I'm going to give a brief background. I had my daughter when I was 16. Due to this fact and the fact that I was in an abusive relationship, we did not form an attachment like I now know we should have. We left her dad when she was 2. I met my now Husband when she was 5. She's never called him Dad and they get along better now, but they still but heads.
Over the past 2-3 months or so, she has begun to seriously irritate me. It's to the point where sometimes I wish she could live with her Dad. I don't want to hug her because I feel that her hugs are fake. How can she be so cruel to me and give me an honest hug? (I'll get to the cruelty in a moment) I truly don't even want to listen to her because everything she says and does mostly irritates me. Let me get to what she does and why I feel this way.
When she gets her way, she allows me to be happy. When the smallest thing isn't what she wants, she literally treats me like she hates me. Right now, she's screaming at me from the other room. She talks to me like I'm nothing. While I speak, if she doesn't like what I'm saying, she rolls her eyes and snaps nasty looks and interrupts me with snide remarks. She doesn't believe things that I say when it's not what she wants to hear. When I ask her to do something, even when I give her notice beforehand, she will sometimes simply say 'no, i'm not going to do it.' or 'no, i dont want to'. She's ALWAYS telling me 'thats not fair!' I hear that 5 times a day. She uses what I say against me and twists my words. She's EXTREMELY technical with things that are said and uses that against me often.
I have a 5 month old whom I am practicing gentle parenting with and I just don't know how to practice it with her when up until 2-3 months ago, when her behavior really got terrible, I was an authoritarian parent. I still am forced to be by giving consequences like grounding, taking stuff away, etc because she speaks to me like I am NOTHING and I will not spank/... I don't know how to handle it! I almost always stay calm and respectful, often asking her to speak more softly when she yells or treat me nice when she tells me that she hates me. It doesn't work. She gets louder and meaner.
I feel terrible writing this, but I think about how much easier it would be if she wasn't here to make me feel like this. I don't want to touch her most of the time, play with her, be with her. Because she treats me like the enemy. Like her arch enemy. Like garbage. Every single day. I know it's mostly my fault. Everything that she does. We never bonded like we should have. We grew apart because I didn't pay enough attention. But HOW DO I FIX THIS? and how do I love my daughter again?
Over the past 2-3 months or so, she has begun to seriously irritate me. It's to the point where sometimes I wish she could live with her Dad. I don't want to hug her because I feel that her hugs are fake. How can she be so cruel to me and give me an honest hug? (I'll get to the cruelty in a moment) I truly don't even want to listen to her because everything she says and does mostly irritates me. Let me get to what she does and why I feel this way.
When she gets her way, she allows me to be happy. When the smallest thing isn't what she wants, she literally treats me like she hates me. Right now, she's screaming at me from the other room. She talks to me like I'm nothing. While I speak, if she doesn't like what I'm saying, she rolls her eyes and snaps nasty looks and interrupts me with snide remarks. She doesn't believe things that I say when it's not what she wants to hear. When I ask her to do something, even when I give her notice beforehand, she will sometimes simply say 'no, i'm not going to do it.' or 'no, i dont want to'. She's ALWAYS telling me 'thats not fair!' I hear that 5 times a day. She uses what I say against me and twists my words. She's EXTREMELY technical with things that are said and uses that against me often.
I have a 5 month old whom I am practicing gentle parenting with and I just don't know how to practice it with her when up until 2-3 months ago, when her behavior really got terrible, I was an authoritarian parent. I still am forced to be by giving consequences like grounding, taking stuff away, etc because she speaks to me like I am NOTHING and I will not spank/... I don't know how to handle it! I almost always stay calm and respectful, often asking her to speak more softly when she yells or treat me nice when she tells me that she hates me. It doesn't work. She gets louder and meaner.
I feel terrible writing this, but I think about how much easier it would be if she wasn't here to make me feel like this. I don't want to touch her most of the time, play with her, be with her. Because she treats me like the enemy. Like her arch enemy. Like garbage. Every single day. I know it's mostly my fault. Everything that she does. We never bonded like we should have. We grew apart because I didn't pay enough attention. But HOW DO I FIX THIS? and how do I love my daughter again?