Can’t stop feeling miserable after argument with adult daughter

[Jynxed]

My daughter lives abroad and I had a long standing arrangement to go and stay with her for a couple of weeks to help her with a piece of work. On only the second night there I was invited to a bar with her and some of her colleagues and the conversation turned to how an aspect of the work was carried out. My daughter thought I was being negative, she stormed out of the bar stating that she thought I was there to support not criticise, and the group turned on me. I had not meant to be critical and was devastated by this.

I went back to my daughter’s flat without her, and she came back very late after staying out with her friends. The next day was a day off and I left her sleeping and went off to visit a nearby town (after messaging telling her where I was going and when I would be back). I had a horrible day wandering around in the rain just staying out of everyone’s way. I returned just in time to meet her and her friends going off out for a meal, and I was not invited to join them. I sat in the flat alone too miserable to find anything to eat myself.

When she had not returned by bedtime I messaged her to say that I thought I should probably return home the next day as clearly this was unsustainable. I was using my precious leave all on my own with nothing but bad vibes around me. I was no longer useful or wanted there. I saw my daughter briefly before I left the next morning and she repeated that she thought I had been critical, but seemed to have extrapolated everything I had said on to the next level, and added in many things I had not said at all.

Two weeks later and I am still really unhappy and unable to get over this. I hate having to explain to people why I came back early, and I constantly feel that I am in the wrong place and should still be abroad with my daughter. I feel like I messed up and failed badly. I am so sorry if I said something I shouldn’t, but I didn’t start the conversation and really dont think I said anything awful. But the discussion seemed to go ballistic without warning or provocation.

My daughter and I have exchanged polite enquiry messages but nothing more. I feel that something I had looked forward to for ages has gone horribly sour and my relationship with my daughter has been badly damaged.

How do we recover from this? I am so upset .

Sounds like you’ve got a good understanding of the situation.

Did you apologise before you left?

I’ll try and answer the various questions as best I can. She is late 20s (& I am late 50s if relevant). The organisation she works in is humanitarian not business and involves volunteers for some roles, which is how I was there. The topic was about the recruitment and management of those volunteers. Yes I apologised at the time, but for upsetting them not for the comments I made as I still stand by them. I cannot rescind the comments, they were genuinely made, and could possibly help them. But I wish my advice had not been sought or I had declined to answer as I obviously did not put it well. I have not decided that I know the problem beyond miscommunication and misunderstanding (like in many things). I have acknowledged my fault in these things.

I will certainly explore with her whether she finds me too critical and apologise for embarrassing her.

Mmm, I think most pp are being harsh here. None of us were but I think it was very childish of your DD to ask for your opinion and then storm off.

I do feel sorry for you. My mother is no longer alive but she and I used to clash terribly so often and would write notes to each other when both had calmed down. I regularly think about my temper and her temper and regret many of my words spoken in haste and anger. I'm sure your daughter is feeling a bit like this too but you both really need to have an adult chat about it. Mothers and daughters can really have a tricky dynamic when temperaments clash. In the meantime please stop beating yourself up about what happened. It's done but you both need to get on the phone and chat.

Your DD sounds childish and immature in how she handled it.
And OP, sorry, you sound prickly and formal.

At the end of the day, if you want to repair your mother-daughter relationship, you'll need to be the bigger person (you are older, wiser, and a Mum!) and take the lead.

Undoubtedly your daughter has many grudges, issues, upsets and hurts relating to you under the surface.

You need to be ready and open to hear these, which will take some strength. Counselling might be helpful.

Can you travel back out there, to have these difficult conversations face to face? It's so easy to let close relationships like this deteriorate when you live in different countries, and SO hard to get them back again.

OP, as an exercise, before you speak to her, do you think you could express here what you think you did wrong, without following it up with a justification?

She says she didn’t want to have the conversation in a public place which is why she left. The context is the very stressful environment they are all in. 50% of the small group of core staff there were completing the contracts and will leave soon (including my daughter). The reaction to this was stress on behalf of those who will be left behind and will have to train the replacements, a “no longer my problem “ attitude from some leaving, and a “I have to ensure ever is perfect before I go “ mentality from others (especially my DD). It was a powder keg and I lit the fuse.

this. I don't think that was ever going to end well. Sorry

I just can't decide on this one. She wanted you to help and you gave up your time to do that. Perhaps that was too big of an expectation. Now tempers have got in the way and so you are in a position where you have to suck it up or not help, which means she will feel let down. its quite a knotty problem to unpick
1 )On one hand, it may be that you were very critical of your daughter.
2) On the other hand, you were offering your annual leave to give 3 weeks free labour to help her out. Maybe your comments were misinterpreted?
but Your dd hasn't covered herself in glory and was the first to storm out. I question if she would have treated a paid assistant the same way?

