Q

I need some help with the unhealthy (and unsatisfying) relationship I have with my daughter. My daughter is a wonderful, caring 20-year-old. However, her form of connecting and communicating with me has been primarily by asking for things. This has been going on since about eighth or ninth grade. She asks for things to the point where I feel like every time she sees my face she’s thinking, “What else can I request from Mom today?”

I’ve tried to approach her with positivity and humor, with ignoring and with gentleness in my attempts to handle this. I hoped that over time it would get better. At this point, there is no relationship other than what I can give her. She doesn’t share much about her life and basically seems to be dorming in my home. It’s constantly about whether I can buy her this and that, and allow her to go wherever she wants at all times — taking her, bringing her, arranging for her, and so on. I understand that there are different kinds of Love Languages. But this just doesn’t feel like any kind of love at all. Is there something I can do to change the dynamic?

A

All good adult relationships are two-way streets, including those between parents and their adult children. The relationship you have with your daughter feels “transactional” rather than interpersonal. She asks for things and you’re supposed to deliver. Rather than seeing you as a person with whom she could be enjoying a true relationship, she sees you as a provider, a means to an end.

You say that this has been going on for many years, since she was a young teen. I’m guessing that, like many parents, you expected that your daughter would, as she grew older, just naturally realize that you were a person rather than a dispenser. Unfortunately, you’ve seen that this isn’t always the case.

In fact, it’s possible that you yourself accidentally encouraged this one-way dynamic in the relationship. This can happen when a parent lovingly gives. And gives. And gives and gives, asking nothing in return. Did you perhaps do that? This sort of parental behavior is appropriate only between parents and tiny children. By the time a child goes to school, he’s ready to make a card or gift for Mommy’s birthday or bring his father a glass of water for his cough and so on.

Parents need to invoke their own and their spouse’s human vulnerability, helping children to see that they are real people with real feelings. (“Mommy is very tired. Why don’t you tell her that you’ll read the kids’ bedtime stories tonight? I know she’d really appreciate that.”)