Hey, and welcome back to the Mother-Daughter Relationship Show. Last week I talked about estrangement from the daughter's side. Today I'm sitting with the mothers. If you're a mother whose adult daughter has pulled back fully or partially, I want to name what you're feeling. All of this is called grief. Nobody has given you nearly enough permission to feel it. So in this episode, I'm going to speak to the grief that mothers feel during estrangement, while also holding you accountable. But remember with me, you are safe here too. I'm talking to moms and daughters, not just daughters in this show. So I hope you stay and listen. Welcome to the Mother-Daughter Relationship. Show the podcast for mothers and daughters who want to build stronger bonds, deepen their understanding and transform their relationships. I'm your host, Brittany Scott, licensed therapist and mother-daughter relationship coach. After years of working with hundreds of daughters. And mothers. I've developed strategies that help break generational patterns, heal wounds, and create the loving relationships you've always wanted. Each week I'll be sharing insights from real clients, expert interviews and practical tools you can use immediately to improve your mother-daughter dynamic. Whether you're struggling with communication breakdowns, navigating major life transitions, or simply wanna take your already good relationship to the next level. The show is for you. And yes, the transformation I guide my clients through can be yours too. I'll share more about how you can work with me. It's time to experience the relationship you both deserve. Are you ready? Let's dive in. Let's start by naming what you're experiencing, because I think a lot of mothers don't have language for this particular kind of pain. What you're going through is called ambiguous loss. Your daughter is alive. She's fine. She's out there living her life, but you've lost access to her. That is a real loss that deserves to be grieved, like one. This isn't like other losses where the person is gone and everyone around you understands your grief. You daughter is still here. You might see her on social media. You might hear about her through family members. You might even see her occasionally at family events. But the relationship you had or the relationship you hope to have is gone. Ambiguous loss is difficult to grief because there's no closure, no finality. There's just this painful in-between space where she's here but not here, where you're her mother, but you're not in her life. Where everything is unresolved and uncertain. One of the hardest parts of this experience is that it is incredibly isolating. You can't explain it easily to people who haven't been through it. When someone asks, how's your daughter? What do you even say? And the responses you get when you try to share what you're going through, they often might make things worse. Could sound like, what did you do to make her so angry? Just give her space. She'll come around. You might have done something. Daughters don't just pull away for no reason. I know I've said that in a lot of these episodes, and although that hurts, I happen to know that that's true, but still it doesn't help the situation. Another one you might hear is, have you tried apologizing or, my daughter and I are so close, I can't imagine these comments, even when well-intentioned compound your grief with shame. They suggest that this is your fault, that you failed, that you should be able to fix it if you just tried the right thing. So you end up carrying the grief alone, feeling like you can't talk about it without being judged, without people assuming you're a bad mother. The grief you're feeling probably compounds during the holidays and milestones. Mother's Day, when your daughter doesn't call holidays when she's not at the table. Her birthday when you don't know if reaching out will be welcomed or ignored watching her life milestones from a distance or not at all. Maybe hearing through someone else that she got engaged, had a baby, bought a house, got promoted. These moments of reminders of the relationship. You don't have the grandmother rule, you might not get to play the closeness. You imagine that never materialize. And on top of the grief, there's often embarrassment having to explain to extended family why your daughter isn't coming to Thanksgiving. Fielding questions about why you're not in your grandchild's life. The shame of other people knowing that your daughter doesn't wanna be around you. This is pain that doesn't get talked about. So I wanted to make sure it gets talked about here. I named this the mother-daughter relationship show, so I could talk about the relationship from all angles. So even though. I do believe if your daughter pulled away, that there is something that you have done and you do have to look at that in order to fix it and take some accountability. But I know that this is painful for you and the pain that you're experiencing does deserve its time, and I'm hoping that I can give you that today. Now, let's talk about the stories you might be telling yourself about why this is happening, because the narratives we create about our pain can either help us heal or keep us stuck. So the first one, the She Hates Me story. This is the story I hear from mothers constantly, and I understand why it feels true. When your daughter won't talk to you, won't see you barely acknowledges you even exist. It can feel like hatred, but it's almost never hatred, even if it feels completely true. What looks like hatred is usually protection. What feels like cruelty is usually self-preservation. Your daughter pulling away doesn't mean she hates you. It means she doesn't know how to be close to you and be okay. At the same time. The love is probably still there. The grief is probably still there too, but the relationship as it existed was costing her something she couldn't keep paying her peace, her sense of self and her mental health. So she created distance. That doesn't make your pain less real, but it might help you to know that on the other side of this, your daughter probably is not celebrating her freedom from you. She's likely carrying her own complicated grief about the relationship. You don't have the, I failed as a mother story. This is a shame spiral, and it's one of the most painful places mothers get stuck. You look at the distance between you and your daughter and you think. I must have done something terribly wrong. Good mothers don't lose