BEL MOONEY: Why was my adult daughter so mean to me?

Dear Bel, A single parent, I worked in a demanding job while raising my daughter. I bought her everything she ever wanted (like her first car and designer clothes) and paid for her lavish wedding — with no help. Yes, I spoiled her. For years I supported her and her husband because they had debt, illness and incapacity issues. I was working full time while they were on benefits and so my daughter would ask for money for rent, bills and food for my two grandsons. I’d pay, as I didn’t want them to struggle. I had a stress-related breakdown. All my plans for financial stability disappeared. Three years after I lost my job, my daughter and her husband moved away from the area. I missed them terribly, having lived close to my grandsons since their birth. I visited them at their new home and they suggested I rent nearby. They’d started a business and my son-in-law paid me a small weekly amount, for which I was extremely grateful. I did some professional and admin work for this, a couple of hours a week. I asked my daughter whether the weekly payment was a loan repayment or wages, and she said: ‘A bit of both, really.’ Three years on, I was short of money and had found it extremely hard to make new friends despite my best efforts at joining local groups. I talked to my daughter about how I was feeling and within 24 hours she and her husband said I must move in with them. It seemed to be going well. I continued to work for their business but also got a part-time job and had to work on my laptop in the kitchen on my days off. My daughter complained, but I had nowhere else to sit. We had all planned to go away for Christmas and I paid for the flights. They cancelled without even discussing it and I went alone. While I was away my daughter sent me the most horrid, hostile email I’ve ever had. I was stunned. I was dreading going back to my daughter’s, but on arrival I was shocked that they both gave me a hug, said she was sorry and didn’t mean it to come out like that. We talked about things she accused me of and I put her right. I gather they are struggling with the business and feel they have taken it out on me. They stopped paying me several months ago and I stopped the other job so feel very vulnerable. I’m not entitled to benefits or social housing. I’ve been on anti-depressants for around 20 years. My GP referred me to a mental health worker who wasn’t at all helpful. Please help. Cath Before I attempt an answer I need readers to know your original email was 1,834 words long, and my edited version is a quarter of that. So I have much more information and base my thoughts on what I’ve read. It is indeed a sad story, but I must be frank: I can express sympathy for you while feeling slightly worried about the tone of the whole. You see, you feel you have been hard done by all your life — and some of that may be true. As a single mother you worked hard, succeeded so well and you gave your only daughter everything she wanted, which may or may not have been wise. It’s clear that you put a strain on yourself over those years, much of which might have been caused by an overwhelming desire to prove yourself as good as everybody else. A collapse might have been predictable — and I have nothing but sympathy for your losses and the psychological plunge that followed. But here we are in the present, in which (let’s be truthful) you bitterly resent your daughter and feel you have been treated very badly by her. In your lengthy email you quote from memory (which seems very important) eight cruel phrases you allege your daughter used in that fateful email (and/or perhaps in those that followed). Forgive me, but interpreting words has been my life and, to be blunt, I’m not entirely convinced by your quotations. Is your only daughter really that cruel — when, after all, she wanted you nearby and then invited you to share their home? And later welcomed you back and apologised? Something went badly wrong, but I believe it can be put right. But you have to want to do that. Please try to listen without taking offence. You are lonely, depressed, very sorry for yourself and worried sick about money. But forget ‘loans’ and reparations and ‘putting her right’, and try to stop believing that every single aspect of this row has nothing to do with you. I beg you to hug her, say you want to go on living with her and start to heal each other’s wounds. Set up a table to work on in your bedroom because, no, the family kitchen is not practicable. Find more part-time work to do upstairs and earn a little money. Understand that their business puts them under strain — just as you are under strain. Realise that dealing with teenagers can be problematic. Take deep breaths when you feel you may be in a huff, or too easily hurt or cross. The ‘way forward’ is to stay where you are but with some accommodation of their needs and weaknesses — just as you are entitled to expect from them. My cruel friend gloated about my torment Dear Bel, I’m 60 and one of my oldest friends (happily married to a wonderful man) has almost destroyed me. I was caring for my mother and simultaneously supporting my wife, who had developed a life-changing medical issue and had two surgeries