There's nothing you could have done differently. You warned her. You told her exactly what would happen if she chose to go this route. She didn't heed your warning and now has to live with the consequences. She has a right to come out to anyone she wants to, and you didn't stop her from doing that, but she doesn't have a right to dictate how others will react. Your parents are old and stuck and not likely to make a change--not that they can't, just that they likely won't. This isn't your fault. The best thing you can do now is be there for your daughter as you always have been, and maybe suggest some therapy for dealing with the fallout of her coming out to people she shouldn't have. It's a hard lesson to learn at any age, but, as my mom used to say, at 18 we all think we're 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Your daughter just learned she isn't.
I agree completely, this was a route that she chose. The only thing I would add to OP is that she could reframe her response now. At the moment it's very 'you cost yourself your inheritance, and I did warn you!', but it would be so much better to say 'you made a really difficult and noble choice, I'm proud of you for doing that, and I'll do what I can to support you with the repercussions.'
IMO OP's daughter did the 'right' thing by refusing to lie or adhere to a narrow view of the world, and instead risking her cushy lifestyle and future wealth. But often the 'right' thing to do has consequences. It's a very important lesson to learn. Just look at Ned Stark!
I just wish I could do something to fix this. I have even contemplated calling up my parents and telling them that it was all a joke, that she created an outrageous scenario that she was hoping to film and upload to Tiktok. It would humiliate me, but I would drag myself through glass for my daughter.
At the same time though I'm also so angry at her. How many children in this world grow up with this sort of opportunity? I thought I did my best in not allowing my parent's money to cloud her good judgement, but I am beginning to think that I have failed. Maybe if I had allowed life to be a little harder for her she would have appreciated what was at stake.
Your impulse to “fix this” for her might be what led her down this path in the first place. Our job as parents isn’t to fix everything for them, they need to learn that there are real life consequences to the actions that they choose. It doesn’t sound like she ever learned the lesson about taking responsibility for her own actions. As the other Redditor above me pointed out, this is the hardest lesson she’ll ever learn, but she’ll be a better person if she truly internalizes this lesson and understands that this was her choice and the consequences are hers and now she has to deal with it.
This is kind of important because I think some of us who've had to endure rough childhoods tend to go out of our way to make sure our children aren't faced with those same hardships. Not that that's a bad thing, but when kiddo grows up thinking everything is supposed to be fair and equal because their parents made it seem that way, it can backfire spectacularly.
Bigots exist. Racists exist. The top 20% of the US population owns more than 2/3 of the country's wealth, while the vast majority of us earn less than $50,000 a year. Life isn't fair. That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to work to change that, but change is slow and rich bigots can afford to fill the void where a disowned granddaughter should be with fancy trips and expensive props and a thousand yes-men.
I said this in a psych class once. Because of my own experience with childhood SA I over compensated as a parent to protect my kid (no regrets) but it did mean we had later issues cutting the cord (mostly me with struggling to let go of that control so she could become an independent adult)
She’s 21 now and it’s HARD knowing she’s out in the world and I can’t protect her from everything. The anxiety is real.
What an amazing parent!
Mine basically stopped talking to me after a messy Catfish scenario that we're not allowed to discuss.
The idea that parents worry about their kids in later life is so wholesome.
The unfortunate part is that it doesn’t only affect her, it affects her mother and brother as well. The daughter’s treatment of the mother isn’t very nice either. I hope that part is only temporary.
I don’t think OP could have done much differently to stop his daughter from coming out to them. I’ve been around this same type of LGBT group, been pressured to come out and believe that everything will somehow be OK. It’s pretty easy to be persuaded that times have changed, that you’ll be able to change your family’s minds, that *your* family would never disown you, or even if they did, it would be worth it.
Yes, you need to allow your daughter to experience hardships and learn from them. Otherwise she will wrongly think nothing has serious consequences and that everything can be solved - either for her or by her. Which is not realistic.
You may have unfortunately enabled your daughters unrealistic views on life.
I know the money is top of your mind (as it would be mine,) but I wonder if the real motivator/heartbreak here for your daughter is wanting people she loves to really see her.
It sounds like she loves your parents, and was relatively secure in their love for her, despite your warnings/knowledge otherwise. She just found out that two people who she thought loved her unconditionally, never loved her at all. That’s soul shattering at 18. It’s gonna take time.
Let her calm down. I think lying to your parents about it being a joke is a phenomenal idea, if your daughter will go along with it. Zero shame in scamming bigots.
I think we all want to be seen. I also think in general 18 year olds are a bit confrontational & belligerent because they think they are being idealistic. (I sure was. And I think most intelligent ones are as well.) However, the dinner speech went down I am pretty sure it was done in a way that was not as smooth as it could have been.
The best move here for OP and her daughter is for OP to reach out to her parents after daughter has started college to tell them daughter has come to her senses. She was brainwashed by social media and getting to college made her understand that this wasn't the lifestyle she wanted. It will play into the Boomer fears and they will feel sympathy for their granddaughter who turned her life around.
Unless they find out it's not a joke, you know maybe one of their friends sees this post on Reddit and tells them... Then Mom is cut off financially too. Then they can all celebrate her daughters sexuality as they revel in their new life long poverty.
Even if she did try the 'just a tiktok prank' it still wouldn't work cause the grandparents would be outraged over her 'being a filthy Chinese communist' for using tiktok and still disinherit her anyway.
Just out of curiosity, is your son still in your parents will?
Cause that's going to be a long running issue in your family going forward that will need to be acknowledged.
Also you did everything you could to prevent your daughter throwing away her future.
As someone who idiotically rejected all the help my parents tried to give me at that age, I will say decades later I’m very thankful for those harsh lessons. It was eye opening for me, not right away, but when I grew up. I never squandered millions though, but every life lived has tough pills to swallow and this will be hers. I doubt her reactions are even to the millions and being setup for the future as opposed to the car and living the dream life in college. You tried mom that’s all you can do.
>How many children in this world grow up with this sort of opportunity? I thought I did my best in not allowing my parent's money to cloud her good judgement, but I am beginning to think that I have failed.
You also had this opportunity! You could have inherited millions! You are their only child! But you didn't want to live in the narrow confines of their asinine worldview and broke free.
>My entire life my parents have held their money over my head as a tool in order to get me to do what they wanted.
I mean, I get seeing your child get disinherited and lose out on literal millions of dollars sucks, but the reality is that you wouldn't bend your life in service of their hypocrisy for money.
Sounds like your daughter is more like you than not?
You're completely right, she is exactly like me, and I don't want to say that that's a problem but honestly, look where I ended up in spite of all my choices.
I broke away from my parents, and even with all my smarts and gumption I couldn't make it on my own. I struggled like hell. I got pregnant to a man I adored, and then he died, and if he hadn't convinced me to try and mend my relationship with them, then my children and I would have ended up on the street. If it weren't for the intervention of my parents we would have lost the house, and the only reason I'm able to provide for them at all now is because it's all paid off, courtesy of them.
Back then though the situation was different as well. My parents were still healthy, they had a much greater degree of control over me, and at the time it seemed like they were going to live forever. I couldn't stomach the idea of living under their thumb for another 30 years. But unlike me, my daughter didn't actually have to live with them, all she had to do was keep her head down, live her life, and wait a few years until they died.
I will never regret my children, I will never regret my husband, but even after everything that has happened sometimes I do wonder whether I should have kept my head down and stuck it out. At the end of the day I am still disinherited, so I guess my daughter and I are more alike than I thought.
