Very unexpected emotional day for me with D14. She’s been at her dad’s without her brother for a week due to her being over Covid and him getting it. Last week, I was FaceTiming with her and asked her if she wanted me to look for a basketball camp for her for the summer as she has been loving it so much. Her response was “no” and that it is “too much work” and “not fun”. I said okay but that she should be prepared that there will be girls who go to camp and come out of it further ahead of her in the skills department. She said “no problem” and I left it alone. This past week, I’ve had a few FaceTime calls with her and things were fine. Last week, when she went to her dad’s, it was “I love you Mom” and “I love you [brother].” Fast forward to Friday and she texts me to ask if she can stay at her dad’s a bit longer to help her grandmother with the dog and to spend time with her bestie who is leaving next week on a vacation. I say “okay” as long as it is okay with dad but that I wanted her home at the end of the weekend. That night, she texts me to ask if I she can FaceTime me. I say”sure” and she tells me that her high school is going to be putting on a basketball camp and some of her friends are going and could she go. I resisted the urge to say “WTF?” and instead said, no problem. Then, without warning, she makes some comment about her brother and then launches into a myriad of complaints about how much he irritates her and how nice it is to be at her dad’s without him, etc… I have no idea where she is coming from but I basically said that she needs to learn to tolerate people who “irritate” her and work through her differences with people…especially with family member. She then says “gotta go” so I said okay, talk to you later.

Saturday morning I get a text from XH saying, “do you have time for a call?” Oh oh. We have talked on the phone one time since his departure and that was because of a conflict he had gotten into with our daughter and a call from her friend’s parents with concerns that our D had told their D that her dad had scared her and been physical with her. Anyway…he calls and tells me that after getting off of the FT call with her the night before, she had come and found him and was “more upset than he had ever seen her”. He now has great concerns about the state of my relationship with her and thinks that it might be a good idea for her to stay with him a bit longer so she can “cool off” and gain some perspective. He also offers to meet with the two of us to try to help mediate a solution. I initially agreed and then got a text from her a few hours later, sweet as anything asking if she can buy something on her game. Seriously?!?

Anyway… I was up half the night thinking about this and this morning decided I didn’t want to meet with her and XH. So I texted her grandmother (XH was out of town I found out) and told her I would pick D14 up from volleyball and talk with her on my own. So I did and I can’t even tell you how bizarre that conversation was. It felt like when I went to counselling with XH and he was bringing up resentments from six years before that I could not even remember. I pressure her too much about everything. [I ask her to clean her room once in awhile.] I made her go to that basketball club last summer. [I gave her the choice to do it and paid for it when she agreed. I made her follow through with her commitment and she told me a number of times she enjoyed our morning drives together.] I NEVER tell her how proud I am of her. [I do this at least once a week…my sister is my witness.] I don’t listen to her. [She has told me a number of times how lucky she feels to have a mom like me that she can talk to about anything.] When she was little, I watched too much tv. [She is referring to the time when I was commuting two hours a day, working full time, doing all of the housework, all of the child care, all of the grocery shopping, all of the cooking and basically EVERYTHING as XH was out faking medical treatments and had abandoned us. I was extremely depressed and barely hanging onto my sanity.] I baby her brother. [She’s not wrong and I told her so. I am working on that. It is hard when he hasn’t hit puberty and looks like he is 10 years old. Unlike her, however, he is as solid as they come. He’s the same person every day and not moody at all. I can talk to him and when he gets mad about something, he doesn’t hang onto it for years the way she does. He is much more like me in that department.] Oh yeah…and the divorce is somehow my fault too even though it was her dad who disappeared for four years and missed every holiday and special occasion there was in that period of time. Needless to say…because I have NO idea how to deal with this at the moment, I have left her with her dad…likely until we leave for Disneyland.

I talked to her grandmother when I dropped her off. Her grandmother basically told me that she has a number of friends whose daughters went through this “everything that is wrong with my world is my mom’s fault” and that the silver lining was that they all turned into wonderful adults. She then said that XH was a dream to raise and then went through his difficult years as an adult which, in her opinion, was worse. Yeah…no kidding…me and our kids are Exhibit A.

So I don’t know what to do and am inclined to fall back on the “when in doubt, do nothing.” I think 10 per cent of what she said has merit and 90% is just teenage drama and an extremely selective memory. This is beyond unfair [I know…life isn’t fair]. My amazing daughter who thought I was the greatest mom in the world has become this moody, resentful, unforgiving grudge holder who “needs a break” from me and from her brother [but mostly me] and says anytime she ever appeared to be happy with me, she was lying. WTF?!?! I have always, always put my kids needs ahead of my own. Every time she has needed me, I have dropped everything and come running. If she feels sick at school, she calls me to come and get her. If she wants something and it isn’t Christmas or her birthday, she asks me for it. If she needs money, I’m her first ask. And now…”you can’t fix things by buying me stuff”. Anyway…I did my best to validate her feelings and agreed to let her stay with him as there is no way I was going to force her to come home.

I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. I have no idea how this happened. When she left last week, things were great and she was looking forward to our trip. This week I am evil incarnate and someone to be avoided. This feels a lot like how my marriage fell apart. She has a list of resentments the same way he did and I have no defence because most of it feels made up or blown way out of proportion.