within two months and multiple medical appointments. I also have an autistic son and am working full time. It was a struggle. My friend was a rock — chased up things for me if I didn’t have time and insisted I was free to call her any time. I was immensely grateful for her support and that of her husband. Then I was copied into an email from her, sent to someone I didn’t know. She recounted private confidences I’d told her and a complete description of my home situation. This I could forgive, but she also described how she regards my son a burden on the taxpayer, called my wife an uncaring, nasty woman (not true) and said she couldn’t understand how I could have married her. It was disgusting. At first I thought she’d accidentally copied me in, then wondered if she’d done it deliberately to get the reaction she did, which was to cut her off completely. I did ask and she replied: ‘All I can do is apologise.’ My mother has now died peacefully and my darling wife is awaiting further surgery. The only thing I can think of is that my ex-friend used me to brag. I remembered her telling me about others going through tough times and how much she was helping them. Was she just using me for material to build herself up? Joseph You’ve had a terrible, draining time — and I just want to offer sincere condolences and prayers for your mother, as well as for your wife as she receives treatment. Let us hope, too, that your son is well looked after in terms of his different (and perhaps challenging) abilities and needs, and can form the friendships he needs as he develops. Try to make sure you allow yourself to rest. But what about this old friend who has let you down so badly? You might have expected me to be shocked at the contents of that email. But I’m afraid I am not. People behave in unfathomably strange ways. They betray relationships of every kind, telling lies to themselves as well as to others, and often living life on two levels — the pleasant surface masking a seething morass of malice underneath. Some of you may remember the peerless TV monologues Talking Heads, by Alan Bennett. They showed the secret side of human beings: complicated, comic and sometimes repellent. So a pious man may be a fraud; and a woman may appear to be a pillar of society and the very soul of kindness, and yet be sending poison-pen letters. Do people do things like that? Yes, they do. Dickens created a character in Bleak House called Mrs Jellyby — obsessed with her ‘mission’ of charity to help poor Africans and being seen to do good, while totally neglecting her own miserable children. Some of us will have known folk who boast of kind deeds yet show no real sympathy to their friends when they need it. Or they wax sentimental about dear grandparents yet rarely visit. And there are those busybodies who need to be needed and make sure their willingness to ‘serve’ is known — but can’t resist telling others just how trying the task has been. It’s yet another version of ‘poor me’. I don’t believe copying you into that gossipy, meanly opinionated email was anything other than an accident. I suspect she was mortally embarrassed by being found out — and probably didn’t tell her husband about it because she felt ashamed. It’s hard to see how you could ever forgive and forget when you know she said unpleasant things about people you love, but the sad aspect is the loss of a friend for both of you. But now, focus on your family and set this behind you. And finally… When you’re nice, miracles can happen My sewing machine is ancient. At 16, I created endless miniskirts, blouses, dresses and more. And it’s still in action — just. Last weekend, sewing for my granddaughter (school play time), it gave me real trouble. The heavy, electric foot-control beast snagged three times and I confess the air turned blue. Ashamed, I stopped. My next words to the Singer were gentle, reminding it of all the good times we’ve had over 61 years. ‘So come on, darlin’, don’t let me down, I have to get this finished…’ Guess what? No more problems. Seriously! A friend who once drove a venerable MGB told me how, when the engine stalled, he’d plead affectlonately — and it would always roar to life. Now fly with me to Chicago Airport, late November some years ago. An ice storm raged, all planes were cancelled; we’d spent the night on the floor of a terminal chaotic with desperate people trying to get home for Thanksgiving. At 7am the board at last showed one or two flights, all full, including one we needed. The only desk was besieged by a furious crowd, yelling abuse at the harried, apologetic airline representative. Being petite yet determined, I finally inched to the front. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I told her, with a sympathetic smile. ‘Poor you, these guys should know none of this is your fault. We’re trying to reach Albuquerque and I can see this next flight’s full. Is there one later?’ I held out last night’s tickets. She met my eyes, smiled, then clicked rapidly on her computer. ‘You’re on this flight now, ma’am,’ she said with a wink. These days respect and good manners seem outdated, and social media allows appalling rudeness and abuse. Try speaking nicely to things and to people — and miracles can happen.