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I have been estranged from my daughter for almost 20 years
I have been estranged from my daughter for almost 20 years. Recently we have done some contact and she blames me for so much that did not happen at all!
She claims that I beat her (never happened) and did nothing for. None of that is true. Her father and I divorced when she was about 6 and we went to live with my mother. This was only because my husband tried to burn down the house we lived in with us in it! We lived in the country then.
He wanted generous child visitation, which I gave him wanting her to have a relationship with her father, but he stood her up so many times. I recall one time in particular when after church she was sanding behind the car in the driveway waiting for her father to arive. Her friends wanted her to play, but she told them proudly she was waiting for him. He never showed. When I went out to bring her in for lunch she took it out on me (she was about 8 then). It was MY fault. I had nothing to do with it.
Anyway, I am the one that bought her a car, encouraged her to take courses to go to college. She had a savings account that I had control of and turned over to her on her 18th birthday. This she claims never happened and actually sued me about it when she graduated from college and was looking for $$ to pay off student loans. This DEVASTATED ME. Even my Father said she was rotten through and through.
I couldn't deal with that for years yet, eventhough she claimed to the lawyers that she was afraid of me (thus she refused to be in a room with me and I had to leave the courthouse before she did). One time she was in the lawyers office for a deposition (she refused to have me in the room while I was deposed, she couldn't even look at my husband! I think that says a lot. Once it was over she seemed to think things should go right back to normal.
Oh, she moved out of my house between her junior and senior year in college because: 1. I wouldn't pony up money for her to move out of the dorm and have her own apartment. 2. I came home one night to find her and her current boyfriend in a compromising position, if you get my drift. I called her on that and she told me she would do what she wanted. I said not in my house, and she moved out. I told her she didn't have to move, but to have respect for me....you understand.
Re this I also had a problem with her in high school, also in her Junior. She had a crush on a young music teacher and he encouraged it. While the spring play was being rehearsed she told me she was going to be late one night because of that. When it got to 10:30, which was late for her on a school night) and she still wasn't home I started calling around looking for her. I drove to the high school there were cars there but I could not get in. Anyway, I called the police and told them she wasn't home yet, etc. The police checked the school and found that she was still there with the TEACHER! This was around midnight!
The police brought her home and boy was she angry. The next day she came home and told me the music teacher said I got him in trouble! I told her he got himself in trouble, that she should never have been with him etc. A few weeks later he told her that the school was not renewing his contract and she was furious at me.
I had talked to the school about the situation but the school also had the report from the police department.
Anyway, she always tells me how great her father was and I wonder if it is time to tell her about the fire etc. There is a police report on that and she and I spend about 2 weeks at a women's shelter after that happened.
Please let me hear your remarks. This has bothered me for years. I have gotten blamed for so much I didn't do. As I once told her, if I was that bad she could have gone to live with her father. The truth there is that he didn't want her to cramp his life style.
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in reply to @kartwk I can only imagine. However, I am estranged from one of my sisters who decided she wanted nothing to do with me when I began showing signs of an illness. "My life coach on line told me to tell you I can only discuss recipes with you and nothing else." This year was the first year in five that I did not send her a birthday card because she did not invite me to her daughter's wedding in September. A few nights ago I started writing her a letter using AI to get me started, and as I read it, I thought, "this is so not me, I am not even going to put forth the effort."
While I was not estranged from my own mother, I knew from the moment I could remember, that she hated me, and she made no secret of this during my entire life. I can remember her lamenting how depressed she was after I was born, and how I was essentially handed off to all the women in the neighborhood after my birth. It's no wonder we never "bonded." And I really wanted a real "mom." Instead I began calling the mothers of my friends, "mom" and this made a huge difference until my mother heard me, and then all hell broke loose.
I am so sorry to hear your story, it really does resonate with me. Enjoy yourself while you are still able to do so. If there is one thing I did learn from my mother it was, "make every minute count," something I only realized and began saying as a sort of mantra after I got "sick." Afterall, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died six weeks later, which was a good thing because I knew she did not want her daughters to wind up taking care of her as she did for my father when she took care of him for 18 months before he died of leukemia. I have a vivid memory of the time when she asked her doctor how much time she had left, and he said at best 6 months. Her response was, "well, I could step off a curb and get hit by a bus tomorrow......"
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2 ReactionsWell, actually what the lawyer said is he has yet to meet an estranged child that wanted to pass up on his/her inheritance. The first question was always: how much. And if there were other brothers and sisters wanted to make certain estranged child got HIS/HER fair share.
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1 ReactionBeing left out of a family wedding is something that hurts, especially when you find out from someone else or after it took place.
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1 ReactionI'll say. I had to search online to find the venue where the wedding took place just to see what my niece and her husband look like. While I was offended, I knew that my sister had poisoned my niece's mind, and figure this is their loss and not mine, even though I felt hurt.
Well, the will is taken care of. Should anything change with her I can always change it. I see no reason that a adult that estranges herself from her Mother should benefit at the Mother's death.
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1 ReactionWell, never heard from her on Easter or on Mother's Day but because Hubby and I planned on that it didn't hurt as it usually does. I didn't bother sending her Birthday wishes because, well that just opens the wound.
Interesting that a few years back I did hear, briefly from her. All she wanted to know what if I had her stuff and she wanted it. I told her I did, but she would have to pay to have it sent to her as we are on limited budget - we are talking LARGE boxes of items. Of course she didn't want to do that and reamed me out about being mean etc.
Hubby and I are on a restrictive retired limited income. We all know what that is like these days with rising inflation, car/house insurance, food, medical and everything else.
The stuff is still in my garage but we are downsizing things and it is going up for sale along with the other items we are getting rid of. I see no reason to keep moving it around any more.
FWIW, I have no doubt that should I have paid and sent it to her I would never have heard a peep from her after that....she wouldn't have even bothered to let me know she received it. That is how poorly she treats me.
But then if I go back to when she was in high school and jr. high she wasn't much better. She was always secretive.
I know the one thing she really got angry with me about was her "relationship" with her music teacher. It cumulated one school nite when there was play rehearsal.
She informed me that due to play rehearsal she would be home late. Okay. Well 9p.m., 10 p.m, go by no daughter. About 10:30 I start calling her friends, they are all home. Her bestie tells me when she left at 9 p.m. my daughter was still there with teacher.
So I go and drive to school. I can see cars around but I can't get in. It is about 11:30+ at this point and I am really worried. Go back home and call the police dept. and explains situation and my concern about not knowing where daughter is. Officer tells me he can reach custodian and see if any one is there and will call me back.
Officer calls back, Yep, she is there with teacher and will be calling me shortly to pick her up. Well, that didn't happen because the police dropped her off and watched her come into the house. Boy, was she livid.
Next day she comes home from school and starts screaming at me that Music teach told her I got him in trouble! I told her I didn't get him in trouble, he had no business with her at that time of night etc. I didn't tell her that I had also called the school about the situation and they told me they had also gotten a report from the police dept. and the custodian.
She also went off the deep end at me when the Teach informed her a month or so later that his contract at the school had not been renewed. That, according to her, was my fault.
One addition her that should give a lot of insight. Even though the officer called the school custodian, they sent a police unit out there and physically brought her home. No one ever said anything happened, but then it seems strange they would send someone out if, well, you get the idea. A teacher taking advantage of a student with a crush on him. That, IMHO, is why the school did not renew his contract.
Sorry to have told all the above, but I have very seldom talked about it and the whole situation disturbs me now as it did then. Please forgive.