Ah. Thank you.
Where did you get the impression that I was speaking from actuary tables & studies? I’m sorry if I gave that impression. Let me be clear: the reason I was talking about my experience, and my opinion, was that my intent was to state my opinion based on my experience. Is that clearer now? I don’t usually put my assessment of the various tales of strangers on the internet up to scientifically rigorous standards. No one else here has provided cites for their opinion, why are you demanding them from me?
As for “how else” I would assess it, I wouldn’t assess it at all, because the whole thing feels so incredibly one-sided as to make it improbable for it to be strictly accurate. pace is talking about her feelings, and her feelings obviously color her responses. How do we know that her feelings about the appropriateness of her daughter’s relationship with the therapist do not come entirely from, say, pace not liking what the therapist has to say? That seems just as likely to me. So, while I’m not saying it’s definitely been mangled in the Emotional Wringer, I personally am skeptical we’re getting the whole story or anything like it.
OK - I hope this doesn’t come out as “assholio” as it is in my head, but here goes:
It has been 13 years and you are still in frequent contact with your ex over your daughter, who reached the age of maturity 8 years ago? Do you wonder where she might have learned to pick the scab?
I would love for everyone to have a “good divorce” where feelings are respected, friendships maintained and amiable atmospheres abound, but it sounds like you are not respected (neither ex nor daughter are giving your feelings and weight). I feel for you that you want the best for your daughter. I really do. I am divorced with kids as well so I understand the need to flog yourself for any problems in the marriage that you just know will scar the kid for life but at when do you stop beating yourself up for her and start beating yourself up for what you yourself have problems with? I’m guessing somewhere between 1 and 13 years.
Anyway - I am sorry about the pain you are going through, even if I don’t completely understand it.
**Indygrrl’s ** right that there are three sides to every story and not to give up yet, but also I wanted to add this.
You may *have * to give up for a few years at least. My mom is what your daughter is, essentially - forever blaming everything terrible in her life on one incident. I had to cut myself off for years.
Our relationship will never be patched up, because she won’t acknowledge any of her mistakes or faults. She still feels she’s done nothng to harm anyone and that she is totally guilt-free.
However I was *also * forced to cut ties with other family members too, who sided with her. Some of them have since come to see that she was at fault, too, and i have reconciled with them.
It takes time and space may be what she needs. It was what my aunts & I needed, for sure, and some life changes that made them realize. They are now in essentially the same position I was/am - disapproved of by the rest of the family for doing something that wasn’t to their liking*. So they understand what my mom never did.
I have drifted somewhat from my point, which was it may take a separation for her to realize she wants you in her life or not. 25 is still young enough to make lots of mistakes.
Well, speaking as a daughter whose parents separated when I was 8 and didn’t divorce until I was 14 and then remarried one another when I was 21 (having learned nothing about communication or relationships in the interim), I feel I can contribute to this thread.
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You get the brunt, because you were/are the parent present. I put Daddy on a pedestal and had this nice dream that everything would have been great, if only Daddy had been home. Daddy did nothing to disabuse me of this notion. Daddy is a bit of an egotist.
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You get the brunt because you’re female. This may sound completely off the wall and June Cleaverish, but there is an element (hopefully not a dominant one these days) of appeasing the man, pleasing the man, catching the man–at least there is in my SES (white upper middle class suburbs). If she is 25 and not married–even if she proclaims she doesn’t seek marriage right now-there may be a bit of idealizing the male while detracting from the female going on here. I know I looked for stability and security in every romantic relationship I had until I got married. I also went thru 3 years of therapy and finally laid some divorce ghosts to rest–in my 30’s.
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You are being used as an avoidance technique for her–by staying angry at the divorce, she is able to NOT focus on something else in her life that may need attention, but that she is reluctant to tackle (weight loss, relational issues, chemical dependencies, loneliness, underachieving–whatever).
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You need to STOP apologizing to her for the divorce. Seriously. What, your life should have been miserable to ensure hers was happy? What is that? There is no guarantee that it would have been happier IF you had stayed married, anyway!
She is holding you emotionally hostage for a past event. Not nice.
Then again, at 25, she is really just becoming an adult. There is a school of thought that adolescence is protracted now, and maturity doesn’t occur until mid-twenties. I know my siblings STILL blame our parents for their unhappinesses, and we are all in our 40’s. Some people only grow so far and that’s it, sadly enough.
If she starts the blame game again, I would say to her-why should my life have been made miserable on the off chance that you would have been happier? It may give her something to think about. Or, if you’re not interested in confrontation, I would just refuse to discuss the issue.
I highly doubt that she knows what she wants from you–apparently an apology is not it. Methinks boundaries need to be established–and since the very interesting therapist is not doing so, it’s up to you. You may lose your daughter for a while, but are your truly close now?
Food for thought.
Ooops! Sorry, pace. Somehow I’d gotten the impression from other posts that you were a guy.
While I’m sure your divorce caused your daughter some pain–divorce is rarely easy on kids–she’s not a kid any more. She’s fairly young as an adult but she’s fallen into a habit of using the divorce as a crutch for herself, and a club against everybody else. Frankly, thirteen bloody years of therapy sounds ridiculous to me, unless there’s something else significant involved. Therapy is supposed to help teach a kid to cope with parents’ divorce, not magnify it into the defining element of her whole life.