their daughters like this. I failed at the most important job I'll ever have. The fact that your daughter needs distance doesn't mean you have failed at everything. It means something in the relationship wasn't working for her and probably that you weren't listening because I imagine if you're estranged, she tried to tell you. You can have done many things right and still have a daughter who needs space. You can have loved her deeply and still have hurt her in ways that you didn't understand. You can have tried your best with the tools that you had and still have caused her pain. Mothering is complex. Relationships are complex. The distance between you and your daughter is likely the result of many factors. Some within your control, some not because mothers don't mother inside of a vacuum. Personality differences, unmet needs, generational patterns. You didn't even know you were repeating. Communication styles that never synced up. So does this mean that you bear no responsibility? No, absolutely not. If your daughter pulled away, there are likely things you did or said that contributed to that decision, but that's different from I failed as a mother. Responsibility and total failure are not the same thing. I've said this many times on the show. There's no such thing as the perfect mother. There's not a mom walking this planet that can say she got it all right. But a good mom. Will listen to her daughter. She will take accountability for the things she did wrong, and she will make efforts to make changes so that the relationship can continue and still be healthy and happy and joyful. The next story you might be telling yourself is the, it's too late story, so let's address this one directly and honestly, is it too late to have the exact relationship you wanted when she was little? Probably, yes, that ship has sailed. She's an adult. Now. Things are much different. But is it too late to have any relationship at all for most of you? No, it's not too late. But the path forward looks different than most mothers expect, and the only person who can tell you it's too late is your daughter. The relationship you might rebuild with her won't be the same as what you had or what you hoped for. It might be more boundaried, it might involve less frequency or contact. It might require you to relate to your daughter differently than you have ever done before. Sometimes despite your best efforts, the relationship doesn't repair. Sometimes the damage runs too deep or your daughter isn't in a place to engage, or the changes required feel impossible to make. I'm not saying this to discourage you. I'm saying it because false hope is cruel. The truth is that reconciliation is possible for many mother-daughter relationships. I happen to know because I help moms and daughters to reconnect and repair their relationship after it's been broken, but it requires real change, not just wanting things to be different, but actually being different. And that can be really difficult. And I've seen it be really difficult with moms and daughters that I have the privilege of working with. I, I see the muddy waters that they're having to walk through. I, I get to witness the changes happening and how hard some of these changes can be, and the tears that they bring and the frustration. But on the other side of that is a relationship. So I'm saying all of this to you because I see it happen constantly. A mother is devastated by her daughter's distance, so her instinct is to try harder to reach her more text, more calls, more attempts at connection. This might look like sending multiple text messages when she doesn't respond to the first one. Showing up unannounced at her house or workplace. Reaching out through other family members or her friends bringing up the past, or trying to explain yourself repeatedly sending gifts or cards to remind her. You're thinking of her making guilt inducing comments about how much you miss her. Posting on social media about ungrateful children. All of this comes from pain and desperation. You're trying to close the distance, but every attempt like this actually creates more distance from your daughter's perspective. You're not respecting the boundaries she set. You're proving that you can't or won't honor her need for space. You're showing her that your need for connection matters more than her need for distance, and so she pulls back further and you try harder. And she pulls back more, and the loop continues with both of you and increasing in pain. Let me revisit last week's framework from your vantage point, because I think it might help you understand what's actually happening. The distance is protection, not punishment. Your daughter is not pulling away to hurt you. She's pulling away to protect herself. When she was close to you, something felt unsafe. Not necessarily physically unsafe, but emotionally unsafe. Maybe she felt criticized. Maybe she felt like she could never be enough. Maybe she felt controlled or dismissed or like she had to manage your emotions on top of her own. Whatever it was being close to, you cost her something she couldn't keep paying. So distance became her tool for survival. This doesn't mean you're a monster. It means the dynamic between you, the way you relate to each other wasn't working for her. Most daughters who create distance have tried at some point to communicate what they need. They might not have done it perfectly, they might not have been clear, but there were likely attempts. So I'd like you to sit and think about what those attempts were. What did your daughter say to you? What does she need you to see? What does she need you to hear? What does she ask you to take accountability in that you refuse to do? Maybe she tried to set a boundary and you got defensive. Maybe she tried to tell you something, hurt her feelings, and you explained why she was wrong to feel that way. Maybe she tried to share something vulnerable and you offered unsolicited advice instead of just listening, or you criticized her decision instead of finding a way to support her. After enough of those attempts, she stopped trying, not because she doesn't want things to be different, but because she learned that asking doesn't work. What does she need? She needs to feel seen as who she actually is, not who you want her to be. She needs her boundaries respected, even when you don't understand them. She needs to be able to express difficult emotions without you getting defensive or making it about your pain. She needs to feel safe being herself around you. