Reply to When did you know that you and your child would not have a good relationship when they became adult?

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Reply to "When did you know that you and your child would not have a good relationship when they became adult?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My mother would have said the same as you OP when I was 15. We had never gotten along and were really different people and our dislike for each other peaked in the 14-23 age range. It was tenuous well into my twenties and we will never be best buddy, call each other every day type people BUT we do have a great relationship that now works for both of us. I am sure she wishes we were closer but we talk often, see each other regularly and do things together. I don't know that I would say we relate as mother-daughter but definitely as family.

What changed everything was that when I was 23-24 my mother called me one day. She said she had loved me but had never liked me but realized that was because she had never gotten to really know me as a person. That our conflicts in childhood had shaped her view of me and that she had really struggled to ever see me as anything other than this difficult, obnoxious, problem child. But that in the last few years, everyone else talked about me completely differently to how she saw me and she also looked at what I was doing with my life and realized she didn't know this person at all. She apologized and asked if she could get to know me. [/quote]

I love this. Thanks for sharing.[/quote]

I should add that I did make her life difficult (and in my teen years it was intentional) and I didn't let her get to know me. I barely spoke to her other than basic information for about a decade in my teens. I shared nothing with her. I didn't trust her, and also I think I was scared that if she got to know the real me and still didn't like me - that would be crushing. As much as I couldn't stand her, I wanted her approval.

And yet now we vacation together, she comes and helps out at my house, we text often and we like each other. Not something I ever thought would happen given our relationship for the first 25 years of my life. [/quote]

Sometimes DCUM really is a place full of hope and grace. Thanks for posting that. How do you think your mom came to say that to you? [/quote]

I was wondering too. It sounds like she had a huge breakthrough.

I have a hard time going home sometimes because I feel like my mom never noticed that I grew up and changed and was no longer a struggling and sometimes obnoxious teen.[/quote]

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