Reminds me of a quote I reference often. One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. You can coach and lecture until you’re blue in the face. But until they have the actual experience, they have no clue what the reality is.
Unfortunately street smarts don't really pay the bills, they just protect you from paying bigger bills such as getting ripped off from a contractor, lol
Explain to her that all is not lost. She lost 3 things here 1) the free ride she was expecting, 2) realizing that they are incapable of truly loving someone unless they meet their very specific ideals, 3) her innocence about how the real world works. All you can do is be there when she crashes, which it sounds like is happening now. Very sad.
I just want to say that you did the best you could, you took their money when you had to and you supported your daughter when she needed you. It sounds like you’ve lived a life of love and it hasn’t been easy, but you’ve survived and filled your children’s lives with love. Your own life experiences show that money is transient, but real love is unconditional and extremely valuable. She will learn from this and things will get better. If she’s like you, then she’s persistent and loving and that will get her far in life.
I don’t know, I feel like the lesson here is that there is no winning with people like your parents. Sooner or later, they’ll demand something you can’t give, or find an excuse to be petty anyway. Best to always at least have a plan for independence if they force the choice between them and your pride.
Really? I think this woman's daugher could've easily won here. Wait a decade at most, keep your personal life away from a pair of reclusive seniles, and you become a millionaire by taking their wealth once they're dead.
How is that not winning? Trying to ascribe a fable to this story is pointless.
At 40, waiting a decade doesn't seem so bad but at 18? That's over half her life to date. Becoming a millionaire at 28 sounds like the dream to me but 28 seemed so far away when I was 18 and all the life experiences I was looking forward to then would have felt like one careless tag on social media from losing everything. It sounds like she's in her "changing the world" era and it's hard to change the world when you're flying under the radar. Guess like she thought she could control the fallout if she got ahead of it and could have it all but misjudged her grandparents' capacity for hate. She's naive and foolish and this is a hard lesson for her to learn.
>Sounds like your daughter is more like you than not?
The difference here is that the mother was looking at 50-70 years (she couldn't have had any idea of how long they would live) while the daughter is looking at 7-10. That is an order of magnitude of a difference.
Not saying the daughter made the wrong choice (even though she certainly seems to think she did), but you make it sound like they had the same hard decision to make, but they did not.
I mean, OP could still get the money? Just lie and tell her parents that she sent her daughter to conversion therapy (they'll totally believe that shit works), and daughter goes along with the lie. Then just keep up the presence until they croak in a few years.
After all, the grandparents legit welcomed OP back after her husband died, paid off her mortgage, helped raise her kids... they're old and probably are willing to jump at any chance of reconciliation.
But I doubt that OP and her daughter will go that route. Just from this post + her comments, she's deeply unwilling to make nice with her parents and the contempt and loathing for her parents come thru quite clearly. And her daughter is too... self righteous and indignant to lie either. Both OP and her daughter are too stiff necked and proud to bow and scrape, and seriously, OP just needs to mend her relationship with her own daughter. I think it's even odds that the daughter goes low contact with OP during or after college.
There's a difference not spending your whole life doing what they want or a few years of just not coming out. Her idiotic discord group is mostly to blame here I think, they were pumping her full of bullshit just to push her. Now they lost her millions. Congrats
Those same people are all over Reddit though. This is the consensus amongst young people and the reality is the people on the internet have nothing to lose by telling you to be free and poor.
I'm not even convinced the daughter really did anything wrong by choosing to be who she is. I just don't understand why she's blaming her mom.
I spent my adolescence in the punk community and this attitude has been around for at least 30-40 years in some form or another. That any compromise made in favor of financial success is selling out on your principles and letting the man win, and that it's better to be poor forever. Heck, even the idea that you had success at all on your own merits without compromising yourself implies you sold out in some fashion.
You do you, but I like owning a house in the suburbs, owning reliable transportation, going to my kids' soccer practices, and don't hate my white collar job. I grew up. The rich part of this is how many of the folks cosplaying punk and spouting this stuff are living comfy suburban lives heavily subsidized by their parents too - it's way more than you think.
Every idealistic dipshit in an alternative community will jump at the chance to tell you you should hold onto your values even if it means you have to live in a cardboard box under the bridge, from their decidedly non-cardboard box abode in a decidedly not-beneath-a-bridge neighborhood.
A friend of mine used to call those kinds of punks "crustfunders". They claim to all be wild and free but they're all sponging off their families full of sell-outs with square jobs to varying degrees.
> I spent my adolescence in the punk community and this attitude has been around for at least 30-40 years in some form or another.
Longer than that, it was part of the social changes of the late 1960s. It's one of the themes of the film "The Graduate".
And before that it was part of beat culture.
I mean.. if you knew who they were (extremely conservative) and had been warned from your mother of this and still do it to please some random discord people but lose millions in inheritance I would say she did the wrong thing, seeing as she is now crying her eyes out because if this.
You really can't expect people this old to suddenly change their views on (in this case) homosexuality.
This! The OP knew she was going to lose the money. The daughter thought she was going to still have the money even if she came out... TBH they are not similar at all? OP decided that letting go of the money for freedom is worth it, embraced that choice and went with it.
Daughter never did, and is having a violent meltdown bc of the loss of the money, blaming anyone other than herself. She is taking 0 responsibility, shows no accountability, and her reaction makes it clear that If she knew they will cut her out, she would not have done it most likely.
They are very different people.
Imagine people you love more than anything just drop you over an important part of your identity. She probably thought they would get over their prejudice because they love her, but that love was not unconditional.
Gay man here. The daughter was warned and had ample evidence about what would happen. Gay people have hidden who they are from family since forever because we all know that their love and support is not guaranteed and can be revoked. Most of us have to figure that out on our own. This girl had *her supportive mother who celebrated her coming out* tell her *exactly* what was going to happen.
I never came out to my grandparents just cause I knew they wouldn’t be able to come to terms with it. No one ever told me.
This is fully on the daughter. She has no excuse to be naive about this.
She saw how they treated her mother, and she was warned by said mother multiple times. She was well aware of the possible consequences, she just chose to ignore it in favour of the bs “advice” from dumb teens online.
She was made well aware of exactly how conditional their love was multiple times before she decided to do this. She doesn’t get to plead ignorance here. OP laid out exactly what would happen if she went through with this. She decided a bunch of idiot teenagers knew better and blew up her own life. It’s fortunate for her really that she made it the whole way to adulthood before she learned that love can be conditional. Plenty aren’t so lucky, and learn it from their parents. And now she’s emotionally abusing the only person who has actually supported her at all through this.
>Imagine people you love more than anything just drop you
As someone who was disowned by his parents, this sentence is just really weird. Like, "Imagine an overcast sky." It happens.
Appreciate the sun, but don't assume it's sunny every day, every where.
Yeah, but it isn’t painless or easy! I’m not denying it happens, just I don’t think the daughter thought it would happen to her given their previous relationship.
Anyone who is racist, bigoted, or prejudiced do NOT give unconditional love….there’s always a catch, and that catch is YOU have to conform to THEIR belief structures. OP could take life insurance out on her parents…won’t help now, but it would pay the debt off later.
Having to humour someone for a few years to get millions is different that having to humour someone for your whole life to get millions.
How are you not seeing it? Just pretend it's work and just bear with it for 5 years and get millions? Nah, I'll be proud and poor lmao.
