Is it normal to dislike your adult daughter?

[Ilikesundays]

I have 3 dds all adult and settled. The middle one has always been “difficult” even as a child and things haven’t improved as she has got older. Now in her 50s, a professional, with a high-earning dh and 3 grown-up and well-adjusted and high-achieving dcs, she still makes catty and spiteful remarks to me about her sisters and their children. She has never been able to keep friends for long, but befriends the latest person to join her circle, whether professionally or socially but a few months later they are no longer her friends. She is very off-hand with us, although she lives much nearer than the other two, she pops in for half an hour once a week as if that’s her duty to her parents done. The others make a huge effort to drive down, in each case taking 2 hours to get to see us and they usually stay for half a day. Their dcs come and see us often. My dh is bed-bound and I am infirm (we’re in our 80s). I do my best with her but it’s difficult and I always feel drained when she’s gone home after seeing us and ranting - usually about politics (she and her dh are very right- wing, which I’m not) or how little money they have. Anybody in a similar situation?

What do you mean by 'difficult' as a child? Not compliant? Always complaining? Needed a lot of your time and energy? I suspect your answer will tell you a lot about your attitude to her which is now playing out in your adult relationship. For what it's worth i think you are unreasonable to be more pleased with your other children travelling two hours to see you and staying half a day - it sounds like they don't particularly enjoy spending time with you either and i bet they don't do it every week. Do you somehow expect more of your daughter just because she lives closer? If so, you are making the relationship all about you, not about her.

I'm sure my mum would say that I am difficult too. I'm done with trying, when I am always, always treated second best, if I'm lucky! Your daughter clearly sees your opinion of her. Would you enjoy the company of someone who you know doesn't like you? And clearly prefers your siblings?
I think you should relieve her of the visits with good grace, if you don't want them. She is being dutiful indeed, but is that such a bad thing? If she didn't visit that would be her fault too no doubt.
And maybe she is overstretched financially, many high earners are now, as the cost of living has gone up.

My mum and sister were like this. It's been very easy to see how it happened...it's always been very obvious that my mum didn't like my sister from a young age. My mum didn't have the best relationship with any of us though and was never able to understand the dynamic between herself and my sister. I think if she'd accepted some of the blame and been more self aware and emotionally mature, things might have been resolved.

However, it becomes rather tiresome for all the women (because it's nearly always the women) in the family having to deal with the constant barbed comments and insults mostly relating to physical appearance. Would you believe she's cut me off for finally pointing this out?! I don't think all black sheep turn into catty, jealous narcissists but my sister certainly did.

I think this is really good advice

You complain she doesn't spend much time with her but as you so openly say, you've never liked her much and prefer her siblings, so you can't blame her really. Sounds like she has a lot on her plate already.

Why don't you do something together rather than chat if you find that difficult? Play cards. Bake a cake, Repot the aspidistra. Pick out a new colour for the kitchen that you'll never get round to doing.

She's had 50 years of feeling like she's inferior to your other two children. You're lucky she visits at all! Respectfully half an hour once a week is quite a lot. I probably see my mum once a month if that and only because I have a 7 year old who i feel should have some kind of relationship with her. If it wasn't for that my visits would be quarterly at most.

I think this is a very thoughtful response.

When an OP says she finds one of her children difficult people always reply saying it’s a result of her not liking the child and the child picking up on it. I do think this assumption is unfair because none of us can know what has actually gone on and the situation is always cast as the mother’s fault with no nuance.

I sympathise 100% @Ilikesundays .

For my two daughters, one has gone this route. I’m hugely saddened by her preference for criticism and constant checks on what mum or dad say. I feel you just don’t do that in everyday conversation. You smooth over the smaller issues?

Both daughters’ husbands went the ‘angry misogynist’ route when children arrived and they were no longer the centre of attention.

One OH is now a STBXH. The other is accepted whatever he does. He adds poison to a situation if he can, to score points. Very sad, but nowt we can do to change things.

All those of you who feel your Mum labelled you and never liked you (for which I am sorry you lived with that) how are you with friends?

Because the OP says her Dd doesn't keep friendships.

I have a high-achieving aunt who has always been different from her siblings, and while I don't think she would have been denigrated or neglected in any way by my grandparents I feel sure she would have demanded full on attention and praise in every situation and appointed herself Golden Child. She admits to some of her bad behaviour as a child (e.g getting her siblings into trouble for things she did) as if it was a huge joke and makes her a 'character' . I have watched the way she emotionally blackmails and manipulates my mother throughout their lives. Like the OP's dd she rushes to make friends with 'marvellous' people - and then falls out with them and it is always totally their fault. She ticks all the boxes (literally - I have looked at the symptoms) for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

OP - what is your dd like with her own Dc? How to they treat her? Avoid, or very engaged happy families with her?

Sometimes people are just who they are.

I'm fine with friends now, but for very many years I assumed that people didn't like me because my mother told me I wasn't a very likeable person.

Eventually I realised that people didn't like me because I treated them like my mother treated me i.e. I was mean and critical and expected them to drop everything to be at my beck and call.

Unpicking behaviour you have learnt as a child can be really difficult.

(People with overt NPD often have loads of friends; it's with their nearest and dearest that the mask slips).

My mum, 80, doesn't like me, 51.

She preferred my younger brother because he was a boy. And sometimes ill, so she had enough on her plate.

In my téens and 20s she was jealous and resentful that I got to go to uni and was taller and slimmer.

