Daughter recovering 5 months - setting boundaries
 

Hi all - I am new here. My daughter has been in recovery 5 months and seems to be doing fine. She is an adult. Last week she told me that she needed "space" from me. (we live 900 miles apart) and that she would only be calling me once a week, and that we would be talking only about neutral topics. We were just beginning to get our relationship back - I don't know what happened.

If her recovery is going well, perhaps she's feeling some kind of anxiety with your phone calls that make her feel stress, which is not a good place for a recovering addict, as they previously would have used/drank to escape the stress? I think you should agree to her "boundary" on this one and allow her to make the calls to you. Perhaps her sponsor and she are trying something new. Just ride it out for a while and see if the weekly, neutral conversations actually improve your relationship even more-this would be my suggestion. It may not always be weekly, but for now it is a request from an adult woman.

When my daughter moved out of my house (to college) I had to learn to respect her boundaries as well. She wanted to be an adult, and not feel childlike every time she talked with her mama-LOL. I let her make the calls to me when she wanted to talk, and they now are pretty regular and wonderful! And welcome to SR, Cookie! It's a great place for us moms to share and get support :)

Hey Welcome to SR! There are a lot of mother's on this forum who understand where you are and you've been.

My son is also in recovery. I find that it is very important to remain on very neutral topics with him. I allow him to guide the conversation. I don't ask him questions that are in any way connected to his addiction/alcoholism. His recovery belongs to him and I respect that. Our relationship is much better. Our relationship is changing....and that's good.

I hope you'll come here often and share your thoughts and experiences. It is very theraputic. This is a wonderful forum full of kind and warm people who all know the pain of loving someone in active addiction/alcoholism. Take some time to read the stickies at the beginning of the forum and to visit some of the threads.

I'm glad you found SR!

gentle hugs

Give it time.
Keep the focus on yourself and you will see your part.
Go to Al-anon to learn about recovery. Addiction truly is a family disease.
The silver-lining in my son's addiction is that it
brought me to recovery from co-dependent thinking + acting.
Al-anon and working the 12 steps through that program has changed me in ways I couldn't even imagine.

Your relationship with her can improve.