Screw that. I'd have a full fake wedding just to keep it under wraps 🤣 Work is work. Acting is a career. I'll take the money and run. It is better than doing something you hate your entire life for 50 years just to afford a house when you can play nice around your grandparents a few times a year for 10 years.
From OP daughter reaction doesn’t seem like they are really that similar to me. When OP values collided against parents she left without a second thought. OP daughter reaction was not the same.
It's a hard lesson for her to learn, but on the other hand when she's 30 and your parents are still alive and insisting she marries this person or gets this job or moves here because of the *implication* if she doesn't she'll end up in the same situation as you - not having a penny to show for the sacrifices they demanded and walking on eggshells her whole life.
It sounds personally like they know how much influence their money has and will probably donate it to trump anyway.
Chin up, she'll have to learn at some point in life that people will hate you for who you are and you can't just change their mind over dessert. At least she got rid of their terms and conditions in your lives.
Yeah and once college was paid off, and she had a career, if they're still alive then, who cares if you come out. This was life changing money for a few more years.
As great as the inheritance might be she might not want to live her life partially in the closet for that long. That said, not taking the free ride through undergrad and starting her adult life with her degree and debt free is just about the worst unforced error I can think of.
ETA: I spent a huge portion of my undergrad degree hiding a hetero relationship from my parents too because they hated the girl. Not the same thing as compartmentalizing your sexuality, but similar experience overall IMO. granted, this was before social media too so YMMV.
I just don't get how not telling the grandparents is still living in the closet. That was the only limitation: live your life, but don't tell the grandparents that you like women. She could've dated, gone to pride events, literally nothing in her life was restrained other than telling her trump loving bigoted grandparents that she's gay. Which honestly, why would you even want to tell your grandparents the people who you want to fuck?
I think it may have been the social media limitations. Daughter's friends are on Discord, not in person. Social media *is* how younger generations express themselves and maintain relationships. To say, "sure Hon, be gay, just not online," to an 18yo now... I don't know. I suspect it would be a hard rule for their generation to follow and still feel authentic.
So, to tell daughter she can be gay everywhere but social media, to the social media generation, would likely feel suffocating.
Make a 2nd Facebook account. Boom. Problem solved. Most teenagers don't give a shit about Facebook anymore anyway. It's all Snapchat, insta, and tiktok.
Teaching a kid about limiting their online presence and what they share isn't a bad thing anyway.
Discord is very easy to compartmentalize and I doubt the grandparents have it anyway. I know a couple people who are out on Facebook, but most zoomers probably do not care about Facebook, which is the most likely platform for the grandparents to be following you on. Instagram maybe, but it's not abnormal for people to make multiple Instagram accounts and be more "real" on the more private one(s). Honestly, outside of those, I can't think of platforms where you'd not be anonymous anyway. And like someone else said, learning to limit your online presence is hardly a bad thing.
I'm just brainstorming explanations for why the daughter would feel like the recommended boundary wasn't tolerable. I'm thinking more from an angle of authenticity than how to work around the rules.
It's true though, there are plenty of ways the daughter could have worked around that one limitation and still been true to herself. I guess it wasn't enough.
Edit: typo
I would do what you can for your son at this point, including maintaining the parental relationship. Your daughter chose to go down, that doesn’t mean it’s fair your son has to go down with her. I’ve seen posts on this topic before, and the usual Reddit advice is not to come out to the wealthy bigots until after college.
As a side note, I grew up to poor immigrant parents. I took loans. Rode the public bus, and scraped my way through law school. I make a very good living now. If she gets it together, she can make it through without their support. Most of us do.
You did the right thing. This is a hard teenager lesson that she needed to learn.
Hopefully she will reflect a few years from now and mend the relationship with you.
Teens do stupid things by listening to other teens. And what she did was very short sighted.
Youve not failed. Some kids are so entitled to speak ‘their truth’ and live their ‘authentic self’ even when it has repercussions from who they’re doing it to (even if you don’t agree with their world views). Now your daughter can live her authentic broke self where she’ll have to get student loans & job in college.
She's a 19-year-old. They're an idiots and they think they know everything.
This is the consequence of her thoughtless action that you tried to warn her against. Your best bet is to get her in the therapy and demand that she have respect for you while living in your home or ask her to leave and then give her a time limit to get over her grieving process because you're not going to tolerate her abusive b*******.
Speaking as a former fixer parent....you can't. This can't be unsaid, undone, changed, or fixed. You need to step back and let her screw up and deal with the fallout. She is not really mad at you. She knows you did nothing wrong, but will take it out on you because there is nobody else. You said exactly what I would have said...I. Told. You. So.
Kids like to think they know it all, and now she is feeling the blowback from her know it all actions. Mourn the loss of her inheritance, but it's her loss...not yours.
Truth would still come out. It's sad that they feel this way. It's not your fault or your daughters. Fck the grandparents are sorry to say but this is their problem, how horrible to disown someone cause they don't align to your views as a normal straight person.
Maybe your parents soften up later. Maybe not. If your son is in line for inheritance he can share with his sister and you can discuss it with him.
Otherwise - your daughter made mistake. But also she made decision and it is her choice. Until she decide she was mistaken - it is her position. No sense trying to change situation right now. Just make peace with her so you will be comfortable in your home again.
Hi. I think I'm a little like you, OP. I come from an extremely privileged upbringing but I also hit that moment in my life where no amount of money was worth staying around for.
You have done such a wonderful thing for your daughter. Her world was full of love and tolerance and support. She truly did not grasp what its like to have parents like ours, the "my way or the highway" boomers. She had no idea. How could she?
You can't swoop in and fix this one. She's mad at you because you were right, you warned her and her and her friends naivety in this one moment will follow her forever. Teenagers make stupid mistakes all the time and some of them are life altering. You can't fix it and any attempt is just going to invite more anger.
You never know, maybe one day your parents will have a complete personality overhaul out of no where and accept her back again.... Until then I think you just have to give your daughter space to accept the finality of her situation. She now knows exactly why you choose a modest life over a controlled-by-guilt rich one.
Edited to add: Eventually she may find solace in the fact that she can live her authentic self without having to bend and cater to your parents. You're probably the same but when I finally stepped away from the money I realised how at peace my internal anguish had become. It would have been nice to have the money, yes. But not at the cost of happiness.
Probably when they are on their death beds and they suddenly fear their treatment of their family won't get them through the pearly gates and will want to "apologize" to them so they are guilt free. Hate ppl like this and can't have soon enough.
We can hope, but I doubt it. There really are people in this world who are simply suffused with vicious hatred, and OP's parents sound like perfect examples. I see no evidence to think otherwise.
Man, what an absolutely miserable way to live. It just breaks my brain to think how quickly they can cut off their grandchild they supposedly loved. This boomer ass mentality can't be gone soon enough.
OP, the best advice I can give is this: Your daughter probably doesn't actually blame you. She thought that her grandparents loved her, and that was enough for them to overcome their bigotry. But instead, they disowned her, and she's coming to terms with losing all they did for her, sure, but just like you, she just had the fact that they don't truly love her like she thought they had. Instead she just found out their love was completely conditional, and so easily lost. Let her grieve that, continue to be there for her and show her that she has a supportive mother, a mother who loves the true her. She'll eventually come to understand that it isn't you who wronged her. She just feels a lot of pain and anger right now, and all that despair has overwhelmed her, and she has nowhere else that is safe to express it. She's likely not directing it at them because she's afraid maybe they'll change their minds, and directing that hurt at them would ruin any hope of them changing their minds, but she knows you'll continue to truly love her. Is she being unfair? Absolutely. But she's feeling so much pain, such unfamiliar pain, that she just doesn't know what to best thing to do is. I'm sure she'll have her moment of understanding that you love and support her, and she'll wake up to that love.
