My rock and hard place.

I'm caught between a rock and a hard place and it's really making me sad tonight. I had another one of those conversations with my daughter where I ended up feeling like the baddy. Again I was accused of making her feel guilty. I'm always causing her to feel guilt these days for a variety of reasons that usually start with me saying something like: I guess you haven't read my posts, or, you didn't hear my message, or, we haven't spoken lately - all true. This can be a completely non- accusatory statement of facts, but is received by an audible bristling at her end. I'm becoming so sensitive about this, that I find myself affecting a lighter tone, or worse - wishing I hadn't called at all. Today I heard myself denying that I was guilting her while wondering why she feels so guilty. I actually am apprehensive about going there for Christmas.

The rock, is my calling her (though, she has repeatedly said "you can call me too you know") because I want to hear from her. The hard place, is having my calls misinterpreted and ending in these negative feelings. All I know, is that there is something not right in this recurring dialogue. I sense I'm being driven away by being squeezed into a stereotypical mother-in-law role. Since I don't criticize, don't badger or whine, I like Glenn, and don't interfere in their lives, I resent treading on eggs around the person I birthed, raised and love.

I don't know where this is going, and I would like to improve our communication. If she were a friend, I would walk away because the friendship is not satisfying my needs at present. She is more than a friend, she is my daughter and I can't just walk away. Other women have wonderfully open and generous relationships with their grown children. I thought we had one too, so what happened and what was my role in damaging it? I can't even ask her because she will deny my perception and accuse me of guilting her again.

I do know one thing about guilt. We usually do it to ourselves when we believe we are falling short in some way. I learned in AA that I felt most guilty when I was failing the expectations of the Roman Chorus in my head. The accumulated "shoulds" of all the people I needed to please
throughout my life became my Roman Chorus. My parents were dead, so there was no clear embodiment of a source for my guilt. I'm very much alive in Maya's life so perhaps I have assumed the role of her Roman Chorus. This is not of my making but I may push her buttons unwittingly. I'll have to back off, and she will have to separate me from her Roman Chorus to set us both free to be ourselves again.