24 year old DD angry at her dad post-divorce

[Anonymous]

You need to stop lying to your daughter.

[Anonymous]

You say you are both much happier now, so you know, and therefore she knows, that you were not as happy living as her family of origin. There is not way for that to be anything but a rejection of her and everything she has known of life up to this point. Neither of her parents were happy in her world. You basically both said to her, "Now that you're gone, we can finally be happy."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We need to bookmark this thread for all the people who think they're fooling anyone when they "stay together for the kids," until the kids go to college.

If you stay together for the kids, do it for the long-term so they don't have to deal with this kind of upheaval and BS. Or, have the integrity to do it earlier. Just don't pretend that your kids will be unaffected when you pull the rug out from under them.

This is so uninformed

Early or later it’s upheaval.. either way kids near time to mourn.

Dating the 1st year is cruel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You say you are both much happier now, so you know, and therefore she knows, that you were not as happy living as her family of origin. There is not way for that to be anything but a rejection of her and everything she has known of life up to this point. Neither of her parents were happy in her world. You basically both said to her, "Now that you're gone, we can finally be happy."

All empty nesters are happier, see the research.

So what this is true for all children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to stop lying to your daughter.

This is a ridiculously immature response.

The parents modeled being mature adults.

[Anonymous]

Tell her the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to stop lying to your daughter.

This is a ridiculously immature response.

The parents modeled being mature adults.

No, they did not. They lied and continue to lie. Come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to stop lying to your daughter.

This is a ridiculously immature response.

The parents modeled being mature adults.

No, they did not. They lied and continue to lie. Come on.

+1. People can conceal the true situation from young children, but at the age of 24 she is better off knowing. To not tell her is to manipulate her and it will damage the relationship. She's going to find out eventually one way or another. And it's not like it's some big scary secret that would be really traumatic. The mom wanted the divorce and the dad agreed to it. It's not like one of them is secretly an ax murderer and that's the reason, you know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Time to talk to her like an adult and share your side.

OP, your xDH did not want to divorce and he was embarrassed or hurt or wanted some privacy, etc, so that's why he's saying it was a joint decision. It became a joint decision but you initiated the change in your marriage. Your DD deserves to know your truth. You are not protecting your DD. She will be upset with you. You need to be the adult in your relationship with your DD. She is defending you to your DH and she will be embarrassed by her behavior toward him now as well.

Try to imagine the same scenario with your parents, or maybe what you are describing actually happened in your family of origin as a way of relating to each other. At present, the situation with your DD and your xDH is another facet of you deferring to state your needs truthfully in a close relationship and allowing someone else to take the blame or be blamed. It's the same as you describe yourself as having done with your xDH.

It's ok that you did not want to spend the rest of your life negotiating, but you say you didn't stand up for yourself when you were married, and now, again, you are not standing up for yourself directly in your relationship with your daughter. You have to explain who you actually are to your daughter. You decided after a period of time that you wanted to divorce your husband and thus you told your husband and he had no further choice in the matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Time to talk to her like an adult and share your side.

OP, your xDH did not want to divorce and he was embarrassed or hurt or wanted some privacy, etc, so that's why he's saying it was a joint decision. It became a joint decision but you initiated the change in your marriage. Your DD deserves to know your truth. You are not protecting your DD. She will be upset with you. You need to be the adult in your relationship with your DD. She is defending you to your DH and she will be embarrassed by her behavior toward him now as well.

Try to imagine the same scenario with your parents, or maybe what you are describing actually happened in your family of origin as a way of relating to each other. At present, the situation with your DD and your xDH is another facet of you deferring to state your needs truthfully in a close relationship and allowing someone else to take the blame or be blamed. It's the same as you describe yourself as having done with your xDH.

It's ok that you did not want to spend the rest of your life negotiating, but you say you didn't stand up for yourself when you were married, and now, again, you are not standing up for yourself directly in your relationship with your daughter. You have to explain who you actually are to your daughter. You decided after a period of time that you wanted to divorce your husband and thus you told your husband and he had no further choice in the matter.

This. You are skewing and damaging her relationship with her father. She will feel so angry and humiliated when she learns the truth, because she is being manipulated by her parents' lies. She has no parent who truly supports her and treats her with respect, instead she has two parents who are deceiving her for their own convenience. Come clean now before you do any more damage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to be honest with your daughter op. This isn't fair. And you need to be honest with yourself too and recognize that despite how DDs home life may have been before, the decision to divorce is deeply difficult for most children no matter what age it happens. I think being really honest with yourself about how this has impacted her will help a lot in these conversations. Feeling like "but we gave you a happy life!" is going to be really dismissive of her very real feelings that the very happy life she knew and intact family she had will never be again. When she has her own children, she won't be able to bring them to grandma and grandpas. she will navigate two different homes with new partners etc. This is doable but it is not what people envision and it can be hard. Own your piece in this. You made a decision for your own happiness (which is ok!) but it impacted others greatly and I think you must own it.

More to the point – kind of shitty that you got divorced and you need to tell her it was all your idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to be honest with your daughter op. This isn't fair. And you need to be honest with yourself too and recognize that despite how DDs home life may have been before, the decision to divorce is deeply difficult for most children no matter what age it happens. I think being really honest with yourself about how this has impacted her will help a lot in these conversations. Feeling like "but we gave you a happy life!" is going to be really dismissive of her very real feelings that the very happy life she knew and intact family she had will never be again. When she has her own children, she won't be able to bring them to grandma and grandpas. she will navigate two different homes with new partners etc. This is doable but it is not what people envision and it can be hard. Own your piece in this. You made a decision for your own happiness (which is ok!) but it impacted others greatly and I think you must own it.

More to the point – kind of shitty that you got divorced and you need to tell her it was all your idea.

[phone]

[Anonymous]

She will still have to sort out her feelings about the new partner, but it is horribly unfair if you don't set the record straight about the reasonings - on both your parts - for the divorce. She needs to know that you wanted it and what your feelings were. She also should know why your ex presented it as a joint decision to spare her feelings.

She might be grown, but you still need to parent her. She's behaving like a brat to a parent who has been nothing but good to her. Can she not share her feelings like the adult she's supposed to be and not shut someone out without conversation? She can be angry without acting like a spoiled child. Get her a therapist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to stop lying to your daughter.

OP was willing to tell the truth. Her ex is the one who wanted to maintain the lie. Perhaps he had his reasons for doing so, like if he was afraid of what his daughter might find out if she went snooping too much into why her mother decided to divorce her father.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She will still have to sort out her feelings about the new partner, but it is horribly unfair if you don't set the record straight about the reasonings - on both your parts - for the divorce. She needs to know that you wanted it and what your feelings were. She also should know why your ex presented it as a joint decision to spare her feelings.

She might be grown, but you still need to parent her. She's behaving like a brat to a parent who has been nothing but good to her. Can she not share her feelings like the adult she's supposed to be and not shut someone out without conversation? She can be angry without acting like a spoiled child. Get her a therapist.

It's unclear whose feelings are being spared here. She certainly seems to be in a bad way, feelings-wise, so if it was hers it wasn't successful.

And OP, stop telling her that it's fine with you if he dates. All your daughter hears when you say that is "Me, me, me". Try listening to HER and thinking about the impact on HER. It's a disruption and potentially a real pain in her life no matter how much you like the new girlfriend. You're not the one who has to make nice with her every other holiday for the rest of your life, no?