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I think her remarks about laughing at you your for manner of speaking was hostile. When she makes hostile remarks, I think you are within your rights to say something about how the remark has made you feel. But I also sense that there is a lot of baggage with you and your daughter. There are probably years of hurt feelings and snarky comments.
I don't know if it is too late to change the dynamic or not.
You didn't provide your child with a stable home, and it sounds like she has busted her ass to provide one to her own children. She likely resents you a bit for her chaotic/abusive home life growing up. And let me let you in on a little secret - I doubt you were very pleasant as a mother. People in abusive and chaotic situations rarely are.
Heck, I never bonded with my mother merely because she was simply unhappy in her marriage to my father and subconsciously took it out on me. Your situation is more extreme. Your daughter does not see you as a protector. She likely doesn't trust you emotionally and keeps you at a distance by laughing at you a little. That's how I deal with my mother - it's the only way I can cope with her ridiculousness. She was always angry when I was around her as a kid, and I feel stressed out constantly in her presence because that's how I was conditioned to be. I don't view her as a pleasant person. But unlike your daughter, at least I had my father to have my back and provide emotional support to me.
If you want to address this with your daughter, you've got to be prepared to unpack this with her and a therapist, IF she wants to invest the time. Because you need to change the dynamic and she needs to express her feelings and find a way to chart a new course with you.
But sometimes you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
Your situation sounds like the total opposite of the OP. In your case, your mother made your life miserable and your father was the good guy.
The OP was married to a violent abuser. Telling her you doubt she was very pleasant as a mother is rather cruel. You weren't there to know, and it sounds like you're projecting your own situation on her. I said in my earlier comment that the household was so chaotic that it took a toll on her daughter. But I haven't seen anything to indicate the OP herself was cruel to her children.
My own mother was a wonderful person in spite of living with my abusive father. So, there is no one pattern of behavior for abused people.
I also can't believe how many people are letting the father off the hook, more than the mother who had to parent with a violent psycho for a partner. He's hardly even being mentioned. HE didn't provide a stable home!
Life is not neat and tidy. Who you marry is one of the most important decisions you can make as far as what kind of life you will live. If the OP had met and married a different man, we could be sitting here talking about how happy her family is, and then she would be perceived as an amazing wonderful mother . . . even though she'd still be the same person.
The randomness of life evidently makes some people so uncomfortable, that they take comfort in blaming the victim.
Your situation sounds like the total opposite of the OP. In your case, your mother made your life miserable and your father was the good guy.
The OP was married to a violent abuser. Telling her you doubt she was very pleasant as a mother is rather cruel. You weren't there to know, and it sounds like you're projecting your own situation on her. I said in my earlier comment that the household was so chaotic that it took a toll on her daughter. But I haven't seen anything to indicate the OP herself was cruel to her children.
My own mother was a wonderful person in spite of living with my abusive father. So, there is no one pattern of behavior for abused people.
I also can't believe how many people are letting the father off the hook, more than the mother who had to parent with a violent psycho for a partner. He's hardly even being mentioned. HE didn't provide a stable home!
Life is not neat and tidy. Who you marry is one of the most important decisions you can make as far as what kind of life you will live. If the OP had met and married a different man, we could be sitting here talking about how happy her family is, and then she would be perceived as an amazing wonderful mother . . . even though she'd still be the same person.
The randomness of life evidently makes some people so uncomfortable, that they take comfort in blaming the victim.
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Make no mistake the daughters are abuse victims as well, even if he never hit them...OP stated he eas constantly emotionally abusive to the entire household. OP stated she "should have noticed" her daughter was in pain but she didn't. They grew up in total chaos, then mom moved out and left them with jerk dad apparently (at least that how it sounds in the posts describing it). No one who grows up in chaos can escape not having it touch them.
What it sounds like to me, is OP uses her daughter as a mirror, sees the way she dotes on her kids and is an involved parent, and reads it as a slap in the face due to her own shame for whatever mistakes she made.
Maybe it is time for the OP to get a job, so that maybe she and her daughter can relate to each other on that level? To proudly claim you have "never had to work" in your life, and to spend the first year after divorce partying it up on alimony before marrying the next meal ticket doesn't seem like the kind of thing that makes a daughter admire a mother.
Even my mom, who was a rich girl in the 1950s when she married my dad, eventually started working when we were teenagers, mostly so that she could "walk the talk" when she nagged us about pursuing careers and making sure we could support ourselves independently.
...Not sure how you make it up to your kids for keeping them in an abusive home until you got dumped though.
Your situation sounds like the total opposite of the OP. In your case, your mother made your life miserable and your father was the good guy.
The OP was married to a violent abuser. Telling her you doubt she was very pleasant as a mother is rather cruel. You weren't there to know, and it sounds like you're projecting your own situation on her. I said in my earlier comment that the household was so chaotic that it took a toll on her daughter. But I haven't seen anything to indicate the OP herself was cruel to her children.
My own mother was a wonderful person in spite of living with my abusive father. So, there is no one pattern of behavior for abused people.
I also can't believe how many people are letting the father off the hook, more than the mother who had to parent with a violent psycho for a partner. He's hardly even being mentioned. HE didn't provide a stable home!
Life is not neat and tidy. Who you marry is one of the most important decisions you can make as far as what kind of life you will live. If the OP had met and married a different man, we could be sitting here talking about how happy her family is, and then she would be perceived as an amazing wonderful mother . . . even though she'd still be the same person.
The randomness of life evidently makes some people so uncomfortable, that they take comfort in blaming the victim.
It's not about blaming the victim. It's just reality. The daughter's childhood was beyond unpleasant. Her associations with her mother aren't good. That's just how it goes. When you are an abused or unhappy spouse, your parenting suffers. Yeah, abuse sucks, and its repercussions can continue long after the punches are thrown.
The OP clearly resents her daughter, and her daughter clearly wants her mother at a distance. That's just how it goes. Without therapy it will never get better, and the daughter may not want the situation to be fixed.
From my own experience, I'm tired of wishing for a mother I can rely on emotionally. I'm mostly indifferent to my mother. If she wanted to do some joint therapy, I'd have little motivation for participating because what's my payoff? I've functioned pretty well for 40 years without a close relationship with my mother by forging close relationships with other people, and she's the one longing for a connection after torching the one we had throughout my childhood. I think I know how the OP's daughter feels to a certain degree, but her feelings are likely far more intense than mine are.
It's not the daughter's responsibility to fix things in this situation.
I would guess your daughter doesn't respect you. She saw you putting up with a man's abuse and never having the means to earn a living without a man. Your description sounds like she is overcompensating at the work of not ever being like you. She doesn't have to be so rude about it though.
Maybe a little of this.
OP, you admitted you raised your daughters in an abusive environment. Have you relayed that to them? Have you told her that was wrong and you understand that? Have you totally taken responsibility for that? Said it without trying to minimize it with a "it was hard for me too because..." If not I think that would go a long way in helping your daughter.
I think some times children have a tendency between 25 and 50 to make efforts to be "buddies" with parents. That includes occasional buddy barbs and such, like they would make with their buddies. It's an effort to be closer, especially if they weren't close to mom and dad as kids and are trying to make that effort and pull them in. But not every family has that.
I see now that I'm older I should have shut up and treated them like my older parents instead of occasionally like my buddies at the bar or at a party. I've said a couple of things that were not meant to hurt, about marriage stuff or health stuff, but i wince now when I think about it.
Your parents will always be your parents. But many young adults try to change that dichotomy. Doesn't usually work. Not like that.
That said, she may not have meant it as a cruel insult. But I can sure see why it stung.
I'd take her aside and talk about it.
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