Why does my 26 year old daughter hate me so much.

[cazakstan]

I have 2 daughters of 22 and 26. My eldest left home at 16 after an argument and for the past almost 11 years has visited and stayed occasionally. She's just finishing a masters degree and has nowhere else to live and so has been staying at home with myself, my partner and my younger daughter. I must admit my relationship is not fantastic...it's always hard with her...it's like she has always had a bee in her bonnet with me. It's easier with my youngest daughter...what you see is what you get and we have a great relationship...but...my eldest...god...for the past 11 years it's been like walking on egg shells...she criticises almost everything I do or buy for her. She,s well travelled, educated, has a steady boyfriend. It has been getting harder each visit. Yesterday she would not stop criticising my younger daughter...my mother was here visiting...my youngest ended up in tears and left...even after that my eldest did not let up.. even after I asked her several times and then told her to shut the fuck up. My mother said she thought WW3 was about to erupt...she offered to take my eldest home with her...I said that was a good idea...give the situation a couple of days to cool off. It ended up with my eldest saying that she would be homeless, not be able to finish her masters and that she would never see me again. My mother left with my eldest. I had little sleep last night. I messaged her this morning saying that I did not throw her out, that she needed to get on with her life and not be making comments on my daughters life or mine, also that she needed to lighten up. That I was her mother and that she would always be welcome home, that she needed us as a family. 10 minutes later she replied...we were not a family, we do not behave like a proper family, that she has got on with her life without a family and continue to do so. OMG. My mother phoned me early evening to say that my daughter needed her books and clothes...I said that since my daughter was being so nasty to me that it was maybe best that my partner drop her stuff off thus avoiding a confrontation between her and I. My mother passed the phone to my daughter who immediately called me two faced then said why can't I talk to her like an adult. I hung up. I hung up to avoid any arguments. So that's where I am...I love her but don't like her. I don't like her animosity towards me and I cannot bear to argue with her. I want her to be happy and to get over whatever it is that makes her hate me.

The thing with relatives is that they are your relative for life.

Running for the hills might be a solution to problems or a short term solution to a problem, but family members don't disappear.

Regardless of who is in the wrong, if anyone, there is a lot of advice here which might give the OP ideas or a different slant on things, which might help with her problem.

springy, what is your motive for being on this thread, as, according to you, we all speak tripe?

Springy I understand you come from a difficult background, we all have our filters. However what I have interpreted is both people involved recoiling in hurt. I am sure when the OP adds more detail then it will be clearer.

Caster8 For me the parent/child bond broke down when I was around eight or nine, and I found things a lot easier to deal with looking at my mother as a person and an individual with her own issues and stepped away from expecting a mother figure. For me, continuing to identify her as a mother and as someone who should have been there for me would have been far more damaging. It isn't ideal. However it made a continuing relationship possible. Effectively I had an 'adult to adult' relationship from around 9. Looking back I don't think the alternatives were much healthier.

I think a lot depends on what the OP wants as an end result. It may or may not be possible depending on the hurt on each side and the willingness of each party to work towards a common peace.

Gosh enough already...let's just take a chill pill eh. I have now read all the threads over again and have come to the realisation that no one relationship is perfect, particularly that between a mother and her daughter. We all have problems of one kind or another.
When I have a little more time I will come back...

I am glad that that worked for you LisaMed. It may work for the op too.

cazakstan. Glad to hear from you, this thread has a lot to take in and digest.

This maybe completely irrelevant but...if OP's daughter is doing a master's, and has moved home because she has nowhere else to go, presumably for financial reasons, how did she afford to go to Buenos Aries, New York, Australia where she left the young man, and now Japan for a whole month? I work full time and no longer have dependants and I could not afford all these trips unless I saved up for about five years.

Not all, but certainly the vast majority on this thread. And, again oddly, I'm not contributing to this thread to talk to you.

If someone posted that their husband was shouting at them etc., treating them like shit; and people posted that it was the wife's fault: she should learn to placate him, show and tell him she loved him, understand that he may be stressed or frightened, look after him; that the reason he was being so awful was because she wasn't doing a proper job and, essentially, it was her fault he was so awful...

you'd be angry about it. You'd think it was outrageously blind, misguided. But that's what people thought back in the day, before they/we were educated to know differently. That ignorance is exactly what is being displayed on this thread and I'm flagging it up, tis all.

lisa - totally get it and it has worked for me too. accepting someone isn't, hasn't been and is incapable of being your mother frees you to deal with them as they are and set the boundaries where they need to be.

if my mum was springy the boundaries would be about 100m square enforced by a court order.

