My DD has moved back in with me but won’t make a decision about her abusive marriage

1. Does she have professional support to recognize what abuse is?
2. "She accused me of lacking empathy. I’m doing my best, being sympathetic, hugging, cooking, washing her clothes but that doesn’t seem enough."

What does she consider empathy? Have you talked about what kind of help she needs from you?
Cooking and washing her clothes is something she can do for herself, right?

I am sorry but you don't sound very sympathetic. You know your daughter is having mental health issues but you arent respecting her feelings at all.

You say you want her out of this abusive relationship but then you make her unwelcome in your home which should be a safe space and talk about everything you do for her as if that comes with strings attached, when that should just come naturally.

The types of help you could get her are suppott with counselling, support to regain financial independance and her own place support to rebuild her life in a way that doesnt leave her trapped between two sitiations where she can only be unhappy with him or unhappy with you.

OP

You already have a post about communication issues with a daughter with 2 kids in 2020 - is this the same daughter?
Nothing seems to have changed much

Sheesh! Well clearly it's all your fault for giving her a safe bolt hole.
Talk to her about what she sees as your position in all this, dont comment other than to be open to what she says.
All you can do is your best.
Good luck

Hi VioletSky - please don’t judge me. I am being supportive emotionally, financially and practically. I can’t help her move forward until she decides which way she wants to go and accepts help. She is seeing a Counsellor, organised by her sister, and she has a very strong network of family support. Please don’t criticise me for just being human and airing my frustration.

Hithere- no I do not have another post about communication issues with my daughter - she doesn’t have children.

Namsnanny- I am just trying to do my best, thanks

She'll leave him when she's ready ,its not something you can `force.My late sister was in an abusive marriage for 30 years .Our family cajolled and bribed and tried everything in between to get her to leave him .Sadly she never did .
It has to be something she wants to do ,there are many women like my sister who are so attached emotionally to their abusers they cant let go.
I hope your daughter isn't one of them,just be patient with her she has taken the first step so hopefully she can do it permanently and leave for good .
I wish you all the luck in the world with this ,I know how it affected my parents and sisters ...and me .You feel helpless because you cant get the result thats needed ,just give her time .

I think it’s alright to draw your own boundaries. I’ve seen similar patterns of behavior. There is, in my experience, nothing an outsider can do to break this cycle of returning to an unhealthy relationship until the person is willing to initiate the break him or herself. If I were you, I would think about what you can offer without burdening yourself - maybe it is cooking - and what you do not want to continue doing - perhaps being made to feel uncomfortable in your own home when she comes to stay. Then sit down with your daughter, explain you love her, and lay out what you can and cannot offer in support. She’s an adult now. If she wishes to stay with her husband, she needs to learn to handle the consequences of doing so without overly relying on others

Apologies, there was another gramaj in the past
www.gransnet.com/forums/relationships/1272944-Can-t-say-the-right-thing-to-my-daughter

Thank you paddyann54 and Grandpanow

I agree with Grandpanow you need to talk with your daughter Gramaj and explain how you feel, you love her and will help where you can. You do need some boundaries in your own home. It's so difficult when our children are adults, we have to let them make their decisions/mistakes.

GramaJ

Thank you paddyann54 and Grandpanow

Nothing to do with the subject I am just surprised Gransnet lets 2 different people choose the same user name. Also have I missed something is GramaJ a name from a TV series or book or something? I have never heard of it before?

I was supposed to be responding to Hithere's post.

You are in a difficult situation. In a way you are enabling the situation to continue by providing a safe space so that a decision can be postponed. I would do exactly the same but at the end of the day only your daughter can decide her future. I would think though, that you are perfectly entitled to make as much noise as you want in your own house. A heart to heart may help clear the air. That and a step back might help your daughter clarify her mind.

every time they had a disagreement, or should I say she disagreed with him, he threatened divorce.

I was married to someone like this for 9 years! When I finally said I wanted a divorce( I had always said if he heard me say those words I would mean it, not use it to get my own way) he panicked and promised to change. They never do.

Sadly she needs to realise this for herself.

GramaJ In a situation like this, you are as much a victim of this situation as your DD. patterns of abuse cannot be contained between the abuser and victim, they inevitably spill out and draw in those who hold the victim dear. This is why so many abusers will try and alienate their victim from their family because they know that their victim's.

I deliberately use the word 'abuse' because domestic abuse isn't just violence and verbal abuse. It is also the use of emotional abuse to control someone and this is what your SiL is doing.

