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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

Daughters disdain for me

51 replies

WoodenHouse · 10/11/2019 17:50

As not to drip feed: husband left me when my little girl was just 3. He disappeared and then reappeared with a GF . He eventually got married to yet another GF, but had her every other weekend - literally just every other weekend, no school visits - nothing. I feel like I brought her up and made her into a lovely child, but since she has grown up (and living with her boyfriend) her father is the center of her world and she treats me with absolute disdain. The sun shines out of him, and she puts me in the shade. She laughs at me when I cry and tell her Im hurting. She doesnt like my kind sweet husband who has done nothing wrong to her. She thinks I could dress better have my hair different etc etc.

I would like to hear from anyone who is in my daughters position who has the same kind of relationship with her parents and what i could do to make her, well, like me I suppose. I hoover up any sort of crumbs of love I get from her and I feel so sad with it all.

Has anyone got any kind advice for me?

OP posts:
Bluetrews25 · 10/11/2019 20:45

Sounds like you are desperately seeking her approval.
Stop it.
Interact adult to adult.
Have you slipped into child mode pushing her into parent mode with the power to control?

lexiepuppy · 10/11/2019 22:04

@WoodenHouse You are in a competition with your ex that you don’t want to be in. Your daughter has put you there.
Step back. Start loving yourself more. If your ex is unhappy with his new partner that is his choice.

Look after yourself and love yourself more . Maybe your daughter needs some counselling to adjust to all that has happened. But she is 26 and can sort that out for herself.Flowers

lexiepuppy · 10/11/2019 22:09

@Fudgesmummy I am so sorry to hear that you have had surgery for cancer. I wish you better.Flowers

It made for difficult reading that your daughter didn’t visit you. Flowers

Sadly we judge people by what we would do in that situation and if people lack empathy/ sympathy we are eternally disappointed.
FlowersFlowersFlowersFlowers

Highandlow · 10/11/2019 23:07

Hi Op. This is hard right now , but once you detach you will feel so much better. You can only do your best and people are the way they are.

Pinkbonbon · 10/11/2019 23:12

Advice: be kind to yourself

Your daughter - is a dick. It has nothing to do with being a daddies girl. She is a 26 year old woman who finds it funny when her mum is upset.

I'm sorry but, she's toxic. If I were you I would seriously consider distancing myself from her. You deserve to have nice people in your life.

Know it isn't easy to walk away from a kid but maybe if you stop tolerating her crappy attitude she will buck up her ideas. And if not, you're better off away from her.

Frenchw1fe · 10/11/2019 23:16

How old is your other child? What is your relationship with other dc like? Is dd jealous?

BumbleBeee69 · 10/11/2019 23:46

You only have One Mother, and she will realise this far too late...

Step right back... do not chase her affection. Flowers

NotaWagon · 11/11/2019 07:36

Id toughen up a bit OP
Sympathies because my x has not killed himself but has laid on a few Disney Dad cameos 8n the kids' lives. but clearly your DD doesnt respond well to your vulnerability. Your feelings laid out so bear dont make her think "i will spend more time with mum".

So i would diall back. Go away for Christmas. Her default assumption is that you will fit her in when it suits her.

I think it'd do u the world of good to go away on your own for christmas, few days away on one of those singles xmas breaks. I think you would feel ok it is possible to suit myself now and without saying anything challenging or confrontstional to yr dd, she may see that you are not ALWAYS available.

She is not a child and you are perhaps too available iyswim

NotaWagon · 11/11/2019 07:45

Sorry i see you are married. Well stillbdo something for yourself / husband soon. Go somewhere and be just a little bit less available and dont bring any of this up. Just do it. Just act like you have your own higher priorities.

Clangus00 · 11/11/2019 07:51

I echo what everyone else has said, detach, focus on yourself, try to stop being so needy where your daughter is concerned.
Maybe she just doesn’t like you? You can love someone without liking them and you can’t force someone to like you.
Good luck.

Innishh · 11/11/2019 08:12

I dont think he is happy in his current partnership and that doesn't help.! He wants me to be reliant on him like when I had to get my money from him every week...

How do you know this and how can you assume this?
Either you are making loads of assumptions or you have far too much of involvement / projection / being drip fed info from DD about a man who left you 23 years ago?

What is your DDs BF like? Does he like the DF? How is he with your DD? Is that a healthy equal relationship?

I am concerned that she thinks it’s OK to criticise your clothes and hair - that’s v controlling, bullying and abusive - is that her - or is that what could be happening with her BF? How is he to you?

Sotoes · 11/11/2019 09:16

Perhaps it's simply a case of her getting on well with her father because they have similar personalities. Is her attitude towards you the same as his used to be?

Just let go, invest you energies elsewhere, she'll respect you more.

I've been there OP. Flowers

BumbleBeee69 · 11/11/2019 11:45

I think the term you looking for is ....

Divide and Conquer..

