CAROLYN HAX

Dear Carolyn: COVID has really separated us. My 45-year-old daughter and her family live three hours away from me. I haven’t seen her in person or on video chat for 14 months.

While she will call the children together for a FaceTime visit, I do not get to see HER. She will not talk to me on the phone either.

I have reached out several times to schedule a visit, masked and distanced, but she refuses. Although my husband and I have been vaccinated against the virus, she will not let us into her home. I’ve asked for her benchmarks for a visit to no avail. I’ve also asked to FaceTime with just adults to try to work this out. She refuses.

How can a mother break through? — Feeling Helpless And Hopeless

A mother can’t, if her daughter doesn’t want that.

And she has been telling you in several different ways for 14 months that she doesn’t.

I am sorry to be the paraphraser of bad news.

Why she has pushed you away, I can’t say. You wrote that “COVID ... separated us,” but I can’t see how you can blame COVID-19 for her refusal to FaceTime you when she allows her kids to. Something else is going on here.

By your account, your response to her every “no” is to try a new angle — and that alone can strain a relationship.

So there could be two reasons here for her withdrawal: 1. her initial one last year, whatever it was (which could indeed have been COVID, or the exhaustion it famously delivered to people caring for children); and 2. the new one you gave her when you kept pressing her for more attention than she had to give.

But I’m just spitballing. For all I know you said or did something awful and un-COVID-related to her a year ago and you won’t own up to it, or she’s being awful now. If I start listing reasons grown children estrange themselves from their parents, I’ll still be typing when the next pandemic hits.

What matters is that you become a better listener, stat: “You’ve been saying no, and I’ve been so caught up in changing your mind that I forgot to listen. I’m sorry. I will take no for an answer and stop pushing. I’m here when you’re ready. And, if I haven’t said so already or enough, thank you for being so good about putting the kids on FaceTime with us.”

This might leave you feeling resentful, as if you’re the one doing all the sacrificing here. That’s a common complaint when I recommend a full retreat — but it’s also a trap. It temps you into looking for fairness when fairness doesn’t apply; reality is in control. And reality says you can’t make your daughter do anything (in fact, it’s probably tired of repeating itself), whether fairness demands it or not. You can work only on your side of the problem.

So, you offer her respect, space, grace — and give yourself the best chance of mending the breach.