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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

have sent my 19 year old dd to stay at grannies

71 replies

lolaflores · 03/06/2012 12:01

due to outrageous behaviour over the course of the weekend and total lack of even common courtesy to let us know what was happening. which meant we spent 3 hours waiting for her without any lunch whilst she had a leisuryely meal with the rest of the family elsewhere.
upon her return home I very calmly asked for an explanation as to why she didn't answer our calls or text earlier or even for that matter what she thought we were doing for 3 hours?
All of which she said she either didn't know or care in reply. Add in a very generous dollop of sarcasm and self pity " you ruined my birthday, you do this every year, its always about you..."
As things were escalating I said to her to go to grannies till things calmed down.
So she went
Now the remainder of the family are saying that I have behaved unreasonably, my mother has encouraged DD to abuse me verbally as I deserve it so on

How did this end up this way? Why do I feel guilty

OP posts:
squeakytoy · 03/06/2012 12:05

She is an adult though, not a child.

If she hadnt answered within half an hour, you should have just got on with your meal without waiting any longer, not sat around getting hungry for 3 hours!

Dont feel guilty.

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 12:07

But she told us we were all supposed to be there. but they just went off to eat somewhere else .....
I feel confused and bullied to be honest.

OP posts:
datingadviceagain · 03/06/2012 12:09

Oh Lola, I've been there myself. My sixteen year old and I had a terrible disagreement about not very much and she went to live at my mother's for about 3 months. She said to me only last week (she's 34 now) that she realises she was a terrible teen and I think that was by way of an apology for alienating herself from me. We are as close as close as can be now. We have a healthy respect for each other and I firmly believe that we have a strong bond because we both know what is was like to lose each other, even for just a short term a very long time ago.

I too had to admit that I was inflexible and not willing to let her grow up and make her own mistakes so maybe can I suggest that you give some thought to not only her behaviour and motivations but also your own? Hard, I know! Good luck.

squeakytoy · 03/06/2012 12:10

Did you know who she was with? Was it a meal you had booked in a restaurant, or was it just a casual arrangement?

HecateTrivia · 03/06/2012 12:11

She's an adult who is behaving badly. Let her stay at her grandma's. Just let them get on with it.

She'll no doubt pull the same shit there in the end. Then they'll see.

How awful of them that they are encouraging her to hurl abuse at you. Don't feel guilty. Wait patiently for her to turn her 19yr old gobby crap on them.

yellowraincoat · 03/06/2012 12:12

She is an adult. If she is continuing to live with you, you need to set down some adult rules. She needs to pay rent, if she doesn't already.

Next time, just go without her.

IMO she is looking for independence. Maybe it's hurtful, but I couldn't be bothered with my parents at that age - it was pretty easy for me because I moved out at 17.

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 12:14

squeaky she was with my family, my sisters and mother. I tried to ring my sister but no answer. texted DD but she answered about 1 hour half later. The arrangement had been made to meet at sisters house after they had gone shopping. We had cancelled a resteraunt as this is what she wanted to do, she told us what time to be there at and so on and just left us standing like plums.

they don't help to be honest. the bit is that no one bothered to find out where we were.

OP posts:
Selks · 03/06/2012 12:15

Sounds like there could have been some kind of mix-up? She feels that you have ruined her birthday... You are cross with her... Why not try talking up her.

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 12:15

She is at university, she is home now. She has a part time job. she wants the independence but the full ability to take the piss as and when she wants.

OP posts:
Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 12:17

there was just a blatant don't give a tinkers about what happened. that possibly got my goat more than anything else.

OP posts:
squeakytoy · 03/06/2012 12:36

Did you stand outside someones house for hours?

I am a bit confused though. Who wanted to go to a restaurant? Who booked the restaurant?

Would it be fair to say that you try to "interfere" a bit in her life?

Teens are fickle, unreliable, and a pain in the arse much of the time. I brought three of them up, and to be honest at 19, I would have just left them to do their own thing, and not made any arrangements if there is a history of unreliability.

RabidAnchovy · 03/06/2012 12:42

She sounds terrible, tell her to move out of your home as she clearly has no respect for you.

