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?

If you know someone loves seeing ad hoc visitors then fine. I know people who do this with each other but who also understand not everyone wants it.

I see it as disrespectful in the extreme. Their time is more important, they haven’t given a thought to the fact I might not want to see them at that moment for whatever reason.

But then I only go to places I’m invited.

@sittingonabeach ND and anorexia still hinges on the feeling of needing to feel safe (possibly with predictable routines and as a coping method to reduce feelings of overwhelm). The OP turning up without warning could be a direct trigger of that feeling of overwhelm if the daughter is ND.

However, we dont actually know the daughter is ND do we, so I think its a bit pointless trying to imagine up possible scenarios. By this rationale we could wonder if she has other specific mental health diagnoses- where does the speculation end? All we know for certain is that she had anorexia.

The posters saying about escaping are spot on imo. My 17 yo dd threatens to move out all the time. To move to Paris, to Thailand. We a specialist ED coach on board to help me to know what to say to dd. In minute detail. The more I’m reading, the more I’m wondering if she isn’t recovered op. But a functioning anorexic.

I agree. I’m ND and things like that trigger me.

Parents are no longer seen as to blame for ED

I did NOT say parents were to blame for EDs. It's far more complex than that. I said typical patterns show that there are parenting styles which are more common in children/teens with anorexia. Correlation doesnt equal causation but its still an important piece of the puzzle and not to be ignored

Could she have seen a therapist who has convinced her she had a traumatic/abused childhood? Unfortunately they do exist, I listened to a podcast series about it.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dangerous-memories/id1766046669

To balance this out you could read The rules of Estrangement by Joshua Coleman and Done with the Crying by Sheri McGregor. Relationships are more complex than some people on here acknowledge. There are multiple reasons why adult children distance themselves from their parents and it sometimes happens to people who have been caring parents. I understand why you visited unannounced given that your daughter has had a potentially life threatening mental health problem in the past and you were very worried. I do think you have done all you can now and to “ detach with love” as families of addicts are advised to do is all you can do. Let her know that you love her and are there for her any time and try to keep light contact via messaging or email. It’s important to look after yourself and live your own life to the full. That will take time. @Twatalert really chose an apt name. this would be very upsetting for most parents.

@DiamondsAndDenial someone else mentioned object permanence which can be linked to ND.

I hadn’t heard of that term until I read a thread the other day where a poster was saying her son had moved with GF a few hundred miles away and rarely heard from him. Had a good relationship with him before he moved and if she did manage to get hold of him had good chats. He is suspected to be ND but no formal diagnosis. Many posters just excused it on basis that he is male and therefore useless at communication, but others suggested object permanence linked to autism

People on here have asked the OP to think back and see if anything from childhood could explain this. When OP can't pinpoint any event which makes this totally her fault, she then gets snarky "don't make out you were all perfect" posts! Wtf is this OP supposed to do?

Parents aren't perfect - there will be events/actions/words which were minor to the parent but major to the child. We all experience things which hurt us, that maybe our parents don't pick up on. But they do their best and as adults we acknowledge they weren't perfect because no human is! We don't hold it against them and go nc.

If my kid was behaving like OP's then I'd be tempted to just show up and check she was okay. I think the daughter's reaction (not giving them her new address) is disproportionate.

Some people just grow up wrong. They are selfish and mean and don't think about anyone other than themselves. I think OPs dd might fall into this category, since she also cba to stay in contact with her siblings. It's not always anything that the parents have done wrong.

Regarding your first statement, you can't possibly know that. Of course, many have been abused in various ways and have good reason to go NC. But going NC has become quite fashionable, with parents swearing up and down that they did the absolute best that they could by their kids, like OP. I personally know of three such situations. The parents involved were lovely and were treated shockingly by their kids. But some people on MN are totally unhinged on this topic and will NOT accept that some adult kids are just cruel and entitled shitty people. It HAS to be the parents' fault, always. Seen it lots on this thread, although not the unhinged part.

I believe you, OP. And I'm sorry that your daughter is so incredibly hurtful.

And for posters saying it was awful for OP to turn up without warning, what would you do if your DD had previous health condition which could have serious repercussions and which possibly always lurks in the background, which I’m guessing ED does, and you hadn’t seen or heard from them for ages? Just sit back and hope for the best.

My husband’s brother was like this for years and years. Zipped around the world, barely spoke to anyone. He’s now 33 and finally connecting with people more and does visit/invite his mother over, sends siblings catch up emails.

She’s 25. Let her be. The more you suffocate her the faster she’ll run.

But OP explained that she did it because she was really worried about her DD. Anorexia is an extremely serious illness and has the highest death rate of all mental illnesses. OP was understandably worried that she had relapsed. And if her DD had been mature enough to give her mother the time of day, her mother wouldn't have felt the need to go and do what was essentially a welfare check, would she.

The daughter is an adult. She can manage any health condition the way she wants. The fact that she HAD a health condition does not mean she needs to be infantilised as an adult and have her boundaries crossed. She is an ADULT who made it clear she does not wish much contact with her family.

As a parent you need to manage your own feelings around this. NOT push push push for more contact. Seek professional guidance on how to reconnect should the opportunity ever arise.

Im not going to pretend we were perfect parents as that is unrealistic but we really did do our best for her.

