I (41F) have a daughter who is 17, and her father and I divorced when she was 7. We had a very rocky marriage, during which I was a stay-at-home mom, and I struggled a lot financially afterwards. Because of this, during our divorce, my ex-husband and I agreed that our daughter would live mainly with him and I received alimony payments from him for about 4 years after our divorce.
For the first several years after the divorce, my daughter would stay with me every other weekend and several holidays (the specific holidays depending on the year), and I always enjoyed our time together, but it would often feel like she didn’t want to see me. She was never interested in any activities or occasions that I planned for us and normally when I called to talk to her, she would be busy with school, an extracurricular activity, or something else.
Usually when she would spend the night with me, she’d ask about the divorce and why her father and I aren’t together anymore. I always tried to be as honest as possible with her but I could tell the divorce had been hard for her and when she started high school she stopped visiting altogether.
She and I have been low contact for the past few years, and this past weekend we had an argument regarding her graduation. She’s graduating from high school this June, and I texted her to ask about the details. She responded with a very passive aggressive text asking if I would actually come and how she didn’t want to waste a ticket.
I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, so I called her and she started ranting about how I was never around, and that I always blamed her father for everything, and how I cared about my students more than her (I’m a high school teacher). I interrupted her and told her that she knows nothing about what happened between her father and I.
I told her that she made her choice to stop visiting and not to answer when I call her and that she couldn’t blame anyone else for that and she hung up. About an hour later she sent me a long text about how much I hurt her and that she didn’t want me at her graduation and that I “needed to change”.
Since that night, I’ve gotten several messages from my ex-husband’s family about how I’m a terrible mother and how I should’ve been more involved when my daughter was younger, and I’m not sure how to handle this. AITA?
Another User Comments:
“YTA because you are omitting information. How does the SAHM/primary caregiver immediately agree to every other weekend and select holidays? Why did your daughter stop coming in high school? Why are you low contact? Why did she assume you might not show up for graduation? Just one of these factors, standing alone, might suggest your daughter is overstating things. But add them all together and it seems you weren’t interested in anything other than part-time parenting and now she’s calling you out for just that. >I told her that she made her choice to stop visiting and not to answer when I call her and that she couldn’t blame anyone else for that. Nope, she was a *child*. She wanted you to chase after her to prove you love her and you want her in your life. You’re a teacher, you know how teenagers act, and yet you failed this very basic test.” JeepersCreepers74
Another User Comments:
“INFO: You were getting alimony and presumably had a career so why didn’t the visitation schedule ever change to allow her to spend time with both parents more frequently? During your every other weekend schedule did you make a point to attend every recital, game, parent-teacher conference, school activity etc? Were you there for her? Why were you low contact for several years? She is only 17 so the low contact started when she was pretty young.” sheramom4
Another User Comments:
“YTA I came into this thinking no this is just a kid being told to shut it. Holy hell though YTA a huge one too. Why didn’t you ask your daughter what she wanted to do when she would visit? Why didn’t you send her to therapy and go together? Why didn’t you, THE PARENT, continue to be the one to reach out to a child? Of course you’re a teacher of course you are. Bet you’re a good on too. I am not being sarcastic at all. The year my younger brother & I were taken by CPS ( the family flew us to relatives our of state after the first night) my mom won Teacher of the Year. I know what kind of person and parent you are. You better do something right now to mend this relationship, or you’re gonna be like my mom. All her kids are no contact, she is in her 70s and going blind all alone. Fix this now YTA” Responsible-Ebb2933
