It did not go well at all. Essentially D13 wants an apology from her mother and her mother doesn't believe that she has done anything wrong. She keeps moving the conversation back to our relationship and telling D13 that "your dad is feeding you misinformation, and if you only knew the truth." So D13 will say what is the truth then and her mom will say "you aren't old enough to know and you don't know what happened behind closed doors."
Breaking it down your XW is lying, gaslighting and deflecting D13. That is so incredibly sad. What a terrible way to treat your own child who is going through so much herself! Rooskers, all you can do is continue to be the lighthouse. You can't fix your XW, and you can't fix her R with D. Don't even try. Remember your listening and validating skills and use them on D13. Do not try to explain or defend your XW's actions. When D13 talks about it, just listen intently and tell her how sorry you are she is going through this and ask if there's anything you can do to help her. If you listen and validate it will help your D to understand her feelings are legitimate and that you respect them, and that's what she needs right now.
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Part of me would love to know as well. What does she feel happened to necessitate leaving your entire family in one day. I mean she just dropped everything and left.
XW doesn't even know, and you never will either. accepting that you will never know is an important step in detaching.
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I can't even begin to understand what misinformation she thinks I am feeding D13 because I don't even really talk about her all that much.
Read up on gaslighting and deflecting. The whole purpose of it is to keep you off-balance and questioning your own sanity. In that regard it's still working to some extent or you wouldn't be asking these questions!
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D13's therapist even told D13 that her mother tried to lecture her on how to be a good mother. I laughed that my XW was lecturing a therapist specializing in children on how to be a good mother.
I can't remember, but have we talked about your XW possibly being a narcissist? Gaslighting is one of a narcissist's favorite tools. Another is intimidation. Here is a blurb from a website on narcissism:
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Frequently demeans, intimidates, bullies, or belittles others Narcissists feel threatened whenever they encounter someone who appears to have something they lack—especially those who are confident and popular. They’re also threatened by people who don’t kowtow to them or who challenge them in any way. Their defense mechanism is contempt. The only way to neutralize the threat and prop up their own sagging ego is to put those people down. They may do it in a patronizing or dismissive way as if to demonstrate how little the other person means to them. Or they may go on the attack with insults, name-calling, bullying, and threats to force the other person back into line.
Who in the world would lecture a therapist on how to be a good mother? A narcissist, that's who.
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After their huge blowup during the visitation where D13 started calling her mother by her first name, told her she isn't her mother anymore except in a biological sense, that she doesn't like her as a person, and doesn't want to work or have a relationship at all with her currently or in the near future, my XW goes downstairs and cooks lunch. When D13 goes down to ask to leave XW is as happy and bubbly as ever. How can someone switch on a dime like that and act as if nothing even happened? It doesn't make sense to me. D13 said she acted as if the conversation didn't even happen.
More from the same site:
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Exploits others without guilt or shame Narcissists never develop the ability to identify with the feelings of others—to put themselves in other people’s shoes. In other words, they lack empathy. In many ways, they view the people in their lives as objects—there to serve their needs. As a consequence, they don’t think twice about taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends. Sometimes this interpersonal exploitation is malicious, but often it is simply oblivious. Narcissists simply don’t think about how their behavior affects others. And if you point it out, they still won’t truly get it. The only thing they understand is their own needs.
Lacking empathy, being oblivious to the problem, more traits of narcissism.
