Upset DD won’t celebrate my special birthday

[Lemonmeringue76]

For the last few years my DD aged 21 had talked about us doing something special for my next ‘big’ birthday. We have been to London for shows, cocktails and dinner or been on holiday for previous birthdays and always had a lovely time. Or at least I thought we did.

From being very close she has changed towards me recently and become more distant. I’m not sure if this is her age or the fact she is in a new relationship. She texts and phones far less frequently from uni. In the past we had seen a great deal of each other and regularly been out for dinner, spa days, cinema etc. She came home in uni holidays and for weekends.

She is now saying I might not even see her for my birthday, let alone do something special. I feel very hurt. I have no one else but her to celebrate with. I’ve always been a one to make a fuss over her birthdays. I can’t understand why she would be willing to leave me alone on the day.

Thanks! 😎

I think it's really sad that so may people are thinking wanting to celebrate a milestone birthday with your child is an unreasonable and controlling thing.

Well that's an odd take given nobody on this thread is thinking that..

Exactly this. The reason some pp are challenging is not because it's inherently unreasonable to want your young adult child to celebrate your birthday with you. It's because it's not fair for a parent to be socially and emotionally dependent on a young adult only child to the degree that they have nobody else to celebrate special occasions with if said adult child won't pin down a weekend several months in advance!

and I say again.
It's not the 'wanting to spend the time together' but the undercurrent of "If you won't commit then I'll have no-one to do anything with and will spend my birthday sad and alone" that people are talking about.

My dc all chose to come to my birthday party, and also the family meal out when I was 50 (and again at 60) . But they opted in rather than 'felt obliged'.

The two are vastly different.

But it was the the way it was put that DD said she might not even see her, rather than DD saying she’ll try her best to make it, or she’ll sort something special even if not on the actual date

Literally loads of pp have!

You're missing out all of the context given by those posters if you think that's what's being said. No one is saying it's controlling to hope your child wants to spend time with a parent near their birthday but that's not what this thread is about.

I get this...my own mum is incredibly intense and not above emotional blackmail to get her own around this kind of thing.

But to me the OP isn't coming coming across like this at all and not giving the impression she is laying this all on her DD, but venting on here.

She's said it doesn't have to be on her actual birthday, she doesn't expect her DD to come to her and clearly isn't 'holding her back' in other ways.

It's hardly pressurising to say 'hey DD, big birthday this year, would be nice to do something together near the date, can we pencil something in'.

Birthday aside, if my daughter was putting making any kind of plans (with me or otherwise) on hold because of the possibility of doing something with a bloke she's only known a couple of months, I'd be a bit concerned too.

Birthday aside, if my daughter was putting making any kind of plans (with me or otherwise) on hold because of the possibility of doing something with a bloke she's only known a couple of months, I'd be a bit concerned too.

But we don’t know that is the reason.

Unlike last summer, the DD may choose to stay in her uni house, carry on with her uni part time job (possibly wise so that another summer worker doesn’t get the chance to take the part time option currently enjoyed by DD in term), go travelling with friends or boyfriend or both.

That's some special kind of pretzel logic you have employed to arrive at that conclusion!

Right OP you’ve had loads of great advice and I think you need to toughen up a bit as hard as that might be to hear. You’re 49. You might have another 50+ years in you. How are you going to spend it? You can sit around and wait for your daughter to be available or you can put yourself first and find something else to look forward to.

Yes she’s probably being a bit difficult by not being able to commit to a date but also she might be planning a summer long trip or an internship or to lie in bed having sex with her new boyfriend for weeks on end. But she’s an adult and it’s her choice. Yes it’s selfish and you’d hoped she would do better but it seems she’s not and so you need to move on a bit.

The question is now about what you do to make sure that when your birthday arrives you’re not sitting at home alone feeling sad. You’ve got plenty of time to sort that out. I would make it a priority.

And I would try to find ways to build some friendships. It would be good for both of you to lead happy, busy, fulfilled and independent lives.

I think for you this is a very natural start of your DD becoming an independent adult and as you have no partner or it seems other close family or other DC there is a big gap in your life. I have 2 DDs and yes I think if I were alone they would make an effort to spend a big birthday with me so I think it is a bit unfair of your DD not to make any suggestions even if not on the day itself. However we do not know your relationship but it definitely seems like you need to start prioritising yourself now rather than your DD who is pursuing other relationships quite naturally. She sounds quite intense though if she falls hook line and sinker for boyfriends to the exclusion of all else. Maybe she also feels she would like you to be less dependent on her.

The easiest way to do that is to start organising evenings out or day trips at the weekend and invite a few casual friends along. There are also lots of other groups you could join. When I retired my entire focus had been on family, DC and DGC and my DH but I wanted to explore other relationships for a healthy balance and joined the Ramblers. Many of them are now very good friends and we go on walking holidays together and meals out, theatre trips etc. I also joined a book group and we do meals out and I know if I was alone for a big birthday at least a few of them would be happy to come out with me. There are also meet up groups in most cities which do things like meals or theatre visits. I would definitely start to explore things you may enjoy doing as if you have only one DD then you will need to build a life for yourself not relying on her.

I have a group of 7 friends and we always plan a weekend away and a night out for our birthdays-I haven’t seen my 21year old DD on my birthday for at least 4 years as my birthday is in July, and she’s always away. You need to build a circle of friends.

To me it’s more about how close OP and her daughter were, and now they’re not. Yes, things change , but that mother/daughter closeness usually stays strong, and I can feel OP’s pain.

I guess to me it felt like the closeness wasn't necessarily all that healthy. It came across as quite enmeshed, with OP saying things like "I can't understand why she'd want to leave me alone on the day". This definitely sounds like OP sees the DD as abandoning her mum, rather than the DD being a student living away whose life may not be predictable enough to plan a birthday 6 months in advance.

It seems like OP was happier when her DD was home frequently but unhappy because of her ex, even though she needed a lot of support from OP, because it tied her to home. Now the DD is developing a life in the uni town instead of coming home and moping over the high school BF, OP is unhappy. That's codependence, not genuine mother-adult daughter closeness.

There is a big, HUGE difference between being close to your mum, and being enmeshed.

The PPs who think the DD is being selfish either have the good fortune to have never been parentified or seen it in happen to someone close to them, or are in denial about their own relationships with their children.

I must have done something right then, as my daughter loves to surprise me and other family members on birthdays and anniversaries with thoughtful, well planned gifts and experiences, especially on milestone birthdays. She wasn’t asked, or big hints dropped. She didn’t change in her teenage years, or on marrying. She’s just like that. Very often she’ll pick up on something she’s heard people say, and researched it eg I used to tell her about the school I went to and has fond memories of. On one Mother’s Day a bag containing two books, all about the school , history, teachers, pupils etc that she’d been hunting on the internet for, for ages arrived. I so appreciated the trouble she’d gone to.

Nothing like OP then who has asked but won't take the answer she's been given.

It could be that the right thing you did was to have meaningful relationships with other people as well as just with her and modelled things beyond a parent-child relationship. It doesn't sound as though the OP has been able to do the same here.

Hope you are ok OP