ESTRANGEMENT

leotard99

HI AM LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ESTRANGED FROM THEIR ADULT CHILDREN. MY DAUGHTER BROKE CONTACT WITH ME NEARLY 2 YEARS AGO AND I HAVE NOT SEEN HER OR MY 4 GRANDCHILDREN SINCE. CAN ANYONE HELP! THANKS.

Big Bag of Chips

leotard99, I will allow your thread to remain open in the Relationship Issues Forum, but must insist, as per the sticky at the top of the forum, do not try to engage posters in a PM exchange and if you receive PMs please report them.

Also, please turn off your CAPSLOCK

gymman39

First things first why the breakdown in contact..can it be patched up.my daughter would be lost without her namny

Stavro Mueller

Is it Ireland you're living in? Do you know where your daughter is?

LegacyUser

Hi,

I don`t know if this will help but i`m on the opposite end of this situation. I made the decision to become estranged from my family. It isn`t an easy choice but it was at the stage where I was too angry and hurt and felt it couldn`t be overcome while around them. I`m not the type of person who can have a relationship which was ingenuous and superficial.

If my family came to me with a genuine apology I wouldn`t turn them away, I know this wouldn`t happen tho. We are fundamentally different types of people with different values and I think our relationship can`t work. A large part with me also was not passing on legacy problems to my own children. There was lots of unresolved family issues which seemed to repeat and I loved my children enough to break the cycle for them.

I`m making a big assumption here but I would assume your daughter has a good heart and is very hurt - hurt people hurt. If you know what you did that hurt her and you`re genuinely sorry you can fight for your relationship, you can say and show that your sorry. If you don`t know you could take some time to exam your self, maybe with the help of a counselor.

I hope it all works out for you OP.

leotard99

thank you both for answering, really appreciate it. afraid it is quite complicated. I have 2 daughter, 45 and 39. the younger daughter and the eldest do not talk and I have to admit I have been pulled between them for years. there seems to be some jealousy on the eldest when her sister came along and I will be the first to admit I doted on the new baby as I was in bad circumstances when I had my first. I tried for years to talk to them but the 45 year old always treated her sister badly and always wanted me to choose. I love them both to bits and felt it was up to ( I will call my eldest rose) to get help if it bothered her so much feeling I loved ( lets say sam) more) and she refused to talk about it so the situation went on. myself and sam my youngest were very close and I

leotard99

really sorry, my first time on this so only just getting to know it, I counselled sam for years as she is like me a very emotionally vunerable person and suffers from depression. I helped her financially to a gre butat degree 3and rose too. roses marriage broke up in 2009 and she met someone and went to live in france with him leaving her children with her ex. the youngest was only 10 years old.. that was hard to come to terms with but she brings them over and visits often. her eldest daughter felt the separation very badly being the olny girl of four child 3 years ago she fell out with her dad and was staying in Dublin in hostels, they had bought a house in meath. she was in a very bad way and I took her in and supported her which sam did not like. I told sam that if any of my grandchildren came to my door I would look after them but because she was roses daughter she was in a huff. I live alone.... I am happy to my the granddaughter in question is now in a very happy relationship and has a beautiful 5 month old baby boy. 21 months ago sam started an argument on the phone over nothing and she said she had been telling the children about me which really upset me because I know they love me very much. I told her that was wrong and she hung up. I have not seen or heard from her since. sent her an email last year and got no reply. she has also broken contact with my 92 year old father for some reason and just rang him once saying she was working 5 days a week to pay the mortage. she is separated from her husband who lives abroad and know she has it hard raising 4 children on her own. her eldest daughter contacted me on
facebook before xmas and wanted to meet up but I got a nasty kidney infection and could not make it from Dublin to meath where they also live. she said she loved and missed me. it broke my heart. never contacted the children ranging from 17 to 13 because I did not to pull them between us. I send cards for their birthdays and I am starting to get very bitter toward sam about the whole thing. she is very immature. was thinking about it one day and realised there is no support group in Dublin for people estranged from their famiilies and there must be loads.. it seems very prevalent in Ireland. I suffer heart problems and had a stroke, heart attack, and heart surgery and was in hospital recently for more blocked arteries so I do not think I will be seeing sam or her children again. hope I did not go on too much.it is wonderful to be able to talk to someone. thanks a mill!

