A not unknown scenario, I am having a major problem with my oldest daughter. A very bright girl she had/has an eating disorder which I supported her through for many years, she always was a handful. She discovered in her late teens I was having an affair she has always used it against me and when her father and I divorced she was very angry. Nevertheless we remained very close and I probably gave her more time than I did to my other children perhaps because I saw her as more vulnerable.
She married a few years ago a lovely man with a very high profile job as does she; he has 2 teenage children and now they have 2 little ones, they live abroad. She presents herself as being perfectly in control and leading a perfect life. Every time I have visited I have had to fly home early due to her bad temper and at times physical abuse of me and yet I keep going back for more. When she has visited me here there have always been rows, one time she locked me in my room after manhandling me. It has got much worse since she married. I know that her husband is very unhappy, he looks terribly ill and I know that she is equally cruel to him, he has told her twice that he wishes he had never married her. I was there. I am now barred by her from talking to him and am also I am not to ask him how he is as I embarrass him and her. I believe her stepchildren are also unhappy, one has gone to live with her mother permanently and the other spends most of his time at his mother's too but wants to stay near his father.
I have since married the man with whom I had the affair, she hates him with a vengeance. We went with the rest of the family to the baby's christening earler this year. As soon as all the guests had gone she turned on us all. We all had to go to bed, we were not allowed to have a drink or watch television. The rest of the family left the next morning. I was due to stay for a few extra days. She hauled me out of bed and pushed me around calling me terrible things and accused my husband of dreadful sexual offences against her stepdaughter and also of stealing from them; he had also left early. I stayed despite all of this to see if I could calm her down but it was no good and eventually I called a cab and left. She had packed my bags earlier and put them out in the snow and -20 temperatures.
I love her and my little grandchildren and I want things to be better. We have been trying to build bridges but recently she has sent me a few nasty emails. When I spoke on the phone to her this week, she invited me over to go and stay any time and I said I didn't think that would be possible. She immediately lost the plot again screaming at me so much so I had to put the phone down. Since then I have had 2 terrible emails from her.
Where do I go from here? I don't want to lose her or my grandchildren. I have suggested she gets some help but that is rejected out of hand and tells me it is I who need help.
