What do you do when your young adult daughter moves back home to live with you, and is critical, rude, demanding and upset that you’re no longer the wonderful mom you used to be. We talk about this and a whole lot more on this week’s podcast, Five Crucial Points For Boundary Setting With Your Adult Child

Today we are hearing from Holly of Orange County CA. 

Hi Neil,

Thank you for taking questions from us concerned parents!

I will try to keep this as short as possible. I have recently decided to set boundaries and give an ultimatum for my 24 yr old daughter who is currently living with me and my new husband (yes, blended family). I have been a pushover for too long and I admit that. She takes advantage of me, expects things of me, responds rudely, and acts entitled. She is only happy with me when it is just me and her together and I'm agreeing with her, listening to her, taking her places, etc.

She's been married and divorced. She chose to live with me and I took her in, no problem. Due to her lack of respect for me and her projecting her pain onto me, I told her she has to seek out therapy by a certain date or she has to move out. I also told her she has to pay me $400 a month to live in my house. She has her own primary bedroom and bathroom with her own entrance. This led to an hour or more conversation of her telling me I was such a good mom when she was young and I was married to her dad. She now goes on and on telling me she doesn't know who I am! And that I've changed into someone she no longer knows. She said she's scared that I did not admit to my faults and apologize to her that she's hurting from the divorce. She’s telling me I'm no longer a Christian woman. She has cried to her sister (25 yrs old) and they are both telling me how hard I am being on her, etc, etc. I'm hurt, shocked, angry, disappointed, embarrassed.... This is not how I expected my daughter to turn out as an adult. I no longer know how to communicate with her, nor do I want to. She's manipulative, she exaggerates the truth and she gaslights. I do not like my child right now. I've supported her, I pray over her, I cheer her on, I give her resources, take her to lunch and dinner, buy her things occasionally, I give her advice (which she tells me I used to be good at and now I'm horrible!) I'm at a loss.

It sure sounds like Holly is struggling. Let's address her situation with her adult daughter. 

Mom

Mom is “at a loss.”  At a loss for what?  How to make her daughter happy? How to get her to behave better, address rude demanding behavior, how to help her, how to get her out of the house?

• Mom has only recently decided to set boundaries. 
• Delivered an ultimatum, get therapy or move out.
• Admits she’s been a pushover for too long
• Is hurt, shocked, angry, disappointed,and embarrassed
• Has recently remarried.
• Continues to give her daughter much of what she wants, one on one time with Mom taking her places, buying her things, and offers her daughter advice.

Daughter

• Is married and divorced at 24 and asked to move home.
• Is unhappy with Mom, and reports that she is scarred from the divorce.
• Tells Mom that she doesn’t like how Mom has changed.
• Appears that her needs and expectations are focused on Mom.

What are her goals, plans? 

Flexibility in Families

It sounds like Holly is trying to be a good mother to her 10 year old and her 10 year old is hard to please. 

It seems like a case of Hostile Dependency: I hate you don’t leave me. 

She used to be such a “good Mom'' and now she’s not.  Well, she’s not supposed to be a “good Mom” to her daughter.  Families are supposed to change over time. Flexibility is a key trait in healthy families. She’s pretty much done parenting. Now the stage of development is basically support for the emerging independence of the young adult.

What to Do

We can think of a few things that will be important for Holly to think about and how to help herself and help her daughter.

• Yes! By all means learn to have boundaries, set personal limits. No one can manipulate and take advantage of you if you have clear boundaries and boundaries aren’t boundaries if they aren’t enforced.  
• It’s time for Holly to focus on her own life and life goals.  Congratulations on your recent marriage, Holly.  
• My Lord, how does Holly’s new husband think about living with Holly’s daughter who wants Mommy all to herself?
• Holly will do well to understand that all of daughter’s complaints are externalizations of her feelings.  I’m unhappy, Mommy, entertain me!  I’m lonely, Mommy, keep me company!  I have sad feelings about the divorce, Mommy, you hurt me! You’re a bad mommy!
• So Holly, if you can think of all of your daughter’s complaints as externalizations of her feelings, you can simply respond to them as we would anyone’s feelings.  We don’t take responsibility for causing or fixing their feelings. We offer caring, empathy, validation.
• Advice sometimes but it has to be sincerely desired by the person and not just an expression of helplessness such as “What can I do”. Which is really just a way of saying “I’m stuck and can’t do anything about it.”  Then if you offer advice, it will be rejected because the person just wants you to agree that they are in a victim position and advice implies they should take some responsibility and use their personal agency. 
• Sending her off to do individual therapy and expecting therapy to change her behavior is not an effective intervention. Maybe it’s hoping that the therapist will tell her that everything isn’t her Mother’s fault, and she should get a life. That won’t happen.
• Is it Holly’s expectation that her daughter will simply live with her indefinitely?  Is she comfortable with that?  
• There are some circumstances where that could be okay and work out well; parent and adult-child get along well, are good friends, and it works out financially for them.
• This doesn’t sound like that, in fact I don’t see how Holly will have any sanity with her daughter sharing her home with her immature level of development.  In order for daughter to live with Holly and her husband, she would need to have personal goals and plans, a separate social life and friends to do things with and not count on Mom to be her primary friend.
• Now, her daughter has her own room, bathroom and entrance.  That’s a pretty good deal for $400/month even if she gets her morning coffee at Starbucks on the way to work. But if she’s going to be a full fledged family member, she has to understand that she needs to adjust to and honor the new family structure and accept her mother for who she is and quit lamenting an era gone by.  
• As for therapy, sure, find a really good therapist and go together.  And Holly will need to bring her own agenda and not be on defense from her daughter’s agenda. Holly’s agenda should be something like:

I love and care about my daughter very much.  I’m very concerned that she doesn’t have her own life and is very much dependent on me for her support and entertainment. I realize that I haven’t had good boundaries and have not held her to high enough behavior standards.  Her behavior towards me is rude and demanding.  I wish I had addressed this earlier with her, but I have my own issues of being a pleaser instead of being clear and honest about my own needs and limits. Now I am requiring her and others to be responsible for themselves and respectful towards me.

What are our takeaways from Holly’s situation? 

1. It’s never too late to make changes in our relationships with our adult children or any important ongoing relationships. Healthy relationships are flexible and respond to the need for change over time. 
2. I know my boundaries. If someone is constantly violating our boundaries, we need to look to ourselves for the answer. Is this truly my boundary or am I only willing to have this boundary if the other person agrees to it. 
3. Ultimatums support Control Battles, and do not change relationships fundamentally. I do not use ultimatums.
4. Hear the complaints and demands of others as an externalization of their feelings and respond with empathy, not defense.
5. Communicate your boundaries, your standards and expectations with clarity, positivity and with faith in your adult child’s capability to successfully address them and benefit from doing so’ even if it takes them a while. (It speaks to the capability within them.)

Thanks for tuning in today and just a reminder, Mental Health needs to be role modeled. Your children won’t be mentally healthier than you. So take the pressure off of yourself to get everything right. Just be present for yourself and the situation in front of you, and you’ll be amazing. In fact you are amazing. You need to know it, you deserve to know it, Why? Because you're worth it.