Estranged from Children

[Farnhammum11]

I am feeling utterly bereft and need advice. Let me explain...

My daughter and I fell out several years ago over something really silly. She initially went to live with her paternal grandmother (who never liked me) and then with her father and his new wife. Despite my pleas she refused to come back home and it really broke my heart. Attempts to reconcile over the years, with the help of her brother, who is three years younger, never lasted. She really didn't want to have anything to do with me and would say "the time is not right". My friends and family would say that when she has children of her own she would get back in touch. So I clung to this like a drowning man clings to a life raft, despite my reservations that she may never have children because she had became anorexic when she went to live with her father and his wife.

In September 2012 her brother, who had been living overseas returned to the UK on a short business trip and he arranged for us to meet up with my daughter and her new partner for lunch. The lunch went well and at the end of it we exchanged telephone numbers and I really hoped that we could at last start to build bridges. She was, after all, 31 by this time. We exchanged text messages, despite the fact that it would take days for her to respond to my texts and my calls went unanswered. But I was patient. She was too busy to meet up before Christmas that year so we met after Christmas and exchanged gifts. We continued to text but it was taking her longer and longer to respond. She was also too busy to meet up for coffee/lunch. Then in August 2013 I received a text from her saying that she was getting married in October 2013 and that I was not being invited to the wedding as it was going to be a private affair with a handful of close friends. I felt extremely hurt. I know she has a right to invite who ever she wants to her wedding but it felt so callous to be told in that way. I felt as if I was being rejected by her all over again! I text her back and said she had really hurt me again and that I could not take it any more and said I would leave her alone to get on with her life.

However, although I said that I would leave my daughter alone I continued to seek updates on her life from my son who had remained in contact with her. My son and I have always been close and I thanked God that at least he had not turned his back on me. However, in August 2016, in a telephone conversation with my son he told me that my daughter had had a son who was nearly 12 months old. I couldn't believe what I was hearing at first and asked him to repeat it. Then it dawned on me that my son had kept this from me the whole time. All the video and telephone calls we had had and not once had he mentioned that she was pregnant or that she had given birth to a baby who was now nearly one. I asked him why he had not told me and he said that she had asked him not to tell me. I said but "I'm your mother, don't you think I would have liked to have known that my daughter had become a mother and that I had become a grandmother?" He messaged me a photograph of the baby and I was really grateful. I cried. I said I still couldn't believe that he had withheld this from me. This was such a significant event. My daughter had had a child. And suddenly I realised that if she hadn't reached out to me when she was pregnant and following the birth of her baby who was now nearly one, she never would! I became virtually hysterical at this point and demanded to know why he hadn't told me. I felt that he had betrayed me too. He said that she had told him that she would never speak to him again if he told me. I said but I'm your mother. His next words drove a steak through my heart "Do not make me choose between you and her!" He never sent me another photograph of the baby. And although I continue to ask how she is in every conversation I have with him he never tells me anything. Then four months ago he inadvertently told me that she was expecting another baby. I asked a million questions but his stock reply was "I don't know".

I went to stay with my son recently and we have spoken many times since my return but he let slip today that my daughter had given birth several weeks ago. I asked why he had not told me sooner. He said you know why! I again said "But I'm your mother. She is not going to know. I have no contact with her". I then asked him whether it was a boy or a girl. He hesitated and said "I think it's a girl. But I'm not discussing it any further". I am truly heart broken! I just can't believe that my son would not share this wonderful news with me even if I will never be able to see any of my grandchildren. I felt so hurt that I ended the telephone call. I feel really betrayed by my son and I feel that he has made his choice and chosen his sister. Am I wrong?

Why are you blaming your son?!! Your poor son is in a horrible position and blaming him is really risking your relationship. Please think about how he must be feeling and not so drowning in you own sorrow as you put it.
This is what DD has chosen and you have to find some way of coming to terms with it. Spending your whole life hoping, waiting and wailing hysterically is not helping you.
I can’t comment on the fall out but it must have been very significant to DD for her to take such a drastic measure.
I would strongly advise you seek some help from a counsellor perhaps, so you can learn how to manage this. It doesn’t sound like it’s going away or going to improve any time soon.
I do feel for you as you are clearly heartbroken but I have a difficult relationship with my parents and I know how deeply childhood wounds go. Your DD’s wishes around her own children should be respected - why do you feel your feelings are more important than anyone else’s?

