Adult daughter criticizes mom — for everything

Dear Amy: I need some help with my oldest daughter. I divorced their father when my girls were under the age of five. My ex was an alcoholic and heavy smoker who was — at best — spotty with child support.

I was a great earner and provided for the girls. We had dinner together every night and I never missed an activity. Their father died three years ago from lung cancer. Both daughters are successful and doing well, but my oldest, at 34, is still unmarried and very unhappy about it.

This daughter criticizes me endlessly. Endlessly. If I adjust a behaviour that bothers her, she picks something else to rag on me about. Honestly, it’s exhausting. I find myself communicating with her less often, and mostly by text. I can’t have a conversation with her — even through text — about anything without a jab. We share an Amazon Prime video account and she will even critique my choices about what I watch!

I am close to her best friend, and I will text this friend before I do my daughter, who then gets insulted and comes after me for THAT.

I find all of this disrespectful.

As a parent, I’m sure I made mistakes but I don’t think I deserve this constant dressing down.

It’s almost as if the roles are reversed and she is now raising ME! I have a good job, a nice husband whom she likes, a lovely home, friends, etc.

I’m not sure what she gets from abusing me, and even though I want a relationship with her, it is becoming just too hard to take. Your advice?

— PUT DOWN MOM

Dear Mom: You mention that your daughter’s treatment is a sort of role reversal, in that she is now acting like a parent to you.

This is a problem. If you see degrading treatment as somehow “parental,” then perhaps there is something to your own parenting which might have contributed to this behaviour. It’s something to think about.

One bonus of having adult children is that parents can expect their children to (finally) behave like adults.

Is this treatment that you would tolerate from any other adult? I doubt it. And so you should not tolerate it from your own daughter.

Why are you sharing an Amazon Prime account? Why are you communicating with her best friend? These are two choices that you could quickly change.

You should stop adjusting your own behaviour to please her. Convey that if she wants to have an active relationship with you, she will have to adjust her own behaviour.