Well, to disagree with another poster, I do think parents have a lot of effect on how we turn out as kids and some of the mental health issues we have to then deal with as adults, BUT, and here's the big BUT, when you become an adult, they become your issues to deal with. We all had parents who put stuff upon us, emotionally or physically. When you grow up, it's your responsibility to learn to cope with it, the good and the bad, and grow from it. That may require professional help, it may not. Some people had better parents than others.

But I digress. To your story, motherme, I think your daughter did exactly as you stated, she blindsided you. She begged you to move in with her, but maybe that was a false request. Like something she was doing to get something out of it, make her feel like a good daughter, but then when she was confronted with it, was unhappy she had suggested it. I think her demands of you that you tell her about your sexual relationship with her father were ABSOLUTELY NONE OF HER BUSINESS. I'm sorry you felt you had to respond to those attacks. I would never question my mother about her sexual relationship with my father or her relationship period with my father. It was bad and left me traumatized, and at times I'd like to know certain things, but in the end, the answers don't change anything. I still have to move on and decide whom I'm going to be.

Strangely enough, my mother recently admitted to me that she was sexually abused as a child, which I thought was a great step that she is admitting it to herself and seeking help for it. She seems a lot more stable than she has in the past.

I think you're a good mom in that you care about your daughter but she obviously has some demons to deal with, maybe regarding how she perceives her parents' relationship or maybe just how she perceives herself. Please know that's work that she has to do on her own. It's great if you are there for her as a supporting mother, but don't be codependent. Don't think you can fix her. She has to fix herself. I speak as a daughter having been in a similar situation to where your daughter is now. If she wants to be happy and move past things in her past that have made her unhappy, well, that's work she has to do. You can't do it for her.

You don't have to be the bigger person and try and console her and contact her and keep bugging her. In fact, I would say that's being a weak person, not a "bigger" person. If you want to be the "bigger" person, be open to a renewed relationship with her when/if she comes around. Recognize that she has some hard stuff she's trying to reconcile and, unfortunately, she took that out on you. You didn't do anything wrong. And no one has the right to abuse you, daughter, brother, sister, mother, no matter the relationship.

When I finally got a healthy place and reconnected with my mother, it means the world to me that she was open and warm and ready to reconnect with me as well. And I really treasure the relationship I have with her now. It's not perfect, and it's not what it was, but it feels healthier and loving.

I'm sorry that you went through such an atrocity as marital rape, but as others have said, your daughter really should be supporting you in that, not making it all about her. Maybe she wasn't conceived in love, but she was raised in love by you, obviously. Isn't that more important? That the woman who bore her loves her? I'm not in her shoes so I can't say that maybe it wouldn't bother me to find that out, but I think if my mother loved me and didn't resent me, it probably wouldn't matter.

I think you did the right thing in going back to your town and finding your own place. You sound like a very independent lady, and I think living with your daughter, even if it had started better, may have turned out to be too stifling.

Enjoy your independence, and I hope your daughter gets the help she needs so you can have a relationship with her again someday.

Seesaw