A bit of background is necessary here.
I have one daughter who will be 17 in April. I was married to her father for 12 years and did my best to make it work. But in the end, his abuse towards me became too much to bear. I hasten to add that he has never shown the same abuse towards our daughter.
We agreed that after our split, neither parent would move away from the other until our daughter reached the age of 16. We both stuck to that.
But at the end of last year, I had the chance, with my new husband to move about 35 miles away to what we now refer as our "Forever Home"
The move had been planned for a long time - almost a whole year - and we included our daughter in the whole process. When she was choosing colleges to go to, we showed her a college near each home. The colleges were very different in style and subjects offered, so our hope was that she would be able to choose between them objectively, without worrying about choosing which parent with whom she would live. She chose the college near her father.
I then made sure that she knew that no matter what, she would still always have a home with us. There was much talk of her spending half a week with her father while at college and the other half with us. But as we got closer to the move, there were more and more excuses as to why she couldn't achieve this. Once we did move, it was clear within a few weeks that she just wasn't going to bother.
Now, a few weeks after Christmas, I saw an advert for a part-time job locally. Knowing that her own job was causing problems due to lack of hours, I sent her the details. Her response was at best evasive; but giving her the benefit of the doubt, I sent her more information about the location. It was then that she simply said she wasn't interested.
My heart is broken. But I cannot tell her this. As a parent, I am bound to let my child make her own way in life and to be there when she needs me. This is a pain like no other. I am blessed to have a child of whom I am proud; but to have her push me away is just so awful, it defies description.
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