Very stange how life is. I was in a bad marriage for years. Harranged and brow beat on a constant basis. I met the whiny barrage with courage and as much consistant kindess as I could.

Modeled how to set what borders I could, but my spouse was a spoiled childe, whiney, back biting and sour spirited.

Many things the kids did not know he did, how he robbed the money down to the bone,claiming "I didn't think it mattered". when his children needed shoes, or I had to pretend I liked wearing bare legs to church in the summer,when really, I could not afford panty hose to look decent.

This went on for years. I finally divorced him.
The older children who were there through some of his pouting and vebal raging that I wasn't serving all of his wants and desires of special food, special sewing projects, keeping the garden he put in weeded (he wouldn't do it, but it was okay for me to when 7 month pregnant) etc. I was yelled at for not being willing to learn how to change the oil on the car!

So some of my adult children grew up to be as selfish as he is and have disowned me.....

Just sad about the injustice of the world and how the heavy unholy influence of the GDTSCC put all of our adult thinking out the window.

I left, my children left, but the mean ones seem to be Mormons still made of the same cloth, just the flip side of a Mormon even though they resigned from the church.

I don't let mean, crazy, and selfish stay long in my life, but I never thought I'd lose some of my children to selfishness and mean spiritedness when they grew into adult hood, well, past 21 into 35 any way.

So very sorry about your selfish children. I have a mean one myself and it is the most heartbreak I have ever endured. Some children just turn out that way no matter their situation growing up. It looks like your aren't blaming yourself - I hope not. I don't understand meanness, much less coming from my own adult child.

There's always hope that maybe something will change in their life to help them mend.

I had really awful, foul-mouthed, law-breaking, relations that got into so much trouble in their younger years. I didn't like being around them. After MANY years, actually, I think it took them up until they were starting to have grandkids, they FINALLY got their lives together.

Now it's so funny on Facebook to see them posting all these religious memes and pictures of their sweet baby grandchildren etc etc. You'd never know!

WOW Jeanette do I relate to your post!! A lot of it I could have written myself.

First of all,I am so sorry what your children have done to you. I will never understand how a child,raised by a loving mother,can end up turning against that mother. I was married for 39 years before I divorced my lying,cheating,big mouthed husband. He told so many lies to my children about me,and they never questioned anything he said,nor ever asked me if what there dad said was true. He told them I had Multiple Personality Disorder...and they bought it. He described our sex life,in detail,to them. Out of those 7 adult children I have a good relationship with only 2 of them. The oldest hates my guts and blames me for everything that ever went wrong in her life. I haven't seen her for 6 years and she lives 20 min. away. The other 4 that really don't give me the time of day see their dad often,and think he sits right up there with God. Oh yeah,he gives them all money,buys them things,pays for their vacations,buys things for the grandkids that the parents can't afford. I'm a single mom of 2 and I can't afford to do any of that. It makes me very sad that my children are so selfish and have pretty much thrown me under the bus. I was very close to all of them before they left home,before their dad got his hooks in them. Not one of my adult kids is coming for Thanksgiving,but 3 will be with their dad. I've spent a lot of the past few days crying about this,and wondering where everything went so wrong. I divorced their dad,and I left the Mormon church,and I know that also plays a big part.

But...how can children,that you have raised and loved and sacrificed for,and would die for,end up treating you so bad? I ask myself that all the time. My ex tells the kids that I "take" 2/3 of his salary. Funny how he has been able to take 14 vacations so far this year (between 7 and 12 days each) spend thousands and thousands on them,and I take 1 vacation and I'm barely able to pay the bills. But I "take" (its child support) most of his money. These kids are between 26 and 40. Not young and stupid.

I need to follow what you said and not let mean,selfish and crazy into my life. I hope things get better for you and you have peace as far as your kids are concerned. I hope that for me too.

Thank you. I've just had to know the TSCC and our culture at the moment, does not nurture 'critical thinking" unless it is ridiculing belief in a God that cares and answers prayers.

The idea of looking at what their awful childhood experience was, real or imagined; from their parents perspective....is not done.

If they looked through their father’s eyes, they would see a man who'd been the baby of the family, never allowed responsibility, yet blamed for not taking on responsibility. He was very comfortable letting the church feed his family while he bought all the little 'toys' or indulgences for himself, a new flame weed burner he used once and broke, a weight bench he altered and made it unusable, then moved it outside to rust, a metal detector he used three times, which at the time was 1/8th of his months take home pay.....etc. he never cared.
If told his children needed shoes, he whined that he didn't have any money.
His wife wore his old shirts and he yelled at her for wearing ugly clothes, but she didn't have the money to get anything better, even if the thrift shop had had something.