It may be helpful for you to have a read of this post:
www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

Other posts on that blog also analysethe dynamics of this situation in very lucid detail.

Your narrative fits that mould very closely:

• You are very low on detail as to what happened to cause your daughter to move out of your home while she was still underage;
• You describe her unwillingness to have you at her wedding as a denial of your maternal rights without giving any thought as to why she might not have wanted you there;
• You obviously kept a detailed mental record of how she took longer and longer to return your messages without considering why she was withdrawing from your approaches;
• You are choosing not to think about why she has gone to such lengths to protect herself and her children from you, even at the cost of her missing out on having a mother around to support her through the early years of motherhood;
• You are bullying and manipulating third parties into helping you circumvent the boundaries your daughter has put in place. Your son has told you repeatedly that you are putting him in an uncomfortable position, but you are ignoring his feelings about this;
• You appear to think you have a right to a relationship with people who have indicated very clearly that having you in their lives causes them more upset than they can cope with.

Your son and your daughter both sound like reasonable, stable adults. This doesn’t sound like a tale of chaotic, dysfunctional adult children with addiction or other mental health problems. They sound like rational human beings who have decided after lengthy process that there is no way that a relationship with you is manageable for them.

Random strangers reading your story have indicated pretty clearly that they can see, even from your anonymous internet post, written entirely from your point of view, what the problems might be with this situation. You’ve posted on here, so obviously on some level you want things to be different. For that to happen you will need to think deeply and honestly about the feelings of the other people involved in this situation, acknowledge that they have an absolute right to feel as they do, and consider what part you have played in making them not want to be around you.

I suspect you will prefer to keep rehearsing the narrative of how your unreasonable adult dc have cut you off without explanation. But the only way you’re going to change anything is by looking at yourself and thinking about how you could change the behaviours that have brought this situation about in the first place.

There must be far more to this than a fallout over something silly.
For the sake of the relationship with your son, do not say things like “but I am your mother” ... he knows that. He isn’t clearly in a difficult position trying to juggle a relationship between both his sister and his mother and is probably trying his best. I know you must be distraught over this, the pain of it must be horrendous and I genuinely sympathise. However, calm down with your son or you may risk very much straining the relationship, or worse.

My mother would come up with all of this wow is me bollocks about our estrangement

The fact is very, very, VERY few people go no contact with their mothers for “silly” reasons.

The reasons she’s gone nc aren’t silly to her by the sounds of it, no matter how much you want her to just brush it aside and forget whatever it is you did.

Now you’re sitting there on your ivory throne getting indignant and upset about her not wanting you to know anything about her life, and pressuring her brother

The fact is, you can only be in contact with someone if they want you to be. Your son IS telling you bits and pieces so you know more than you’re supposed to, be thankful for that.

I don’t want my mother knowing anything about me, but I’ve not asked my sister not to pass anything on, I have corrected her roundly whenever she’s regurgitated any of the made up woe is me stuff my fantasist mother’s tried to garner sympathy with.

Your son was wrong to tell you your daughter has had children. He was wrong to send you a photograph of the baby. She had specifically asked him not to do this, and he has betrayed her trust.

You are wrong to bully him into these things. You have no rights to know these things, or to see the photos; you are estranged from your daughter and it sounds as though put yourself and your feelings ahead of hers.

You need to back off. Stop pushing your son to give you more and more. Apologise to him for being so demanding. Get counselling. Learn why your daughter doesn't want to see you. Try to make amends. And stop expecting things just because you're a mother. You have to deserve respect.

@AgonyBeetle that's a brilliant link and so fitting to this thread.

