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    lostmom143's Avatar
    lostmom143 Posts: 2, Reputation: 1
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    #1

    Dec 17, 2010, 11:31 PM
    My 19 year old daughter won't talk to me
    My 19 (almost 20) year old daughter has cut off contact with me.

    She has been on again/off again with a guy in California. He is in the military. Whenever he was deployed for the first time he stopped talking to her the week before he left so she broke up with him and started dating another guy then later became engaged to him and moved in with him. Then 10 months later the military guy contacts her and tells her he is coming back and asks her to come to California to see him. She breaks up with the fiancé and gets on a plane (with my blessing and me paying half the round-trip ticket cost). We are happy and having a great time at the airport. She tells me she loves me and will see me in a week. Then she is gone.

    I have put her on a plane to see him before and the times before have been very stressfull because she gets out there and forgets to call or text home. We have argued about this so this time I gave her lots of space. The days started going by with no word so I texted her to make sure she knew her return flight plans. Then the boy messages me and asks if she can delay her return a couple of weeks so he can accompany her home (he is from our town as well). I agreed (much to their shock) and everything was fine. Then the 2 weeks turned into next month then that turned into she didn't know when she was going to be able to come back because "well mom, what do you think about me moving out here?". What could I say? No? She is 19 and I couldn't tell her how to live her life. I told her OK but I missed her and wanted her to talk to me. But the old patterns were the same now. She didn't text me and when she did it was basically to tell me she was too busy to talk. The messages got shorter and less frequent. And I was becoming distraught.

    I begged her to talk to me. I tried to make sure she was happy and being taken care of. And everything I asked seemed to make her mad. It became such that she resented me telling her I missed her and loved her. She was quickly becoming angry with me. The messages would stop for days until she needed something from me then she would talk to me as if nothing was ever wrong until she got me to send her what she needed or do what she needed me to do. After I complied then she stopped communicating again.

    She left on St. Patrick's Day and by Mother's Day I only got a Facebook message and the same on my birthday at the end of the same month. My husband got a nice card and a phone call on Father's Day and before she left on this trip her and her dad were barely on speaking terms she hated him so much. Now he is the greatest dad ever. Her two younger siblings were at first pawns for her to get information out of or to pass messages to me through but when they stood up to her she stopped speaking to them too. The boy even called me and told me how f'ing crazy I am because I grew frantic after being unable to contact her for 5 days in April.

    This has been the story (and so much more since March) then in November she messaged her younger sister (16) and tried to turn her against me. When I called her and confronted her about it she hung up on me and hasn't responded to phone calls or messages since.

    This is my first born child. I tried for 2 years (and 1 miscarriage) to have her. She was my best friend. We did everything together up until the day she got on that plane. We fought. I am now realizing that I smothered her and monopolized her time. I hovered trying to keep her safe and to prevent her from getting hurt. I know that I chased her away but I just need to know how to make it right. I am dying inside. I don't think I can make it through Christmas. She isn't coming home (she told her little brother this on the phone when she called him last week).

    Any advice (other than the one I keep getting... "she will be back just give it time") would be greatly appreciated!
    ITstudent2006's Avatar
    ITstudent2006 Posts: 2,243, Reputation: 329
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    #2

    Dec 17, 2010, 11:34 PM

    I realize you say she won't talk to you but here's some advice for when you do gget contact with her.

    Tell her exactly what you just told me. Open up and admit where you were wrong. (no this doesn't excuse her behavior) but only being 19/20 it's one step at a time with her!
    joypulv's Avatar
    joypulv Posts: 21,591, Reputation: 2941
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    #3