Really cannot be doing with the strange arguments on this thread about whose advice is best. OP, you know that we don't know anything remotely close to the whole story and you must take or leave what you wish in the context of your reality.

Anyway, OP, this is just a thought, a gut reaction to your posts, so feel free to ignore, and I am sorry if it is barking up the wrong tree. But - could it be possible that your daughter has witnessed or been subject to some kind of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) at the hands of your stepfather and/or mother at any time while in their care? I ask because rage can be directed at the person(s) who are perceived to have enabled an abuse situation to occur (however unfair that may be). Just a possibility, but she knows nothing, as you have said, about what you went through at their hands and may find it hard to turn to you (she may feel disbelieved or simply feel a lack of trust in how she thinks you may react)? I find it incredible that a man who tried to kill you would treat her with kindness...

You are coping with having that despicable man (and his wife) in your life bloody well, btw. I cannot begin to imagine the feelings that you must have knowing that he is even allowed to breathe the same air as you by your own mother. Your family situation sounds deeply complex, to say the least. Probably cod psychology here but perhaps you are dissociating to a degree to cope with all of that shit, never mind everything else.

And, FWIW, you are breaking the cycle by even being aware that things are bad, that they need questioning. Keep on going forward with your love for your daughters paramount and build bridges with the eldest. Your actions will speak volumes to your DD.

Best of luck.

Springy - it reminds me slightly of the thread where the old guy was so sad about losing his dds forever and just wanted to talk about it. The wife had an affair, got rid of him by a trick, did everything in her power to stop him ever seeing them again and succeeded. The oldest daughter, an adult now, told him he was a wicked evil bastard and to get lost forever when he tried to contact her.
But the view here was that the wife was pure white and blameless, the daughter was pure white and blameless but the father was one of the most wicked selfish old pricks who'd ever walked this earth. His thread was even deleted for 'nefarious intent'. WTF?

Even if the daughter is abusive, the mum is abusive, the granny is abusive, the step dad is abusive, then what?
Previous methods have not worked very well.
According to springey, virtually everyone is talking tripe.
Lets all stop talking.

Oh wait, The op would like help support and advice. Lets turn her away eh?

You springey have said you do not have the courage to talk on Mn about your problems. But this mum has. Great for her I say.
She has taken a lot of stick, but is still here.

She wants people tp take a chill pill. Good.
From previous days on here, she comes back properly when everything has calmed down. Good for her. She has enough angst going on in her rl already.

Evening.

Just a polite request for you to remember our talk guidelines before you post.

Wishing you all the best, cazakstan.

You call what has happened on this thread 'help and support' ??

Neither of my daughters have suffered any abuse whatsoever...FYI my stepfather has had no contact with them.
Even though my eldest left home at 16...up until then we were as happy and content as any family could be...My eldest just like most teenagers went through a rebellious stage that perhaps wasn't handled as well as it could have been at the time...plus there was the outside influences of her best friends mother and my mother.
We got over that...and even though my eldest didn't live at home I was there for her at all times...she went to college, then uni. She travelled as most kids do...she must be the only kid that backpacked south east asia for 4 months and phoned her mum everyday...the first call being at 2am here the 1st day of one of her trips...she was in Bangkok and her bags were elsewhere in the world..several phone calls later around the world and I got her bags to her the very next day...and that's how it's been I have always been there for her and she has always turned to me.
Even though my daughters are grown up we still do family stuff...trips to the beach, family holidays in Thailand, feeding the ducks in the park...just normal stuff. I really thought that everything was ok...that we had a good relationship.
Then her boyfriend went to oz and she went to join him after a couple of months....we had tears and tantrums over whether it was the right thing for her to do. She was there for a year...she came back last September to do her masters...her bf wasn't sure what he was going to do...he ended up staying...apparently to save money to buy a house for them both...Anyway...I do know that she has had several ups and downs with this relationship, that and the pressures of cramming a 2 year masters into 1 year has I think driven her a little crazy.
I do know that she's left my mothers and has returned back down south today to stay with a friend...so hopefully my mother will not be able to influence her any longer.
Posting on here has helped me in seeing my own mother for what she is.
I will do anything to protect my children and for them not to have the family history that I have.
My youngest daughter is here with me...cheesy movie time...partners in bed...only thing missing is my eldest.
Think she could do with a kick up the backside at times...I miss her already and she's off travelling again in 2 weeks. I will endeavour to contact her every couple of days...hopefully she'll miss me too.
Bloody kids...bloody family's...

ah now, cramming a 2-year masters into 1 year - yes, that could definitely flip her a bit.