The wife? Berated for not wanting to learn how to change the oil on the car? Berated for not fixing all of his favorite food, which they didn't have the budget for, and not thanked when she did....She got up at 6am Sunday, got five children too little to dress themselves for church, made a decent breakfast, packed the church bag, being sure to put something in it for her, since she was going to be spending the whole three hours in the hall with their 1 year old, too wiggly for class, and too young for nursery.

While husband got up at 8:30, church starts at 9, and takes a leisurely bath, and says, oh you can go to church, and I’ll take the other car.....

The kids cannot see that their mother never wanted these things for them, or that financial freedom equals political freedom. Why didn't she divorce him? With what? And what job? No one to raise the kids while she works at half her pay, because the other half goes to the sitters...

The sad thing is her daughter married badly; twice, and it is Mothers fault? The daughter disowned mother claiming her mother is nuts...?

No the fact that the daughter had been systematically abused by her YWs leaders who told her if she would follow the magic Mormon formula and not her wicked apostate parents who told her to get an education....seems to be forgotten. Daughter was programmed to 'believe' in the church and when she finally realized what a fraud it all was and walked out, she became the flip side of a Mormon, because she is still Mormon, thinking the Mother who followed her out of the church a year after she did, is still "Mommy Dearest".
The daughter who was sacrificed for, made sure she got to participate in sports and music and school trips clear across the country, and was not psychologically ground up by her Mother, supported in her desires for school, or encouraged to not be baptized if she didn't want to, and supported when she left the church by her TBM mother at the time....concluded she had the 'bad mommy'.!!! Wow oh wow! what a twisted mind...and maybe she will get perspective when Mother is 84 and she is 64, and it's too late, because she burned the bridges....


Well, Mother will hope she is happy and Mother will be happy, but sad she lost a daughter temporarily.....for the next 30 years....

I call parenting the blender of life...we spin and try with every revolution to make sense of whats flying by...the blur of life with children just seems so overwhelming...mistakes will be made...things will be missed...much like a grenade in a chicken coop getting children ready for early church with clothes breakfast hair and clean faces and out the door tempers will flair...patience will expire..mistakes will be made...most of it is resulting from believing bs from leaders and parents...there was no need to marry early...or have more children to keep gawd happy..or fill that quiver to bursting...i did it...was it smart ...no...did we survive ...yes...but the victims lay on the back trail like helmets after a war...all one can do is say a heartfelt sorry...it may not help in the now...but life has a way of helping a child to see what mom or dad were going through...sometimes they may even forgive you...if they dont...its collateral damage...you just live with it...or without them

Mormonism Makes Men Mean, Women Wine & Children Chatter.

I'm sorry some of you are hurting. Often the parent with the biggest pockets wins, in any religion... as shallow as that may be.

Know that you did your best. You did what you thought was required at the time. You disappeared, as required by Mormonism. You sacrificed everything, and now you know you are valuable. Your life matters.

One day the other parent will show their character, and it will be disappointing.

Find happiness with those who value you and know your heart. Life is too short to be blamed by adult children. Don't accept the labels or disrespect. Don't engage in the hatred or craziness.

You deserve happiness and peace. Gather it wherever you can. You are no longer invisible baby makers. You are wise, brilliant women worth knowing.

I only have 2 children (twins). My daughter became TBM at age 20. I took them out around age 8.

Their gay father left us and I struggled for years working 2 jobs and giving my kids everything I could, did all the work raising them and holding onto the house they wanted to stay in. I'm best friends with my ex now and he lives here in the house, too, BUT I already knew my daughter just "tries" to like me, but found out she has total respect for her father and she still just "tries" to like me. Oh, okay. He abandoned for 10 years of their life pretty much.

That was like a knife to the heart, yet another one. Just like someone else said, I hope someday she sees what I sacrificed for her. It may take my death and maybe not even that. I'm the failure because I didn't save him, save our family. I think I did a pretty damn good job of it.

Boy, thanks for sharing this post. I needed this too, today. My children were raised in the church until they were 5 and 7, when we left for the first time. All my training as a parent was from being raised LDS myself, and I tried instilling the same values, morals, and ethics in my children that I thought were going to be their 'saving grace.'