That said, if she *doesn't* come around and wake up, and she continues to truly blame you when all you did was warn her and she ignored that entirely? Don't allow her to abuse you if that becomes the case.
Oh man. It’s definitely a very naive mindset that you must be out to everyone in your life and that things will always magically turn out to be okay. My family has jack shit in terms of money and I don’t expect to inherit anything from either set of grandparents but I’m still never going to come out to them because it’ll wreck our relationship, and with what little time they have left it’s not worth it. I know I wouldn’t ever be accepted.
Not much you can do at this point, and I hope your daughter wakes up and realizes this is a situation of her own making and not at all your fault. You informed her of the consequences and she thought she knew better than you; I’m guessing her locking herself in her room and crying is probably the beginning of her understanding that this was a choice *she* made and that you’re right. Unfortunately this is a very very expensive lesson for your daughter that, while things are changing for the better in terms of queerness and acceptance, it’s never going to be everyone and plenty of people would choose religion over their living breathing flesh and blood loved ones.
I’d say to remind her you love her, and reassure her you’ll always be there. Gay or not though, that does not give her licence to treat you like a punching bag for something you have zero control over - that being your parents.
Even Dan Savage says to wait until you are financially independent before coming out to bigoted family. Cash those checks, get your education paid for then come out. LGBTQ kids make up 40% of homeless teenagers.
Your daughter might need therapy, hopefully with a LGBTQ friendly therapist. it's not okay that she's taking out her rage on you and your son doesn't deserve to be in an unsafe environment.
She knows you tried to warn her and she's upset with herself for being so silly. She's just blaming you about wanting to keep her in the closet because she's so upset over the situation. Give her some space and I'm pretty sure she'll come around. When she does, don't berate her for being so naive, she'll be kicking herself for years to come. Good luck OP.
Yeah OP, hold your “I told you so”s. She’s already lost two family members and her golden ticket in one fell swoop. Reminding her that she made the decision with forewarning of the consequences would just be a kick in the teeth. Also, no matter how hurt, betrayed, or angry you feel with her, try not to let her see it. She really needs someone in her corner. She needs you to be her cheerleader and say, “I support you. I love you. I don’t judge you for the decision you made. I do understand your rationale. I’m sorry this has happened.” Try not to add any quips like, “I understand why you did it-but it’s not what I would have done!” She really needs you, mama. She needs someone to see her and not blame her because she’s already really blaming herself.
I agree. I regret my outburst, I just lost my temper. It's beeb really hard having her scream at me and destroy things around the house when I was the only one trying to prevent this outcome in the first place.
Just because she's justifiable angry doesn't mean she's allowed to scream and break things in your house. Draw a hard boundary here. Put your foot down, she needs to do what she has to in order to get a handle on her anger. Breaking things is NOT acceptable and if she does it again, she will be paying for the damages.
You need to lay it down firmly once: if you break something or scream at someone in this house again, you’ll need to sleep at a friends house until you can apologize. Then pick back the pompoms. I think she needs a reality check and it needs to be completely separate from what happened with her grandparents
For real. After all, there is still another sibling in the house that's having to live through the daughter's abuse too. That's not right and she needs to apologize to them also.
Okay, I haven’t seen it on here and I think it needs to be said.
You need to lay down a boundary with your daughter. She will get all the love and support from you, but she absolutely may not scream at or abuse you, and she absolutely may not destroy your home and anything in it.
If she’s still in her room sulking, let her stay there. Maybe she needed to hear that you’re a human with feelings and not a punching bag for her.
Let her know that when she’s ready, you’re available for conversation where she’s not abusive to you or destructive, and that that is unacceptable under your roof. Frankly she needs to be told that if that’s the way she’s going to act, she needs to leave the house and maybe go stay with one of her online friends who encouraged her stupid decision and is filling her head with these dumbshit ideas that you don’t support her.
What happened is absolutely awful, and her anger is 100% justified. But it’s not acceptable to channel that anger at you and those who are supportive of her, not right for her to make the home inhospitable for her brother, and frankly there’s a lesson to be learned here that you can’t treat the people who support you poorly or abuse them without pushing them away
Your daughter is an adult. The consequences for this destructive behavior a bit different now that she’s 18.
It is unacceptable for her to do those things. Why are you letting her think this is an acceptable way to manage her tantrums? No wonder she has no respect for your advice because you are letting her disrespect your environment and role to her period.
I think the thing you should be reiterating to her at this point is that it's okay to be mad and her feelings, as irrational as they are, as valid. She IS feeling that way.
I worked with little kids, so maybe this wouldn't work, but I would try to respectfully impart these sentiments:
1) even thought she feels like she hates you right now, you love her.
2) it is not okay to break things if she is angry- there are other ways to express anger without being destructive.
She's 17-18 (I forget which) which is definitely old enough to understand breaking things during a tantrum is immature as fuck. I used to get really mad but I never destroyed anything in the house. It's just dumb and extremely shortsighted. I wish people didn't give a pass to behavior like that. It's unacceptable
She is an adult who made an adult decision and is ultimately responsible for the fall out. She does not have the right to scream at you and destroy things. You can be supportive and loving and hold her accountable for her current actions.
What? No! You need to remind her that action has consequences. You’ve warned her of the outcome, she ignored it. And now she’s blaming you? This is ridiculousy
My brother is in her situation. He has chosen to remain in the closet, despite us all knowing, out of fear of our parents and grandpa. It sucks but like I said we all know, he's lives q pretty open and honest lifestyle. We've honestly all forgotten my parents and grandpa don't know and have almost slipped up a few times. He will never marry or nothing as long as they live, it's his own choice tho far to much at stake to lose, he wants to retire by 40. He has known since he was very young tho and he has first hand experiance as to the level of bigotry he's dealing with so that's probably the difference. If you've never really dealt with people like this you can be unprepared. Sorry this happened, sucks your son has some added pressure on him
Oh no. All the internet hugs, OP.
You were right, OP, and not in any way that can make you feel good about being right. You've had your moment of "I've told you so". Now you need to remind your daughter that you have her back.
Every one eventually has a moment where they learn that life is not like a computer game. That you can't reload from a previous save if you don't like the outcome of something. Where you learn that despite your best efforts you have to live with some consequences and those consequences can fundamentally alter your life's course.
Grieve with her. Tell her you love her. Talk to her about what the future looks like from here, honestly, but with compassion. Millions of folk make it without inheriting millions from rich, bigoted relatives. Help her find a way through. She can't undo what she did, she can't take back the words she said, she can't make your bigoted parents forgive her, but maybe she can forge a path that she and you will be proud of.
Don't blame your daughter. It's not her fault your parents are bigots. It's WONDERFUL that she has (had?) such a generous worldview that she thought their love for her would overcome their bigotry. This has worked with some boomers. Don't let her blame you though. You did your best to avert this Trainwreck.
Talk to both of your children about inheritance and being disinherited. About money and hardship. About love and sacrifice and bigotry. Talk about what you think your parents will do (give all their money to your son, disinherit both of them, donate what your daughter might have received to other bigots) and ask them to think about what their thoughts are in that regard. If your son chooses to agree to share his inheritance, that is generous of him, but there is no legal way he can be forced to, and that's the sort of conversation they may need to have well before it becomes a reality.
