W and I had the "meeting" with D16 last night. I expressed my thoughts on a "curfew" for her, that I thought it was a good idea so that we have an idea of when to expect her and whether we should be worried or not. After discussing it we settled on 10:30 on weeknights if she doesn't work, midnight if she does work (they close at 11) and 1 am on Friday and Saturday if she works (they close at midnight). D16 expressed concern that she might be doing something like helping a friend with homework that might go beyond 10:30. I told her I understood and that setting a curfew would also be a helpful trigger for her to know when she needs to contact us to let us know where she is, what she is doing and how late she'll be. She agreed that this was all reasonable.
The locator was a real sticking point though. I explained to her that I thought it should be on for security reasons, in case something does happen to her that would be the only way we would know how to find her. I explained that the police will not act on a missing person report for 24 hours, and by then she could have been taken anywhere. She said she understood ME and what I was saying and that she trusted I would only use it as a last resort, but that she was convinced W would use it for constant spying. So I looked at W and said "can you give D16 reassurances that you're not going to be constantly spying on her?" She refused, saying "I'm your mother and I should be able to check on you whenever I want!" D16 said "fine, then you put a locator on your phone so I can check on you too." W just about blew a vein on that one. They were going at each other like this a lot and I ended up being the mediator between them. D16 was willing to meet halfway, but W wouldn't budge. She wanted full mastery over D16 with no concessions. I asked W if she was willing to call D16 first and only use the locator if D16 didn't answer. No. I asked if after using the locator if she could promise to call D16 first instead of calling others first like she did last time. No. Basically she wanted to do whatever the hell she wants, and screw what D16 thinks about it. I kept validating D16, telling her I understood her position and asking W if she could try to understand as well. But she was just dug in! I honestly was looking at her and thinking "I don't even know this person, she is utterly alien to me, this is not who I was married to for 2 decades." The W I knew trusted her family implicitly and was the most flexible person in the world when it came to things like this. This person flat-out says she doesn't trust D16, and why? Because W was out drinking and having sex when SHE was 16, so she ASSUMES D16 is the same way. It was enormously frustrating for D16, because she has really high moral values and it's insulting to her for W to tell her she can't trust her.
Anyway, I finally convinced D16 to turn it back on and told her to try it a couple of weeks and if she feels like W is abusing it we'll talk again.
After W left, D16 and I talked for a good hour. D16 said she doesn't even know who W is. She said since BD (well she doesn't say BD, she says since "this all started") that W and I have become opposites of who we were before. She says she felt like she could tell W anything before, but now she can't talk to her at all, she's like a wall. She said she felt like I just ignored her when she tried to talk to me before and that now she feels like I listen to her, care about what she says and really identify with her. She says she now feels comfortable telling me anything. Then she said some really sweet things, she told me she could tell I've changed a lot and that she really appreciates it and loves me for it and that she wanted me to know that despite how difficult it must be trying to raise them alone now, that she thinks I've risen above that to become a better parent than ever. I thanked her and told her it really touched me to hear that! I did try to tell her that her mom is going through a lot right now and that I too barely recognize who she is, but that we have to give her space to figure that out on her own and just try to accommodate her as best we can. By then it was getting really late and we stopped it there and headed to bed.
There's more to the story, W called me late Thursday night and it turns out was driving all the way to where D16 was baby-sitting to see if she was in fact where she said she was. That's a little stalkerish because it's like a 20 minute drive. And D16 was indeed there. I did NOT tell D16 about this, oh my gosh she would have come unglued.
Also after the incident last Saturday, when W saw D wasn't at her friend's house she didn't even try to call D, she instead called D's friend's mom. So then that lady called her D and was freaking out. Very embarrassing for D16, and THAT was why she didn't want W spying on her.
OK, that was longer than I planned! But what I was working towards is that W is so alien to me, she's not the same person she was even a few months before BD. And now D16 is saying the same thing. Only time will tell if this is permanent, or if she really is just in a fog and will emerge some day more like her old self.
