Gransnet forums

Estrangement

Near Estrangment but confused about something

(229 Posts)
User138562 Mon 22-Dec-25 17:29:33

It sounds like they ARE giving you examples and you are saying they aren't true and dismissing them. You won't understand because you have decided they are making it up.

If you're not listening unless it's something you agree with, this will continue. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle but you can't meet in the middle or work through it by refusing to acknowledge their perspective.

If you truly feel they are knowingly making it up, maybe you should distance yourself and let them get on with it. After all, how could you want a relationship with someone who makes up blatant harmful lies and tries to hold you accountable for those lies?

InRainbows Mon 22-Dec-25 17:24:27

What I have learned with my own children is that, they were far more aware of what was going around them than I thought. Bad memories tend to "stick" easier than good and that, what might not feel like a particularly big problem to me did to them.

I have found the best way to move forward is to deal with how they feel instead of what I remember.

It might be good for you to also examine the situation around your own abusive relationship because that is what shouting at you is. That would impact your ability to parent, there were probably many times you weren't able to parent well dealing with something awful like that. Unfortunately smiling is not proof of happiness. It can often be the opposite and someone trying very hard to overcompensate for how they feel inside. Adults and children do this. I think if you are honest with yourself you know that what she was exposed to was not healthy for her and that if you could go back now and change it, that's not a situation you would want either of you to be in.

Overall my take away from reading these situations and from my own family is that, when we start to deny their feelings or claim what they remember is false, that is when they start seeing it as abusive and "gaslighting" or "dismissive" or "invalidating". Going into it with an open mind and knowing that we aren't perfect and standards change greatly over time for parenting, can bring those relationships closer instead of pushing them apart.

Smileless2012 Mon 22-Dec-25 09:49:09

I seem to remember you posting about this before Starfire and if so, I'm sorry that the situation hasn't improved.

Your D's friend is projecting her childhood trauma onto your D which explains why your D is unable to provide just one example of how she was abused.

IMO your best course of action is to say you're no longer prepared to listen to this and then leave the room. There's no point in trying to have a sensible conversation to try and discover if she was in fact abused, and what form that abuse took, if she's unwilling/unable to engage, and you need to tell her so.

Starfire57 Mon 22-Dec-25 04:04:15

I have been having issues with my daughter ever since her husband left her. And she has a best friend, since high school, who claims she was abused. I don't know if that is true or not, but, seems my daughter talks a lot about and has now claimed she was an abused child.

She even is starting to make my grandkids think I am not safe in some way or was a bad parent/grandparent. They told me and it suck that the oldest one seems to believe it. The youngest told me she doesn't believe it.

Anyway, this is complete fabrication and I am thought maybe the best friend has been projecting her childhood onto my daughter.

My confusion is, when I offered to discuss the alledged abuse, she got mad that I didn't believe or acknowledge she was abused.

I went mad trying to get just ONE example. Just ONE. A long message conversation with me offering to talk in person or at least give one example on the messages.

She kept ranting about me and how I act, called me psychotic if I am called out on something.

Well, I have recently been deciding when she does say something very untrue to me, I don't agree with her. I've always been more of a silent person when attacked, will just leave the room, ignore it, etc. but lately I decided to at least basically defend myself like most people would.

Not arguing, just saying yeah no that's not true kinda thing. No big deal. That's now psychotic in her view.

Anyway my question is, has anyone here had an experience that when you ask about abuse, with the tone of if I did something I will apologize kinda thing, that then the adult child avoids, attacks and basically never tell you what you did?

It's completely maddening. You feel so hurt yet you are trying to understand by getting an answer. It's looney.

So finally, she mentioned children need to feel safe. I had a husband who yelled at me all the time. I thought ok, so maybe she was scared of him?

That's reasonable I think with a young child. But that's not abuse if I didn't know she was scared at times. Most the time she was always smiling. I can't read minds.

I told her if just once she told me she was scared, I may have tried to help her. But not knowing her feelings isn't abuse, it's lack of knowledge.

No matter, I told her I had no idea, that what she said was valid. Yet she still insisted she was abused and she said I won't accept it.

Again, how can you accept what exactly?

Don't kids know what happened?

I read about Mackalay Culkin and his story about his dad slapping him across the face and how Culkin said he had no bed to sleep on while his dad had a large comfy bed, etc.

He had examples of abuse.

What is the deal when an adult child can give no examples?

No clues? and the idea when you say you are ready to listen anyway, they don't want to talk or they avoid/distract with their opinions of your behaviors rather than on the subject of the abuse?

It got to the point of so many horrid accusations of abuse, again, using only the word abuse, even saying I do it with my grandchildren (too many hugs? idk?)

Now I am worried this will end badly. I did acknowledge her fear as a kid. But this is kinda nuts. Anyone who knows what this is, give me a clue.

I feel like the best friend projected so much of her own childhood now that my daughter thinks it's hers. I mean, she's known the friend for decades but seems now that her husband took off on her leaving her a single mom with 2 kids, it seems now something is seriously wrong. A couple of years ago, when her husband first left, she talked alot about her friend helping abused kids, and there was a predator defense protocol that the friend told her about for kids.

She used it one day to throw me out after I teared up a little when she yelled at me.

I never asked her why she used that. But she's a grown adult.

It's mental.

Does anyone know what this is?