Your daughter is the CONTROLLING one... OP

Original poster
WoodenHouse · 11/11/2019 18:04

I am going to step back. The BF isn't that great to be honest. They are both pretty selfish and he doesn't try with me really. But yes I am stepping back starting tonight by not ringing to see how her day has been. To be fair she only answers the phone when it directly benefits her to some extent, she never phones me!
When I read it back, she sounds awful, and we do have good times too. We are very alike, but I saw my selfishness when someone pointed it out to me and I changed immediately. She struggles with being told what is right and wrong

OP posts:
BumbleBeee69 · 11/11/2019 18:17

OP you do what is right for you.. you know your daughter and your DH... Use what you know about her behaviour and think ahead when responding without creating conflict for yourself. Good luck Flowers

NotaWagon · 11/11/2019 18:56

@WoodenHouse maybe she is a little thoughtless and rude but it is human nature to devalue the company of somebody who is always available and always waiting for your call. I know it sounds a bit like dating advice but fill your weekends with some fun things and be unavailable some of time time. That might reset things a little, and be fun for you.

Original poster
WoodenHouse · 11/11/2019 19:05

Thank you @Notawagon you are right.

I was hoping that there would be some young women on here that have a similar relationship with their father and their mother, and would be able to tell it from their side, but I guess maybe they dont recognise them selves

OP posts:
GettingABitDesperateNow · 11/11/2019 19:11

Hi OP

The fact of 'youc cant change someone else's behaviour, only your own reactions to it's helps me in situations like this.

The fact is, that asking her for more, and getting upset, isn't working. Nobody ever 'showed their mum / partner / friend more love' after they were begging them to love them. This isn't going to change her.

So you need to change how you approach this.

You have said she goes out with her dad but not you - she sees you for a cuppa. Maybe that's actually habit (they probably went out more seeing her every other weekend whereas she is used to being in with you). I personally am more likely to go out for a drink with someone I dont know as well but go round to someones house to drink with someone I know better. Maybe shes the same. But anyway if you want to go out, don't beg her. Decide on something you want to do and are happy going alone. Then tell her I'm doing this - do you fancy it. And if she says no then do it anyway and have fun.

Agree with others to stop chasing her affection so much. Either there is just some kind of imbalance in your relation6 and this will even things up as she realises she does want to treat you better....or she will just be the same, because she isn't very nice, but actually you will be in a better place because you wont be being constantly rejected

TheBouquets · 11/11/2019 20:14

There are so many daughters acting in the same way as yours. I have had some of it too. Also had how wonderful the df is which is really strange and her did not even show face until she was an adult. Daughter cant see that. She is abusive to me. I would not take this carry on from a man and I see absolutely no reason to take it from anyone else especially not our own children.
I have left the arena. I just don't appear anywhere that I can be seen by daughter. I don't do anything at all that she could become aware of. I am not being in the company or the similar behaviour that I divorced a whole 25 years ago.

TheBouquets · 11/11/2019 20:16

Pressed too soon

I think it is a control tactic. I also wonder how much input the df has as much of the time it is the same chatter as he had.
I am not going back in time

AbbieLexie · 11/11/2019 20:56

Its really helpful reading this. It hurts but I need to look after me. Detach detach. Things have improved for me since I started the detach behaviour.

springydaff · 11/11/2019 21:16

He's probably been dripping poison into her ears about you, oh so subtly, emotionally seducing her, all along. Have a look at parental alienation?

Yes you need to set boundaries but try not to be harsh. She is his victim just as you were. That's not to say you're soft with her - she's is an adult and behaving abominably (where do you think her cruelty comes from?). Yes she's his victim but appealing to her humanity has backfired so HOLD your boundaries. They have scapegoated you, a common device in toxic relationships/families.

Do study boundaries - Dr Henry Cloud has written a very good book called, unsurprisingly, Boundaries. It is recognised as one of the best (but has a distinct Christian slant you need to negotiate. Worth it though).

Re boundaries, do try to do some courses because it's quite easy, after years of being passive in the face of tremendous hurt, for a bomb to go off once you start taking back your power. Ime you'll need to practise!

Also she'll fight back hard to get back the status quo - you'll need skill and practise to face that.

Good luck! 🌺🏵️🌼

Chapellass · 11/11/2019 21:46

Oh OP, that sounds so painful. You sound like a lovely mum, I don't have much to add except that I do have an ex-friend who blames her hard working mum for every trial and tribulation of her childhood, whilst letting her self centred feckless father off the hook. Her attitude softened towards her mother in her 30s but only after her mother stepped back from her awful behaviour.

Sending you love, as you don't deserve this.

Original poster
WoodenHouse · 12/11/2019 18:20

Thank you ladies, I appreciate the support, I really do. The funny thing is, all her friends have always liked me, and say they wish their mums could be like me. Its confusing!

OP posts:
TheBouquets · 12/11/2019 20:26

@WoodenHouse You are so close to what has been going on here too