MamaUK

Hello everybody. I am new to this so apologies if this has been raised on here already. I live in the UK and my daughter went travelling and settled in Australia almost 8 years ago. She is very happy there and I am happy for her but, on the rare occasions that we get to see each other she has started to act like a stroppy teenager with me even though she is 30! Christmas 2014 my fiancé and I flew to Australia to spend Christmas and new year with her and I spent most of it feeling like I was walking on eggshells and invading her personal space. She only seems to be like it with me and no one else. I got very upset about it and once she realised how I was feeling she got upset too and apoligised. She just recently came back to the UK as my fiancé (who she gets on really well with) and I got married and she was one of our bridesmaids. Within hours of being home she was acting the same as when we visited her in Australia and being very snappy with me. I didn't say anything this time as I felt like I would fall out with her if I did. She has now left the UK but now that the dust has settled it is really upsetting me again and I wondered if there are any parents out there that have been through something similar...or if there are any children of parents that have been like this and can shed a bit of light as to why they are like this. We have always been so close but I feel like there is this huge distance between us now and I'm trying to understand it. Thank you.

Pulaski

Sounds to me like a mother-daughter thing. My sister and mother seem to have reached some sort of truce, but for much of the time from when my sister was at uni, through to the end of her thirties and into her forties, she and my mother had a fractious relationship.

Now my wife and her mother are still the same way, and if it wasn't for my father-in-law, who my wife adores, I don't think Mrs P would ever visit her mother. After her parents visit she breathes a sigh of relief when her mother leaves, and I suspect that her mother does the same thing. When they are together there is perpetual tension.

MamaUK

Hi. Thanks for the reply. Are your wife and Mother in different parts of the world? The tension doesn't come from me though. I'm always upbeat and happy to see her but she acts like a stroppy madam whenever we see each other in person. We message each other most days and Skype. We probably only get to see each other once every few years but the last couple of times have been quite fraught and I'm trying to understand it. I didn't know if it was her way of dealing with the distance and the fact that we were so close before she left? She's obviously now got a new life..which I am so happy for her but just wondered if anyone has been through something similar?

Pulaski

I am British in the US with a US wife, my MiL, also US, lives about 4-5 hours drive away.

My mother and sister are both British and in the UK, living a couple of hours apart, though my sister did spend seven years in France and one in the US.

I don't think either my mother or MiL do anything to provoke the responses they get from their daughters.

What you describe sounds a lot like both the interactions I have seen in my family, and I really can't explain it with certainty, but it seems to be related to "this is MY house, I make the rules", and seeing their mother as something of an intrusion, and/or as being judgemental (when I don't think they are being judgemental). .... I think both my wife and sister are overly sensitive about relatively minor things that they do that their mothers don't do, or vice versa,.and imagine a frown from their mother, when one doesn't really exist.

msmyrtle

I am in my mid-30's and have been out of the home for over a decade. I will admit that whenever I go home to visit my parents I feel as though I revert back to my teenage self after only a few days and have caught myself lashing out or losing my temper a lot easier. I have actively tried to work on it in the past few years.

MamaUK

Thanks you for your reply Msmyrtle. I know that she hates coming back to the UK...and she also had an horrendous flight here so I've kind of been making excuses for her but then she was the same with me when we flew there. I'm not an interfering mum in fact I'm very easy going so I just couldn't understand her reactions when we were there...thankfully on our wedding day she wasn't as bad although still a bit short with me and it's hurtful. One day I'm hoping to join her over there if she settles down and has babies bur need to make sure that I'm doing it for myself as well as her. Your reply has helped thank you as at least I know she's not the only one x