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.

Imperial, she has asked for reasons why her eldest dd hates her. We are pointing out some possibilities. Maybe we don't understand her exact circumstances, but it is patronising to suggest that none of us have known that dynamic. We have all been daughters.

I'm afraid, op, that your story seems self piteous and blaming. You don't seem to be wanting to get under her skin for resolution, more for ammunition to blame her for the failings in your relationship. I am sorry if I have misjudged you but I was shocked by your op.

Labelling any child as "difficult" is an excuse to stop parenting.

I am the "difficult" one in my family. I never bunked off school, lied, took drugs, smoked, drank, slept around. I did housework and I kept myself to myself.

The only thing that made me difficult is that I wasnt my brother.

I'm not sure that you are aware of how much you are comparing your two daughters, with the elder coming off the worst each time.

Even if you did get her the interview and support her, the things you mention are your elder daughter's achievements. She is the one who did the work to get where she is. I can see why she would be irritated by your feeling that you deserve some of the credit.

I do understand how hard it as a single parent as I was one for most of DD1 and DD2 childhood and understand how hard it s when one child gives you a harder time. I recognise that egg shell feeling and know at times I did not know how I would get through a day.

I just do not believe this can be fixed by all the blame being apportioned to the wayward daughter who at times in the house probably feels like a 16 year old being judged. Counselling would be a good idea it really helped me and was a great place to really open up and reveal issues

I think it'd be worth trying to find out why she feels this way, as it could be that you and her have a very different view/memory of the past, and something is hurting her which makes her behave this way. Many girls who leave home early leave because they cannot cope living with their parents - and there is normally a reason for it - where all members of the family have played a part, since it is a family. Please don't discard her as "difficult", it would be worth it if you could work it out with some counselling. Try not to side too much with the youngest - siblings argue and need to get this out of their system. Your youngest can stand up for her self. Good luck.

There is being supportive in understanding the difficult situation she has with her daughter and not supporting her being negative about her daughter.

Have she ever tried to address the underlying problem? Has the daughter tried?

I can't answer your question because I don't know the full background, particularly regarding your relationship with her father. However, as others have said, you clearly favour your other daughter, which is a source of pain to her.

She is pushing you to test your love for her and you have failed that test. I am not saying that you don't love her, but you appear to have given up on this relationship. Why on earth did you get your DP to dump her belongings instead of taking them yourself? That was incredibly cruel.

If you want to build a better relationship, you are going to have to work at it and prove your love. You need to tell and show her that you love her, as many times as it takes, and not to give up on her as you did when she was 16. And please start by giving her some recognition for all that she has achieved with her life and demonstrate some pride in her, instead of constantly comparing her unfavourably with her sister. I am sure that her perspective is that whatever I do, however hard I work and whatever I achieve, I will never be good enough for my mum and she will always see me as second best to my sister.

I think there's more to this story than you want to make yourself believe, OP.

I am the daughter who doesn't get on with my mother. I am 45.

Sometimes, I think I should try to speak to her about our relationship, but our beliefs are so different. I felt so judged by her, all my life, particularly in my late teens. I always felt I could do nothing right, and that all the things I could do well were the wrong things, for her.

I know there is just no point in telling her how I feel. She will dismiss it, because it doesn't fit in with her belief system.

So, I stay away.

OP, if you really want a good relationship with your daughter, I think you need to start listening to her, and accepting her point of view. If she is hurt about something, take it on board. Your behaviour has obviously hurt her. I'm sure you didn't mean to, and felt you were doing the right thing, but I think you need to be more receptive to her side of the story.

OP, you need to start behaving like a mother to your eldest daughter.
Patently you have a better relationship with your younger child, but that really isn't relevant to the way you should be dealing with this. You are the parent here.... that doesn't mean you should have control, it means you should be old enough and wise enough to be the person who builds bridges and offers unconditional love.

