My DD hasn’t spoken to me since early August 2025

[KJCP]

For years I would have said my daughter ( now late 40s) and I had a good relationship. She would ring me several times a week, send videos, ask my opinion about clothes she had bought, have a moan about work, friends etc and on Mothers Day would send the loveliest messages in cards. When she got married three years ago, she and her husband asked me and my husband ( her father) to go on a safari holiday with them ( at our expense!) but we were pleased to and had an enjoyable time. Then in July 2024 she was getting stressed about work and decided to see a therapist using the company’s health insurance scheme. The result was she was told to “set boundaries”. I was told in a text that my anxieties (???) were affecting her. I needed to address these “ anxieties” or she would cut all ties with me. Since neither I nor my husband had any idea what she was talking about, she cut off contact with me. ( she has sent the odd photo of holidays to her father but never to me) To say I am upset is an understatement. As my husband says we can’t force her to contact us but is this how my life will be? Has anyone had the same experience and has anyone any advice?

@FlyingUnicornWings I think I cross-post with you then. I agree with everything you have said, and you explained it much better than me!

@LeavesTrees you said it perfectly. Solidarity to you and much love as I know the depth of your pain 💐

Your DD is late 40s. Does she have children? I thought she must be 20s - stressing about everything and talking it through with you.
When did she marry?

I absolutely would not.

And I do think the variety of info available is helpful to an extent!

As I said in my post I have low contact with my own mother so I do understand why someone would cut or go low contact. I was thinking more about perceived trauma from benign parenting mistakes. None of us is a perfect parent and life throws so much at us as we parent that some level of harm is inevitable. If social media targets this pain it can actually exacerbate it rather than help. This is what worries me.

I'd like to know what OP's dd has done for her parents?

I don't believe you need therapy for that though. Just honesty, a willingness to listen and not be immediately dismissive and defensive.

But it’s possible that your dd is quite hard work and that she needs to get over that with some help.

Abusive, vindictive mothers sadly do exist I am not sure the OP is one.

How can you be so sure after 2 posts by op to have such sympathetic view of op? You don’t believe she needs therapy, you don’t think she is an abusive, vindictive mother, at the same time questioning if her daughter has done for her parents.

If it is possible that her dd is quite hard, why there is no possibility that op is hard work?

Should op not be happy such hard work dd has distanced herself from op?

This thread has been fascinating reading, and I can completely see both sides, but I am also really interested in the concept of how we view incidents from the child (especially as teens) and the parent's point of view.
This was brought home to be last night, dd (18) asked if we could eat early due to her going to a firework party.
I was surprised. The last 3 years we have not been to any fireworks, at dds choice, because they are too loud, and she gets overwhelmed by the crowds. So I asked her about that. Her response was both light hearted and serious - your guys refused to take me to fireworks, so this year I have made my own arrangements.
From her perspective we refused to take her. From my perspective, I asked, and tried to arrange and she said she wouldn't go because she hates fireworks and they are too loud etc etc.

She said last night - but Mum I LOVE fireworks. First I have heard of it! AIBU that I didn't take her? Or is she BU because she has changed her mind? (but in her view she has not changed her mind??)

This may be an insignificant incident, but it does highlight that in many situations there isn't actually a right and wrong. And teenagers do view things through their own emotional perspective, and that isn't always the whole picture.
Another example. Several times my kids have said we favoured our youngest.
This was never, ever by choice, and certainly does not reflect my emotions or how I love my kids, but she is autistic, and has needed loads more support than the others, and I can see why they sometimes think that. We have clearly told them how much we love them, that we are sorry if they feel that way and it was never our intention etc, and explained the additional needs etc, and tried to put in time alone with the other kids. As they have got older, I think they get it, but I also think at some level they still believe it. Which breaks my heart, because I adore all of my kids, and have always tried to be equal and fair with stuff.

What does disturb me on this thread is a very black and white view, as if there are only 2 options.

1. OP is lovely and her dd is the nightmare
2. dd is lovely and OP is the nightmare

In real life, the truth is always more complex and nuanced, and people are not perfect, and make mistakes, but I don't see that nuance from most posters.