My suggestion? Just calmly tell her that you love her but she’s an adult now and needs to start dealing with life as an adult. You’ve taken responsibility for your mistakes and tried to make amends. Your daughter won’t ever learn how to live her own life by dwelling on the flaws and faults in yours. She won’t learn responsiblity for her own emotions and reactions, much less how to forgive herself for her own mistakes. Relentlessly picking at scabs is a lousy way of trying to heal.
If nothing else, tell her to decide what she wants from you from now on. Magically reinventing the past for her ain’t possible. Acting as the designated focus for all her miscontents damages both of you. So…ask her honestly: What kind of relationship does she want with you? Maybe it’ll be none-or-limited; maybe it will be small steps that lead to bigger ones. But no matter what, she has to take personal responsibility for 50% of the result.
Yeah, OK.
It just seems like if you’re going to turn someone’s post around and accuse them of assholery, you’d want something more concrete to go on. Yes, there is probably more to the story here. It just seems more polite to ask than to simply accuse.
Insanity is defined as doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It appears clear that she does not want to change right now. She hasn’t wanted to change for the last 13 years. I would guess that has no plans to change her attitude in the near future. I would further hazard a guess that she in some twisted way “enjoys” abusing you.
If you allow her to continue her pattern of abuse it will only end badly for you. This will affect your mental outlook, it could affect your health, and it does expose you to stress. So unless you do something to change the rules of how she is playing the game your future is bleak IMHO.
I think there are a couple of ways to attack this problem.
Head on is one way. Sit your daughter down, and explain to her that you are no longer willing to be her punching bag. The divorce happened 13 years ago, you cannot change the past, you can only change the future. The first change you are making in your future is you are no longer willing to be verbally abused by her. Explain that she will always occupy a special place in your heart and you will always be there for you but only if she stops making everything in her life your fault. In the future if she calls and starts to rag on you say goodbye and hang up. If she comes to visit, and it happens, ask her to leave. If you are visiting her, you leave. Then do it. She will test you for sure. You must carry through, or don’t even bother to start.
The spoiled brat approach. If she is going to act like a spoiled 7 year old treat her like one. When she starts to rag on you, start singing “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” or “I know what you are what am I?” Explain to her that she is acting like a spoiled 7 year old, so you are going to treat her just like a spoiled 7 year old. The same comments about follow through apply.
One of two things will happen:
- She cleans up her act.
- She doesn’t clean up her act, in which case you need to set limits on your contacts with her. The girl is toxic. This may seem harsh, but think how much nicer life would be if you were not always being told “You fucked up my life because you got a divorce!” Getting rid of this stress would not be a bad thing.
Oh and I have to add from post #31
OK, got it Pace is an asshole guy that cannot admit his shortcomings and it is all HIS fault
Then in Post #40 we get
Boy I gotta tell you that really seems to blow a hole in Ensign Edison’s pet theory of the stupid guy blames everybody else when it’s really his fault . 
:smack:
Yes, it changes things, of course, though for me, not much. I have zero problem imagining a mother who thinks her kid has some bizarre cultlike friendship with her therapist because the therapist refuses to say that everything is the kid’s fault and the kid just has a bad attitude. I would wager that situation is far, far more common than the bizarre friendship scenario.
Yep, that’s the kind of bizarre shit asshole guys like that and their friends might say. Good impression. They /would/ see the world so totally in terms of “fault” that if it’s not entirely the kid’s fault it must be entirely his own fault.
What about the “bizarre-friendship-plus-recurring-professional-fees” scenario? I’ve rarely heard of a therapist telling a patient they are cured. I have heard of lots of people going to therapy for years and years. Even if it is not entirely out of economic self-interest, I suspect that many therapists, even well-meaning ones, create a reinforcing feedback loop by discussing “the problems” so often that the “problems,” and discussion thereof, become a significant, defining part of who the patient is – and who willingly amputates a part of themselves?
There’s also a potential for “co-dependency” to use a jargon word. People enter psychiatry, I think, because they are “helpers” or want to be. Can I imagine the scenario in which daughter keeps going to therapist because “[s]he’s the only one who understands me and takes my problems seriously?” Sure I can, especially after everyone else but Mom has made it plain they don’t want to talk about “the problems.” Can I imagine a situation in which therapist (who’s being paid to listen to the boring repetition) gets a little hooked on the gratitude and adoration of daughter? Sure, there too.
Someone mentioned the fact that pace is the Mom rather than the Dad could be significant and I agree though for different reasons. Mother-daughter relationships are fraught with tension, in childhood and into adulthood, as often as not (IME). I’ve seen it in my own family on a milder basis, with the Moms being the punching bags or default Bad Guy for their daughters well into their 20s and 30s. (Dads have an analogous though I think lesser problem with sons, as the entire oeuvre of Pearl Jam and Nickelback seem to indicate). Not that it’s any consolation or provides a way out, but I suspect that even mothers of daughters less tortured and unhappy than is pace’s can identify with some of the just plain mean lashing out she’s getting.
Just wanted to add one little tidbit to this thread. In my experience, a child going through his/her parents’ divorce is hurt a lot deeper and more permanently than some people would like to admit. Which is not to say that they can never lead a normal, perfectly healthy and happy life! But it’s unrealistic to expect them to just “snap out of it” after some predetermined amount of time has elapsed. It very well may be an issue that she has to work on (to a greater or lesser extent) for the rest of her life.
YMMV.
All that said, this particular daughter sounds like a big jerk.