From my garden: mint, lemon balm, today found few strawberries and calendula petals. I steep in hot water for a few and then add ice and water. I top it off with fresh water through out the day.
I’m a South Asian woman who moved to USA with my then husband and had 2 kids with them.
I separated from him when my kids were little ( 3 and 7) after trying to make the marriage work for 16 years. A whole lot of gaslighting and crazy making and near destruction of myself, I decided to leave so I can be a mom to my kids, leaving behind all the investment I made supporting the family and their father’s education.
It took a lot of energy to not repeat the generational trauma cycles and be the best parent I could be. For the longest time, my motto was how NOT to treat my kids ( based on how mine abused me).
I modeled apologies, my goal was specially for my daughter to have a relationship with me I never had with my own mom. I encouraged her independence, coached her through tough friendships and budding dating relationships and gave both my kids the kind of practical life most American kids don’t have. Most certainly I didn’t.
She was still unhappy and used to talk about me to her friends in front of their moms in demeaning manner. I sucked it up.
Long story short, i feel like i bent over to give my kids a launch pad over my back. I never had time to date, struggling to keep my head above water in this racist, misogynistic society.
I’m in my early 50s now. Decades of abuse from early life and a hard life combined with long COVID and menopause broke me. It was a total breakdown of mental capacity and physical ability for this former Type A overachiever.
My daughter thinks she ‘shouldn’t have to’ be there for me. When she visits from college, she used to bitch about condition of the house ( which isn’t terrible to begin with ) that I guess I failed to keep up. And then proceeds to go ‘support’ her boyfriend’s mom selling something at a fair. Hours that could have been used by the able bodied adult child to help me. This has been a pattern with both kids as if I’m a machine. As if I don’t have feelings. As if I don’t matter.
It feels like now that my back is broken from giving them a launch pad, I’m just supposed to wither away and die? I don’t deserve love, care and attention? Is this the American vs eastern cultural clash? If so, am I still obligated to pay for their expenses though?
I’m a fiercely independent person. I’m self made. Financially independent.
Why do I feel like I’ll be told to not put the ‘burden’ of my current life needs on my adult kids? Isn’t that what loved ones supposed to do? Take care of each other? It’s not like I expect them to drop their lives and babysit me. Hardly.
Their dad is married now. She has a boyfriend. My son has a girlfriend. And here I am alone as I spent time making their lives and now even my most basic needs are apparently a burden and they ‘shouldn’t have to’ be there for me as I need.
I’m in a lot of grief that this relationship will never be the same, if we ever talk again after the current estrangement. I’ve said some hurtful things and thing is I don’t feel like apologizing for it. Ironically, I also feel mostly relief not having to walk on eggshells around her. I don’t miss her much either. Like don’t feel like I need to see or talk to her.
I’m a survivor and I’ve learnt to count on just myself all my life.
But is this it? What was the point of it all? Why bother with anything else at all? I’m constantly struggling to not completely check out. I have since found new ways to find joy - drumming , dancing, camping and really experiencing things I never got to my whole life as my childhood and youth were spent adulting.
I guess I am asking how to make peace with the reality of the situation with my daughter- that it’ll never be the same again? The goal I spent a lifetime working on just got trashed as if it didn’t mean much.
I’m a South Asian woman who moved to USA with my then husband and had 2 kids with them.
I separated from him when my kids were little ( 3 and 7) after trying to make the marriage work for 16 years. A whole lot of gaslighting and crazy making and near destruction of myself, I decided to leave so I can be a mom to my kids, leaving behind all the investment I made supporting the family and their father’s education.
It took a lot of energy to not repeat the generational trauma cycles and be the best parent I could be. For the longest time, my motto was how NOT to treat my kids ( based on how mine abused me).
I modeled apologies, my goal was specially for my daughter to have a relationship with me I never had with my own mom. I encouraged her independence, coached her through tough friendships and budding dating relationships and gave both my kids the kind of practical life most American kids don’t have. Most certainly I didn’t.
She was still unhappy and used to talk about me to her friends in front of their moms in demeaning manner. I sucked it up.
Long story short, i feel like i bent over to give my kids a launch pad over my back. I never had time to date, struggling to keep my head above water in this racist, misogynistic society.
I’m in my early 50s now. Decades of abuse from early life and a hard life combined with long COVID and menopause broke me. It was a total breakdown of mental capacity and physical ability for this former Type A overachiever.
My daughter thinks she ‘shouldn’t have to’ be there for me. When she visits from college, she used to bitch about condition of the house ( which isn’t terrible to begin with ) that I guess I failed to keep up. And then proceeds to go ‘support’ her boyfriend’s mom selling something at a fair. Hours that could have been used by the able bodied adult child to help me. This has been a pattern with both kids as if I’m a machine. As if I don’t have feelings. As if I don’t matter.
It feels like now that my back is broken from giving them a launch pad, I’m just supposed to wither away and die? I don’t deserve love, care and attention? Is this the American vs eastern cultural clash? If so, am I still obligated to pay for their expenses though?
I’m a fiercely independent person. I’m self made. Financially independent.
Why do I feel like I’ll be told to not put the ‘burden’ of my current life needs on my adult kids? Isn’t that what loved ones supposed to do? Take care of each other? It’s not like I expect them to drop their lives and babysit me. Hardly.
Their dad is married now. She has a boyfriend. My son has a girlfriend. And here I am alone as I spent time making their lives and now even my most basic needs are apparently a burden and they ‘shouldn’t have to’ be there for me as I need.
I’m in a lot of grief that this relationship will never be the same, if we ever talk again after the current estrangement. I’ve said some hurtful things and thing is I don’t feel like apologizing for it. Ironically, I also feel mostly relief not having to walk on eggshells around her. I don’t miss her much either. Like don’t feel like I need to see or talk to her.
I’m a survivor and I’ve learnt to count on just myself all my life.
But is this it? What was the point of it all? Why bother with anything else at all? I’m constantly struggling to not completely check out. I have since found new ways to find joy - drumming , dancing, camping and really experiencing things I never got to my whole life as my childhood and youth were spent adulting.
I guess I am asking how to make peace with the reality of the situation with my daughter- that it’ll never be the same again? The goal I spent a lifetime working on just got trashed as if it didn’t mean much.