Thursday 25 April 2019

Update to: Help a single mom prepare my teen daughter for my future relationships.


Original post hereThank you for all the advice you offered. The different perspectives helped me put it more into focus.This morning I spoke to my daughter about it all. There were some tears on both sides.I told her I felt guilty that our future plans were changing, and her response was "I don't care. If I want to move there on my own, I will." lol So that was a relief--that she was also considering herself completely independent of me.I told her that if she feels uncomfortable about it, that I want to talk about it. That I'll ask her every once in a while how she's feeling.One big thing was asking if she would be comfortable if he and I video chatted while she was around. I mean, I would go in a different room. That was when she started crying. She said "I don't know if I'd be comfortable with it, because you've never done it before." Which totally makes sense. So we're going to try it a few times and see how she feels. It will probably be something she'll just have to accept, because I need that.I said that I would be talking about him more on a regular basis, to normalize him being in our lives as opposed to tip-toeing around it.I explained that if she sees me with him (eventually) and I'm all gooey and affectionate, that it's not my personality changing for him (like my mom did with her boyfriend, which drives us insane) but her seeing a side of me she's just never seen before. She said she understood that, and that she would also probably be the same way in a relationship. I explained that by being open about my own relationships and comfortable sharing with her, that I hoped it would make her more comfortable being in a relationship of her own, and sharing it with me.It was good. Stressful, but good. And it will be a process but I'll talk with her about it the whole way. Her feelings won't necessarily dictate what happens, but at least I can help guide her on how to manage them.Thank you again everyone! via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2XHKtaf

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