There seems to be a lot of friends and colleagues who are getting involved in the situation and are not helping.
Are they being rude, or genuinely just trying to stand up for your daughter ( but at her age can't she talk to you herself) ... either way, it must have been hard to have an entire group "Turning" on you. If that's quite a big reaction. They must have seen that you were upset.
It really depends on what you said to your DD and how you said it. It sounds like there's some history there. I think you need to be honest with yourself about that. Sometimes DC can really misinterpret things that may be said in innocence, but they see it as one in a series of adverse comments and perhaps this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Talking it through is the only way to fix that I think and explaining to each other what caused the upset. Both both of you seem to deal with difficult situations by leaving.

There's a lot of talk about how high pressure the project is.. doesn't sound like that's helped the situation.
You were staying in a small flat together, and if they all went out to eat without discussing it with you or inviting you, that sounds really harsh and really rude. So if they were being mean and giving you the cold shoulder 1) that's really unkind, 2) I can see why you didn't stay to be treated badly. It depends on whether they talked to you at all or just ignored you completely before you left. If they were ignoring you, I'd take that as a signal to go. Did your daughter check that there was anything for you to eat? Did they have a good reason for going out without you.

So its really hard to say who is right and who is wrong in this situation, other than you need to talk to your DD without all the hangers on, without either of you storming off, and work out if you can both bury the hatchet to complete the project or find a way to get on with each other.

I think your tone still implies in lots of ways that you are the injured party and she is being unreasonable - 'it seems' 'obviously'. When my mum uses this language it really gets my back up as she isn't actually interested in really understanding why I feel the way I do, and the undercurrent is that you do not accept yourself that she is allowed to feel this way. Can you put aside your hurt feelings and just be curious to understand her position? Or is it most important to you to decide who is 'right' here?

Sorry cross posted but I see you updated.
Re your daughter saying she left because she didn't want to have the discussion in public. She could just as easily have said. We need to talk about this privately. lets go outside to discuss this. Leaving you at the table with all her colleagues in a huff does sound very immature. But also you could have said to her in the morning that you could discuss it with her at home or let her know that you were going out to give her some space. As I said the high pressure nature of the project isn't helping much and perhaps this is something that will take time to fix.

I dunno....it sounds like an identitiy clash a bit to me. Either someone's Mum is someone's Mum and is treated with the respect you'd accord a visiting mum or they are an equal status work colleague who is not a part of the team who has made critical and hurtful comments......as i said, never going to end well.

You are right, it’s clearly a family trait to run away from stressful situations!
There is certainly no clear right and wrong in the situation. Thank you all for your perceptive comments which I will give further thought. An open conversation acknowledging my faults and apologising if I was too critical or embarrassing will certainly be part of it. I have to go out now, but appreciate all your comments.

not to kick you while you are down but many years ago it was pointed out to me that "I am sorry if I was" is not a complete apology because the apologiser hasn't accepted what they did. A complete apology is "I am sorry that I was" or "I am sorry because I was" edited for typo

OP I would have left early too. Leaving you to walk back to the apartment alone was immature and selfish.

I don’t think I would have stayed either as clearly she didn’t want to be around you at that point and made it quite clear.

Let it pass. Dont apologise again - you’ve tried to make amends.

She is an adult and you dont have to beg for her forgiveness. Im travelling to see my dd (28) and if she behaved like this I’d be fuming.

She was extremely sensitive because she most likely doubts herself - and yes she might have wanted mummy to keep her mouth shut and clap like a seal - but you pointed out a potential issue and if she can’t handle that - that’s on her not you.

Keep in loose contact, let the steam run out and it will all pan out. But I also think she needs to grow up - what she did wasn’t fair at all.

Stop apologising though 💐

Oh get lost. Ffs. 🤦‍♀️

On the surface of it, your daughter losing it for a single negative comment seems extreme on her part.

On the other, your style of writing about this is really dramatic - sadly wandering around in the rain, "staying out of people's way", "too miserable" to eat. Really?

@godmum56 is right, if you're not going to apologise properly you're better off not doing it at all.

Its odd that you demand apologies is such a specific way. Really controlling and bullying tbh

If someone said ‘I’m sorry if I pissed you off, I didn’t mean to’ - would you go in a strop and say ‘nooooooo say it like this… copy my exact words…’ 🙄

I think mixing visiting your dd with work was probably a bad idea. Your dd will take everything personally because you're her mum 🤷‍♀️

I would be upset if my mum flew over to see me and then critiqued as aspect of my work, it's all a bit too intense.

Work and family is best kept separate I think.

That said your dd sounds like she went ott (unless there's a backstory of you being a critical parent?)

No but I would think they are not taking responsibility for what they are apologising for.

I think it all sounds a bit unfortunate but you were in quite a vulnerable position in a strange place with people who were cold shouldering you -- and when you were giving up leave to work for free!

I probably would have left too.

If you've apologised then just leave it. Don't mix work with pleasure again.

And when making arrangements with her bear in mind she's a bit volatile and unreliable - have your own accommodation and plans.

Not literally - metaphorically…
The op suggested something mildly critical, maybe doing something a different way, having been called in to help, and her dd and colleagues rounded on her. Unless she called them a bunch of incompetent idiots, which I don’t think she did, then she shouldn’t have to put up with such behaviour.