communication issues

[Fenix70]

My 20 yr. old daughter, married last year a Finnish boy and they move  to Finland in June, this was an enormous change for my daughter (Mexico to Finland) and she found it very difficult to adapt, she attempted suicide during the summer and was diagnosed after that, it was an incredibly difficult year but she started therapy and medications and everything got better by the beginning of the year, marriage was great and everything was going smooth until a new change, she just started college  and she started hanging out a lot with friends and out of the blue she just asked for divorce last weekend, she is in an euphoric episode not sleeping much, saying she is great, emotionally stable, partying a lot and blaming him for everything, he is all black now, totally devaluated and she says she has nothing else to give and that she made a mistake. Poor husband is devastated, he stood by her all the time and now she is discarding him. She won’t listen my husband, me, or her therapist, she says it is her life and since I asked her to think better, she told me not to talk or text her anymore. We were very close, had a great relationship, but I find very difficult to accept this, to watch her destroying people and she is like nothing is happening. I don’t know if I will ever be able to talk to her and how, I don’t know how to connect again with her, I feel very uncomfortable, should I accept this and just talk to her like always? I don't want to enable her, she is always looking for my support, I am very confused and sad.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Sancho]

Hi Fenix70

To cut a long story short, I think you should talk to her normally. I know you feel for her husband's distress and appreciate how he has supported her - but she is 20 years old and it's been a whirlwind: moving to the other side of the world; marriage; breakdown - whew!

She does need to regroup - and I think part of that is living the way most 20 year olds do these days. Only a small percentage of 20 year olds have married, or relocated. I think talking normally to you is the best thing to help her regroup to 'coming down' hopefully to normal 20 year old life.

Her husband may be wanting you to help her recommit to him etc - while I understand this it is not helpful for you to be piggy-in-the-middle.

You can tell him how much you understand his hurt, but you need to keep the link with your daughter to support her at this moment in time and you need to do what it takes to do this - which seems to be just talking normally to her.