Read through your own post. Can't you see that you're at risk of pushing your son away forever too? His sister asked him not to tell you. He did as asked. Just because you're his mum doesn't mean your wishes are more important than his sisters! Stop asking him why. I know I've only read your story but you sound quite hard work. Your children have their own lives now. You need to let her live them. You don't get to dictate their lives now they are adults. You son has absolutely no obligation to tell you stuff. Perhaps you could go to some counselling sessions as you're obviously hurting deeply (as anyone would).

I think everyone has just about covered it. You are the common denominator in all your relationship issues. The world doesn't revolve around you. You are being unfair to your son. Your daughter wants NC. You have to respect their wishes.

I just want to add, I am a bit like you, in a way, only worried about how it all affects ME and my mother is the same. My mother claims all my daughter's achievements as her own, despite my daughter having some very intelligent and skilled ancestors on her father's side. Whatever she has done for me, she never let's me forget how wonderful she is, and how grateful I should be. Is it any wonder that she only gets one visit a year now, and I send her a text once a month if I remember? I only stay in touch for the sake of my father, who is terminally ill. My daughter is aware of her toxicity and she doesn't much like her, but she says I'm the same. I am! But my daughter and DH remind me to reign in in when I try it on. It's a learned behaviour.

When we had an almighty row last year (DM wanted to take advantage of us being away by staying in our flat in London with her "friends" for free whilst attending lots of cultural events. She doesn't give a pirate's cuss about visiting us otherwise. She said she could cat-sit. I said stop taking advantage of me and everyone else who has things you take for nothing, to which she had the almighty arse and we didn't speak for six months) I tried to get my brother on my side to which he told me to fuck off. He was staying out of it. He was right.

From that link: "training their families to shelter them from blows so thoroughly that the softest protest feels like a fist to the face." Yup, my mother can call me a thief, a bad mother and daughter, a liar, hard and cold etc but if I ask her not to slag my husband off behind his back she threatens to kill herself. When I calmly ask her not to use emotional blackmail she says it's not and me saying that makes her want to "end it all". There is no logic. There comes a point where there just isn't any point interacting with them any more.

I don't think the OP will come back. People like this can't see beyond themselves. Nobody cuts family off for something trivial. My own mother claims not to know why we don't talk, even though I've told her in writing twice.

You sound exactly like my dad, and he’s a raging narcissist. It’s not your son’s place to feed you scraps of information because you couldn’t manage a relationship with your daughter. Get a grip.

Excellent post from AgonyBeetle. Lots to ponder here.

You sound exactly like my mother and father I'm nc and have been for years.

When I was pregnant with my dc it didn't even register that I should tell them why would I? theyre not important people in my life.

They did put my dn in an awful position tho grilling her for information about my life and my dc and going through her face book account to see my profile and pics.... She doesn't go there any more

op it seems that you have pushed your dd to the limit and she has no interest in letting you into her life and now you are pushing your son the same way

You are getting an extremely hard time here OP. And I think it's unjustified.

If I were you I'd be absolutely devastated and heart broken. My sister's a nurse, and you know what, I know its an unpopular view, but some children are ungrateful, non-filial creatures. My sister can share some horror stories of end of life paitients whose children are too busy to give a toss. Yes, parents can get shit really wrong, but not all children are reasonable and return the love they're shown.

Anyway. All your feelings are justified. My advice to you, however, is to go down the acceptance route. Accept you've lost your daughter, grieve, and stop using your son as a go between or facilitator of information. I know this is the hardest thing you could ever do, I really do, but you need to stop, its driving you crazy and could destroy the relationship you do still have with your son. I think counselling with a view to reaching acceptance would help. Perhaps a bereavement counsellor. In any case this is lkke a bereavement, but worse.

Another thing you could do, is write letters, put them in envelopes and never send them, with a view to them being passed on after your death etc.

If you keep on asking your son to provide information and sharing your grief with him, you'll lose him too. The very best thing you can do is be the best mother to him you can, and a great grandmother to his own children, which he can tell his sister this. This may make her think again. But nothing else will. Please call him and apologise for the position you've put him in, draw a line under it and don't mention her again to him.

