Our DD estranged us then went off to university

OP, for what it’s worth I think you did exactly the right thing sending your letter, it sounded perfect, and I would have been very surprised if you received an immediate reply to such a heartfelt correspondence. Your daughter may be taking time to process the contents and think about how to respond - it’s still very early days after you writing.

Well we re all different but I wouldn’t stop until I knew she was alive and well and if that meant doing a bit of detective work then so be it, at the moment you say ‘you think, you hope she’s still there’ She may never have got your letter, she may not be at the Uni, she could be working in Australia or Abu Dhabi by now
I would have to hear the words ‘Dad stop sending me anything I never want to hear from you again’ before I stopped until I knew she was alive, fit and happy.
I d rather annoy someone than give up until I heard it from their mouth ‘Leave me alone snd don’t contact me again’
Then I d draw a line under it, and lick my wounds but only then.
Good luck Dogwhisperer

There is one thing I just want to say can you be sure your daughter is at the address you are sending letters to

I think / hope so. Most of the times I've tried to reach out to her I've sent an email to the Gmail address she was using when she left home. The emails aren't bouncing back which suggests the account is still in use. I've tried to tread a line between contacting her so often that it's annoying / harassing, or contacting her so little that she thinks we don't care. In practice, what that's amounted to is an e-birthday card and e-Xmas card once a year, plus any important family announcements in between (e.g. "I'm sorry to have to tell you that your grandmother has died and her funeral will be at x church on x date." I got no response to that.)

For my final letter - the "letter of amends" as some therapists call it - I decided that it was so important that email really wasn't the right way to go, so I sent that as a physical letter, c/o her college at her university. I don't know what her home address is now, and even if I did, I wouldn't have sent it there because it might have seemed too intrusive. I got no response to that either.

Mine was meant to be a light hearted comment Allsorts I saw the funny side that’s all
Don't take me too seriously I know all about autocorrect made many a faux par

Bluebell, because an iPad uses auto correction and predictive text, it cannot cope with certain words, slang or made up names are but a few. If it’s a long sentence it waits until it reaches a space and will correct. Sometimes you have checked and it alters at the end of a paragraph of which you have already checked sentences. sometimes it substitutes a line with rubbish. It is annoying but I love all the other aspects of it.It cannot cope with ill for example, it does not recognise such a word. So apologises to DogWhisperer.

Well so far you are DigWhisperer and Fogwhisperer and a man who we thought was a women in big girl pants 🤣

There is one thing I just want to say can you be sure your daughter is at the address you are sending letters to still are you sure she’s even in the country or even alive ( I don’t mean to upset you but there can be many reasons a person doesn’t answer letters)

DigWhisperer, You and your wife have done your best but after all this time its unlikely your d will return. Everyone makes mistakes, why do children judge their parents so harshly and are never wrong. You have written, apologised and been ignored I think now you and your wife have to try to draw a line. You are lucky you have another adult child and each other so make the most of what you do have and I wish you both well

Yes that makes sense FogWhisperer. Take care and I wish you and your wife all the best.

I'm just wondering if there was a reason why you didn't tell us you're the dad. Did you think you might get different responses if you had?

Just first time shyness I guess! And by the time we were on to about the 4th page of responses it just seemed easier to go with the flow.

Hello again DogWhisperer and thank you for coming back with an update. It doesn't happen very often and it's nice to know how things have panned out for the OP.

I'm glad not only that you sent the letter but also that having done so, you've felt able to take that huge and heartbreaking decision to move on with your lives without your D.

We do tend to assume all posters are women because this is Gransnet unless told otherwise. I can see why putting on a pair of 'big girl panties' didn't appeal in your case .

I'm just wondering if there was a reason why you didn't tell us you're the dad. Did you think you might get different responses if you had? No need to answer of course, just curious.

I wish you well going forward. Letting go isn't easy as I know only too well and I hope that doing so will bring you some peace and future happiness as it's done for us.

I really appreciate all the help, advice and support I’ve received here and I would like to post on this thread one last time.