I think we've established my opinion that being abusive is not an acceptable (or constructive) response to stress, but I can quite see how she could be under enormous pressure. No excuse though, ultimately.

I'd love to talk to you more but the wolves are circling... Maybe another day in another life LOL

I hope you get through this, you and she. Nothing like the pain of it eh.

Goodness knows why she is trying to cram a two year masters into one year. They are two years for a reason.
No wonder your daughter went off on one this time.

Glad stepfather has no contact with them.

You sound like you are doing your best.
And she is under massive stress all round.
Hopefully when her masters is finished, which I presume in this case is at the end of August, and when she may or may not be a bit more reconciled with her botfriend, then you and her will be able to make progress with your relationship.

Glad the "tripe" on this thread is helping you. Another poster cannot hope to know what is helpful to an op or not.

I am concerned by something springy wrote upthread. She said[I think] that "abusive" children should be treated the same as if you were in a domestic abuse situation with a spouse or partner.
I do not agree with this.
A child, no matter how old, is not the same as a partner. The essential relationship between the two is nowhere near the same, and should not even be compared.
[yes I know this is going to flare up springy, but I cant not say anything. I would hate for mums to read this up and down the land, and start writing off their children].
I am sorry for your predicament springy, but I dont think a mother has even a right to effectively wipe out their children. To give up on them. To label them in this way.

So in addition to Buenos Aries, New York, Australia, and now Japan, she also did a four month trip to SE Asia?

I'll say the question again - how come she can afford these trips (and paying for a masters course, which is not cheap) but not afford to have somewhere to live? Something, literally, doesn't add up. I could not afford a four month trip anywhere, no matter how budget the airline or how shit the accommodation.

By the way, I used to work in a London university and master's courses are about 10k. The cost of all those trips - I don't know - another 10k?

I am hearing you Lois.

Most master's students I ever met (and I met a lot) were really struggling financially. They had to take out Career Development Loans or use savings from previous years when they were working, or lump sums from kindly or dead relatives. Not one of them would be able to afford long distance holidays because they were struggling just to pay the rent, their fees, and materials costs, and travel costs. It may have changed now but you could only borrow up to 8k for fees on the CDL. The remaining 2k available was for other related costs.

Morning all...
That's not all the travelling she has done...she only has Antarctica to go then she'll have done all the continents. This has been funded mainly by my daughter, with our help and for the past 4 years her bf has helped out.
She says she feel more settled when travelling.
My youngest daughter hasn't got the same travelling bug...and still comes to thailand with my partner and I every year. However, she is going on her very first holiday without us in just 2 weeks.
Both my partner and I think is is important to see the world...and that we will endeavour to help them in any way that we can.
My eldest was making comments last week about how her sister should be sorting and booking her holiday herself and also that she should be backpacking like she did. Impossible...my youngest still needs guidance and she can't go backpacking 'cos she works. Both entirely different children...I wouldn't want it any other way...apart from the fact that I wish my eldest would see that as siblings they should not be the same and that they should be doing stuff that suits them as individuals.
My eldest thinks she's hard done by...and I know that she makes out that I'm a bad parent...I'm just a normal parent...or maybe not in the fact that at almost 23 and 27 I am still there for them and they expect me to have all the answers.
My eldest does seem to be jealous of her younger sister...she has a job...is planning on studying medicine next year, is learning to drive...test in the morning...fingers crossed. Lives at home and has everything done for her...what my eldest can't probably see is that she has it all too...just in a different way... long term boyfriend...a great education and she has travelled the world...The settled home life and career will in time follow.

Oh...and by the way...she paid £5000 for her masters...has not taken any loans out but has worked part time and I have helped out with money. This was not at any time about the money...