My relationship with my daughter has not been easy since she became a teenager.
Much of it is my fault for taking my eye off the ball as I became mired in my misery and dissatisfaction with my marriage.
Last year, around this time she turned 18 but things were so tense at the house that the celebration was fractured and muted. There were so many arguments and recriminations swirling around a myriad of different complaints and grievances. I knew that her behaviour was her way of crying out for boundaries but every time I set one, her father overturned it forcing her to pursue ever more intolerable actions to gain our attention.
In the nine months since I moved out of the house and became an independent woman, our relationship has gone from strength to strength. Sure, she is becoming more mature naturally as she grows older and experiences life outside of the protected environment of her home but it’s more than that.
She no longer treats me like someone whose opinion counts for nothing and whom she can shout over and block out and demean with impunity.
Because I do have a voice now. I have my own flat and my independence. If I don’t like the way she is speaking to me, I can go home.
This year, for her birthday, we went out for lunch in a local cafe of her choice. I arrived early and made sure that there was a suitable balloon marking out her chair. We had a lovely lunch and a good chat. We seem to be on a similar wavelength over a lot of things now. And, of course, there was birthday cake and singing by the entire cafe.
We have become ladies who lunch.
It’s a dream I had envisaged all those years ago when I gave birth to a daughter – but which I thought was lost forever.
I know that there may still be rough patches – and I really hope that I’m not tempting Fate – but I feel as if my life has turned a corner towards a brighter future.
Bravo!!!
Congratulations!!!
I have seen the relationship between my daughter and her mom, slide as she came in to her teen years.
I did all I could to reinforce a positive relationship between them, and also uphold her mom as a Valued Authority.
Since my daughter moved out on her own, and then bought a house a couple years later, she has become closer to her mom, in many ways, than me.
Now of course with the Grandson here, grandma finds any excuse to see him, and daughter looks to her for assistance and Loving Advise!
Hey Polar! I know the relationship between a teenage girl and her mother can be fraught with difficulty even in families where proper lines of authority are maintained. Normally in those instances, there is a lot of time spent cementing the foundations of the relationship before the hormonal problems start and so it is easier for them to be built upon once things have settled down. I was terrified that our footings had been compromised by what had gone on throughout her childhood and it is so wonderful to start to discover that all the work I put in when she was younger was not for nothing.
As coming from a ‘broken family’ I can understand how your daughter feels now. The day my mother left my father was the happiest in day in my 10 year old life. There is nothing worse then being brought up in a home where there is no harmony. I’m sure its a lot harder for your children as they were in teenage years, having hormones on top of everything else, but I’m sure you are getting where you are with your daughter now…as she is seeing you happy…and that makes her happy. x
This is truly wonderful news. I’m very happy for you Joanna! I know what it feels like to be rejected by your own child. Today’s result you have achieved through your convictions. Congratulations!