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. If the relationship broke down because your daughter felt criticized, sending her articles about what's wrong with young people today won't help. If she pulled away because she felt controlled, telling her what she should do, won't bring her back if she needs space, because conversations always became about your feelings. Reaching out with I'm so hurt by your distance isn't going to change anything. So let's talk about what a different approach might look like. Here's one small example. Instead of reaching out to say, I miss you. Why don't you call me anymore? Which centers your feelings and puts pressure on her. You might send a simple message that says, I'm thinking of you. I hope you're doing well. I'm here if you ever wanna talk, and I'm also okay if you're not ready yet. That message communicates care without pressure. It acknowledges her need for space while leaving the door open. It doesn't demand a response or make her responsible for your emotions. This is just one tiny example of what shifting your approach might look like. The bigger work is understanding your patterns, examining what you might need to change, learning to relate differently. That's deeper, and we can get into that in another episode. I wanna give you some things before we wrap up today. I want you to know that you have permission to grieve. You don't have to be okay with this. You don't have to perform acceptance or peace when you're actually really devastated. You don't have to pretend you're fine at family gatherings or smile through Mother's Day, like it doesn't hurt. Your grief is real and it is allowed. You can be angry or sad. You can wish things were different. You can miss your daughter while also doing work to understand what led to this distance. grief and growth can coexist. You can feel the pain of this loss while also taking responsibility for your part in it. I can't promise you that your relationship with your daughter will be restored. I can't guarantee that If you do all the things right, she'll come back. But I can tell you this. The possibility of something changing does exist, not through forcing it or through trying harder in the same ways you've been trying, but through understanding it differently. When you understand why she pulled away, like really understand it not just intellectually, but in your body, you can start to show up differently when you do your own work to change the patterns that contributed to the breakdown, the possibility of a different kind of relationship opens up. It might not look like what you hoped for. But it could still be something very real. And also the work you need to do doesn't require your daughter to participate. You can't control whether she's willing to engage with you, but you can control whether you're willing to look at your own patterns, your own behaviors, your own contributions to the dynamic. Doing work like this will look like getting your own therapy to examine your role in the relationship breakdown. Identifying the patterns you might have repeated from your own mother. Learning to regulate your own emotions instead of making them your daughter's responsibility. Understanding what healthy boundaries look like and practicing, respecting them. Examining where you might have been critical controlling or dismissive even when you didn't intend to be. Okay. Intent versus impact. Think about that. Grieve in the relationship you wanted while accepting the one you actually have. And building a life that doesn't revolve around your daughter's presence or absence. This is hard and it requires honesty with yourself about things you might not wanna look at. It requires sitting with discomfort and resisting the urge to defend yourself or explain your intentions, but it matters whether or not your daughter ever comes back. It matters for you, for your own growth and healing. And if she does ever become willing to reengage this work will have prepared you to show up differently. If your mother listening to this and your daughter has pulled away, I'm sure by now you know you're not alone in this. Thousands of mothers are walking the same painful path, carrying the same grief, asking the same questions. You are not uniquely terrible. You're not the only mother whose daughter needs distance. And while I can't promise you that doing this work will bring your daughter back. I can promise you that understanding what happened, taking responsibility for your part and doing the work to change that will give you the best possible chance, not just for reconnection with your daughter, but for peace within yourself. The reconnection is what you want, and if you want that, you're gonna have to put in the effort to make that happen. I've got something coming up this summer that's going to give you a whole lot more than just noticing what's wrong. It's gonna give you tools, community, and a clear path forward. I'll be sharing more details soon, so stay tuned. That is what I have for you today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a listener of the show. And if this resonated or you know, a mom who this might resonate with. Please share it. Send it to her. Let her also listen, and please leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or wherever you're listening. It helps to show to grow, and it helps me to reach more moms and daughters. Okay, take good care of yourselves and I will see you in the next one. That's all for today's episode of the Mother-Daughter Relationship Show. Thanks so much for spending this time with me. I hope you picked up some valuable insights that you can start using right away in your own relationship to create deeper connection and understanding. If something from today's episode resonated with you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with the mother or daughter in your life who needs to hear this message. And while you're at it, please consider leaving a rating. And review so we can reach more families and transform the way mothers and daughters relate to each other. For those ready to take the next step, you can visit my website to learn more about my private coaching programs and my program designed specifically for mother-daughter pairs. Whether you're dealing with communication challenges, life transitions, or just wanna strengthen an already good relationship, I'm here to help. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you in the next one.