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 .

Get on a plane. Apologise in person.
Even if you don't feel you were in the wrong, give her some grace and accept that that she may be in a difficult place.
The most important thing is to preserve your future relationship with her.

No, don't get on a plane! That will be repeating the same me-me-me drama queen pattern yet again.

DD was having a hard time at work. OP volunteered to help and then made it about her when things went wrong. She made things worse.
OP then dramatically left, having stirred things up and complicated an already very difficult time for DD.
Now you're proposing OP sweeps dramatically back in like some kind of desperate saviour, begging forgiveness — yet again it's the OP Show.

No! Not unless OP wants her daughter telling everyone her mum's a total narcissist.

A private, quiet, sincere message or letter with a simple, genuine and unqualified apology (no explanation, no self-justification, no 'but I still stand by my belief I was right') and leave it there.

Your daughter and her colleagues sound very immature, stroppy and unprofessional.
You were invited to join them as a colleague, and as such, should be able to raise concerns about work and be listened to and responded to in a professional manner.
But in this instance, when you raised a concern your daughter has reacted to you as her mother, not as her colleague, and her colleague/friends have seen her reaction and jumped on the bandwagon instead of staying professional and neutral.

I actually think you did the right thing going out for the day afterwards to allow some space for everyone to calm down.
Then your daughter was wrong to go out without you that evening, that should have been the time to talk it through. Especially given that you'd travelled overseas to be with her.
But then you were wrong to leave the next day. If you'd stayed the two of you could have talked it through and moved on.

Perhaps agree that you won't work together again but get another visit arranged to spend time together as mother/daughter so this doesn't fester.

You were invited to join them as a colleague, and as such, should be able to raise concerns about work and be listened to and responded to in a professional manner.

I thought I'd read all the OP's posts but I must have missed a couple from the look of it. Can you point out where OP was invited as a colleague?

From what I can see she went because she was DD's parent and there was a short-term volunteering opportunity. It wasn't her role to waltz in and tell her DD and colleagues where they were going wrong. As a new volunteer you do what you're asked to do, you don't start telling the people managing you what they should be doing.

@Jynxed I'm sorry, I'm devastated but....I was right

really does not cut it 🤦

I think you need to take ownership and apologise. If you read your post and your updates they do come across as you not really being able to take responsibility for your part in the situation.

Youll never move past this if you can’t say sorry even if inside you are still feeling sorry for yourself.

And there's the problem. Right there

You're hell bent on sticking by your professional comments and they take precedence over your relationship with your daughter

Shocking

You won't mend bridges this way, that's for sure

So you should just lie? Why ask for her mums advice then get offended by it? Parents should just blindly agree?

A wise parent should absolutely know when to hold their tongue. A wise parent wouldn't have flown out to wherever in order to 'help' their child in their work. A wise parent wouldn't have expected to spend three weeks in a small apartment DD shares with a friend and expect to be included in DD's social life. A wise parent wouldn't have swanned off for the day in a passive-aggressive 'I'll just keep out of your way' way. A wise parent should be able to get herself home and not expect to be escorted. A wise parent wouldn't have posted on here that they were too miserable, not being included in DD's night out with friends, to find something in the kitchen to eat. A wise parent wouldn't have flounced off or apologised for what they said while still insisting they were right.

Give an opinion to family

Give professional advice when you're being paid for it

There's a big difference in the way opinions/professional advice are expressed

This, also, stop being so hard on yourself. Are you usually a critical parent?
You sound heartbroken, give it time, apologise if you truly feel you were in the wrong, if not let her come to you.
Let some time pass, tell her you love her, then forget about it ❤️ x

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.

^ This is the bit of your post that gets me, OP. I think you tried emotionally manipulating her with the "poor me, nobody loves me" type message, designed to make her rush back to say no, no, I love you, don't go, but she'd had enough and didn't want to play the game, so she didn't beg you to stay like you wanted.

The lesson from this is that your dd is now clearly too old for you to play these games with. You need to apologise wholeheartedly for all of it. You are her mother, first and foremost, and putting her down in front of her colleagues makes you look small (even if your 'point' was technically correct).

Thanks for the education. I'm sure many parents are enriched by your wisdom. So in other words a "wise parent" should be a perfect robotic human being with no opinions, no sentience, no emotions. They must never get remotely upset and they must agree at all times with their offspring. Preferably they should keep their mouths shut, other than to smile in the right places and speak only when offering money or other material benefits. A wise parent, even when explicitly invited to stay with their offspring for 3 weeks and asked to help with a project, should possess the minimum psychic ability to know their child doesn't mean a word of it. Likewise, a wise parent should know that any seemingly civil invitation out for a drink or a meal with said offspring should not be accepted. Wise parents do not socialise, under any circumstances whatsoever, with their children. They should accept that they are not "normal" guests and therefore do not qualify (or have the right to hope for) for the basic courtesy or acknowledgement offered to other people because they are "wise parents".