They might tell them “lies” when they have a very strong narrative going as narcissists can, in which they do no wrong and are in fact the eternal victim, they may genuinely believe it to be true; or their main objective of getting the therapist to accept their narrative may mean they are happy to consciously sacrifice the truth or at least omit so much relevant information as to render what they do relate hopelessly corrupted.

I overheard my mum, who was in most ways a wonderful woman, do this with an NHS CBT therapist when discussing her marriage. My late father was far from perfect but they both played a strong part in a very unhealthy dynamic and my mum “lied” about it. In her case all the untruths were about centring herself as a neglected, overworked victim. The, very nice, therapist actually asked her if she thought my dad was a narcissist, which was quite funny because of the two, my mum had more narcissistic tendencies, I’m not qualified to say but I wouldn’t say she met the threshold for being a narcissist. My dad wasn’t remotely narcissistic but could be stubborn and selfish. I also heard my mum assure the therapist that luckily she didn’t care what people thought of her which honestly took my breath away as I’ve never met anyone who cared more.

The therapist was just a new audience to my mum. She was utterly resistant to any real self examination or examination of the past.

This. I do sometimes wonder if in putting children at the centre of everything we are storing up problems for the future.

Sometimes when a parent is always there, always available, endlessly patient, they are seen only as a parent and not a person with their own weaknesses, insecurities and difficulties. Their role is only to parent someone else.

My parents weren't perfect, I'm not perfect, I certainly had (probably still do) my moments of being a pain in the arse as a daughter.

My dad in particular is a bit lacking in certain areas but that's part of who he is (he's good in others) and I think accepting that is an important part of growing up.

Parents need to get their head around the idea that it's not about what exactly happend, who did what or didn't. It's about how it makes the child FEEL.

You will probably dismiss this and I don't know your dynamic. Were you maybe reluctant to go to fireworks even though you offered to arrange and your daughter picked up on this and said she didn't want to go to try and please? Be honest with yourself.

Even so. You both remember things differently and frankly, you are not more reliable than her in this. You might misremember sometimes and other times she might. Most parents think their account is accurate. I'm in my 40s now and I really don't know how you could think that. There are times I was deadset on something happening or that I did something only to realise later that I got it wrong. Are you suggesting this doesn't happen to you?

Do this: give each of you the benefit of the doubt and really mean it. Don't hold your version of events over her head. Support her in her current choices, and mean it. If you did wrong, forgot something etc don't insist and take accountability and tell her. The point here is to have a safe relationship and then it doesn't matter what happened 5 years ago. It won't cause trauma. Being dismissive, self righteous, domineering etc will cause trauma. If you model this and she feels safe then she can behave in the same way.

There's a very big difference in what you recount and what those parents say who reckon they have no idea why they've been cut off: you LISTENED to what your children had to say, talked it through with them, took accountability where necessary. Even if you don't agree with their recollection, you engaged with the problem and took steps to solve it. Mostly that's all it takes, but that's exactly what some parents won't do.

In our family my brother has always been the golden child. I see it, he fully admits it, other family members have commented on it. It's a bit of a joke among our wider family. My mother says we're all talking rubbish, she definitely doesn't have favourites - whenever anyone says anything that paints her in a bad light they're talking rubbish according to her. Now I'm over this, I no longer care, but neither do I have any respect or real love for her. I don't expect her to have been perfect but when my brother and I have tried to discuss issues her refusal to engage has been the far bigger problem. The gaslighting, the deflecting, the defensive anger and the outright bullshit are the things that have really ruined our relationship. If we'd ever been able to have a real, two-way conversation about anything, she might have a much better relationship with her children than she does.

wow, without knowing me you have made a HUGE pile of assumptions!
And painting in a whole new narrative of me being dogmatic, insisting I am right etc, which was not there in my account and not true.

