My daughter came to visit my son & his wife & me & it has been a very cold visit. She has told my son & daughter-n-law her issues, but said that she will not talk to me about it but they can after she leaves. This has been going on for about a month & it has been pure torture. We have always talked on the phone frequently, but now it is very distant & deliberate. She is punishing me, blaming me for something & I can only speculate what it is & wish I could fix it but pretty impossible when she refuses to speak to me. Complete & total shut down. While I'm thankful that she has confided in my son & daughter-n-law,I am frustrated that I have to wait & see what it is AFTER she is gone. I have to share some history here about her. Apparently she had been sexually abused, but I don't know who, when but fear more than once. I also found it she had been inappropriately touched by my other son when she was a child. I didn't know about this until I read it in her journal. As soon as I read this, I tried to talk to her about what had happened & she refused, was visibly upset that I even knew & ran upstairs getting physically sick. She has not talked to me about it. I went to my son THAT day to find out what had happened. This apparently took place at least 10 years ago or more. He was embarrassed, humiliated, brokenhearted about his actions to his little sister. He told me about inappropriate touching, he was curious, said he knew that what he did was wrong, told his sister later that what he did was wrong, that he was sorry & it would not happen again. Since finding this all out, the only time she "talked" to me was on a Sunday evening when she IM me & refused to get on the phone to talk. She just wanted to control the conversation & just wanted answers to her questions. I answered her questions via internet & feel that she wasn't happy with some of my answers. One of her questions was if I loved her offending brother. I told her that even though I was heartbroken to find out what had happened that I could not ever stop loving him any more than I could stop loving her. I feel that maybe she blames me for what happened. Another question was when I knew what happened. She insinuated that I had known earlier & did nothing. I quickly & sternly let her know that I NEVER would have turned a blind eye to such an act & that I was surprised that she would even think that of me. Had I any idea I would have met it straight on. I would have wanted to deal with it as soon as possible rather than 10 to 15 years later. It is such a mess & I feel that I have lost her for good. I wish I could help her with the pain she has lived with for so long. I feel that she wants to completely drain me of any thing good that I might have ever felt in my life & replace it with nothing but ugliness & she's done a pretty good job. I feel so inadequate, so worthless & she seems very happy about the outcome. I just don't know what to do. I would do anything to stop this heartache. Our family is being torn apart & I would do anything to keep that from happening. Any help would be very much appreciated.

It does seem to me that your daughter is out to hurt you because she feels that you did not protect her like you should have. For your part all I can advise is patience, since this seems to be the first time she is getting these feelings off her chest after all these years they are going to be very strong right now, so just do what you've always done; be their for her as much as possible. This is not to say you will ever have the relationship you once did, only time will tell on that. But do your best to help her through this.

Also ask her if she wants counseling, and have her other siblings that she trust's suggest it as well. Also considering the crimes committed against her find out the statute of limitations on them, if there is none, or you are still within range for them try to find out if she does wish to press charges. I would also say if she chooses to or chooses not to you should support her either way.