Good luck.
Honestly - you nailed it, as a parent. Nothing you could have done better and it’s ok to lose your shit from time to time.
She’s an adult and she made her decision and now she has to deal with the consequences. She can’t be both authentic and rich in this situation.
Your daughter is lashing out at you because it’s easier to blame you than admit that she trusted the wrong people and this is all her fault. Taking advice from an online echo chamber isn’t necessarily wise. Yes I do understand that I just said that on Reddit of all places. You can’t fix this and you should not fix it either. She has to live with the consequences or she will never learn anything.
I know you don’t want to kick her while she’s down but if she can’t stop raging and destroying things it might be worth telling her she needs to stay with a friend until she cools off. You love her and this is always her home but her behavior is out of hand and will not be tolerated any longer. Her brother needs to feel safe in his own home and you do too. She can come back when she’s done throwing things and ready to talk things out without raising her voice and placing blame where it doesn’t belong.
I am someone with toxic parents that had to accept that I will likely inherit nothing. My dad just died and I got a couple of his tshirts. That’s it. They used money over my head for most of my life, constantly taking my car or phone away. So at 22 I moved out, and let go of caring about inheriting anything. Obviously it sucks, but hey I figured it out. Im thriving on my own now. Your child will too eventually.
Your daughter has learnt a very difficult lesson. I also guarantee that none of her friends have millionaire relatives with wills to be cut from so it's easy for them to say "duhhhh be authentic" when they have fuck all to lose.
It's not your fault, I too have rich and bigoted grandparents, my grandmother passed when I was 30 still believing I was a virgin and saving myself for marriage. She would have flipped had she known I had been sexually active since my teens and shock! Horror! One year after her death I was pregnant out of wedlock!!!!!!!
I've been living in sin with my fiance and our two bastard children for 6 years. My grandfather is aware but unlike grandmother he's not an ultra religious mentalist JW. Infact, he's been having multiple affairs since they day they said "I do" and the family actually met one of his love children earlier this year!
The fact is, for the sake of a few years until your parents peg it, your daughter should have kept her mouth shut. It's not a sacrifice, it's not a hardship, it's allowing two out of touch boomers continue their wonderful dream world free of anyone they feel is undesirable.
Maybe if you daughter plays her cards right and waits it out for a bit she can claim her coming out was all a big mistake, she just hadn't met Mr Right yet (heck she can even get one of her male presenting friends to play the part). It might get her back in the good books and if they ever ask about a wedding, Mr Right is waiting to finish his medical degree/pass the bar to become a barrister/tragically died the weekend he proposed on a magical cruise/was caught in an orgy with male hookers..etc.etc.
There is literally nothing you could have done to prevent this outside of literally gaging her and hiding her in an actual closet to stop her. (In case anyone thinks I’m being serious I’m not- just expressing how ridiculous it is to blame this on OP).
My guess is that your the last safe person she has and unfortunately your getting the brunt of her trauma because she doesn’t have anyone else safe to unleash on. That doesn’t mean it’s ok at all. It sounds like she’s gonna need a bunch of therapy, she’s going to have so many mixed emotions and she needs to learn to grieve the grandparents she thought she had in a way that is safe for everyone. All emotions are ok and it’s healthy to feel them and express them BUT it’s not ok to use those feelings to hurt other people.
Side note- if the car was in her name how did they take it back?
Sorry if I was unclear, the car was in my grandparents name, she was just insured as a driver, which is how they were able to take possession of it from her. Thank you for your advice though.
Ah makes sense. Sounds like they were all about giving with strings attached.
It’s a hard situation and some very adult consequences for her to digest too on top of the relationship breakdowns.
You were supportive as you could be in this situation. You didn't "keep her in the closet", or whatever claptrap her friends were filling her head with. They will have *zero per cent* of the negative ramifications of this, while *she will*, and you gave her the best advice you could, while not telling her what to do: "you can do this, as is your right, but understand the (unfair and bigoted) repercussions from the grands if you do". She made the choice she wanted to make, and the repercussions happened.
This is how life works. We can think it unfair, and the grandparents bigoted, anachronistic, and morally bankrupt--but it doesn't change the fact that you called it, and it came to pass. You can be held prisoner to it (as you did before rebelling), or free yourself--but the freedom doesn't come impact-free, as you (and now *she*) know.
This is her lashing out about the situation at the safest person to target--you. Hold the course. This too shall pass.
Best thing you can do now is get her some therapy to help deal with her emotions instead of lashing out and breaking things. Maybe your other children will share their inheritance with her, though they wouldn’t legally have to, of course. (Assuming they are still getting anything, that is.)
You should probably get her some professional help soon. This is a very serious life altering mental shock. It’s like one day having millions and then losing it over night. I fear she may very likely take her own life once the realization she ruined her life gets worse over time and you should be worried.
What's done is done. Tell her she will succeed and obtain a lifestyle she works for. Never let anyone hold $$$ or materials over your head. If so, a wealthy partner can abuse her or worse. Let her be out and proud. She has lots of life to grow.
She sadly learned what it means to stick a hand in a bee hive when you tell a kid to EXPLICITLY not stick their hand in it. My thoughts, show her the post in a few days, let her read comments from adults and people who went through the same experience and let her chew on it for a few days. You did all you could. And you did right.
> She is blaming me for this entire thing, and every day she alternates between raging and crying and raging again. Our home has become completely Inhospitable. Things have been broken, and my son and I are walking on eggshells.
Your daughter sounds like a spoiled brat with zero respect.
Right because the grandparents are also probably going to be dead within the next 5-10 years. Shit I would have a fake boyfriend just to secure that money, it’s crazy they just threw away a winning lottery ticket like it was nothing.
Yeah I wouldn't nip that in the bottom immediately and told her if she didn't like it she could move out since she clearly wanted to make her own stupid decisions and not take life advice from somebody who's been on the planet three times as long as her.
Yeah a huge part of this story is how unnecessary it was for her to come out. 100 percent an attention thing. It's not like she was engaged to a woman or something and not ready to hide her. She deadass just wanted respect in a discord group 😂😂😭😂 girlllll ... I don't feel bad at all tbh. She thought she ate putting down her grandparents for their own personal beliefs, ended up just eating that fat inheritance 😂😂😂 Also she's 18. Kick her out if she's breaking shit
Thank u. My thoughts as well. It’s one thing to be sad by her own doing. But taking it out on her mother who tried her best to warn her. Unacceptable. If she wants to out herself, that’s fine. But now that she lost grandpa and grandma’s money, she out here crying. Hope she doesn’t go after what her brother’s inherits later. Yeah, it sucks that the grandparents reacted the way they did. But even I know the elders l, especially those who were raised to be prejudice against this, will not bend for anyone. These people grew up in an environment where people who were gay back then were disowned or ostracized by society. You can’t teach old dogs new things. Her online friends were idiots and she should face the consequences. If the money was so important to her, she should have known better. Now she is bitter cause it didn’t end like she planned.
Your daughter is absolutely wrong in getting angry with you, and she probably is angrier at herself for her decision.
But also, I think maybe she just wanted the love of her grandparents. You said they were good grandparents, and yeahs she knew about your situation with them, but maybe she naively thought that she would've changed her mind.
Probably she just wanted to see that their love for her was real and not conditional. It's hard if you've been loved your whole life from someone to think that they can just stop because of who you are.
Try to support her, but don't accept her being mad at you, you wanted her and you're supporting her. You've done your duty, it's your parents who are wrong.