I used a very simple example to illustrate the very point you make, that 2 people remember the same things very differently, and that NEITHER of them are right or wrong. That life is in fact more complex, that there is no way to say I was right or You were right, because it is all on subjective memory and yet you jump in totally on the side of the child, decide I am dogmatic and had an ulterior motive about the fireworks, I am insisting I am right and that I am unable to accept that my memory may be wrong etc. Which is actually funny, because the very point I was making is that we view the same incident from 2 very different perspectives.

And that is the problem. Making this always black and white. Life isn't like that.

Oh dear. That wasn't what I was trying to do at all.

How did my suggestion that it really isn't about what happened land? That the truth about events doesn't need to be established? All that matters is how someone feels. The body doesn't lie.

Oh dear. That wasn't what I was trying to do at all.
How did my suggestion that it really isn't about what happened land? That the truth about events doesn't need to be established? All that matters is how someone feels. The body doesn't lie.

Oh good grief
THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING

again, I will quote myself
that 2 people remember the same things very differently, and that NEITHER of them are right or wrong. That life is in fact more complex, that there is no way to say I was right or You were right

That is the whole point I am making.
and from my original post
but it does highlight that in many situations there isn't actually a right and wrong.

We are parenting in a time of great change. I wager very few of us were modelled emotional intelligence, for example, and then this younger generation are DEMANDING it froM us. And a lot of us are flailing about trying our best and getting it right sometimes and wrong others. I really resonate with you @steppemum as we had a period when our youngest was unwell and I was terrified and def emtionally neglected my other kids. I want to address it with them so they don't carry huge wounds into adulthood but it is tricky. I have spent a huge amount of time mount of time and effort (after seeking professional advice) and successfully rebuilt my relationship with one of them but the other is harder to reach. I will keep trying. I supposed what I am trying to say is that we have to give each other some grace.

My point is about how something feels to someone. How someone feels about something. If someone feels sad or disappointed then that is the reality. There are no two sides to how someone feels and it isn't complex.

I don't actually feel comfortable with your reaction in capital letters and your good grief reaction so will leave it there.

Are you willing to elaborate on "All that matters is how someone feels"?

I'm thinking there's a whole landscape between "All feelings are valid" and "Feelings are all that matter". Would you agree?

I apologise for the capital letters if they made you feel uncomfortable.

I didn't feel comfortable with the assumptions you made and the way you described me ether. You totally changed what I said.

I know your point is about feelings.
But you chose to re-interpret my posts as if I was saying something I wasn't, when in fact my points were in the same direction as yours.

I do agree that it matters what someone feels. But I don't agree that what someone feels is always the most important thing - hmm, that is not quite what I mean - perhaps to put it another way, that those feelings are always the responsibility of the other person.

To take a situation away from the parent /child situation.
If I walk down the road with a very large dog. The dog is well behaved and on a short lead. I see a family coming towards me on the pavement, I cross the road so that I am on the other pavement and walk on by.
One of the children is terrified of dogs, and starts to scream and cry as I walk past.
The feelings are valid, they are in response to my dog, but neither me nor the dog did anything. Am I responsible for the child's feelings? Should the parent shout at me for being unreasonable to walk down that street at that time?

There is an assumption that the parent is always in the wrong and that the child did not ask to be born, so their feelings are always valid. But I have watched situations (not talking about my own kids here) where the parent gets blamed by the child, particularly with teenagers, and yet it isn't as clear cut as that. The child is definitely upset, but sometimes by things outside the parent's control, or as a result of choices the child made. Or because any attempt to put in boundaries is causing huge anger and grief. Or even, (as I have seen with my autistic dd) because their view of the world cannot allow for certain things in it. In her case, if a friend makes a mistake, she is heartbroken, angry and unable to mend or repair the friendship, because her thinking is so black and white. Once a mistake has been made the friendship is over, even if the friend apologises. Feelings are strong, she is upset, but some of that is due to her, not the friend.
At what point do we expect teenagers to take some responsibility for their actions, which may lead to some of the feelings?
And even more for adult children? Where is that line?

This thread and many like it, assume a blame narrative, black/white, fault/no fault, good/bad. As I said before, either OP is horrible or the dd is, there is no middle ground.
I just think life is rarely like that, and most parent child situations are more complex, and that it would be more helpful for us to teach both sides to have grace. My own parents did some things I still feel angry about, but as an adult I can see why, and I am able to forgive, because most of their parenting was great. I am uncomfortable with the blame game I see on here.

