AIBU to worry that my adult daughter is keeping her distance?

[Lowenn]

Hi all, my eldest DD is 25.
She moved away for university in France in 2018. After her degree, she did her masters in Italy which lasted 2 years, since then she has lived in Geneva and briefly Lisbon.
Every time she goes through a break up, she seems to move cities entirely.
We haven’t properly seen her since Easter of 2024, so 2 years.
We tried to go and visit her without messaging first, she said she was too busy to even stop for lunch or dinner. We basically spent about 15 minutes with her, that was last year.
She sent a message afterwards saying that she did not appreciate us turning up without being invited and if we did it again she wouldn’t be so kind.
We have asked many times when we can go visit, she always says she’s too busy. We have asked her to come visit us, too busy. When my mum died last year, she sent flowers and a card, didn’t even call, didn’t come to the funeral.

Now I’ve been worried for a while, but she seems to be doing well and I thought maybe this was just her spreading her wings. I try to call her once a month. The last 2 have been really short.
Finally this afternoon she picked up, I asked how Geneva was, and she replied oh didn’t I tell you I moved back to Paris, in January!!
I asked for her new address as I send cards and presents. She didn’t reply.
I messaged her after the call asking for it again, she said she would rather not give it this time as she doesn’t trust us not to show up unprompted.

I am terribly worried, she had a good childhood, we have very good relationships with our two younger children, I don’t understand what’s gone wrong.

AIBU to be worried, what do I do?

This isn't about you and your mother

😱

The poster is presumably trying to point out that no one here knows anything about the OP?!

Who is clearly not coming back anyway so its all moot really 😁

Like many people with depression, mine started as a teenager.

I did have a lovely childhood - I had warmth and love, privilege and safety. I would hate for someone to come along and say "someone who had depression as a teen did not have a lovely childhood," and I would guess my friends who experienced anorexia as teens would say the same.

We only went to visit her unprompted as she would never give us a time when it would be okay to visit and she hadn’t been home in a year, we worried she had relapsed (she was anorexic as a teen) and didn’t want us to know. We just wanted to help her.

You see, here is your problem @Lowenn , you're completely deaf to what your daughter is trying to tell you.

Teenage girls don't get anorexia because of pressure to excel at a sport. Quite the reverse. Even in something like gymnastics where being small helps (for girls), getting correct nutrition is important for performance. Teenage girls get anorexia because they feel they have no say in their lives and they are taking control of what feels to them like the only thing they CAN control.

When your daughter refused to give you a time & date to visit she was telling you loud and clear that SHE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO VISIT HER. But instead of listening, you turn up anyway! And even now, when several people have told you that was an unacceptable thing to do, you are STILL saying "oh but we only wanted to help".

It's not surprising is it that she "forgot" to tell you she'd moved, and now won't give you her address.

It seems like you've never really seen her as a real person. It's like she is a "role" in your landscape - but she doesn't want that role!
Until you can see her as a separate adult person who can run her own life (and not a child who needs rescuing from anorexia) you will never have a relationship with her.

Oh and ffs learn the lesson that you can't force people to accept help. Next time you get the urge to help someone (and especially your other two children) ASK THEM FIRST.

The parental control thing is tenuous at best. My dd herself wants an inordinate amount of control, always has. And has always tried to control me, right from the start of primary school, if not before. So the need to control her life does not come from what I’m doing. It’s in her.

She has ED and is a very complex young lady, who doesn’t understand normal parenting isn’t control. She’s unable to see things from my perspective, so she sees everything I do as control. I’ve had some very interesting conversations with a psychologist regarding dd and whom I’ve been working with. This comes straight from her so I’m getting a lot of insight into dd’s world.

Not all people are the same. Blaming op in this way really isn’t helpful.

Edit - to add. Perhaps learn a little more about anorexia. Some of us parents have literally saved our children’s lives.

Well done for stating the blindingly obvious <slow hand clap for you>

The point - and I’m amazed I have to state this - is that not one of the posters on here who is fawning over the OP knows anything about her other than the few lines she has posted which far from cover her in glory.

To say she seems kind or lovely or caring is such a massive overreach and as many posters have pointed out abusers and narcissists are adept at hiding the realities of their behaviour.

any parent of adult DC who claims to know their DC had amazing and happy childhoods is showing a worrying lack of insight and certainly only seeing things through their own narrow lens.