Her own children may be curious as they grow, you can't predict what might happen. Its very tough, please go down the therapy route and rein your feelings in with regards to your son, you dkn't deserve to lose him too

You've skirted around why you fell out in the first place- which i think is key

You've also made it all about you instead of understanding your daughters need for caution

I've had an awful relationship with a narcissistic mother who didn't come to my wedding and wasn't involved in my pregnancies, despite her doing exactly what you're doing and seeking information from family who we had mutual contact with. I didn't want her involved because she ruined my childhood and I didn't trust her one iota.

So why did you fall out in the first place?

Why are you drilling your son at the possible expense of your relationship with him?

This does sound heartbreaking. But I'm sorry to say that you seem to be dodging any responsibility for your own behaviour in all this. Your poor son! He has explained his position to you but you have shown him that you do not respect him. And you do not respect his loyalty to his sister. Instead you demand that he puts your feelings and wants at the top of the list. And you demand that he does not respect his sister's wishes. It is all about you.

If you don't want to lose him too, perhaps you could apologise to him for putting him in such a difficult position and for your lack of respect towards him. The only way you will get anything like what you are wanting from your children is by acknowledging this lack of respect for their feelings, and perhaps undertaking to sort out how you came to believe that making you happy is their job and responsibility. It really isn't.

Was the 'something silly' actually something that you minimised and chose to see as silly? Because for DD to move out to her father's, get anorexia and have no relationship with you til she was 31, sounds as though to her it was actually something serious. You calling her reasons 'something silly' is belittling and minimising what she felt, rather than respecting.

Try to get help with this narcissistic approach or your relationship with your son will be in jeopardy.

However sad and unhappy you are with this situation, your children are probably equally unhappy that they are unable to have straightforward, honest, decent, loving and respectful relationships with their mother. So they will be sad too. And you need to care as much about their sadness and heartbreak as you do about your own.

I was going to cite the "missing, missing reasons" article that was cited upthread. My daughter and I fell out several years ago over something really silly. But we are never told what the "silly" thing was. And that renders the rest of the thread incomprehensible.

Reading through the first half of your thread I felt entirely heartbroken for you.

But the way that you yourself recount the dreadful way you treated your son shows that you have no self awareness of your behaviour.

What was the “silly thing” you fell out over? I doubt it was silly.

Op, you chose to step out of your dd's life a second time over not being invited to her wedding. If you want to know about her, you should try to reconcile, not pump your poor son for information.

Treasure the relationship you have with your son and stop making life so difficult for him by asking him about her. Enjoy what you have.

You'll probably get more support over on gransnet. It's full of 'nasty' adult children being 'mean' to their parents

If you treated your daughter the same way you are treating your son then I’m not surprised she doesn’t want a relationship with you. You don’t sound as though you respect people’s boundaries very well. Perhaps something awful happened to you when you were younger that has made you like this. Regardless, you need to back off. If your son and daughter for that matter want a relationship with you then they will take steps to doing so. In the meantime maybe you need to do some self reflection to understand things from their view. That may be a useful starting point if they come back into a relationship with you.

And the OP's gone, having not got the answers she wanted presumably

She's probably off on GN, complaining about all the evil witches on MN. We get really slated on there. Genuinely don't know why. I've never in my entire time on MN seen someone advise going NC over a silly reason. Usually it's because of years of abuse, physical or mental or both.

Hmm. You chose to discontinue contact over not being invited to your daughters wedding.
It would be best to respect that you are not part of her life and as such, are not entitled to know anything about her children either. It’s very unfair to demand information from your son.

I’m sure my MIL has some ‘poor me, me, me’ fairy story as to why she is not part of our lives; the truth is, it was entirely her choice.
Oh and please don’t write a letter to be passed on in the event of your death, that’s a horrible thing to do. If my partner received similar it would be disposed of without being read (we learned that the hard way, when his beloved grandmother died and he got a letter full of insults and instructions not to attend his grandmothers funeral.)

Well I would not have returned to this thread. Some of the responses were mean. And the OP, whatever people thought of her started her thread in good faith. I hope she's getting more sympathy on Gransnet

I think that's a given