    Dec 18, 2010, 05:59 AM
    I don't have any advice other than the one you are getting. It sounds like you don't want advice, you want to hear something that you want to hear that you haven't heard yet.
    You don't sound like a bad mother at all. But you do sound smothering and hovering of a woman in her 20s, yes. And you also sound like you do think that you expect a return on your investment (plane fares etc) regardless of claiming not to. You also sound like you just don't get it - children more often than not NEED to be untied from the proverbial apron strings, and the more difficult and demanding you get, the more they have to detach from you. And resent you, for a while.
    Hey, what is Facebook good for if not keeping tabs on someone while leaving them alone?? Parents never had that before! You can see what she is doing, who her friends are, what she says, good grief. Don't try to write or comment or anything, just observe and be happy that she is happy.
    lostmom143's Avatar
    lostmom143 Posts: 2, Reputation: 1
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    #4

    Dec 18, 2010, 01:19 PM
    Thank you itstudent2006, I have been considering that if she ever does contact me again that I will apologize to her for smothering her.

    To joy... thanks for your input but I'm afraid you are way off base. I do want advise. Basically I wanted to know what other people thought about if I should contact her or just leave it be for now. There is so much more to the story and it would take a book to fully inform someone of all the dynamics (including that for all the hovering and smothering that I did she wanted it that way... or so it seemed for even on the day she left she wouldn't even go into the bank to cash a check alone). She was my very best friend. She made me go everywhere with her and o everything for her and I didn't have the heart to tell her no to anything. And then she was just gone. And I don't know how to handle it.
    Alty's Avatar
    Alty Posts: 28,317, Reputation: 5972
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    #5

    Dec 18, 2010, 02:07 PM

    The first mistake you made was making her your best friend. You are her mother, and playing a role other than mother is always dangerous. Sooner or later it backfires, and that seems to be what happened here.

    Seems that she has someone else to do everything for her now, or she's finally spreading her wings and becoming more independent, and realizes that she doesn't want to be babied anymore.

    I agree it IT, you should tell her that you realize that you played a role in her life as best friend, and you made a mistake. You smothered her, and she decided enough is enough and she won't allow you to do it anymore.

    You have to make it clear that you've seen where you went wrong and you won't go back to that way any more. You two have to work together to form a new relationship, one of mother and adult child.

    Counseling may help. It's not easy to change yourself and the way you treat others without help. If you are ready to contact her and move forward, getting a professional to help with that process is a good idea.

    I wish you all the best and hope that it works out for the two of you.

    Good luck.
    Jake2008's Avatar
    Jake2008 Posts: 6,721, Reputation: 3460
    Emotional Health Expert
     
    #6

    Dec 20, 2010, 03:45 AM
    I think you need to let her grow up, and stop with the guilt already.

    If she is old enough to be engaged, break up, fly off to meet up with an ex boyfriend, re-kiindle a relationship with him, and decide to stay with him, she is old enough to take care of herself.

    That she cannot communicate simply that she is safe and everything is okay, and instead goes through the rest of the family, and also manages to alienate them, speaks more to her being immature, and my take on this is, no wonder you are worried.

    I don't hear you being critical of her choices in men, I hear you being concerned for her welfare, and at age 19, I would be concerned too. Her track record justifies that. If this is how things generally go for her with impulsive decisions, my guess is you have bailed her out before.

    I would contact her, with a letter. Tell her that her decisions have left you distressed and worried. But you realize and have accepted that her decisions, are her decisions, and hers alone. You will respect the life she has chosen to live, and from this point on, will treat her as an adult.

    That means no bailing her out when, and if, things go wrong- again. No air tickets, no supporting her, no free room and board, no loans, nothing. As an adult, making adult decisions, she is now capable of managing her own life. Tell her if things go wrong- again- that you will expect her to make her own way.

    My opinion is you need to let go of the parenting role, what choice do you have. Let her grow up by cutting the apron strings. You do neither of you any favours by allowing yourself to think of her as a 16 year old, or her any favours by knowing that you will always bail her out, without any boundaries and expectations.

    My guess is, that unless you stop doing what you are doing, this cycle of stress you put yourself under, is going to repeat itself over and over again. If you can think about her as being an adult now, and not a child in need of protection, you will actually be doing her a huge favor.

    If you don't expect her to be a responsible adult, she never will be.

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