I sent my letter (some psychologists and counsellors call it a “letter of amends”). I gave it my best shot. I didn’t blame DD for anything or say anything critical of her in it. I apologised for not telling her about the financial difficulties we were having at the time she wanted to go to Uni (the foreign country we had come from had just stolen most of our savings). I sent her a copy of the relevant bank statement so she could see I wasn’t lying. I said that I was very proud of her getting her university place. I said that I loved her and missed her and I would be thinking of her, but that after five years of no contact, I accepted her decision to break off contact and I would not try to contact her again. It was a pretty hard letter to write and I really appreciate the help I got from some other forum members in writing it.

I got no response. Same as all the other times I have tried to reach out to her over the last five years.

I think enough is enough, I accept that I am unlikely to hear from her again, and it’s time to move on. If at some time in the future she decides to contact us, well fine, but we are not going to spend the next 30 years metaphorically sitting by the phone hoping that one day it might ring. We have our own lives to lead.

However, I am glad I sent the letter, and I would encourage anyone else in a similar position to do the same. Even if the result isn’t what you hoped for, you will feel better if you know you have done everything you could. If you don’t send the letter you will always wonder “if I had sent the letter, might my life have been different?”

Just one last thing. I am DD’s dad, not her mum. I realise that this may come as a surprise to some of you, but to be fair, I have never pretended to be anything else. So to the person who advised me to put on my “Big Girl Panties”, I would just like to say, I’m sure your suggestion was well intended but I think I’ll pass. People might get the wrong idea.

Have a great New Year.

Forgot, she is long gone.

I would stop sending anything

How did she feel about moving in 2020?

When a person estranges a parent(s), it is not about one thing.
Favoritism about your son comes strong in your posts

DogWhisperer

Hi

I started this thread in Dec 2023, a lot of people posted helpful comments and suggestions, for which I thank you, but almost two years on, I'm looking for a bit more advice.

To save you having to re-read all the previous posts, here is a summary of the story so far:

Suddenly and without warning, our DD went "no contact" in July 2020. We have tentatively reached out to her a few times since then, including sending her a birthday card and a Christmas card for the last two years (thanks for that suggestion) but received no response.

Because it happened so suddenly, we don't know for sure why it happened, but we think it was because we had some difficult discussions with her about how we were going to fund her through university. The background to that was that we had recently come back from a foreign country where we had been working, but didn't realise that the country we had come from punishes expats who leave by whacking them for enormous amounts of "departure tax" - in our case, the equivalent of £208,000 in local money. We fought the foreign tax authorities over it but couldn't win and had to hand it over. It came at the worst possible time because it was just before DD was supposed to go to Uni, so we ended up handing over what was supposed to be her Uni money and our retirement savings to the tax authorities, which pretty much cleaned us out of cash.

We never discussed the tax thing with DD, and we think (although we don't know) that DD just thought we were being mean and manipulative over money, and decided to do her own thing by claiming "irreconcilable estrangement" from us in order to claim Government grants and loans as an independent student. And to give her due credit for initiative, it worked. She got her money from the Government, we were never asked for any financial contribution, and off she went to Uni where (as far as we know) she has been ever since.

We have now had no contact from her for over five years, and we are thinking it's now time to stop trying to reach out, accept that she may never be coming back, and just let her go. But it would be tragic if all this happened as a result of a misunderstanding, because she just didn't know that we were forced to send back all her Uni money to the tax authorities. So I'm wondering whether, before we stop reaching out, I should try one last time and write her a letter explaining what happened, maybe enclosing a copy of the bank statement to prove it, saying that we respect her decision to stop contact and we are not going to try to contact her again, and wishing her all the best for the future? Or maybe we should continue sending her birthday and Christmas cards? Or maybe we should do nothing and just let go?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Well done on burying the lede for nearly five years to her and nearly two years here.

You didn't treat your daughter as an adult and give her the information to make an informed choice at the time and now you are still attempting to guilt her for her lack of information you should have given her and her brother.

I had to explain to my children that due to the fact my husband, their father died meant that they wouldn't be getting a free ride and that we needed to find scholarships and loans to get them through university.

But you are burying your head in the sand and bleating about "It wasn't my fault".

Own it.

Explain to those family members who are still in contact. Try a "Mea culpa, mea culpa maxima" .
You caused this. You treated your adult daughter as a child and now you need to put on your "Big Girl Panties" and take the responsibilities you are desperately trying to hide behind a Dalek avoiding sofa.

