How can I deal with unhappy feelings about my married daughter’s pregnancy?
My newly married and youngest daughter is 6 weeks pregnant. I am unhappy because she lives 2000 miles away and I’ll have rare to no participation with them for this joyous event.
Her husband seems immature in that he makes his own family all-important in their lives, while heavily diminishing our participation and interest. His future plan is to permanently live close to his family, this being 3000 miles away from us.
My daughter and I have a sweet relationship, but she seems to be okay with prioritizing his family over our own. I am devastated that I’ll have no close relationship with my new grandbaby, as well as not to be near my own daughter during her pregnancy.
I want to be excited about the baby, but I know my son-in-law plans to involve his family more in the child’s life than in ours, so I’m not sure I can live with that kind of heartbreak!
I’ll be visiting them at Thanksgiving and want to be happy for my daughter. Your comments? How can I hide my real sadness?
Tagged with: About • daughter's • deal • Feelings • married • Pregnancy • unhappy
Filed under: Pregnancy Sadness
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Are you still close to your daughter? I mean emotionally? Perhaps you could move closer to her, but make sure it sounds good for her too. It would be a shame if you moved 1000s of miles to be closer to her, but then she never came to visit.
Ok first of all you said she was 2,000 then by the end you added a 1,000 miles.During the year you just have to make it priority to arrive for a couple of weeks and give top nothc blessings if you let her know you are discouraged she will build a bigger wall bettween you two.
This also happens to mroe than one family.We live no where near relatives and I miss it during holidays but no other times everyone is bickering over someone dying or someone isnt getting along with so and so..
i say give your blessing and go see her three times a yr end of story and give all the love you can by sending care packages with pictures to baby…i did it for hubbys kids and they loved it.(we lived 1,000 miles away from them..i would send home movies to the simplest things they were wanting.
Don’t play tug of war and don’t assume that you’re automatically being ”excluded”. You might have to move closer or visit more often.
This day and age of modern technology,there is no excuse not to be near your grandchild.My advice is that you and your daughter find a way to keep you in touch.I have two kids from my first marriage,and their dad lives thousands of miles away.You could not tell it though.We do lots of phone calls,both kids have web sites set up,take tons of pictures,make videos of everything,AND anytime the kids have a concert or school performance,he hears it.If I can do this for someone I can no longer stand for the sake of my kids,your daughter should be able to do it for her child and mother.Don’t let them push you out.It is hard to stay in touch,but it can be done.
Be as polite as possible and if you get a moment or two pull your daughter aside and stress to her how you really feel. Especially if you feel her husband is immature than most likely she will be the one raising the baby and will need her mom as much as possible. Even if you are 2000 miles away. There’s the phone, Email, Webcams and so many more ways to keep in touch these days. Just make it a great Thanksgiving. If not for you then do it for your Daughter who you say you have a wonderful relationship with. Remember how you were when you were pregnant, very emotional so bite your tongue as hard as you have too but your there for her and your grandchild. Not the immature husband
Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving
Quit comparing your importance to their importance. I know it can be hard to do sometimes but if you get into a pissing match over who spends the most time and who brings the best gifts and who is loved more all you’ll end up doing is making you and your daughter’s family miserable.
A lot of people live across the country from family, including me. The biggest thing that all my relatives have done well is not make us feel too bad about how we have to divide up our time. My parents, DH’s mom and boyfriend, and DH’s dad and step mom have all simply expressed gladness about the time we can make it out to see them. It’s made the visits more enjoyable all the way around and makes us more likely to try and get out there rather than less likely.
However, my kids are a bit closer to my parents than anyone else. My mom and dad have always made it a priority to talk to the grand kids regularly. Those weekly calls mean a ton. So get a good long distance plan and start calling now.
Don’t worry about what you can’t do to stay close but focus on doing everything that you can.
i would sit down and tell her how you feel. try to plan trips to visit every couple of months. and be careful he sounds controlling by movin her so far away. call everyday and stay active as much as u can to let him know you arent goin anywhere.
your sadness and disappointment stems from your love for your daughter and your desire to be close, and I see this as only a positive thing. I also really like how you put the focus on dealing with your own feelings, rather than blaming her for how you feel.
Talk to her honestly. I can’t imagine her reacting badly to anything in this letter, especially if you put it in terms of how excited you are for her baby and how happy you are for her, and how much you miss her and wish so badly you could share this experience with her. What first time mother wouldn’t want to hear this from her own mother?
Could you take a month and come stay with them during the time she is about to give birth? You live far away, do you have the flexibility in your schedule and responsibilities to take a “grandmaternal leave” heh? Maybe you can make up for this with frequent visits. I imagine that giving birth for the first time, she would “need her mommy” more than ever, and welcome the chance to have you around to support and help her, if you can make it work.
Just a reminder – she didn’t move far away as a personal affront against you. The decision of where to live is complicated and I’m sure there were many factors in their decision, not just choosing one family over the other. She loves you, but she needs the freedom to live wherever is right for her family instead of being tied to her hometown. It doesn’t mean she is any less interested in a relationship with you.
*kind of a pathetic side note…if this doesn’t work out with your daughter, you can adopt me…I would love nothing more than to have a mom who wanted to be so involved in my life*