My husband is very solicitous of our daughter and lavishes lots of affection on her. He makes his love for her a very obvious and constant thing. His affection for me, on the other hand, is extremely rare and almost never demonstrated openly. On the contrary, my husband and I have many rifts and disagreements and, though I try to behave civilly and even warmly towards him, it is much harder for him to do the same. From him I often get a cold shoulder, he won't answer or react to me, gets annoyed when I persist, and now my daughter has taken it one step further and actually treats me like an outcast whenever we all three are together. She attacks me viciously if I try to relate myself to them if they are involved in something together, particularly if she perceives that I am trying to influence or control how they play. But she will also not let me "mother her" or nurture her in his presence. It feels like her rejection of me is an extension of his hostility towards me and quite frankly the situation is untenable.
When my daughter and I are alone, she is usually very cooperative, sweet and loving - which has always been her true nature. But when she gets angry with me, she flies into a rage that includes many hurtful or -attempts to be hurtful- statements, such as, "everyone hates you."
Though my husband has enunciated to her that he loves us both equally (his wife and his daughter) I fear his behavior belies another truth and that is what is creating this extremely painful situation. Any input that can shed light on this matter would be very greatly appreciated.
From your description, I hear you say that your relationship with your husband is being played out through your daughter. Your daughter needs you and needs to have a healthy relationship with you..because you are her mother and regardless of the relationship you have with your husband. It is time to assert yourself and require respect from your family and yourself. Go to a counsellor or a minister or rabbi; go with your husband; go by yourself if he will not go.
After my sister divorced her husband, she said, based on her experience, "The most important thing a husband can do for his children is to love his wife." For her, that wasn't to be and she divorced him. Because of conservative divorce laws in another state she ended up having to move out of the house and not live with her children. She went through several years of her teenaged children rejecting her. With support and patience and unconditional love for her children, she managed to reestablish her relationships with her grown children as they passed into their early 20's. Of course, your personal circumstances and dyanamics are unique and what happens will be different. But at this point is does sound as though something needs to change. If I could bestow gifts upon you it would be courage, truth and compassion for the journey ahead.
First, your husband's behavior towards you: Regardless of what his behavior arises from, if it is behavior that either of you do not want your daughter emulating, I would talk to him about it in as unjudgemental a way as possible and simply state that children (or your daughter) emulate the behavior of their parents (you can give specific examples in your case), and you would like him not to do X [whatever X is] in front of her. Second, your daughter not wanting you on family outings: My husband and I have great respect for Rudolph Dreikurs, a well known child psychiatrist and author of "Children, the Challenge", whose teachings we have successfully used with our own son. Dreikurs says that the needs of the situation must always be considered and children must not be allowed to interfere with those needs. Decide privately with your husband beforehand whether you should be included in the outing, and if yes, then he or you should state firmly that you will be going and ignore your daughter's protests. Otherwise, she will be using her behavior to get her own way, and that is a power struggle victory for her. Dreikurs has lots to say about children who always win power struggles with their parents. The bottom line is, the child ends up an unhappy child.
On the other hand, Dreikurs makes it very clear that a child builds his or her own relationship with each adult in his/her life. He doesn't believe that other adults should interfere with that relationship. That's why I believe that you and your husband have to agree on those things that really matter in private and then present a united front to your daughter. If nothing else, I suggest you get a copy of "Children, the Challenge" (available at Cody's) and study it thoroughly. It will probably give you a lot of insights into other issues you listed.
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