LynetteScavo · 03/06/2012 12:57

So were you waiting for her outside your sisters house? You waited for 3 hours? Confused

shadowland · 03/06/2012 13:20

Ah, I'm sorry this has happened with birthday expectation to add to the drama. Having a time to cool off, for both of you, I think is good. I wonder if all sorts of mixed messages between other family members all contributed to it too.
Has such behaviour happened before?
My suggestion is maybe to have a drink and meal with your daughter, just the two of you, after your breathing spaces, to try and calmly explain how each of you feels and for apologies to be said and then to hopefully move on....

LineRunner · 03/06/2012 13:25

What did your DD's reply to your text say, the one she sent after an hour and a half?

Were you outside your sister's house all this time?

Wow.

LineRunner · 03/06/2012 13:27

Just to add - your DD's not doing this on her own. Sadly your mother and sisters appear to be fully complicit in the family's disrepect of you. [Knows from experience.]

MrsTrellisOfSouthWales · 03/06/2012 13:28

Sounds like your sisters and mother are not innocent in this either?

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 13:37

I waited in my sisters house with brother in law. We were expecting them all at 1.00pm as I had been told to do by DD1. Txtd dd "u guys still shopping" to which the answer was "yer, still eating". No one said they were having lunch, we thought everyone was going to be at my sisters. we phone folk but there was no replys. Alot of confusion in all honesty, but she was the one that knew where we were and we were waiting for her and everyone else. She made the arrangements supposedly and said that this is what she wanted to do though she had previously said she wanted to go to a resteraunt with us.

My mother and one sister in paticular have lots of form for this carry on. Excluding myself, my husband and smallest DD frequently. My mother is a 20 minute walk away from my house, lucky if we see her once a month. My mothers dislike for me is evident and I think this spill over in DD1 (from a previous relationship and all of that). Any situation like this, I am blamed in some way, DD 1 is believed implicitly and I get the big villain hat to wear.

My middle sister is now trying to broker a peace. I have ongoing mental health problems which are often pointed out to be the root of the problem with DD1. My bipolar status is used against me as a stick though I am trying to manage it as best as possible (medication etc. CBT) but it is as if they think I do it on purpose, or something.

OP posts:
yellowraincoat · 03/06/2012 13:40

lolaflores, that sounds like a horrible situation.

I'd sack the lot of them (not including your daughter) until they can learn to not act like an arse.

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 13:43

I have been giving my sister and mother a wider berth. I have weaned myself off the need for my mother's approval which I think she has clocked onto and now cannot wait for a chance to be provocative/be foul.

I have lost weight recently. My middle sister said "you look so well, lost so much weight "
My mother chimed in "I got this book about toning up big fat bellies if you want it"

Deep sigh

OP posts:
LineRunner · 03/06/2012 13:43

I would get DD home and away from your mother, tbh; and give it a day or two and then, like shadowland says, have a birthday lunch out and a nice chat about boundaries. Maybe not talk about feelings just yet; but certainly talk about and lay down some boundaries and rules about contact and respect both ways.

Let your sensible middle sister help, if she can.

Good luck with the CBT; it can be a really excellent help.

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 13:49

Ta very much linerunner. That sounds like a plan that means there are fewer parties sticking oars in as it suits their purposes.
Middle sis is great and tries to understand as best anyone can with mood disorders. others conveniently forget and then I am accused of all sorts of infamy. My illness is an excuse. Sometimes things are hard for me as it is so difficult to know what is real and what is the fictions that sometimes my head can throw in. I can be ill enough to hallucinate and when I do feel well or stable, I don't trust it and find the things that some other people handle easily very difficult to manage. Or am I looking for a get out clause?

OP posts:
diddl · 03/06/2012 13:57

So she should have met you for lunch but had lunch with your mum & one of your sisters without saying anything?

And you spoiled it all?

Sorry, but that is beyond rude & I´d be so upset I´d quite happily pack her off elsewhere.

Original poster
lolaflores · 03/06/2012 13:59

that diddl is about the lenght and breadth of it. Nasty old mummy.

OP posts:
diddl · 03/06/2012 14:20

She´s already left home-but can´t be bothered to stick to an arrangement when she visits?

OK-but then you have the decency to let on that other plans have been made.

Maybe there was coercion-but she could still have let you know.

And I guess she expects to stay during all Uni holidays & to be fed & have her laundry done??!!

Sounds terribly hurtful & I´m not surprised you feel that enough is enough.

Who thinks that you have done the wrong thing-your Mum & sister who lunched with her?