Reply to "My daughter is my best friend"

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Reply to ""My daughter is my best friend" - Explain"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  Thank you for the responses.
One mom I was talking to was just gushing about her middle daughter, she's her "whole heart", loves hanging out with her and is "legitimately her best friend". I get the closeness of some mother/daughter pairs but to go to the extent of saying her 16 year old is her for real best friend, seems.... one step too far into being weirdly codependent.

[b]I feel sad that that my daughter wants nothing to do with me outside of doing parenting things for her. We are totally different personalities and it makes hanging out with each other difficult.[/b] We approach enjoyment of things very differently and she likes to jump on me for any slight infraction of her "rules" and will hold a grudge about it forever. Even though my son and I butted heads in the typical ways, I knew he still loved/liked me. Daughter....not sure she would put me out if I was on fire most days. [/quote]

So just imagine it's the opposite.  If your daughter had a very similar personality to you and loved hanging out with you and it was just easy and fun on both your parts.  That's all the "best friend" mom is trying to convey.[/quote]

+1.

It's weird the mom that's being judged has 3 daughters and only 1 is her "best friend". And also sounds like OP has a spicy, antagonistic relationship with her own daughter. Not uncommon, and hope for both their sakes it improves with time.[/quote]

Op here. The mom I was referencing in my original post seems to have a very codependent relationship with her one daughter. She also seems to have similar relationships with other close relatives outside her family unit which gets noticed. I get the closeness of the previous posters with their DDs and makes sense. As I said before I am closest to my older DS but still wouldn't consider him my BF though even though I think we fall into many of the described relationships above. I am not judging the mom I am referring to, but rather trying to understand what she meant. She was so exerburent about it, it was a little uncomfortable, but also made me wonder about if what I am experiencing is typical or not.

I like your description as "spicy".  That is a perfect description. My DD wants to be told she is right about everything, wants zero advice, no chores or accountability, and wants to dictate to me how things are going to go.  I don't roll like that. One typical example, she is having a serious disagreement with a friend. I validate her feelings, [b]but also warn her to not be so rigid with the friend and work through it, talk it out, listen to the friend.[/b] DD just wants me to tell her she's right and gets mad. DD wants to "right" fight instead of getting friend to attend a planned outing which is self defeating. I tell her it's my job to help her navigate some of these things as I've already been thru stuff like this and made mistakes that I wish someone would have helped me navigate better and it's not always about being right. Doesn't matter, she is still  angry and storms off. I can't win. Do I sit in silence and watch her blow up things in her life over and over so I just don't anger her. Seems ridiculous. But if I say anything not at all what she wants to hear, it's drama.  That's prob a whole separate post. 
[/quote]

Stop doing this while in the moment and it will help your relationship. Just validate her feelings and let it go at that. Don't "But if you..." or "But you should do ..."
Just let your DD be mad and don't try to fix it.

If you want to share the warning to not be so rigid and talk it out and to listen, do that when she is not angry and not in the moment. You can't dictate to her how she interacts with her friends so if she doesn't accept your advice or doesn't want to do it, then she gets to make that choice. I know how hard it is because we are older can know how they situations can end. And then again, we only know it because we once lived through it. [/quote]

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