Amends letter to Daughter
 

I have been a using Alcoholic and Drug addict for over 40 years, I became the kind of father and person I didn't want become. I was mean and nasty very judgemental. When my son and daughter were growing up I was mean to them a lot both of then did not like me much then and hated me a lot. I have been sober and drug free a Now for about 6 and 1/2 years I made amends to my now 17 year old son in person me him get along great now. My now 20 year old daughter moved to Spain and got married she says she never move back here to the USA. I can't go to Spain to visit her only my wife can go to visit her Spain I need to write her an amends letter. How do i go about doing that she hates me so much.

What does your sponsor say? Presumably he's privy to information surrounding this that we are not.

Is there a reason you can't phone her? And what's the reason you can't go to her, just out of interest? (If it's because she doesn't want to see you and 'hates' you then I'd ask, what would you do if she live in your home town? Would you still write to her, or would you take the risk and go see her anyway? )

Wishing you well in this endeavour.

My advice would be to keep it simple, admit your mistakes sincerely and honestly, don't put any pressure on her to respond and maintain no expectations.

My alcoholic father wrote his 4 daughters an email to make amends after he was a few years' sober. He got responses from 2 of them - one of them being me. I decided to forgive him because I didn't want to live with the breach in our relationship. Eventually we got to a good relationship again. But it took a lot of effort and willingness to put things aside.

Plus your daughter is still young. Her pain may still be raw.

So don't pressure her if you don't get a response immediately.

The 2 daughters who didn't respond to my dad's email eventually came around. But it took years and is still a work in progress especially with the youngest.

I would reiterate what BerryBean has said, what does your sponsor say about this? I would also ask why you can't go see her in person. If at all possible I would try to do this in person, just the effort alone to get there would speak volumes to your sincerity.
MissPerfumando also makes some great statements about people needing their own time with things like this. You have to be prepared for the fact that she might reject you- now or for always. that is her decision and you cannot change that.

Finally I will say that it is great to read that you have 6 and a half years of sobriety- congratulations on that- and that you are working on and thinking so much about this incurably important task. Best of luck to you.

If she isn't ready, why not wait a bit longer? Amends is to help the other person, not for ourselves; that would be a selfish motive.

We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping.

when making amends, I kept it about me,my wrongs and the nature of them, and what ive done to change.
with no expectations my amends would be accepted.

Hi Poochokid - welcome - lots of good advice here already.

My added bit of advice is to keep it honest and simple...and try not to have the expectation this will fix everything - it may not.

People have their own timetables for forgiveness and we just have to go along with that.

I hope it can be a start to reconciliation tho.

D

Welcome to the Forum Poochokid!! :wave: