How honest should I be with my DD about her late Dad?

[Remindmelaterplease]

My husband died almost 10 years ago when my DD was 14. His death was caused by alcoholism and I have no doubt that he underlying mental health issues that he never sought help for.

We were still married living in the same house when he died but I was making plans to leave as the last 5-8 years of of his life were a living hell, for me as well as him. Looking back, I now understand that I suffered pretty severe emotional abuse with frequent gaslighting and I spent each day in a state of high stress, just waiting for the next row to blow up. I have a new relationship now but it was only when I met my DP 5 years ago that it became apparent how damaged I was and it took me a long time to understand what a normal loving relationship looked like.

Anyway, my reason for posting is that I need advice about how or if I share some of this with my DD. She’s in Her mid 20s now and we are very close. However, whilst she remembers a good bit about how difficult life with her Dad had become, I don’t think she has any understanding of what it did to me. I feel we discuss him in a very rose tinted way sometimes and I find it really hard not to be a bit more blunt about what he was really like. Problem is, I suspect if I do this it will upset her and she may stop speaking to me about her Dad.

I should say that I am very much of the view that alcoholism is an illness, however that doesn’t make it any easier to live with and some of my husband’s behaviour was evident, albeit in a milder form before his addiction really took hold.

do I just stay quiet?

Hard.
He was awful to live with for you but he was her adored father.

My DF is an alcoholic. My parents split up and DM never said a bad word about my DF for years. I wish she had continued to stay quiet because her revealing how he was to her has destroyed the, far too few, memories I had of my happy childhood. My life changed beyond recognition when she left him, as I’m sure your DD’s did when her DF died, I didn’t need the memories I had trashed because she was bitter about being married to an alcoholic.
Tread carefully is all I will say. She won’t thank you for tarnishing her memories of her DF.

If you need understanding about what it was like for you to live with your ex and what he put you through, find that from someone else and not your daughter. Let her come to her own conclusions about him, which may evolve as she grows and reflects more on the difficulties she already acknowledges. You don’t need to lie or sugar the coat things you say, but neither do you need to make it your business to correct the things she says. It’s yet another stage of parenting.

The big question you need to ask yourself is what she gets from getting more details. It is a blessing she has not much recollection of such damaging times, an absolute blessing really.

I guess this the sort of further information I would only bring in the conversation if I saw her getting involved with someone who drinks too much or if she starts drinking too much herself. Otherwise I would not given her more trauma.

My story is virtually the same, though while we (DS) don't discuss his Dad very often I never say anything bad about him

Like your DD I'm sure DS realised it wasn't all roses, he had asked if we were getting divorced at one point. It has also taken me years to realise just how abusive his behaviour was as I was in that ' it's my fault for being such a bad person' state.

I don't know if DS will ever delve any deeper and I really can't say how I will react but as the years go on I can't see any point in bad mouthing him

No, I wouldn't talk about how hard it was for you, unless she starts asking questions.

Don't tell her. It will damage your relationship with her and she will lose the good memories she has of him.

It's her dad. She doesn't need to know what he did to you in your relationship, her relationship with him was different. He's been gone a long time now. To tell her woukld be to take her childhood away from her.

It's OK to say it is very difficult living with an addict, and that alcoholism is very cruel, it distorts addicts' behaviours and personality in ways that can be very damaging for people around them. But any specifics, or puncturing of her perceptions of her father is just cruel.

Use your friends, partner, a counsellor for your sounding board if you need to talk through your experiences but not your daughter.

I was the same age as your DD when my father died.
He had been an alcoholic for much of my life and unfortunately died suddenly of something completely unrelated after he had stopped drinking.
I know my mother had an awful time with him but I don't need to know every detail.
I feel I'm allowed the few happy memories I have of holidays etc without having to know he went in a bender in the middle of it etc.

Are you truly doing it for her, or for yourself?

What possible purpose will it serve your daughter to have her memories of her father tarnished? You say she is aware that her father wasn't perfect, I'm sure she is also aware that his behaviour affected you...as well as her...unless you are saying that she wasn't also there in the last years of her life. Unless your daughter is both deaf and dumb, she will have be aware of the tension you personally was under, as well as the rows that were happening between her parents.

She's got some happy memories of her father....please understand that's something you shouldn't be taking from her. My childhood was utterly stressful and crap... my older brother told my mother last year he has no happy memories of his childhood. My mother took it as a personal insult, she is in deep denial that myself and my two brothers were also affected by what went on...all she cares about still is how she was affected. As the only daughter, she forced me into being her 'therapist' since I was 11 years old. I know details of my parent's marriage (they split when I was 21) that I really really shouldn't. It's her burden, not mine and as the parent she had no right to inflict it on me.

If you feel the need to discuss your lingering feelings regarding her father, find someone else to do it with.

*last years of her father's life

Tell her a little bit of it and then see what she wants to find out, if anything. There is research that the daughters of alcoholics in particular are more likely to marry alcoholics. Also to have some mental health problems like depression. If you completely cover up the truth as people are suggesting, you may make it harder for her to understand herself. But also, she may not be ready for the conversation. Start a little bit, then let her know that you are always willing to discuss more if she wants to. Open the door, but leave it for her to decide how she wants to come into that room. Good luck.

Don’t turn your resentment at staying with an alcoholic for so long when you should have left, on to your daughters grief. Leave it be

You had a choice and chose to stay and maybe if you had of left he may have got the help he needed as you maybe enabled the illness?

Maybe you should go to a friends and family AA group or smart group to deal with your anger.

No I wouldn't tell her. She carn't ask him or speak to him about it. Let her think of him in a positive light. There's nothing to be gained by telling her except for your one gain.