My ex was never-Mo. We split when our children were still babies. He used to balk at my buying our oldest [then toddler] shoes, because that was too much to spend, when he'd rather be buying himself shoes instead. Money was tight, but growing babies need shoes too, and it was my own money I used to buy them with. He flew into a rage over that. They were only $20 shoes. Might as well been $200 for as angry as he became, completely irrational.

Following that is when/and perhaps why we split, because I realized his behaviors were ingrained and he wasn't going to change for me or our kids. So I raised our children without him. He disappeared from the US several years later, and all contact stopped with our kids. They were heartbroken when he left the country.

My sole influence went into raising my children, to be loving and caring. I was as supportive of them as I could be during those years, believing that nurture would help to compensate for their not having a father.

My ex suffers from a borderline personality, maybe even antisocial. I did not realize it could be hereditary until my daughter developed hers while she was away at college, by age 20. It became full blown. She has turned against me in every way, blaming all the ills and problems of her young life on me, her mother. I sacrificed and helped both my children through college and both have degrees and highly accomplished today.

Her borderline personality has made her a stranger to me now. She's changed her name legally, severed ties with our family. And moved overseas. It's been heartbreaking not knowing where she is or how she is from day to day. Is she doing something illegal? Have things broken down where she is? How will I know since I have no information that helps shed light on her situation. The Mormon church featured prominently in her disappearance, several times over.

By association it helped foster her borderline personality. If I'd known in advance rather than hindsight I might've prevented its interference. But my daughter is lost to me too now, unless she has a change of heart.

Borderlines sometimes change by their 30's, but must really want to and it takes much effort on their part to do so.

My ex husband made up some terrible stories about his parents back in Poland, I later found to be completely untrue (he'd said they'd both been killed in a car accident that never happened.)

Now my daughter is telling similar tales to people about her mom, which is untrue, much like her father did about his parents.

I guess part of my ramble and point here is to note that your daughter may have turned out like that even if you'd raised them as a single parent. Heredity may be stronger in the end, as in what they inherited in the DNA from their father's side for better or worse.

My ex doesn't have contact with our daughter today, as he disowned her in 2011 after their meeting again first time since she was a baby. He broke her heart twice, basically. But his influence appears to be more in his genes and absence of any compassion, than a father.

Thank you, I know it is all in her head. Part of it came about by the abuse she suffered from her In Laws and ex husband. She was treated as the trophy, yet maleable wife.
Her ex still has too much influnence and ability to abuse their children mentally and physically as in forcing one of them to eat something they were allergic to, causing them to miss three days of school from the rash and fever that ensued. Of couse, he didn't pay for the medical treatment from the Doctor either.

She can not get full custody of her children because she lives in Utah, is now a non-member and her ex is from a wealthy somewhat elite family.

Her bitterness at loss of freedom and dreams has spilled into every aspect of her life. Her blowing her gasket at me is only the rumble from the mountain before it blows its top.

I'm glad I'm far away. Just wistful,....I'd have liked to have had a more loving and close relationship with my adult daughter, too bad she hasn't become an adult yet.....

I don't understand much of the mentality in the younger generation, when they just flip a switch like a light bulb to tune out a parent or parents, after being raised by loving and well meaning albeit all too human role models.

I never could divorce my parents, and I grew up in a dysfunctional home, that was anything but idyllic. It just didn't occur to me to sever ties with my folks, and I had no reason to want to.

They're both long deceased now. As much as I could've been a "better" daughter, by not moving across the country for job opportunities what seems like a lifetime ago now, I stayed in close contact with them both, and honored them in my own way as best I knew how.

As a couple of family therapists have pointed out to me, (one of them my own brother,) is that today's youth are wired differently from our generation. Maybe from growing up with the computers, and constant chatter online and have learned multi-tasking and sensory over-stimulation is something they're accustomed to. Their brains are just wired differently from our own because of their environment.

But then again, when we're dealing in terms of cults, which Mormonism is, there is that loosening of family bonds despite the church giving lip service to "forever families." It continually drives wedges sometimes permanently into the living families it says it serves. Which just adds to the cockamamie and it being a conundrum as in how the heck did we end up in it?

Your daughter is in a tough situation, from what you've described. I hope for her sake she can strike a healthy balance between maintaining her independence and caring for her children. She may turn more to you as she yearns more for her own children, she'll recognize herself in you.