Source: Reddit
I(46F) am the mother of a 24 years old woman from my first marriage, and 12 and 10 years old boys from my second marriage.
When I was married to my first husband, he was unemployed for almost all of our marriage, we lived in a house his father owned, his father paid our bills, he bought us the car we drove, he sent my husband money to take care of our family…etc. I was young, stupid and in love, that is my only excuse for living like that. When my daughter turned 5 I started pushing my husband to work, I myself got a job. He didn’t want to. Things escalated and ended up in us getting divorced.
He got full custody while I got visitations every other Saturday (his dad hired a good lawyer, I couldn’t do that), I also had to pay child support. I used to work a full time and 2 part time jobs to afford my 1 bedroom apartment as well as the child support payments. A year after our divorce, my ex married a new woman.
There was a lot of child alienation from them, and sadly I couldn’t afford to take them to court again. By the time my daughter turned 14, she was calling me by name and calling her step mom “mom”. I tried my best to hold on to my kid, I went to all the events I could go to, I planned fun days with the limited funds I had, even when I couldn’t afford to turn on the heat, I still made sure to get her a Christmas gift.
Sadly by the time she turned 16, she no longer wanted to have anything to do with me. I took them to court, but they did nothing. And the last time I saw her, she said some very awful things to me. I was defeated, but I decided that I no longer had a daughter, since that is literally what she wanted.
I moved away, met a good man, married him and had 2 wonderful kids. Last year my daughter reached out. She was sorry, she said that she wanted to reconnect. I was hesitant and resentful, but I still talk with her once a week.
Suddenly she asked if she could spend Christmas with us, she wanted to get to know her brothers. I told her that we were not in a stage where I could allow that. It got heated, but I told her that I could not trust her with my kids, and that I was still not 100% sure that I wanted our relationship to become more.
She says that I am an AH, that I am punishing her for things she had no control over, that I know what she told me and how she reacted to me was a direct result of her father’s manipulation. Am I Wrong ? What Should I Do?
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