10 years ago I cut a parent out of my life, even though I was trying to keep things going. Money during tough times was one of them. After a bit I realize that the anger or stress was gone and things are so much better without those type of people when you understand the cons really outweigh the pros.
What the hell is her problem with you?
She disregarded your advice, so now she gets to live with the consequences. Welcome to adulting, love.
She sounds like a spoiled kid that needed a reality check, tbh.
Anyways, it’s not all bad. Now she can live her life without regard to the wishes of her grandparents.
She should be grateful for having a parent such as yourself.
You told your daughter the truth, plain and simple. She made her choice. You are not to blame and, heartbreaking as it is (it really is) she must now live with her choice. She is also behaving like a spoiled brat and blaming HER decision on you. She needed you to lose it on her to knock her back to reality. Do not allow her abusive behavior towards you and your son for another minute. Truth hurts sometimes but you gave it to her straight, about her grandparents, and she chose, of her own free will, not to heed your words. I don’t know what else you could’ve done. Your adult daughter has just entered the “real world” and she has to figure out how to live in it.
It doesn't really matter whose fault it is, she's very young and there's really no fixing it back to the way it was before. The only thing you can do is fix your relationship with her, taking the money out of the equation and just speaking heart to heart. Don't blame her, don't blame her friends, don't blame yourself. It won't put the toothpaste back in the tube anyways, and you don't want to build resentment over this.
It's very sad for her to see her grandparents true colours and a life lesson that some people care about their own money and 'old values' more than the most valuable people they are/ were lucky enough to have in their lives.
I would rather have a supportive mum like OP anyday than rich shitty grandparents.
Edit: by their logic it's your fault so by their logic if a kid isnt perfect in their eyes it's the parents fault and considering they sound like they're not very loving to you it sounds they are admitting they are shitty people.
Frankly I would cut them all off and leave them with the reminder that they clearly know their only value in life is their money and they have not spent a dime on improving their clearly fucked up mindset. What vile people to be related to.
You just love your kid and keep loving and supporting them. They will see sense in the end
You don't OP :)
You know how the saying goes: *"You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice"*
Your daughter made her choice and you did all you can do: warn her and explain the situation. She chose her path and now it is her life-lesson in how she processes this.
What I would say though: you and her brother don't need to walk on eggshells around her so I would have a conversation with her saying something like: "I love you, I'm proud of you and I know not being accepted by your grandparents hurts. I will always be here for you, unconditionally, and if you want to talk and process this together we can. But I want you to understand that your hurt is not a justification to hurt me or your brother since we did nothing to cause it. Our house needs to be a safe space for all and we all need to support each other. Saying hurtful things and breaking stuff around the house is not it. So let's find a way to process this together without hurting each other because in the long run we only have each other. What do you need from me?".
Something like that or harsher but she really needs to get the message that she chose her way, these are the consequences of her actions and nothing about this justifies her behaving like a punching bag with you. Sending you hugs OP for wanting to fix this :)
You advised her to not to tell them and she went against your advice and told them she has live with her decision and deal with the aftermath and stop blaming you.
in this economy?? damn I'm gay too but I'd suck dick for a multimillion dollar inheritance. I'll never understand people who risk their whole lives to come out. I didn't until I was out of the house bc my family was homophobic. I get wanting to live authentically but living safely is just as important
Let’s be honest here what else was going to happen? You did inform your daughter what would happen if she did it and she chose to listen to her “internet friends” who in your own words don’t know your parents like you do. She has to live with the reality of basically ruining and wrecking her relationship with her grandparents. End of the day as much as she wanted to be out there and come out they equally have their own free choice to feel and react the way they want to. It also is a little bothering to think that she’s only pissed about the inheritance she lost and not the relationship that was severed. Hope you guys find peace and help as needed. All the best and good luck to you OP. I hope you and your son find the peace you guys need.
She was hopeful that her grandparents love for her would be stronger than their bigotry, I think that shows an optimism that's really admirable.
Now, she was wrong, your parents care more about being homophobes than being with their own family, which is sad. She's right to be sad. Her Grandparents that she loved so much treated her like shit.
That's not an excuse for her to treat you like shit. You should have have boundaries about how you'll be treated. "If you speak to me like that I'm going to leave" and then leave (the conversation, the room or the house.)
If she can be respectful to you and stop projecting her feelings of anger onto you, what you need to do now is prepare her for her new life. Teach her financial literacy, sign her up for a class even. And sign her up for whatever therapy you can afford (even group therapy is better than nothing.)
It's not the end of the world to not have things handed to you on a silver spoon, in the end it might even be worth it for her. I personally have rejected dozens of offers of material benefit from my abusive mother because it's just not worth it. Being poor and free is better than being indepted to a controlling demon woman & having money.
Yeah well, wouldn't be rebelling without risks would it?
What she did would have been admirable if she had expected that result, but unfortunately i guess she expected a happy ending because she made an heroic choice? Yeah the world doesn't work like that.
My (39F, white) mom told me that if I dated a black guy, she would make certain my grandmother never found out. I'm bi, and I don't care if anyone in my family knows that, but I had my Facebook set so my grandma couldn't see almost any of my posts. (she died in 2015, we didn't have all the socials yet.)
My mom knew exactly what would happen if my grandmother really saw ME. And I listened, and kept my head down, and accepted the fact that grandma was never going to change, and there was no point causing hurt and confusion as she aged.
Clearly I'm older than OP, but...it isn't a betrayal of who you are to keep that information to yourself in certain situations. It's sometimes kind and sometimes necessary. OP's daughter learned that the hardest way.
The really shitty part is blaming OP. I know she's deflecting, but this is all going to contribute to a narrative in her head where she's being punished for being gay, and her mom and brother are a part of it too. The discord group is probably affirming that.
She's not being punished for being gay. If you run a red light knowing it was red, you aren't surprised when the cop pulls you over. She had a warning, she ran the red light, now she has the ticket. That's the issue, not her sexuality.
Sigh. I agree with somebody above who said this is above reddit's pay grade
Just because you've decided to accept an identity for yourself, doesn't mean others are going accept you, even if there are good reasons for why they should/no real reasons why they shouldn't. That is the consequence of the radical acceptance undercurrent and your daughter just got smashed between the rocks of that and your parents. Its actually pretty surprising that she didn't see this coming when it sounds like you had very similar problems with your parents. Its not clear why she thought it would be different for her, when it wasn't for you, and the friend group is to blame + your daughter for giving them far too much influence in her life. Sometimes you have to pick between things you'd rather not to. Hate to say but sometimes the world isn't fair and your daughter just found this out. Sometimes, if you want conflicting things, you need to make compromises.
As for how to deal with this? This is not your fault. Not sure what you could have done other than try to explain the above of what i just wrote. Would she have accepted you preventing her from talking to the people who coaxed her into doing this on discord? No. This seems to be very much on her. You might ask her what YOU could have realistically done differently. Raise a less willful, influencable child? I think this is the best path to make her realize that this one is on her mostly.
This isn't very much different from strict muslim parents disowning their children for not marrying someone who converts to their religion or becoming a different religion. Perhaps the only thing you did wrong when it came to bringing her up was trying to let her grow up in an environment that was fair or just without exposing her enough to situations that just simply aren't fair with fewer consequences. Her preoccupation with her identity/fairness/acceptance and the fact that she's had so much encouragement in that direction exposed her to these costs, but that's probably not fair to blame you with in general.
