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Helen Marie said:

I suggest that we stop beating ourselves up. It sounds like we and many other parents made the same mistake – we tried to do everything possible to make our child's life easy, catered to them, paid for everything we possibly could afford, including college, etc. Now, we have a spoiled, unappreciative adult child with an entitlement attitude, who still expects everything handed to them.

If I could go back and redo things, I wouldn't put their needs above our own. We have our problems, but they have no empathy for us. Why should they? They always came first!

Should we keep catering to them, in order to have a relationship with them? No way! It's time to say 'enough' and put ourselves first. We're not going to live forever. If that's their way of saying 'thank you' to us – so be it. I am done taking verbal, emotional and financial abuse from my ED. It took me a year to get over my depression, realize this is not my fault, and that I need to enjoy my life – with or without her in it. Now, I can finally sleep well at night again. I hope this helps others……

I have been having the on/off again with my 30 yoa daughter for a couple of years. There seems to be always something that has been done or said by myself or my husband that offends her. She then gets her 2 sisters involved in the stuff and they then are angry/upset/not speaking to me. I have either been a 'not there Mom, when they were growing up' or 'a bad example of a Grandma to their kids'. They forget that I HAD to work when they were young (since I got them into the habit of liking to eat daily), bills had to be paid, etc. I was not the 'cookie baking Grandma' like my Mom was.

My daughter also has never liked my now husband. If he makes a joke she and her sister's take it a though he has made a really offense (or sexual) remark against them. He is also a, now 8 weeks sober, recovering alcoholic. No matter how life & the disease is explained she asks 'So, are you going to leave him?' She refuses to understand or give him a chance.
Last week we were at a family function and she & her sister's took offense at something he said. I was suposed "to handle" the situation. When I said No, if they had a problem with him they would need to speak with him as I am not responsible for other perople's action/words. This really started the blame game on me. They are so used to me giving in/taking on the responsibility of others/saying that I am sorry for everything, up to & including Global warming…They like to control me and it has worked for the last 15-18 years and now I finally have said No More & they are not speaking to me, again.

I have tried what my husband's parents used to do to him, which is to sit back, let them be adults and when they want to have Mom/Grandma around they can call me. I try not to interfer, not to direct/control, not give advice but even that bites me in the backside.

WHAT do I do now?!

Thanks for your response Helenmarie and that of catmom in November. I know where you're coming from and my post sounded a bit whimpish, which is not how I am normally. I'm a fighter by nature, and had to fight a lot to get my disabled child the help he needed. Think that was part of the problem, my daughter is as well and we clash. I (and my husband) are not impressed with how she behaved, but I was trying to learn from Dr Coleman's approach and focus on what practical things I could do to help. Fortunately I didn't need to, as she has been in touch, neither of us are mentioning incident and just moving on. I worked on keeping myself strong, walking, reading etc before she got in touch, but since she has I keep breaking down in tears. I'm only getting a glimpse of the world that you occupy so my heart goes out to you all. Keep strong

Can't believe how stupid Iwas. Iknew things were precarious. I then relaxed a little after writing my first post. We ignored the not having telephone issue, and emails were going fine. Home at Xmas, which went well for nearly a week, helped with autistic son, and then it all blew on the last night. Daughter had bought a game which she wanted to play, sat down to play it ( didn't want to, as I was on antibiotics for infection and not feeling well). Needed 4 to play, my other son said didn't want to, his choice I thought, though according to my daughter he'd agreed earlier. We tried to improvise, then husband said it wasn't working and didn't want to play, and I agreed. Daughter, who's 29. Angrily got up,slamming doors. I went passed her and told her to behave herself. She told me to " f…. Off", we're not a family that use that kind of language. Husband told her that it was unacceptable, I stupidly didn't leave it at that,and mar hed upstairs ( sh'd now gone to her room), and told her she apologised or left the house in the morning( she had been intending staying one more day). she of course said she was going. I did go up about an hour later in conciliatory mood and said what a lovely time we'd had until then. Couldn't sleep, as I knew she'd leave very early. She did, tried to kiss her good bye, pushed me away. Sent conciliatory email as soon as she'd gone, and have since sent 'normal' emails, trying to move on, all ignored. I'd do anything to go back and deal with it differently, thinking of writing letter of apology for my part in the evening. I know some of you will think it's early days to be thinking she won't get in touch, now been 17 days, but it's what I fear. Has anyone any suggestions

AnnMarie said:

I'm one step advanced from other guests in that we're not completely estranged but it seems to be going that way and I'm not sure what to do about it. Our daughter has just spent a year travelling, at times communicating rarely, and has now started work, got a phone (wouldn't have one when travelling alone). Been emailing asking her for number when she dropped bombshell that wasn';t going to give us number. Further endeavours just made things worse and got aggressive email concerning how dreadful my calls had been over the years, which stressed her out. Our calls had at times been difficult but largely because she chose to be monosyllabic. We've been a good supportive family-no divorce, alcoholism, drugs etc. She went to one of the top universities has now got an great career and we supported her financially until she was 26 years. We've had a lot of health problems both my husband and I have had life threatening illnesses (husband still has) which are affected by stress. Our youngest is severely disabled. We've tried to protect our 2 older children from all this, but am just heartbroken by how our relationship is going. Since being a teenager she has criticised and criticised me, initially because I only worked part time. I look at friends and they don't have these kinds of problems. I feel my daughter is just looking to hurt me if she can-can't buy her surprise presents because she spoils Xmas day by making it clear that she doesn't want it. I've thought and hoped that things would improve as she grew older, but they are getting worse. Any advice to stop a total alienation which I think she is looking for a reason to create. That would totally break my husbands and my heart

Hi,the first thing I would do is get Dr Coleman's book and read it.It is a wonderful resource.This sounds like a complex situation,caring for a severely disabled child has no doubt had an impact on the family functioning as well as dealing with life threatening illnesses.I know I would be buckling under that sort of pressure.Perhaps your daughter has decided the only way she can deal with it is not to.Have you considered going to some sort of counseling to help deal with this possible estrangement? Please don't take this the wrong way,it just sounds like a very complex situation that has gone on for a while and every-one in the family has different emotional responses.You may need some-one who is not involved like a therapist to help mediate.I am assuming your daughter is in her thirties? It kind of sounds like you really are at the point of losing her which is very delicate.I feel at a loss to give you more ideas.Please take care,I feel for you.