I certainly understand, having gone through this. I would withdraw or have withdrawn any financial support after this. I'd be trying to get out of the flat co-sign, if at all possible. Is it possible she is gay? Many gay children move away with no explanation. Could she have been pregnant, given the child up, and never felt capable of coming back? Does her Grandmother see her? So sorry for this for your family. Achingly sad.

Yep that last sentence probably says it all
I don’t think you can afford to put your take on the gift if you do give it her you should put the same amount of money as you have for the boy and give it to her with a letter which simply says We have always been sad that we couldn’t help you at the time you needed it when you were 18 but our finances have now settled and this is your share now and we hope it will help….. Keep it really really simple
Then leave it she knows where you live and if she answers work on it if she’s doesn’t well that’s it but at least your conscious will be entirely free knowing you have treated them equally

The money doesn't need to be a problem. It's always been our intention to give them the same amount of Uni funding, and we can still do this, despite everything that's happened. As far as we know, DD will be spending the next year at Uni (we think she may be doing a postgrad year). We would be more than happy to give her the same amount of money we are giving our son, to spend in whatever way she chooses.

What worries me more are the emotional complications which might come with the money. We don't want DD to think we are trying to manipulate her with money (as in, "Love us and we will give you money"). On the other hand, we don't want to feel that DD might be manipulating us (as in, "Mum and Dad, I still hate you, but I'm going to pretend to love you in order to get the money, then I'm going to clear off again"). So any discussions about money would have to be done very carefully and diplomatically.

They say money can't buy you happiness and I think that's true. I think we would all be happier and still together as a family if I'd never gone abroad and earned the b****y money in the first place.

I just saw you are funding your son...
This is awkward.

I have no solution to this but wouldn't be able to do it as it feels unfair even though circumstances have changed.

You don't need to pay 30,000 for the course - he will get fees paid and then pay them back as he works.

I suspect that this discrepancy will be hard for her to swallow.

No solutions though.
Sorry.

If you're going to send a letter DogWhisperer, I suggest that as well as explaining how the situation arose which meant you were unable to help her financially with university, you apologise for taking so long to do so.

The heartache of estrangement could have been avoided for her and for you, if you'd explained the situation at the time.

They didn't need a crystal ball just be aware, they had a family so we will have to disagree on that point, they should not have been guarantor without funds. If it were my daughter I would try to talk to her. My daughter is estranged and I would take any chance to have made it different.

Smileless2012

Why didn't you explain the situation to your D at the time? .

I agree!

I couldn’t bear this if it were me, I would desperately need to know why. I can’t help wondering if there is something she is hiding from you. As you said before is there a boyfriend (or even girlfriend) that she thinks you wouldn’t approve of or something else?
Have you tried to phone her, perhaps from a different number, rather than text. Have you suggested that perhaps you could meet for a coffee somewhere?
Of course the most important thing is that you keep in contact and constantly let her know that you love and miss her.
I do hope you can resolve this. My heart goes out to you.

@Allsorts
I am sorry to be blunt but I cannot see how you're bewildered. How you wouldn't have known the repercussions of working abroad and returning I don't understand.

I expect they forgot to pack a crystal ball.

Hasn't our own UK economy and taxation and legal system changed at all in the past decade?

Did you foresee Brexit? Or what Trump is doing in America right now, with global repercussions

I am sorry to be blunt but I cannot see how you're bewildered. How you wouldn't have known the repercussions of working abroad and returning I don't understand.. I would have moved heaven and earth to send her to University, it wasn't as if she was lazy and expected to be bank rolled, you didn't listen to her, you bought some furniture, and acted as guarantor for a flat, which means you could have covered it, should she not have income, so she would have worked to get through Uni.

Is confusing, but then am sure there is more to this than you could explain on here.
Perhaps you are also confused.
My take on it is that of course it us about the money, this is one of the biggest reasons why families fall out. Not explaining it to her at the time is a mystery to me but perhaps even if you had she would have thought you were at fault.
Sending the letter is a good decision, but don’t be tempted to use it as a ‘why haven’t you contacted us?’ opportunity, make it all about explaining and apologising for not having explained at the time and of course about how much you love her and have missed her.
I really hope you manage to build bridges.
🙏🏾