Nowhere in your OP do you wonder about your daughters' emotional needs, or ask how you can mend this relationship. It is essentially a diatribe about her shortcomings and difficult behaviour. I don't hear much love in the comments you make? I don't hear any self searching about how you may have contributed to this situation? or why she may be reacting in the way that she does? Most worryingly, you don't say that "I don't like the things she does" or "I don't like the way she behaves to me" - you say "I don't like HER". That is incredibly damning from a mother. Do you think that she doesn't feel that distance, and dislike?
Does she remind you rather too much of her father, by any chance? has she inherited his personality, and spent her life being emotionally punished for it?

However much you reiterate that you worked, struggled, supported, behaved responsibly, when she was growing up......this isn't something she is supposed to spend her life being grateful for. It was your job as a parent. If you resented the life, did you make her feel that it was her fault? was she difficult when the marriage broke down, and you found it one thing to much to deal with her loss as well as your own?

I am asking these questions because you need to start really thinking about how you have related to this girl, all her life. Without the self righteous, 'its all her fault', spin that you present here. You need to be truly honest with yourself, and try to see how she may have felt about incidents through her growing up ....not how you felt about them.

Above all, you need to stop comparing her to the 'golden', 'well behaved' sister. In your own head. Let alone to her. Why are you not proud of her achievements? why are you not holding her up to your youngest as an example of how to achieve academically?

Daughters do not choose to become 'no contact' with mothers, at age 26, unless there is a history of feeling damaged. If you have any interest in salvaging this relationship, if you love your daughter (despite disliking the tensions which now exist) and want her as a part of your life then you need to stop being egocentric, and pick up the phone to your mother and tell her that the situation is breaking your heart because you love your daughter and you want to try and sort this out. You ask if your daughter would consider meeting with you, on neutral territory, just the two of you ..... not to debate or argue, but so that you can listen to your daughter. So you can ask why she feels the way she does.
And, if she agrees to meet you, then you need to go and just listen to her and take on board what her feelings really are about your relationship. Don't tell her she is wrong to feel as she does. Don't argue with her - or tell her she is wrong. She is not 'wrong' if it is the way she feels.
Just find some humility and discover what really is wrong with your relationship from her point of view Trust me, its going to hurt you.....but you need to hear a point of view other than your own.

Then, and only then, will you be in a position to talk about your relationship in the future. But remember that mothers who truly love their children keep a door wide open for them.

Yes of course I tried to bring my daughter back home but as she was 16 there was no legal way to do it. she was in the laws eyes old enough to fend for herself. Even though I had no contact for 4 months I made sure she had food and money through a third party. I have treat both my daughters the same except one lives with me and the other does not. My mother aggravated the situation at the time. My relationship with my own mother has been horrific...this I have kept from my daughters. I had no contact for many years with my own mother until about 3 years ago when I phoned her...she has serious issues...this time though I am grateful that my own mother is there for my eldest...but believe me there will be no great support just a roof over her head.
There have been some great comments on here and because of this I had a little more sleep. I am truly grateful for all comments even those that are a little hard to swallow. I only hope that as each day comes and goes that we can build a little understanding between us and move on...the last thing I want is for either of my daughters to have any great issues.

Have you tried sitting down with her and having an honest talk? Or is your view that she has to move on?

What Mumngran has written in its entireity.

Can you honestly hand on heart say that you tried your utmost to see her at all re no contact with your DD for 4 months?. You used a third party to provide her with food and money, it was clearly not enough and could have been well be seen by your DD as far too little and far too late. She perhaps feels you made and continue to make no effort at all. Your DD may well feel also that this was the nail in the coffin of the dysfunctional relationship, she had been rejected one too many times by you. She has also seen her younger sister being favoured by you and that has also affected her own relationship with her unsurprisingly.

I read that your own relationship with your own mother was (and perhaps remains too ) horrific; it seems that history has repeated itself with regards to your eldest child. Familial dysfunction can and often does seep down the generations.

If you do really want a relationship with your DD then you are going to have to fully listen to her own point of view here regardless of how painful it will be to you to have to listen to. It may well be the conversation that you have never had with your own mother. You have to accept responsibility here for your role in all this; toxic parents like your own mother never apologise nor accept any responsibility for their actions.