Your daughter is the victim of abuse, and victims and their abusers often get into a co-dependent relationship like this, where the abusive partner, has his victim dancing on a string. By threatening to leave and then 'forgiving' their partner.

Try and see your DD as a victim. Do some research, perhaps you could talk to a domestic abuse charity yourself to seek help and advice.

I fully understand your need to vent how you feel. it must be such a difficult situation for you. You are as much a victim of your SiL as your daughter.

What an awful dilemma GramaJ. I totally agree with paddyann and Grandpanow.

Sitting down with your D and talking about her living arrangements with you is a good place to start. By taking some responsibility with household tasks like cooking and washing, your D will be reminded that she's an adult and not a child who does not, and cannot have any control over her own life.

This may be a case of miss matched expectations. IMO you are being supportive, empathetic and respectful of her feelings. If she doesn't think so then she needs to say where she feels your efforts are failing, have the opportunity to say so and allow you to do the same.

Her husband is emotionally abusive and as NannyJan has said "she needs to realise this for herself".

Great post M0nica.

GramaJ I think what your daughter is trying to tell you when she says you lack empathy is that she needs your unconditional support. She needs you to stop urging her to leave her husband and to step back. At present she has two people she loves both trying to manipulate her and make her act the way they want her to, and she probably feels she is bound to lose one of them.. I know it will be hard, because when our children are hurt we feel it as much as they do, but if you could step back a little, stop putting pressure on her and assure her that you will be there for her no matter what she decides, and you recognise that she loves this man, even though he isn't good for her, it might help her more. It won't be easy and it will be more painful for you but it may give her the ability to see the relationship more clearly. I think when someone criticises a person we love we are all more inclined to defend them and insist they aren't as bad as all that.
I hope you can manage to help your DD and to look after yourself, some counselling might help you as well.

I didnt mean to sound judgemental, thats just what I took from your post.

I strongly feel your daughter needs a safe space in order to leave this relationship.

Perhaps you can get her into a refuge instead where she can get the right sort of support for this.

Is it possible to have the same username twice on gransnet?

Sound advice Glorianny and you make a good point about the OP's D possibly feeling that she needs to please two people she loves, and is unable to please them both.

GranmaJ has said that her D who is the subject of this thread does not have children, which makes sense or presumably she'd have said she had her D and her GC living with her.

“The freedom programme “ is frequently recommended on mumsnet. It might be useful to your daughter. I haven’t gone on the site but it might have also advice for family trying to help domestic abuse victims

VioletSky

I am sorry but you don't sound very sympathetic. You know your daughter is having mental health issues but you arent respecting her feelings at all.

You say you want her out of this abusive relationship but then you make her unwelcome in your home which should be a safe space and talk about everything you do for her as if that comes with strings attached, when that should just come naturally.

The types of help you could get her are suppott with counselling, support to regain financial independance and her own place support to rebuild her life in a way that doesnt leave her trapped between two sitiations where she can only be unhappy with him or unhappy with you.

To me, you are the unsympathetic one, not OP.

She has just had a knee replacement done, and her daughter came to stay, purportedly to help her mother.

No one said a word about the daughter having mental ailments of any kind.

What is wrong with her is that she cannot decide whether to leave her husband, or to stay with him, even although she finds him abusive.

GramaJ: tell your daughter that you love her, but she cannot go on like this and run home to you every blessed time things go wrong at home. Either she does something, like kicking her husband's backside, or her own, or demanding a divorce on grounds of incompatiility or mental crueltly or anything else that can be proved, or she trys wholeheartedly to make her marriage work.

I don't know, and neither do you apparently, why she stays with this man, but that is her lookout and the decision to stay or leave him is hers to take too. Tell her nicely that if she is leaving her husband, she will need to find a place to stay, because she cannot live with you. It just does not work, does it?

OPa daughter said she wasnt being sympathetic, thats the relationship that matters here

GramaJ, as has been suggested here, I think your daughter might benefit from seeing a counsellor - preferably someone who is qualified in relationship counselling. Maybe the best help you could give her would be to pay for some sessions, if you can afford to do so. (Rather than doing her washing, making her meals, etc.) IMO often it can be much more helpful for a person in crisis (your DD) to talk about their problems with someone who isn't a family member or a friend. Good counselling support might help your DD to realise that she's an abused wife (if that's the case) and thus help her to move on with her life, away from this man, for ever.