(and I do just want to say that I totally understand that there are situations where NC is the only option and where parents are awful, and most of the parenting is NOT great etc)

I don't want to get into the semantics of feelings. It's besides the point. Whatever happened and whatever each person remembers with their mind isn't so important. Someone felt a certain type of way at the time - why not connect over that instead of going tit for tat and make it a science about truth. In an ideal scenario people are just misremembering things and acknowledge this might be a possibility. In another scenario someone might 'misremember' deliberately, which also makes the other party feel a certain type of way. What is important is to listen to that instead of trying to go over the truth over and over again. It's a trap.

Many nursery rhymes were written seriously and connected with things that had happened at the time. Many are from 18th century at the time of the Prince Regent. One that comes to mind is Tom Horner who pulled out a plum from the pie. The grand old Duke of York is another based on an episode in history. The ring a ring of roses goes back hundreds of years to plague.

They were written to lampoon people in society. Some were warnings, some just made interesting songs to sing to children. Not all nursery rhymes had their beginnings like that, but many did. I can well believe they were not sheep, but people who went away and eventually came back. Animals were used to avoid being sued for slander.

In my opinion it all comes down to this, using the dog example: if someone (adult) feels a certain type of way it is not on you to fix their feelings, but depending on your relationship you could consider their feelings. As a dog owner I am guessing you know that some people are scared of dogs. So the child was scared. I would probably understand that the child is scared and apologise - not to acknowledge wrongoing but to show you understand how it must feel for them. Or I might just say 'I know this is scary for you' and move on. It doesn't dismiss the child but you also don't need to feel guilty for walking your dog.

Unfortunately, you keep talking about blame and mistakes, most of the parenting NOT great, a few things your parents did etc. I actually refuse now trying to explain estrangement and the how and why to someone who hasn't estranged themselves. It's impossible. It's like trying to explain Chinese.

I think taking the context away from a parent child dynamic isn’t relevant in this situation.

I do agree with you that none of us are perfect parents, and that all of us have different memories of the same incidents because everything is subjective. The issue is, as I’ll say a little louder for those at the back, how the parents respond to a child/adult child pulling them up on parenting that hurt them.

You can say “I remember it differently, but I take your feelings on board and I am sorry that it happened and hurt you”. If you come at it from that angle, then the likelihood of you getting cut out of their life is slim to none, and if they do still cut you out then I agree that the problem is with the child, not you.

Or you can deflect, gaslight, be angry, accusing, you can bring transactions into the narrative (but I did this for you/I sacrificed for you/I paid for this for you), and you can be offended and make no effort to understand your child’s feelings or take any accountability for the fact you hurt them (even if you do remember it differently). If you act this way and you get cut off then you fully deserve it.

I think bringing it back to the OP, and her situation…if she’s honest with herself about which of the two above camps she sits it, then she might understand her daughter’s reasons a bit more.

And I do think it’s this black and white. Not the memories, they never are, but how you react as a parent when your child is hurt is as simple as this.

With respect, you’ve never had a narcissist adult child that made your life hell. I took my son to see a counsellor to try and find out why he hated me so much because he treated me so badly. Despite several sessions he could not come up with one serious thing I’d done or said to make him feel that way. I genuinely wanted to know what I’d done so I could apologise and move on but no, nothing. We no longer speak because of him, not me. He destroyed me and I’ll never know why?

He joined several sessions with you. He must've been hoping for a resolution, some mutual understanding. I'm sorry it didn't work out. Did your sessions change the way you saw anything in your shared past?

He couldn't come up with one serious thing? Who decided whether they were serious or not?

For some posters, the child can do no wrong and is never mistaken. Only parents are capable of that and must take accountability and grovel for forgiveness, because the word of the child is infallible.

You provided a very good example of how recollections can differ. It might have been a misunderstanding of wants/needs. In any case, it's not the kind of issue that would break a relationship on its own.