She projected her standards from the 60s on my life in the 80s & 90s - sex before marriage, church wedding, inviting relatives and her friends like I'd never lived away from home.

By the time I was 30, the whole respect your elders was very thin and I had more fun, less judgy people in my life.

I put my mum on an information diet that exists to this day. I'll talk about Brexit because I don't want to tell her about my job, good or bad.
I don't complain about DH nor am I ever critical about my children or discuss their challenges with them. My mum would often save nuggets of information up and spit them back out when I was younger as gossip currency to others.
No one needed to know if I'd started my periods or was worried about a boyfriend's parents or work was too complicated. I didn't need her telling me I was a woman with all her crazy moral standards or hycthinth bouquet social climbing or she knew that job was too much for me.

So I stick to health. Weather and politics. It's all a bit hollow really.

This is what I am like with my mother. Information is used for gossip or to make herself sound good in relation to me. She is a limited, small minded person full of her own self importance. She has never helped me or supported me in her life, quite the reverse, but suddenly now she is vulnerable and in her eighties I am burdened with her neediness. If she had anyone else who would cater to her in the family living nearby, she would prefer them. I have to force myself to do even the most basic things for her. Neither of us likes the other, which is sad.

I have lots of friends. I introduce none of them to my mother and I don't talk about them when I see her

You're other children stay longer because there would be no point in driving 2 hours to spend a half hour with you. They aren't any better than your 'difficult' child in that sense OP.

None of the three children spend much time F2F with their parents. Do they phone you a lot or FaceTime you?

I honestly think this is impossible to answer without a deep understanding of the family, which is also impossible for us to have.

For many, many years I thought my grandmother was the difficult one or even my aunt who my mother always had a difficult, dramatic relationship with. As I got older I’ve come to realise that if anything, my mother is the difficult one.

It’s probably a combination of factors. However it’s unfair to complain that she doesn’t visit much but then also complain about how she is when she visits.

God I thought that was just me. I seem to regress into a moody teenager the minute I step into her home. Sometimes it’s like looking in from the outside. I hate who I become when I visit.
There will never be a conversation about it. My mother could not cope with what would be perceived as confrontation. We both do our little dance around the elephant in the room, and probably both look forward to the interaction being over.

Agree, I daren't have a drink in front of mine as I am petrified I will say something and not be able to stop. It won't be about the thing she's talking about it will be about the years of resentment I feel towards her. I also find myself if I am not very vigilant wanting to stating the opposite position to her and probably sometimes being tempted to say things that will wind her up so she will bite as I subconsciously want her to so I can stop seeing her and feel justified. It's all very complicated! She'd done and said loads of things over the years that would have justified this but I was so enmeshed/parentified and was suffering from emotional incest with her that I didn't realise.

Snap.

I have friends & I hope I'm a loyal & caring friend. I'm not hugely sociable or confident but I love my small circle of friends. Im not sure I make good first impression.

I bet my DM would say similar to the OP about my friendships - that I'm not a very good friend or don't have very many. It's really because she's never made an effort to find out and I am 50 - I'm hardly having play dates with her there. So she doesn't know and would just assume I'm unlikeable.

My two DBs are pretty supportive and see what my DM has been like - mainly thanks to their wives spelling it out. My DSis is the same as my DM.

I've had friends from age 12 who have seen it first hand too - as have my DH & DCs so I know it's not in my head. My DS1 once joked "even if you were an only child you'd still be her least favourite child".

I was very unwell recently - and my DB was shocked at how little my DM seemed to care - she enjoyed sharing the drama of my emergency operation - she was less bothered about supporting me or my family through the trauma. So there are two sides to every story - I'm sure my DM would describe me as difficult and not a very nice DD.

As a mum to 3 - I can see there are kids you rub along with better than others. I've seen parents of non sleepers not being to let the pain of sleep deprivation go. These issues can have funny roots - sometimes we never get to the bottom of them. Just ignoring them, accepting them can be the best way. We're unlikely to change people.

p.s - I should add - I think I was a pain in the backside - I was rebellious and loud and jumped straight into situations. I loved all the things she wasn't interested in - we are just really different - I think I was annoying to her.

From the whole post, that is all you took from it?

Why does anyone like anyone. The Ops daughter is an individual and it's rare that any individual is likeable 100% of the time.

If you mean why do I think the OP loves her daughter, love is a strange thing, and in the main I believe the mother/daughter bond - for most people anyway - is a strong one.

My MIL felt similarly about my SIL. She is indeed a very difficult character but certainly in that case the underlying family dynamics were as much a feature of developing into that character as her own temperament.

Her parent’s treatment of her as a young child definitely fed into the dynamics.

The only advice I can give you is to take care of your side of the fence. If you don’t like the way the relationship is, then change how you engage in the relationship. Don’t be as available for the political rants, draw a clear boundary between her views and your own by recognising and reflecting her views back to her and then the “we will have to agree to disagree” line.

Keep interactions short and managed and take opportunities to get out of sticky conversations with things to do and toilet visits.

We always put an end time on visits as well as a start time. Vague plans later in the evening mean we have to be finished by x o’ clock. We would never dream of doing that with “not difficult” people but it really helps because you know when the unpleasantness will be over.

The middle one has always been "difficult" even as a child and things haven't improved as she has got older

My mother could have written this exact sentence about me.
Of course I have my own side of the story.
I imagine your daughter does too.
Perhaps, like me, she could always sense her mother disliked her and preferred her other children?