I think you need to describe the parts that weren't perfect, without a second clause that minimises whatever wasn't perfect.

Of course you did your best, it's all anyone can do, but that doesn't stop children being impacted by the less perfect bits.Youre not pretending, but maybe you are minimising?

I think you're potentially brushing over her anorexia by only linking it to her sport. I think her statement "it's not always about you!" is a potential gateway for self reflection.

Try to refrain listing what was provided for her materially, because the rupture is an emotional one, it's not about those things.

It takes strength and courage as a parent to admit shortcomings without collapsing into shame and distress, because you do love your child, so it must be worth getting some professional support to explore this.

Turning up unannounced because you are concerned about health of your DD doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t normally have boundaries

Sometimes extreme measures are needed.

My (loving, kind) parents would absolutely have done this if they’d been really worried about me. My Dad did once turn up not quite unannounced but with short notice and “I am coming to see you tomorrow”, when I was living 300 miles away having a really tough time, and hadn’t been communicating well. He knew something was wrong, he wasn’t an overbearing Dad at all.
If I was seriously worried about one of my daughters I would do the same. There are women on here who have turned up at university unannounced, having a niggly feeling that something is wrong, only to find that their son or daughter hasn’t actually been at uni for months and is in a really tough situation.
Op anorexia can make people very secretive and inward looking, anorexics can be perfectionists. Does your dd still struggle with this ? Was she bullied in school ? Perhaps she habitually shuts everyone out, from a fear of intimacy or trust. The constantly moving home is unusual.
What is her job ? I wonder if it is something she doesn’t want you to know about. It seems to me that she could be hiding something. Does her brother have any feelings about what is wrong ?

Object permanence doesn't really fit here, and while being ND can affect communication or energy around socialising, it doesn’t usually look like this kind of clear, deliberate boundary setting.

The daughter’s behaviour is actually extremely consistent -she’s limiting contact, avoiding visits, and not sharing her address because she doesn’t trust her parents not to turn up unannounced again. That’s much more about trust and control over her own space than anything neurological.

If this were purely neurological, you’d usually see more confusion or struggle in how the person handles relationships like mixed signals, difficulty reading situations, or pulling away because they feel overwhelmed. With something like ASD, it often comes across as “I’m finding this hard to manage,” rather than a clear, thought-through decision.

In this case, the daughter is being very consistent and specific- she knows what upset her, she’s explained it, and she’s changed her behaviour because of it. That looks much more like a deliberate boundary than something driven by a neurological issue.

It's not the same, because you weren't running the film. But if we compare childhood to a film, most parents, like OP, run the best film they know how. If their child finds it wanting, is that really the fault of a well-intentioned parent who can hand-on-heart say that they have done their best? Some people are just entitled and, instead of being grateful for what they did have, choose to focus on their parents' inevitable imperfections.

I believe OP when she says she did her best. After all, she's remained calm in the face of some pretty nasty posts. She sounds nice.

Also, we don't know if the daughter really felt she could have stopped the sport anytime she wanted. It is also a weird thing to mention that she could have. Again, who needs to be convinced here?

She may not have felt that at all. You sometimes don't know what goes on in kids minds. I really take issue with the nice picture OP is painting that does not leave any curiosity about how the daughter might have experienced her upbringing.

You can do your best but still be open to the idea that some things may not have been optimal. Its totally normal to have had difficulty that may have a lasting impact. But parents need to acknowledge it and not rest on 'i did all i could'. In fact, any person should. Its how relationships work.

I’m 27 and I see quite a lot of this in people my age group. There’s a big thing at the moment around “boundaries”and “putting yourself first”, which in some cases is good, but sometimes it goes quite far and ends up with people pulling away from their families completely.

I don’t think it automatically means you’ve done something wrong. A lot of it is influenced by social media and therapy language, and people can end up viewing fairly normal relationships as “toxic” or something they need to distance themselves from.

There can also be a mindset of always prioritising your own needs no matter what, rather than trying to meet somewhere in the middle. It feels like everyone has a therapist these days and there’s a lot of navel gazing, with words like “trauma” being used very loosely among my friends, even when I KNOW that doesn’t reflect what their upbringing was actually like.

That said, turning up unannounced might have made her feel like her boundaries weren’t being respected, so it might help to acknowledge that and reassure her it won’t happen again, just to try and rebuild a bit of trust.

I would change your perception that you are a close family. You really aren’t. What you are is a high achieving competitive one. Which can bring all sorts of stresses. The expectations to achieve. Having anorexia would not make her childhood normal or good either. It is symptomatic of a problem somewhere.

It is not unusual these days for people to divorce their families if I can put it that way. People have very high expectations of how families should be and mothers in particular come in for tough assessments. Some of the assessments are fully justified. Little though is talked about siblings. And their impact on family life. And there will be one.

Tell her you love her. If that is hard, think about that.
Ask her siblings to contact her. The fact they don’t you might want to talk to them about.

Going by my experience, which is far from uncommon, my mum and dad would tell you I’ve inexplicably and unfairly gone low contact with them without a reason or an explanation. They will say this until they’re blue in the face. That doesn’t make it true. I’ve made my peace with the fact that this is probably what they are indeed saying to friends and wider family. All I know is that I’ve been trying since I was a child, and now I’m almost 40. So yeah. They know why.

There is some very research on anorexia says that it's been found to have a largely neurological basis.