Breaking Point?
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,452
Tod, there is a lot here for you to grapple with, and on SoberRecovery, we try to offer our experience, help and support.
To me, inside that 17 year old daughter is still a very little girl who wants to be loved by her mother, and probably, despite knowing intellectually that it is not so, still emotionally believes that she must have done something wrong to cause so much rage and hatred in her mother.
If I had had what I needed when I was young, it would have been to take me out of my family with an alcoholic and powerful father, and a narcissistic mother who delighted in seeing herself as victim.
Your daughter needs one parent to resoundingly reassure her that she is worthy, that she has value, and that she never ever need again take such abuse from any person in her life.
Instead of letting your daughter leave to stay with a friend, I suggest that you go pick her up at that friend's house and take her to a safe place to stay with you, whether that be a hotel, a relative's home, or whatever space you can find that reaffirms your overwhelming and primary concern that she be taken care of first, loving and properly.
Just because this may be the first time you have heard your wife talk to your daughter this way does not mean it is the first time your wife has done so. You need to be the protector and defender of your daughter's right to be a child and live with love and safety.
Then, knowing that your daughter is in a safe environment with all the clothes and things she needs to make her comfortable, you need to deal directly with your wife and remove her from your home or find another place to call home for you and your daughter.
Your wife's behavior is highly abusive to you and your daughter, and will leave emotional scars, and you need to step up to putting an end to her access to both of you, but especially your daughter. She needs a good therapist immediately and a way to vent her feelings and be reassured and have her self-esteem repaired.
When I say these things to you, I am really saying them from the emotional perspective of the little girl I once was who never got any of that protection or reassurance. I guess that is why my feelings are so strong here.
You sound like a great dad, and a child only needs one parent to feel loved.
ShootingStar1
To me, inside that 17 year old daughter is still a very little girl who wants to be loved by her mother, and probably, despite knowing intellectually that it is not so, still emotionally believes that she must have done something wrong to cause so much rage and hatred in her mother.
If I had had what I needed when I was young, it would have been to take me out of my family with an alcoholic and powerful father, and a narcissistic mother who delighted in seeing herself as victim.
Your daughter needs one parent to resoundingly reassure her that she is worthy, that she has value, and that she never ever need again take such abuse from any person in her life.
Instead of letting your daughter leave to stay with a friend, I suggest that you go pick her up at that friend's house and take her to a safe place to stay with you, whether that be a hotel, a relative's home, or whatever space you can find that reaffirms your overwhelming and primary concern that she be taken care of first, loving and properly.
Just because this may be the first time you have heard your wife talk to your daughter this way does not mean it is the first time your wife has done so. You need to be the protector and defender of your daughter's right to be a child and live with love and safety.
Then, knowing that your daughter is in a safe environment with all the clothes and things she needs to make her comfortable, you need to deal directly with your wife and remove her from your home or find another place to call home for you and your daughter.
Your wife's behavior is highly abusive to you and your daughter, and will leave emotional scars, and you need to step up to putting an end to her access to both of you, but especially your daughter. She needs a good therapist immediately and a way to vent her feelings and be reassured and have her self-esteem repaired.
When I say these things to you, I am really saying them from the emotional perspective of the little girl I once was who never got any of that protection or reassurance. I guess that is why my feelings are so strong here.
You sound like a great dad, and a child only needs one parent to feel loved.
ShootingStar1
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