Mother Daughter relationship at breaking point

[Buzyizzy]

I think I've posted about this before on here, but in the last few months it's got much worse.
I have two grown up children, daughter is 26 and son is 23. They share a flat together and have done for almost a year. They graduated the same year and lived at home for 18 months before returning to London to live and work.
Our relationships weren't brilliant in that time, all of us resenting being back at home, but we had a lot of good times too.
I sold the family home and moved away for a few months. I am now back living in the same town as before, which is where my daughter's boyfriend lives.
Since I've been back, I've felt that I'm no longer a part of her life. She never calls, and when she comes down to visit her boyfriend every month, she brings him with her when she visits me for an hour or so. Our relationship has completely gone down the pan. I had my birthday back in the summer and she obviously gave no thought to what I would like, spending very little on me. Fast forward to yesterday, I rang her up and told her I felt completely unwanted and pushed out of her life. It did get rather heated I'm sorry to say and some of the comments were way over the line. I just feel as tho nothing I do will ever be enough for her. My son and I bought her a joint present for her birthday back in December (Eurostar tickets to Paris next month) and she was totally thrilled. We never have any physical contact, it's like there is this massive wall between us, and when I went to hug her the other week, she didn't hug me back and brushed me off as quickly as she could. I am hurting so much. If I don't bother contacting her, she doesn't contact me. Her brother rings me every week or ten days, but he is fed up with all this bad feeling, which is understandable. They don't see their father anymore, their decision, and it's like they think we both did such a bad job as parents that they're not going to have anything to do with us, apart from the bare minimum. I am at a complete loss. I have made friends here and I have my work, but family is immensely important to me and with Christmas looming, I just want all this horrid atmosphere cleared up. I do feel that the only way to achieve this is if I back down completely and just accept that she's never gonna respect me, but I don't want that. I want a proper grown up relationship where we both value each other.

She's young and has a busy life. Be nice when she does come and see you and don't guilt trip her.

I think what you might have is very different styles of maintaining bonds. I’m writing as a daughter: I would find it really weird if my mum complained about me not spending enough money one her! But then neither of us care much about gifts as a ‘love language’. I would say that was probably a tactical error, would you express displeasure re what a gift would be if someone else had bought it for you?

It does sound like there is a wall between you, some things that neither of you are able to say to each other. It may be that you’re now to resolve this but that will take some listening: I’m not sure you’re quite ready to do that? You might be carrying guilt about what happened in the past and that can also be a thing that drives a wedge between you.

I’m also really intrigued that you say you want respect from your daughter. Not love, or companionship? What does respect mean? If you do want to have an adult relationship, I think you have to allow her autonomy. That means she might not communicate in the same way as you, she might not value the same things as you, she might even feel hard done by and remember things differently to you. That’s hard to accept, but I think you have to meet her where she is and who she is. It’s not being disrespectful to have feelings.

Maybe she doesn’t feel close to you and is happy not seeing you very often.
At her age I would imagine her relationship with her BF is more important than the one with her Mum.
As for complaining about her present. Did you tell her you were disappointed? Could she tell from your face?

we had a good time when I last saw her and I thought we'd made some headway, then within two weeks, bang, we are back to square one. I was fine with her, although I was annoyed that she'd invited her boyfriend round to mine for Christmas Day without having the courtesy to ask me first.

She saw me as being the cause of my marriage ending and her no longer seeing much of her father. He always overrode any attempt at disciplining her whilst he was there. Always took her side. I've had to be the disciplinarian for both of them since they were mid teens and it didn't go down well with her.

Yes of course I want her to love me. She's never shown any compassion, she's always been a cold fish to me. I just feel as tho I'm being cut out except when it's convenient for her, hence the lack of respect. I do genuinely wonder how long it would take if I stopped calling her, for her to pick up the phone.
It has been an awful year for me, with two house moves and a lot of stress all round, but she's not interested in anything to do with my life. We can have a 45 minute conversation on the phone with her talking non stop about her job, which she says she hates, and she won't even bother to ask how I am, or how things are going.

You say you want a proper adult relationship with her but reading your posts it sounds like you dont want the relationship to evolve past you being the parent and her being the child.

I think you need to put aside any preconceptions about how a mother and daughter should be together and come to her as an independent adult you want to have a relationship with.

I was always extremely close to my parents and we had a wonderful relationship but our relationship still evolved past ideas like respect and obligation as we become 3 equal adults who loved each other.

Perhaps adjusting your expectations will let you feel less disappointed and enable her to come to you because she wants to and not out of obligation?

I appreciate that the BF relationship is more important than me, but I just feel I have been totally dropped from a great height. No, she had the present sent directly to me, so she wasn't there.

I think you have unrealistic expectations of how a relationship with a grown child might be. I know they vary but a phone call every week or so with a few meetings a year has been the norm in my family for a couple of generations. We all get on fine, have each other's backs if needed, but we get on with our own lives, emotionally or otherwise. You cannot force or change how she feels or what she wants and emotional outpourings and arguments will only make her want to distance more. Her bf is more important than you , and that is the truth and not necessarily a bad one, in my opinion.