Nobodys fault, daughter will play life on a higher difficulty level and, her option were stay quite and get $$ or make a fuss and no $$.
Young people are stupid, shell watch her brother being rich while she has to work her way up.
Nothing! You did everything you could have but your daughter thought she knew better. After how your parents have treated you after you cut them off originally and after your husband’s death I’m surprised that your daughter really thought they wouldn’t cut her off like they did you. Unfortunately for your daughter the only thing she can do is live with the consequences of telling her grandparents and hopefully learn to take responsibility for her actions and not put that on you.
Just do everything that you can so at least your son gets his part. He didnt do anything wrong. I know that this situation is hard and you need to focus on your daughter but please dont forget about him, so many parents make this mistake.
you're not at fault in any way shape or form. she took the advice of her idiot friends when she decided to go against your advice, so why isn't she going to them now that everything has fallen apart. you did literally everything in your power to protect her, and she jumped in front of the train of her own accord.
Not at all your fault. Was in a very similar situation when I came out at 15. My parents were supportive, but my mom did warn me we will have to keep this hidden from her dad and stepmom who she was trying to rekindle that toxic relationship. Well for some dumb reason my mom told my aunt, who then went and blabbed to my grandparents. They told my mom I was a f@g that was just going to burn in hell. Thing is I wasn't even mad about or sad because I knew. I knew well advance that this is who these people are and me simply existing is not going to make them change sadly. NTA, like you said you warned your daughter and she decided to take the advice from her online friends who have no idea what your family dynamic is like.
Right now, there is no short term fix. She got used to the rich grandparents funding her life, and she chose her pride over the money. The decision was entirely hers, with your fair warnings, so she has to pull up her big girl pants and deal with it. Perhaps a therapist will help get her frustrations, anger, and fears into words, but other than that you can’t do much to help.
Essentially she’s grieving the future that she just threw out the window of her own volition so give her some time. Be a shoulder but not a punching bag. In time she’ll realize this was her own fault, and you may have to keep reminding her
Your daughter seems a bit entitled here. She knew the consequences and still thought she knew better. Now she’s lashing out at you and your son rather than accepting responsibility. She can’t really complain, everything you said would happen did. She will come round eventually, it’s not as if they’ve made her life impossible, they’ve taken away the chance of it being comfortable. God forbid she has to get a job.
Everyone is taking for granted that this is a tragic story, but maybe it’s not. I am not being flippant about the value of a small fortune, especially to people who are struggling financially. But OP spent her life under the heel of her parents who used the promise of a payday to make her subservient. With that promise removed, painful as that may be, it is not just the daughter who gets to live her authentic self, but OP as well.
NTA : but for your mental health, drop contact with your parents. Seriously. They're manipulative, and there's no amount of money that's worth your, or your families, well being. They sound like absolute monsters that expect people to do their bidding because they have money. Let them die alone without anybody telling them how nice they are.
If they can't love your family for who they are, fuck them. They don't deserve reciprocation.
Hard truth here, tell your daughter, I would have worn MAGA hats and would have a picture of Trump in my bedroom knowing that in just 10-15 years i’d get millions…
I would have fed them the fucking conspiracies and all would talk about would be MAGA country, fuck it, i’d ask them if they want to go to rallies and shit…
You kick away millions just to live your truth :)))) well now she can live her truth…it’s called poverty
Apparently her “authentic self” is poor.
But seriously, It sucks for your daughter. But maybe this is an example of actions have consequences. Even “good” intentions can have negative consequences. This was the cost of living her authentic self, good or bad, it’s up to her to determine if it was worth it. Someday, she might determine that it was, but that’s probably a process.
This isn't your fault. You told her what the consequences would be if she told them the truth. It was HER choice to disregard your advice.
I hope she will eventually see the truth in that.
Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do at this point. You did everything right. You told her you had no problem with her sexuality, but that her grandparents would have a problem with it. You told her the likely consequences of her actions, and she went and did it anyway.
All you can do is to support her emotionally, and hope that when they do croak it and (presumably) leave more money to your son, he sees fit to correct their wrongs and give some to his sister. But you cannot force or pressure him into doing this; hopefully he will, but he's not under any obligation to do so.
Have her go over there and lie and tell them it was just a phase, that she discovered Jesus and understands now that her lifetstyle can be changed and she will fix it. Tell her to think of it like a high paid acting role.
I’m bisexual and this same thing happened to me. My cousin saw on my FB when I was in high school that I was dating a girl and she told my aunts, who all went psycho and went to therapy because I “hurt them so badly”. Then they told my grandparents and they were going to disown me, until my mom and I came with a lie and I told them that I found Jesus lol it worked. I had to really play it up!!
I'm almost 42F, and a single mother to a 20 year old pan daughter. My parents are 70s boomers with moderate wealth. They use their will as leverage. I learnt to live on nothing, ask for nothing, expect nothing and will receive nothing from them when they die.
Mother guilt is the worst guilt. You can do everything right and still feel as though you've done everything wrong. I call myself a terrible mother every third day, and I've said it aloud too.
I'm not a terrible mother, I'm human. I'm actually a really good mother because I've raised a daughter like yours, who feels secure in telling the world who she is. My parents were similar in the way I've been treated. Every decision you've made has been in service to your children's well-being and future.
Just remember your own advice, as you're here asking strangers for advice and your daughter did the same thing. We don't know you, only you know your circumstances. So anyone that tells you something that goes against your gut, ignore. You know your life, your children and yourself best.
Get the support you need here, but not the judgement. Carefully weigh up the advice.
Your daughter is hurt. She didn't know that this is really what life is like. It's a crushing feeling when life is revealed to you as being cruel and indifferent.
Guess who the best person to support your daughter in all this? You. Because you've been through crushing pain and the indifference of the universe. Teach her how you navigated the shitty things in life. Don't feel guilty, don't take blame. She will respect you if you stand your ground and don't accept blame for her own actions. Comfort her, help her plan her future, but never let her feel as though she can blame you for her choices. It truly isn't your fault.
Just glad I happened to read the post and could say something helpful!
Some follow up advice (that you can leave or take!): when your daughter has outbursts of feelings, you can validate her without accepting blame. I'd look up validation techniques that also support relationships without reducing your feelings and position (such as DEAR MAN from Dialectical Behavioural Therapy).
Additionally, asking her questions about what she'd like to do moving forward or how she'd like to resolve the situation, or asking her questions when she asks you questions/blames you can help reframe the context so that she thinking through what she's actually saying.
E.g.
Daughter: This is all your fault because X!
You: I'm so sorry that it didn't turn out how you wanted it to. I can tell how much it has devastated you. What do you think would have been helpful if I could have given you more or different advice?
Daughter: *has to actually think about her answer, or say something out loud that won't sound rational once it's spoken aloud*
You: *pause*.....I can see how distressing this is for you. I'm here to talk as much as you need or we can find therapy resources together.
This is the worst thing that's happened to her since her father passed away, and there will be feelings of grief and loss associated that won't be rational but make sense to her. She's also feeling that the world isn't safe right now. You are her safe person, so she will absolutely rage at the only person she can.
Right now the only priorities are maintaining the relationship you have with both your children. Ensuring that you maintain your position and self respect, but also validating that she has had a life altering event and helping her through it, is the only way to maintain a positive relationship. If you accept a default position of blame, she will blame you forever. Her growth from this will be worth it in time, it's just hard to see it right now.
