What can I do to keep from losing my teenage daughter emotionally?

Question

My 15 yr. marriage ended in divorce a yr. ago. Our daughter chose to live with her dad for several reasons: stay at the same school in the same town, I travel in my job, and he never makes her do anything that she doesn't want to do. I see her very infrequently because she is very involved in activities at school. I attend everything that she is involved in, which is very painful because her dad and his girlfriend(seeing her before the divorce) are also always there. I feel her pulling away from me and her maternal grandparents more and more as she seems to have reasons to see us less and less.The more time she spends with him the more she forms an alliance with him and his girlfriend. She has even told her grandmother that she "loves" his girlfriend. The girlfriend has no children and seems to be taking a mother's role more and more in her life. I try to remember that I am the adult and she is the child(15) but I don't know how to stay close even after talking about this with her.Help

Answer 1

She is only 15 at present and may very well dislodge herself from you for a while. But once she has matured more she will realize that this new woman in her life is not her birth mother and she will come back to you for reflection and emotional attachment. Allow her some space and do not force her and things will work out naturally.

Answer 2

How difficult that must be.
Part of this is her age, as I'm sure you're aware.
The other part is I think how she's determined she'll cope with it. She can't be mad at her dad and still live with him, so when it comes to understanding the divorce she has probably determined you were the reason for it; even though that's not true. It takes two people. The next few years are going to be tough. You can't force her to be close with you. If you can make it possible to spend more time with her, that will help. But it's not a guarantee.

It might also make sense to talk to the ex and the new step-mother type person about it. I don't mean open up and say you're vulnerable, but if your daughter "loves" this woman, you probably need to size up the competition. One of the ground rules you may need to set is that you don't trash the ex or his gf around your daughter, and the same goes in their house as well. Your ex should want all of you to have a good relationship with your daughter and be able to come to both of you if she needs something.

I think if you can present a united front all three of you, your daughter may be surprised by that and her viewpoint may change. Best of luck to you!

Answer 3

Maybe you could try to squeeze in a day just for the two of you. Do something that she's interested in with her. If she likes sports, buy tickets to her favorite team's game. If she's a girly girl, go the mall and get your nails done. Show her that your interested in more then just being her mom, but her friend as well. The more you pressure her into telling you everything, the less she'll want to.

Answer 4

One way to stay in contact with your daughter is e-mail.

Talk to her about your day....ask her questions about what's going on in her life.....tell her some "Mom-Teenage-Daughter" stuff.

My daughter lives with me but when she was a teenager this is how we kept the lines of communication open. E-mail worked great because we couldn't argue and we had to really read what the other one had to say. We have a very close relationship now.

It's certainly worth a try.

Answer 5

when ever the two of you are together make it a special time .. go to the movies or out to eat maybe putt golf what ever she may like to do and as for her saying she love the girlfriend look at it this way at least you know she is not mistreating your daughter or she would not care about the other woman.. try not to say anything bad about your ex or his gf in front of your daughter this will only make you look bad in her eyes and push her farther away from you