If you have adult daughters, and you are close to them, how did you do it?

[Anonymous]

Don't do what my mother did...have an expectation about who your daughter should be or what will make her happy, then repeatedly remind her all the ways she is not who you want her to be or her decisions are wrong. I'm 45 and my Mom is slowly coming to the realization that I will never be skinny (then again when I was 100lbs as a teenager, I still was 'fat') or have a clean house. And the more she 'reminds' me about this, the less I talk with her. I never call her, she always calls me. And after 15-20 mins of pleasant converstion, she has to slip in something about cleaning my house. At which point I quickly get off the phone.

95% of our time talking or being together is fun. But the 5% is just annoying and soul destroying (lots of therapy in my 20's). She thinks that since most of the time things are good, the other 5% shouldn't be a problem. She is a big fan of the complement followed by a dig, "You are so beautiful, too bad you are fat (said from when I was 100 until now at 160)"

I think it kills her now that DH loves me, all jiggly, not skinny and not clean house me. And he treats me like a queen. While she is thinner than me, has an immaculate house and cooks amazing meals for my Dad and he still treats her like crap.

Her last 3 visits (she comes 3-4 times a year for 2 weeks) was the first time she didn't make snide comments about my body or my house. I think she is learning. But I can't really relax around her because I never know when the other shoe will drop.