Why did you ring her up and tell her you felt unwanted? Honestly, that was also a tactical error! How did you think it was going to go down?

It sounds like there’s a bit of painful family history for you all. I think for now my advice would be to back off and let her know periodically that the door is always open/that you love her. If she has some resentment leftover from divorce then that’s something she needs to process. You can’t make her stop feeling it, unfair or painful as that may be. I also think it’s a gift to your children to process and reflect on your emotions in reflection of theirs. You don’t have to put yourself in the line of fire, by forcing contact. You know that cliche about holding things you love lightly? If you hold on tight, they get crushed...

The issue with the present was that she asked me for specific details as to what to buy and I gave her size and style.
So why would she buy the wrong size, miles too big, and the cheap as chips style when she knew the type I wanted? And money is not an issue for her. She only seems to be happy when she's being spoilt and the centre of attention.
I don't think I'm asking for too much, but I have no idea where I go from here.

It’s not her job to support you, btw.

You don’t sound like you like her very much, and your posts are focused on what she should be doing for you?

This is not how all mothers roll, you know.

You don’t get to decide how she feels about you. For some reason she doesn’t feel or want to be close to you. That’s her choice.

Respect has to be earned.

Was she upset about you selling the family home? You sound as if you’re very focussed on your feelings but have little empathy for hers.

Pog, I take your point and that's all I DO want, but she doesn't ring, ever, not birthday, Mothers Day, you name it. I do all the chasing.
Not sure what you mean by a tactical error?
I'd love to keep regular communication with her, but she obviously doesn't want it.
I don't expect either of them to be around the whole time, it's a hell of a journey for one. I haven't seen my son since September, but we speak often and our relationship is ok.

No, we had only been there since my marriage ended and they had already decided to move to London as they were fed up with the crap money here. Saying that, she's only only a tiny bit more there, whereas her brother is doing much better. When we were arguing yesterday, she kept saying that she knew she should have asked me, but she didn't because she didn't want to speak to me, but she wants to spend Christmas at my place. It makes no sense.

A tactical error in that if you have a difficult relationship and things were ‘fine’ for a bit, what possessed you to ring her up and say how you feel unwanted?

Imagine for a second you have a relative or a friend you find tricky, but value. You limit contact so that you can maintain a good relationship. Then they phone you up saying that they feel unwanted and laying on the guilt? Is that going to make you want to connect with them more?

Or to put it another way, you catch more flies with honey.

We know about your needs. What does your daughter get from this relationship?

We don't seem to be able to develop any closeness. I know she's not there to support me in any way, not that she would anyway.
I would imagine that neither of us like each other at the moment. Everything has gone too far and I don't feel there is a way back. Whatever happens, neither of us are going to trust each other. I just don't know when the next barbed comment is coming from her. I seem to be continually boosting her up, telling her how clever/pretty she is and then when I see her, it's all about her. And I mean ALL. I'm not expecting her to change, but it would be nice to be actually remembered sometimes.

I find the whole Christmas thing quite strange. Do you now want your daughter and her bf at yours for Christmas? When my mum was alive she would have been upset if she didn’t see me on Christmas Day and would have invited my OH as a given and before I would have had to invite him myself.

You have to let the small stuff go - why are you annoyed that she asked her bf to join you for Xmas? If you want to be closer, spending that special time together would be great. Accepting her bf is respectful - the kind of attitude that you want her to show towards you.

I would imagine that since she doesn't do any of the running, she doesn't want anything from the relationship. Yes, I do have friends that can be tricky and prickly. I seem to always find them, but I do my best to get past that and to get to know the person. I come across people like that in my work, so I tend to very much accept people for what they are, mental health issues included. Wouldn't worry me if they called, I'd feel like a bad friend.

And yes it has happened to me so I've made a better effort to keep contact. Other friends of mine are not so insecure and I can catch up less regularly.

I think if you really want to save your relationship with your daughter you need to take a step back and try and lessen the emotion.

Im sure you feel justified in your hurt but the thing is from an outside perspective this all sounds incredibly intense and overbearing. Would you want to spend any time with someone who made you feel guilty and put pressure on you? You probably wouldnt. If you want a happy and adult friendship with your daughter you may need to lessen your expectations and stop expressing negative emotions towards her. You seem to be expecting her to do things to rectify the situation which may seem 'fair' to you but is it actually going to achieve anything but keeping this bad dynamic going?

I think the best thing you could do is try and back off for a time to give you and her some breathing space and to let the relationship settle down naturally.
Your expectations do seem very high.
I dont have the level of contact with my parents that you are detailing here and I am an only child.
You need to remember to not let this hurt overwhelm you because its not personal she is just a busy adult living her life. You may find she would contact you more and be more friendly if there were less pressure to do so and less emotional intensity if she didnt.

Im afraid this is not a situation that will be rectified by you forcing her 'to respect you' because she is an adult and the kind of thing you seem to imply as respect in your post is actually all about what a child should do. It will only end in her distancing herself further from you. Try to relate to her as an adult and focus less on what you expect from her as a daughter and you might eventually have an adult friendship.