willow tree

Oh god. So much sadness with potential for so much love. I really feel you are thinking correctly in that you need support. So hopefully someone knows of one. Also would you consider counseling, there's lots of low cost ones in Dublin. I would think if you learn to be kind to yourself, it's the start. You can't control how your daughters feel & behave so just focus on how you are. Keep communications open by emailing/writing/ringing. But have clear boundaries, do not discuss Sam with rose & vice versa, its counterproductive. Let them know you love them & your always there for them but you will not be choosing.
I didn't speak to my own dad (he behaved despicable) for 2 years, we meet now. if communication closes down its difficult to fix anything. Even if you're getting nothing back, I would suggest, continuing to write etc. Most important, don't forget to acquire some tools to mind yourself. Good luck.

leotard99

thanks, great that someone cares. I am not kind to myself, just worry about other people all the time. I never thought it would go on so long, sam was going in and out of my life for years and when she went in 2013 I left it like that because I could not handle the uncertainty any more. there is always some friction in our family and always someone not talking to each other for as long as I can remember, I could not handle my parents and spent long period away from them which I regret as my mam passed away 6 years ago but thankfully I w beforea there for some years looking after her and my dad before she died. I see my dad but he will never understand who I am just judges me for my mistakes but I do love him and am there for him. know I am changing topics but my dad adores my younger brother who has a wonderful life and expects me to do all the looking after and I spent years being resentful of my brother but I just made me ill... I was thrust into a relationship with my dad when my mam passed and I did not even know him as a person so it was tough but we amble along now and he is a very good person. I guess I had a good childhood, wanting for nothing so for that reason I go to him because he worked hard to see we we had everything. my mam was a kind woman but had behavioural problems and put me down all my life and my dad did nothing to stop her. I hope you still go to see your dad, life is too short, it really is.. I have too big a fear of rejection to make contact to be honest and I feel sam is doing it on purpose which might sound awful.. sam is in touch with my brothers wife so I know she is doing ok and that keeps me sane. thanks very much. I wish you the best in life. funny but I made an appointment for tomorrow to see a councsellor, god love them lol! thanks again.

ted1

leotard99 wrote: »

HI AM LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ESTRANGED FROM THEIR ADULT CHILDREN. MY DAUGHTER BROKE CONTACT WITH ME NEARLY 2 YEARS AGO AND I HAVE NOT SEEN HER OR MY 4 GRANDCHILDREN SINCE. CAN ANYONE HELP! THANKS.

What did you do to make her break cintact ? You can't possibleexpect a answer without detail

leotard99

funny thing is I did nothing. as I said she was in and out of my life for years, very unpredictable but it was simply a few sharp words on a phone over where we were going for a meal a sit was my birthday and I always always went with her plans but if you look you will see I have major health issues and I did not feel up to going to Waterford where she had booked a table as I was very well, first time I ever went against her plans and she was in bad form because her own friend had given her a hard time over something and as happens you take it out on the one nearest to you. what gets me is not knowing why so you have given me food for thought, I will ask her why, I deserve that much because I gave her all the love and care and everything she needed. have gone over a thousand times in my mind what I could have done wrong but never get an answer. thanks..

R.D. aka MR.D

'I did nothing'. I think if you want to improve your relationship with your daughter then maybe you should get some counselling or something to help you reflect on your actions.

I have very little contact with my own mother because of the way that she has acted my whole life and if you were to ask her she's 'done nothing wrong'. She loves to bad mouth me to the world about what a terrible daughter I am but luckily my family members know what she is like and don't believe her.

Maybe this whole problem comes from something that happened in her childhood. Maybe she is totally in the wrong. No one on here knows the entire story.

As another poster said, try to find some help and treat yourself well.