Not all people are the same. Blaming op in this way really isn’t helpful.

Well maybe I was a little unkind forthright. But I don't agree that it was unhelpful. Unless the op is willing to take a cold hard look at her own behaviour then she is unlikely to be able to forge any sort of meaningful relationship with her daughter.

This sounds like you’re talking in depth about somebody, but it can’t be the OP’s daughter as you’ve never met her. You’re talking about the OP making assumptions in order to control while you yourself are doing a form of that.

You are a rock of sense always.

OP, great advice above.
Hopefully she will come around.
It must be so hard for you.
Keep positive and upbeat always with her, so she doesn't feel pressure from you, knowing home is always waiting for her.

Eating disorders are so complicated.

Well said.and well spotted about the control.

I have been discussing my dd with a very experienced psychologist as I said above. This is very ok fashioned and rigid thinking. Op doesn’t have to look at her behaviour. She may choose to see how she can help the dynamic. That doesn’t mean she was in any way to blame for her dd’s ED.

Op doesn’t have to look at her behaviour. She may choose to see how she can help the dynamic.

Well that's just "consultant speak" isn't it.
OP may choose (or more probably won't choose) to reflect on how her prior behaviours have affected the dynamics of her relationship with her daughter and what she might do differently to change that dynamic.

You have to accept you are pushing very hard for a closer relationship which your daughter simply doesn't want- you could speculate forever about why, but those are the facts , and you have to respect that- turning up unannounced is completely overstepping your boundaries, and extremely pushy.
You have to stop pushing, and let your daughter come to you (which may take years) Your daughter is an adult with a life completely separate from yours, it is her absolute right to keep it that way , if she wishes.

I would be worried she's in a cult or something like that

Yes, I’d actually say that deciding you’re responsible for somebody else’s eating disorder is in some way, centering yourself in their situation. Which is somewhat what people are also accusing the OP of doing here.

Obviously it’s worth looking at yourself to see if there are things that you can change, but deciding you’re fully responsible for it is probably as much of an issue as deciding it has nothing to do with you.

Also, women and girls are under so much pressure from society in general that just blaming the mother in this scenario is pretty misogynistic…

Family dynamics contribution to the development of anorexia is not the same as “blame”.

A common feature in 4 cases I know of women who had anorexia, for example, was a dominant authoritarian father and a placating people pleasing mother. High academic and aesthetic standards and pressure to achieve also played a part. I’m not saying that is any kind of template - anorexics arise in many different family situations. Nor does it mean anyone is to blame. It’s simply the environment in which the ED developed.

But it’s unlikely that OP and her DH didn’t have to take part in family therapy during DD’s treatment. And that OP was not invited to look at her own behaviour and explore the family dynamics.

She doesn’t want to see you. This is sad and breaks your heart but she is an adult and there is nothing you can do about it.
Try not to worry as it won’t do any good. Besides which, as you say, she seems to be doing well. Leave her to it for a bit. Continue to call once a month but otherwise do nothing. If she wants to come back to you she will, in her own time.

She's an adult. You might think she had a great childhood but she might not think so. You might be perceiving your relationship very differently than she does. You shouldn't be visiting her without asking her.

An autonomous adult would choose to spend time with whom she wishes too, and if she's limiting her time with her, it's because that's all the time she wants to spend with her, full stop.

I see nothing wrong with moving cities when she breaks up, tbh.

And honestly, why do you even need to know her address?

Been following the thread with interest, I find the increase in going NC with people interesting and very difficult for people to process when it appears to be for undefined reasons. And it's a huge can of worms.

But in answer to the question asked above regarding why would a parent even need to know their adult child's address, FGS bar actual safety issues, it's just normal. Parents would be vilified if something happened to their child, or even any close relative really, and they couldn't even give an address. If the DD didn't want them to visit ever, she should just say so very firmly. Witholding her address is overkill, given the paucity of face to face contact over a prolonged period of time.

If, God forbid, an adult child went missing in these circumstances, and was socially isolated in this way, her parents wouldn't have anything helpful to offer up in terms of locating them. I accept that people have the right to "disappear" for any multitude of reasons, but it's incredibly hard and cruel on family who do care about their loved one, and sometimes it's down to tragic events. Never knowing crucifies people.

