Dear all,
Thank you to the many of you who have replied to this thread and once again I ask your advice.
In a kind of similar incident to the one I mentioned before, 2 days ago I was home alone. I unloaded the dishwasher that I had put on earlier and re-stacked it with dirty dishes. One of those was a pot I had to scrub after my (now 21 year old) daughter had burned something on the bottom of it.
I made my dinner in a different pot and was just sitting down to eat it when my daughter came home and said ‘oh you used that pot.’ (It’s the one pot without a copper base that can be used on the fast stovetop device we have.) so then I could tell she was angry and then she said can you wash it for me so I can use it. I replied no, I am not washing it. Well then she came back with apparently the night before she had used the pot and her dad needed it so she washed it for him. Then she started saying she does loads of dishes of mine (lies) and so I got upset and started replying to her telling her that was not true and if we were to compare I would certainly come out on top considering how much I have cleaned up after her. So long story short this argument escalated fast and she (in my opinion) should defer somewhat given that she lives free in her parents house and is asked to do no chores. (That’s another story as she won’t do them) so first of all she got mad and lost her temper and threw an empty coke can at me. Then claimed she threw it at the sofa, not me. Life is complicated and in the past I have had emotional affairs. So when my daughter gets angry with me that’s the route she takes. She started saying how I cheated on her dad and the conversation ended with her calling me a ‘cheating w****.’ I retreated upstairs, shaking with rage and hyperventilating.
My question is this though- she does not address it with me. The next night her father and I were doing a trivia thing and she piped up with one of the answers then later emailed me a funny gif. Then this morning she was chatting away to me. I do not like the fact that she can be so verbally abusive and then just expect you to act like nothing has happened. And if I’m honest this has been the scenario going back I years. I have had arguments with her where we are both screaming at each other and then she can just act like nothing happened. And expects to move on without it being addressed.
I would love advice. I do know I should not have engaged in the argument in the first place but what I really want to address is what do you do when your daughter calls you a vile name then just acts like it never happened? If that was a fight with my husband we would not be back to normal until we discussed that fight calmly and agreed we would try not to do that again, but if I say to her please don’t speak to me I’m still hurt, she will just reply with something like - oh f—- off or, you said terrible things to me too.
Sometimes I think I just have to cut off contact with her because this keeps repeating over and over.
Thanks to anyone who reads and replies. This is affecting my life and I would like to do what I can to make it better.