and she doesn't want to hear your excuses!

And fgs, STOP badmouthing her Dad

When my ex died my son said the one thing he was truly grateful for was that neither of us ever rubbished the other to him. So I would say stop trying to be negative about her father, what he did or didn't do to you isn't the point, he was there for her when you weren't. There may be reasons, justifications but that's just how it is and all you can do is say you know you weren't there for her, you regret that but at the time you didn't feel able to do anything else.

Be honest about things, even with Christmas with her father and summers travelling you could have seen her more than six times in 3 years. Paris to UK is a train ride to most of the UK and a short flight to anywhere in the UK.

Whatever you do do not say anything negative about her father, if you make this a competition he is going to win and all you are doing is pushing her away. Go out of your way to see her, Paris to Italy isn't that big a jump, go for weekends even if she says she can only see you for lunch on Saturday. Invest some time and energy in rebuilding your relationship, she may never feel a typical mother daughter bond but as time passes and wounds heal you can rebuild a relationship.

@Strangersev build on the relationship you have with her now. Acknowledge and validate her feelings

Make sure you see her at least X times a year.

It's clear that both you and your DH both prioritised your career over a stable childhood for your DC. You had a breakdown, it's a shame you had to be physically apart from your DC during this incredibly difficult time for you and her.

OP, I actually think there are some positives to take from the situation.

Firstly your daughter hasn’t gone off the rails, despite a difficult and disruptive childhood, in fact she’s done really well for herself and may have a bright future ahead of her.

Secondly she’s still talking to you and hasn’t cut you off completely - the past can’t be changed but at least there’s still a relationship there which you can start to build on and make stronger.

As others have said, don’t explain your side of the story to her unless she asks to hear it. Definitely don’t criticise her father to her. If you feel you need to offload then perhaps look at therapy if you haven’t already? And focus on the future with your daughter and how you can play a positive role in her life as it is now.

He had an affair on his wife not his child, and the child is entitled to think what they want

Tbh this is how I viewed my mum, who was unhappily married. There were a lot of rows. But that said we did have a decent enough relationship in her later years, (with a bit of effort on both sides). I had some counselling and I miss her as a person in my life, rather than a mother. You do have some relationship with your dd, so that is a start.

I realised that in the 3 years she has been living in my home country I’ve only seen her 6 times.

It geniunely hadn't occurred to you before then??? You just hadn't noticed you only saw your only child once every 6m???

Honestly she has a valid point
She was being honest with you and it sounds like you were a poor mother.
Teen years are formative.
You ran off for half of it and then was shagging some bloke during the equivalent of her a levels you seem to blame her for "going off most weekends" you were adult.

Out of interest has the 'new relationship" gone the distance and are you still together?

Her honesty is a gift if you want to you can now put the time energy and work in to building your relationship if you want to

Your side of the story as you've expressed here is not likely to make her feel much better about things. If she would go to family therapy with you that might help her to express her feelings to you in a supported way.

I think you should apologise for crying. You definitely should NOT try and put your side, that will only invalidate her experience and make you look petty.

She needs to know you accept what she says, you acknowledge how much you let her down and you intend to be present in whatever way she wants in the future. And mean it.

What a terrible thing to say! A child isn’t selfish for choosing to try to salvage her relationship with her mother during still formative years.

OP, this is so difficult. I can see why your daughter has said what she said but it doesn’t mean that you can’t go on to build a better relationship
with her in future.

I think you can explain. As long as it’s not a way of avoiding a proper apology She is old enough to understand why you did some of the things you did.
It doesn’t sound like you were ‘Mum’ish’ at all but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a positive relationship with her.

There are plenty of ‘Mums’ that might look like perfect mums on paper that aren’t very nice.
Arguing in front of your daughter and being horrible about her Dad (however much it was deserved) are obviously very bad things to have done. You really need to own that and apologise.
Were you bad tempered or controlling with her? Did you have fun with her?
We moved to several different countries for work and my husbands relationship with our 4 kids suffered for it. He was well
meaning but he was just too tired and busy to be present. IYKWIM. Our kids are now in their 30’s and my husband has now retired - as the years go by I see him getting closer to the kids. It’s nice to see. We’ve always acknowledged the fact that moving about has negatives as well as positives and openly question whether we got the balence right.

I think you should apologise for crying. You definitely should NOT try and put your side, that will only invalidate her experience

Agree. Do not make her emotions about you. You're merely proving her experience that you can't put her first.

Don't explain, OP. Acknowledge her feelings and ask what you can do to make things better between you. You can't change the past but you can make a better future and the fact that you have some sort of a relationship is a good thing. She clearly wants you in her life, so take comfort from that.

It’s all very me, me, me, me, me.

Genuinely wondering why you had a child when it sounds like neither your marriage or lifestyle were set-up for it.

All you can do now is listen to her, and help her access supports such as therapy to process her feelings.

It's like a more screwed up version of that Cat's In The Cradle song. She feels how she feels so concentrate on the future.

There’s no way easy way to say this but you’ve put yourself front and centre of everything since this child was born. You’ve moved her from country to country like a piece of luggage, you’ve moved from job to job, never thinking of what was best for your child, you’ve bad mouthed her father repeatedly. You’re lucky your daughter will even meet you for the odd lunch. I’m not surprised she doesn’t see you as a mother. I can’t really see how you can turn this around.

"I told her that her dad was evil and cruel..."

'Evil' and 'cruel'? Those are very strong words to use to describe your daughter's father. Yes, your ex had an affair but that made him 'disloyal' or 'unfaithful' within the framework of his marriage to you. You shouldn't be dragging your daughter into that and expecting her to take sides. Her relationship with her dad is separate and by the sounds of things, stable.

You've played the parental alienation game.

And lost.

Does she know your ex had an affair and brought the OW into your marital bed @Strangersev ? Not the thing you would share at the time but now she’s an adult, without trying to make excuses for your choices and without turning it into just bad-mouthing for the sake of it, you could say there was a lot to it and on both sides. You can apologise without accepting it all as being your fault? As while you have made some questionable choices, I don’t think it was all on you, although I don’t know all the story.

I don’t think OP has received a kicking. She’s been rationally told she messed up and given advice on trying to repair and build a future relationship.

Honestly, I’m reading this back from your dd point of view and feel like she should be directed to the stately homes thread.
it doesn’t sound like either of you really put her first during her later childhood and you are still very much focussed on feeling sorry for yourself and getting us to feel sorry for you rather than wondering what life must have been like for dd.

I’m sorry to be harsh but if you want to salvage your relationship with her stop whining, crying and telling her that your feelings are hurt and start taking some real responsibility for what you did, and looking for ways to heal things between you.

I think you both failed her thinking more about your work than her wellbeing. But you will be judged more severely because you expect more from your mum. I know I was hard with my mum for things in my upbringing while I never told my father anything because I didn't think he was capable of doing better.