Thank you all for your responses, they are really helpful and I really appreciate you sharing your personal experiences. I’m so sorry that so many of you have been in a similar situation.

the consensus seems to be to carry on as I’ve been doing really. I’ve always been conscious of not damaging childhood memories, she’s had a hard enough time as it is.

Some of the language used talks of being bitter or feeling resentment. That’s not where I’m coming from, I just feel very sad about how things worked out. The bit I struggle with is that I am a victim of abuse, and had that abuse been physical rather than emotional I wonder if the advice would be the same.

My DD has grown into a wonderful, level headed young woman. She has read a lot about addiction and is clearly - like me - still trying to understand what happened. I suppose that - being really honest - I feel a little hurt that she hasn’t really asked much about the impact on me as we can pretty much talk about everything else.

@Andypandy799 I didn’t ‘chose to stay’, I just couldn’t see a way out like many of women in abusive marriages. If only it had been as simple as making a rational choice.

I disagree with most. When the time is right, depending on how you phrase it, you would have to be very very selective about the words you choose, but I think something should be said. She needs to know the truth. How you say it, is the only issue.

Someone upthread asked what possible purpose it would serve to tarnish her memories.

It would let your dd know her mother's truth. The real story of who her mother is and what she had been through.

Some of these responses amount to - you should continue to suck it up and pretend for the sake of your dd.

Sure it's nice to have rose-tinted memories. But there's a lot to be said for honesty and truth. Especially when it may impact on her your dd's own thoughts and behaviours.

You don't seem bitter to me, OP. Or like you're looking for therapy via your dd. You are, right now, a survivor of an abusive relationship - that's not a historical statement. It's who you are now and it affects your life now.

I don't think it's selfish or unreasonable to want an adult relationship with your adult child that acknowledges the truth of a relationship that was pretty formative for you both.

I wouldn't think to advise you. But I can see where you're coming from.

She’s actually still very young OP. Mid 20s is not that old.

i lost a parent young and it’s only been in more recent years (late 30s+) that I’ve started to think more in-depth and ask more questions. This especially came about after I had my own children.

In your shoes I would be clear that you are open to discussing her dad in more realistic terms (as a person and a partner - not as her dad) but until then I would leave her to seek out her own understanding in her own way. She may well come to a place where she wants to hear the full story, or she may decide that she does not.

Would I appreciate it now if my surviving parent told me how their relationship had been and disclosed abuse etc - I’d feel very sorry for them but I’d also feel like they’d taken the only bit I had left of the parent I’d lost.

It’s likely that she is fully aware of what you may have gone through, if she’s been looking into addiction she’ll not be surprised to hear what your experience was. Perhaps she’s just not ready for the confirmation yet.

She was 14 when he died. At that age she would not have been oblivious to it all. Maybe she would like to talk about it herself and how it affected her at the time, but doesn't want to upset you.

It could be a bit of an 'elephant in the room' situation.

I suppose one way of approaching it would be if the subject of his alcoholism comes up during a conversation, you could say something along the lines of how it wasn't always very easy to live with someone like that. See what she says.

I suppose that - being really honest - I feel a little hurt that she hasn't really asked much about the impact on me as we can pretty much talk about everything else.

Perhaps you could you look at that the other way round. Have you ever asked her about the impact it had on her?

Different reason but I am like your dd, not everything needs to be shared, she is your dd not your friend or therapist.

She doesn't need to know her mothers truth ffs.

If she comes to you and asks that is different.

I’m on the fence with this one. My initial feeling was that it’s actually incredibly unkind to your daughter but it does sound like she remembers it in parts and now I’m thinking, if you can express yourself well, it could be a bonding experience for you to admit that it was a difficult time, for everyone concerned. It was difficult for him because he didn’t want to become so unwell, it was difficult for you to live with someone like that and it was also difficult for her to grow up in such an environment. I would never ever go into detail but there’s nothing wrong with saying it was a very difficult time, in my opinion. I suffered a mental health breakdown sometime ago that my son unfortunately remembers in parts, he was 9 at the time. We’ve had very good chats about how difficult it must have been for him, his little sister and also for daddy. We’ve also spoken about how difficult it was for me and how awful that I put him through it. I absolutely love how open and honest these chats have been, because he’s maturely processed his memories and reassured me that I can and should forgive myself for my past. If your daughter was old enough to remember, I believe she does remember and maybe she’s trying to have a heart to heart to you about it. But be very very careful with what you say, if you decide to open up.

Yes, we’ve talked about that a lot, how she felt at the time, how it affects her now etc

The thing is, I don’t actually want to sit her down and list all the bad things I experienced but that she doesn’t yet know about. I’ve no problem just keeping that to myself. I think it’s more that I struggle when she talks about him a lot as I feel like I’m airbrushing history a bit.

At the moment I won’t change anything as I don’t want to risk damaging our relationship

@MargaritMargo I think you make a good point about how she may start to see things differently in another 10 years or so, especially if she has her own children.

I'm in a very similar situation to you op, as the daughter.

I've had therapy on and off for years.

I'm very uncomfortable when my DM puts me in a situation where she wants me to console her/sympathise with her, or where she overshares with me.

Some of my discomfort may be unreasonable on my part, I'll continue to work through it in counselling.

But she was the adult. I was the child. I witnessed and heard and was impacted far more than she thought I was/did.

And as an adult I know that she was a victim too, however it makes me very uncomfortable when she wants to confide in me or talk about it as equals. I've asked her not to. It brings parentification into the situation somehow. I hate it.

My counsellor believes that the "child me" doesn't want to hear her side, and is still very angry. She wasn't the abuser, but she didn't remove me from the damaging situation. She stayed. She was supposed to protect me and I didn't feel protected as a child.

The above may not be relevant to your situation, please ignore if you feel it's not.

No she doesn’t need to know.