Hi M02,
Thank you for the love and the understanding. You're right M02, she's been abusive. But the label doesn't get us anywhere.
I've never been so flat out of advice in my life. You ask a great question but I think the only thing I could say is, compassion. I don't know what actions that would take. I have to have it for myself too but her pain must be so immense. It's tourniquet time and I'm standing here with a Bandaid.
Hi Ann and Beth and Bear,
Thank you for popping up and for your kindness. Beth, I needed to hear I'm a good person, but I don't want to believe that's an answer. It's small comfort but a real one.
Thank you Ann, for your kind words.
And Bear...Sometimes just being reminded that life just is what it is, in all its reality, is a drink of water. Not a cold one, just a wet one. Thanks.
Hi Amber...
I am going to have to have faith in your faith about my D and me, because mine is almost destroyed.
There is a woman at my church who haunts me. About 10 years older than I am. There was a conflict with her children over a trust fund, she said the wrong thing, did something they found unfair ... and they're gone from her life. They have dropped her. It is NC. She is not allowed to see her grandchildren. She's a wraith. For years, I've seen her walking around the church (she pours her energy into the grounds) and when we talk, she cries. It's like an amputation. She cannot think of anything else. Her heartbreak is so raw, just as powerful as it was when she first described her situation.
I am terrified of becoming this woman.
Hi CB...
We didn't cosleep, my D was popped in her crib from the first night, since I didn't think I could handle losing additional sleep. I had always had panic attacks, etc., if I didn't get enough rest. I am wondering if we didn't bond right. Or how else I've harmed her. I know there are a hundred ways.
We had our first counseling session yesterday. (She has agreed to 1 more.) She told the C how she doesn't want to be living here but had no choice. I told the C it was because free shelter was all I could offer her. I said how it felt when my D sent me emails calling me a f**ing moron, a selfish bitch, a stupid bitch. The C asked her, Do you want to hurt your mother? D said, I am very resentful and bitter. Then she talked about how I was never a mother to her, but only a friend and companion and how she felt I asked her to handle things she couldn't handle at the time her father died (I asked her if she wanted to see his body before the cremation). The worst one is, I did not go to his memorial service. I knew both his other wives would be there and D's aunts and uncles and cousins and I had a critical meeting in another state. I had been with her at his bedside, been with her the days after, met with her, her stepmother, the minister, helped plan the service, been there at the hospital...but for the service itself, I wasn't there. Later on we had another small private service at my church (the one she was raised in) and installed a stone marker for him...not enough. I agree. I should have been there.
Then she told the C that she wants a divorce from me.
Last night I was just sitting here feeling the heartbreak, so I called Gennulman. My D had given him a ride home a couple weeks ago and he'd told me she talked to him for 2 hours. I didn't pry and just told him I was glad she'd had someone to pour it out to. Anyway, he decided to tell me about their conversation and I decided I was not going to stop him. I can't sit alone with the pain any more and he's my only friend who's spent any time with her. Most of it I knew already. She told him I am a horribly selfish person, and she does not want to take care of me in any way because then she'd be doing exactly what I did. She also does not want to get a job here in town to make any contribution because if she starts working here, she'll be committed and trapped with me. He told her, you can waitress and leave the job the next month if you had to. She has fantasies that she'll be hired in another city and they'll pay for her move. (I had this happen for one job in my entire career, and it was management, not entry level.)
But I was nearing 50 and my mother was in her late 80s when I moved back...my D is 29. I have no expectations or fantasies at all that she should be living with me and "taking care of me" now. And I have long-term-care insurance so she won't have to take care of me later. She still looks at our two situations (my past one with her grandmother and her present one) as the exact same thing. Disasters.
I can understand why they merge in her mind, but I don't want that for her. I want her to be happy, to go off and build her own happy separate life. And then just visit. When I'm very old, sure, I dream it'd be nice to be with her or near her...but that's not such an unusual idea. I won't be planning on it though.
He said what disturbed him most was the way she walls off every single exit for herself. He went through every reasonable thing a person might do, or begin, in circumstances that feel as desperate as hers and she said No, I won't or No, I can't to every single one. (Remember, he's been homeless.) And, she blamed me for everything that's wrong in her life. It all came back to me, no matter what the issue was.
He was also disturbed by the way he'd heard her talking to me when we were all 3 driving together one day. She had just shut me off and talked to me with a great deal of contempt.
He said he'd gently pushed back with her, and though she was courteous, she discarded every suggestion he made.
I'm feeling afraid and hurt. I've lost (left) marriages, made fatal errors (moving in with NMom), been dumped by friends, chosen the wrong work, etc, etc.
If I lose my only child I lose the person I love more than anyone in the world and I'm not sure there'd be much point left in life. But if she hates me to the point that she'll talk to me and about me the way she does, I guess I've lost her anyway.
She's 29.
Is she likely to change her mind?
Two lights in the darkness: she's looking for counseling for herself too. She did agree to one more appointment.
The C impressed me and there was a quality of intelligence and great focus. She is paralysed and in a wheelchair. I felt safe with her. I will go anywhere, do anything, to try to heal this.
This is a whole new category of hurt. I will endure it because that's what you do, but I would far rather feel that there's something, anything, I can do to help change it.
love,
Hops