BTW where is their father now?.

When is your daughters masters to be finished?

Until then, I would keep emotional distance from her.

After that, I would write her a long letter, being nice in it, detailing a whole load of stuff that you have not talked to her about.
And I would put in it , that perhaps it would be useful and helpful for your daughter to do the same.

I dont think that there is any way on here, that we are going to know the full story from both sides.

My guess is, that proving your daughter writes back too, that you are going to find out things about what she has been thinking all these years, that you did not know she was thinking. And that some of them are going to be valid, and some not. There will also be misunderstandings.
I also suspect that the same will be for her. She will discover stuff about you that she did not know before either.

Ideally there would be several letters going back and forth eventually, to at least help sort things out, or better understand each others point of view.

I have a prickly defensive oldest DD of 22 who I find hard work sometimes. (She reminds me a lot of myself!)
Most of the harsh words and criticism of me comes from a place of hurt and insecurity masked as aggression. When I sit and listen over endless cups of tea we drill down to the real anxieties. These are usually unconnected with me and to do with work, boyfriend, housing or money. But she takes it out on me because I am her mum, and I give her limitless love and soak up her anger. My mum has done the same for me (while driving me wild sometimes!)
I sense a real hurt in your DD and a longing for your approval which comes across as anger as she lashes out at you. Can you let the storm break over you and get past it? Like with with a toddler? and be the adult one. The alternative is she cuts you off like you did your mother.

I agree with the testing thing. She is testing your favouritism - take the latest incident for example.

I'm afraid you failed her by resorting to swearing at her and abandoning her again (by dumping her stuff and hanging up on her). She must feel so rejected .

By living with you again she has tacitly given you both the opportunity to fix this and you haven't. I wouldn't blame her for giving up.

hang on a minute - she moved out at 16 after an argument to just down the road and you didn't see her for 4 months?

how did you not go after your daughter and try to resolve things when she was just down the road for 4 months?

in which time another woman put her through her a levels, housed her, looked after her and you carried on as normal down the road with her younger sister?

i'm afraid i can quite understand why she has some resentment and would say you haven't been her mum tbh.

perhaps it is time to actually discuss this with her one on one and be open to some criticism and able to engage with her feelings and share your own (beyond just defensive stuff) if you actually want an adult relationship with her. she's a self starter - motherless since 16 and gotten through to her masters in her education. of course she needs to be spoken to like an adult and struggles to be spoken to otherwise by a woman who ceased being her mum at 16.

she came home. she wanted to make it work.

also the big argument before she left sounds like a desperate attempt to reach you and tell you she didn't feel loved by you or wanted and in an immature way to be an attempt to resolve what felt wrong in your relationship. your response was to feck off to play golf?

sorry. maybe i'm a teen at heart but i can so see this from her point of view.

Read your posts back OP. They are full of I and ME.

You are the parent. Your child does not have to be grateful for how much you struggled or praise you for your life. It was never up to her to establish a good relationship between her.

You gave her food and money through a third party at 16, just as you have returned her belongings to her through a third party now. Those are not the actions of a loving parent and the legal position when she was 16 does not absolve you.

You are still not being honest with yourself. Your relationship with your own mother was dreadful, why can you not empathise with your eldest, even a little?

At some point you need to realise your own failings, otherwise I fear the relationship will disintegrate.

yep and the daughter will never get to hear, 'yes i should have done more', 'no it wasn't because you were unlovable or bad', etc. the things that could mean the world to her.

you didn't chase her! she was 16 and ranaway after an argument and you just let her go. that, even though she was the one who left, will be felt as abandonment and rejection and when it's from our own mother it leaves a very big scar.

and i agree about the third party business.

she does stuff you reject, she leaves, you refuse to engage anymore and let 'someone else' take care of it.

that's a bit of a pattern right?

it may seem like she over reacted to you saying your dp would bring her stuff but it was the whole thing of rejection and abandonment repeating over again for her

swallowedAfly. Do you feel that your mother emotionally abandoned you at some point?

It sounds like she knows you don't like her.