Anyway, as I say, fascinating subject in general. And I feel for both parties in this scenario, as obviously something is "wrong" but if the injured party won't divulge what, this is a very sad impasse.

OP i have quite a few friends who were "running away" from their parents in early to mid 20s. Some, would be more like your daughter, the others (incl me to some extent) would choose travelling with friends over visiting parents for holidays and act up unhappy when parents visited. All of us were from stable middle class families and had parents who ensured we were safe-happy-successful (and that felt controlling and caused the rift). I can tell you to this day i am ashamed of a little shit i was for few years between 22 and 25/26, although nothing extreme like your daughter.

Most of these parent avoding friends slotted right back into their families in their 30s, or earlier.

It must be a phase, and I hope she comes round.

But then maybe there is no "slot back".
I am no contact with my elder sister, and grey rock with my mother. I don't have any good relationship with either of them, and I don't need to justify that to them.

Thankfully I have amazing relationships with my own children, in their mid 20s, we see a great deal of each other, they seek out my company, visit home, we go out a lot together, meals, cinema, abroad on holiday. It is wonderful to have this type of relationship wiith them when I am so estranged from my family of origin.

That will never "slot back" and I have no desire to cultivate relationshios.

This kind of thinking is part of the problem you see. You see relationships between parents and children as symmetrical. You think she owes them love, and that the love should be expressed in the way the parents want it to be. The way she expresses it (staying in low contact) is in your mind, “unpleasant.” You don’t try to walk in her shoes at all.

What I was trying to say, as gently as I could to a mother feeling very understandable sadness, was that from reading her posts I saw a girl who had spent her teenage years under too much pressure. That came out then as anorexia. It’s not the Mums fault. People are human. Her daughter is not blaming her. She just wants to separate herself and become an adult on her own terms. (Maybe, we are all guessing, and this is just mine).

Maybe she feels better by having distance. It doesn’t have to be forever, any more than an adolescent shutting themselves in their room with loud music on. But I suspect she is building a much more healthy sense of self now. If the mother takes your approach and tells her that she is “unpleasant” when she is just trying to rebuild after a painful adolescence, the young woman may well decide that her chosen family are better for her and reconciliation will be postponed even longer.

Be careful about punishing people who are recovering from trauma and believe me, anorexia is trauma.

I agree with most of your post but the piece that is missing for me is the repeated pattern of relational conflict and then fleeing the country with this girl - from her school friends and first boyfriend, then her family, then each subsequent romantic breakup involved moving countries. We don’t know if the DD has other friend groups made along the way (uni, masters) that are still an important part of her social life. If she only has intense intimate relationships that end in conflict and fleeing then I would suggest that this doesn’t build an strong sense of self but would indicate potentially many unresolved / untreated issues from past trauma, ND, re-surfacing or new surfacing MH issues which contribute to her being the common denominator in a pattern of conflict and fleeing.

However an equally plausible scenario is that she moved away internationally for Uni and has broadened and enriched her social life - had a BF for that time which naturally ended at the end of uni - met another guy whilst doing a Masters in another country - shows an independent, ambitious and high achieving character - that naturally finished as she took up a high flying post in another country.

We don’t know what the story is.

I guess I wanted to add something to this. My friend loves her daughter (who is now 29) so much, always gives her presents, if she sees her waiting at a bus stop she will stop and want to give her a lift for example - she also enabled the daughter to do a lot of riding as a child which took up every evening looking after her horse and riding it at the weekend. As a result the daughter never opens presents now, never wants to receive Christmas presents and hates riding. My friend loves her daughter so much but seems to have controlled her life so much that her daughter appears to think she has been suffocating her. My friend has not learned to leave her daughter alone to her own life. When the OP mentioned sending parcels... to me red lines were being crossed: too much. Privacy matters too and my friend's daughter won't talk to my friend about anything personal or any future plans or whether she has applied for a new job or whether she has a new boyfriend. But still my friend can't do enough for her daughter - always asking if she can help or do such and such or give opinions... I would suggest that the OP ceases communication for a while, never sends her any parcels (not that she can now as she does not have the address) and stops saying she loves her or misses her (so often). Maybe limit phone calls for when there is some news, keep it low key. Play it cool, the relationship may recover perhaps if/when her daughter has children...