Fuck me too much drama. I mean if you disagree with someone's ideas or comments you simply smile politely and say something mundane like 'that's a good point, we'll have a think on it" or 'that might be something to consider' and then toss the idea silently aside.
I mean if you were rude and said something like 'dd that's a stupid idea, you need to do XY and Z,' fair enough I can see she might be hurt, but if you said something like,
'Have you thought about...."
'We use this ...."
"I've found doing ....."
"I think if you plan for A, B and C, you might find X Y and Z easier"
Then her reaction was totally OTT.

But if she's super wound up, my advice would be to let the storm settle, leaver her to fester quietly and get on with the job in hand. When you next see her, I'd just let sleeping dogs lie and not mention the incident and unless she wants to discuss it, in which case, I'd let her lead the conversation and make innocuous comments of a slightly placating nature.

I'd love to know what was actually said and if there's a reason why your daughter flew off the handle. For example, does she often feel you're negative and critical and this was the final straw?
If it was me I couldn't rest until I'd had a proper conversation with her. I'd explain how unhappy I was about the argument and I'd want to discuss what was said and why she was so unhappy. I'd want to know if she found me negative in general or just during that conversation. There's no way I could have left her house without discussing all this. But it's not too late. You can still have a heart to heart.

Are you all right there? You seem to have gone off-piste.

No, of course I don't think parents should be total martyrs. That's you being passive aggressive.

But I do think that a mature adult should know better than to criticise their child in front of her friends/ colleagues (and apparently critics them too.) No wonder there's such generational rancour. The OP's role (as others have recognised) was to be supportive, not negative or critical. I'm guessing from the DD's response that this probably isn't the first time mum has done something like this.

And I think that if you go somewhere to 'help' someone you should actually help them and not expect everything to revolve around you and your feelings. OP's idea of being helpful doesn't seem to be at all helpful.

You keep saying you stand by your comments. You may well do do but your daughter is unlikely to want to hear it. Just apologise without having to point out your comments were right.

I think there is lot projecting going on, on this thread!! Both sides are at fault. Never going to know the full scenario but I think people are being ridiculously harsh on the OP
and making up all kinds of backstory. It just sounds like a scenario that was ripe for a conflict of some sort.

Its not the end of the world; its just the world of adult daughters. They change from little maleable friends to something else. You thought you was being helpful but got your head bitten off because you are a human with opinions and A LIFE. Your daughter was reminded of your strength when you opened your mouth. They dont like us having a Life or an opinion. This is such a tough pill to swallow after all the effort we put in to THEM!!!!! I ve been there. All I can say is : They calm down when they marry but then theyre starting A New Life we ith someone else . There s no manual for this $π|t.

Some of these comments are unbelievably harsh. Your daughter invited you abroad to work with them, she and her colleagues sought your opinion, then went ballistic when you offered it, stormed off leaving you to make your own way home, and has barely talked to you since.
Short of you saying something really rude, she is completely out of line - and you were right not to stay and be her punching bag. You’re also right not to grovel now, unless you want to set a precedent that you can be subjected to verbal and emotional abuse at the slightest provocation.

I think absenting yourself the next day and especially leaving early may have been as upsetting or more upsetting than the initial behaviour. Or at least, they would be if I were in her shoes.

I agree, I get why you went out the next day, and she had dinner out separately. But the by the NEXT day you guys should have both calmed down enough to be able to talk through it and tried to work it out. Instead you abandoned her.

I think your daughter is the main one who could have handled this better - sounds like she's under stress and became (unexpectedly?) sensitive to perceived criticism, mainly because you're her mum. You'd flown out to see her, as you would with a close family member, and your professional advice - presumably on something you know about - was solicited. She stormed out of your evening then didn't make any effort to repair things the next day - ok, you could have hung around rather than gone out but you might have ended up with an incredibly uncomfortable day and I can see why you wanted to give her space.
You're obviously reflecting on this a lot, and I hope you can repair it, even if not instantly. I don't think you need to apologise, unless you can identify something you definitely did wrong. Don't apologise for offering your professional opinion. Focus on 'how can we put things right?' and - if/when she's prepared to talk properly to you - listen to what she has to say.

I don’t understand why you at no point tried to talk to her and apologise, saying that you didn’t mean to be critical and you admire her work. You’ve clearly hurt her feeling badly, even if it was unintentionally, but in no part of your account did you say that you ever actually properly apologised for that. You avoided her (well, you both avoided each other) the next day and then you told her over text that you would be leaving the day after that. As you were there to help, that also meant you were withdrawing the help she had been relying on. This is going to be difficult to fix but it needs to start with a full and frank phonecall where you apologise sincerely and she explains why she reacted so strongly to the criticism.

I agree with this.