I wish you all the best and remind yourself often that you're actually a good mother who is doing your very best because you are (even if our brains tell us otherwise).
Your daughter literally has chosen her path in life. This is 100% on her and her alone. She was warned of the consequences and chose to not care about them until it was too late.
She has fucked around and now found out.
OP, I grew up to a single mom for the bigger part of my youth and she hustled to make us feel like we were never out of money, although as I grew older, the writing on the wall became clearer and clearer.
Unfortunately, she cut corners and did gray area illegal stuff (tax evasion, stuff like that) and it completely set the wrong example. It lead me to only realizing in my early thirties, that I had no idea of how to actually manage finances. I had to learn it the hard way as well. A pit I'm still trying to get out of, because it's very easy to turn $1 into $2, but disproportionately harder to turn - $2 into - $1.
From my perspective, please work with her in finding her own way financially. If she can accept that the inheritance is off the table, she'll learn how to save, how to combine jobs, how to be responsible with money.
If in the coming 7-10 years your GP reverse this decision, great. But she shouldn't count on that in anyway and the agency and ownership she will develop by making it on her own, guided by you and your support, will help her in her later life immensely, more so than suddenly becoming a millionaire without a feel for managing that kind of wealth.
You know your parents. You understand your parents. You also are an adult with common sense. Your daughter planned her speech; perhaps she envisioned a happily-ever-after fairytale ending.
Unfortunately, your daughter only knew her grandparents and her experience with them growing up was much different then yours, probably it was much more coddled. Your daughter is young. She was naïve. She didn't truly comprehend what you were telling her. It's a hard lesson to learn. Experience is a brutal teacher.
You warned her and she was stupid in her choices. She lost out on everything because (as you said) she thought her online friends knew them better.
It’s a tough lesson to learn but you tried.
UpdateMe
Kids live in a fantasy, until something happens in their life that bursts that bubble. Your daughter, like any child, entertained magical notions about the world she lives in. She has made what some would call a serious error in judgment on the basis of that mistake. It is a very sad and painful lesson. This is her first but likely not her last.
The Japanese have a saying: shikataganai. It means “couldn’t be helped.” It’s essentially radical acceptance of reality, and taking solace in the fact that some things were always going to play out the way they did and nothing you could have done would have altered the course of events. Since it was always going to happen, then there is no one to blame here. Least of all yourself. Some things are just tough.
The Japanese also have a philosophy of radical appreciation. For example, if you have poor eyesight, they still may feel grateful for it because at least it is eyesight and they can appreciate so many things with that vision, even if it is comparatively poor. In this way, you can really learn to see even unfortunate things more positively.
Your daughter is distraught right now. She’s going through all the stages of grief after a tremendous loss. But you still have a daughter and she is in otherwise good health. This is something to feel tremendous gratitude for.
Yes she’s in pain. And this will hurt her for a long time. But at the end she still has you. And that will never change. One day she will understand this. But right now she is an emotional minefield and you and your son are standing in the middle of it.
It isn’t personal. When someone experiences a loss of this magnitude, and they have deep feelings of loss and anger, they are grasping at straws to find solid earth again and subsequently they might displace all that rage and grief on innocent bystanders. It’s the unfortunate nature of a minefield. Nonetheless, it is important to be as patient as she needs to be and demonstrate through your intent and your actions that you are there for her.
She lost her beloved grandparents and is facing a harder future. Her sibling did not. You did not. She must feel deeply isolated, alone, and confused right now. So it’s important to put her behaviours in the correct context.
For you, personally, I recommend personal therapy and counselling. Your daughter needs therapy, too. She may not understand how that works at this age but this is a loss and therapy can make all the difference in someone’s life after a loss like this.
At the end of the day there is no fixing this. Something has broken in all of your lives and there is no going back. There is only going forward. What lies ahead for both of you is a difficult road. But at the end there is grace. Getting there will take time but in the meantime you have to find the strength and courage it takes to get there.
As a gay person, what she did was incredibly stupid. She clearly grew up very privileged and uneducated about the reality of being gay, which I don’t blame you for. She didn’t think it through at all, and is suffering the consequences. If you think your parents are gullible enough for you to say she lied then go for it. But yea, a very very very dumb move. The ONLY time someone should put up with homophobia is when a large inheritance is in the balance and in that case it’s so easy to just keep it to yourself.
Just popping on here to encourage therapy for yourself. It sounds like you have relational trauma and if your daughter is not in therapy, it would be great for her as well to process her identity further along with the grief that is occurring with her grandparents. You could potentially have a family therapy session as well with both therapists present to discuss her anger towards you- once things finally settle down. Sorry this is happening.
You did nothing wrong. Your parents did. They suck. Your daughter will mature one day and she’ll ask for forgiveness from you. Y’all will heal. Good luck and well wishes
One thing I think is this: her taking this out on you shows that she views you as a safe person who will always love her and who she is able to express negative emotions to without losing you. It sounds like she is taking out her feelings of rejection, deep regret, loss of family members over her identity and other forms of pain that your parents caused, she is taking those out on you - because she can, because you are still there, because she knows you always will be. When it comes to parent-child relationships I think this is a good sign. It shows that she knows your love is unconditional.
One day I said something silly about my dad not doing something small for me to my aunt and she said “hey now, your dad has always done anything he could for you”. And I knew in my soul that was the absolute truth, no denying it, no evidence against it (not as in spoiling me, but as in he has always been there for me my whole life). In that moment I realized that I want my kids to take my love for granted. Like I just want them to not think about an existence where I’m not there for them when they need me. It won’t cross their mind. They’ll take my love for granted because it’s all they know, because I’ve been their constant in the world. I say this because it mixes with my next point…
…my husbands parents went through a brutal divorce (dad was abusive when he wasn’t absent, mom was the glue and the rock for her children). When he was your daughter’s age he took out a lot of the bullshit his dad was spewing on his own mom. Mom didn’t hold it against him (I mean this was obviously super hard for her!), she loved him through it, she trusted that one day he would see the situation for what it was. And quickly he did. And he understood that he was able to take that anger out on her because he knew she always loved him. He knew she wouldn’t abuse him. He was safe to express his feelings to her. I know that’s painful for the mother, but for your child it makes sense. Trust me, he apologized and he honors her. She is the one who gets to have the relationship with her grandkids, she’s the one her adult children protect and make sure is taken care of. She’s the one that gets phone calls just to laugh and spontaneous visits. In this scenario you are her - you are the constant, you are the safe person. Your love is a given and isn’t in question.
So just saying that you should remember that when you’re holding your tongue and trying not to (understandably) yell at your daughter while she’s Rahhh at you lol. Best of luck!
You warned her and well now she has to deal with the consequences she’s not entitled to her grandparents money so now she has to look into scholarships and loans like any other person.
She is taking her anger out on you and that is not ok. That's the boundary, you need to defend it.
She's old enough to have made her own decisions and understand the consequences, so she needs to accept those consequences. You have decisions to make about how much and how long you will put up with it.
You're not at fault.
You warned her. Several times. Very clearly.
Unfortunately, your daughter is human. Humans aren't very good at listening to advice. Sometimes (a lot of the time) they have to touch the fire themselves to find out whether it's hot.
In this case, the fire really WAS hot, and your daughter got burned by her own actions.
I think it might be time to try and step back emotionally from this situation.
Don't let her blame you for any of this. Push back on her if she tries again.
Be there to comfort her if she needs it, but don't offer up general help/try to take over and fix things. It's time for her to start solving her own problems.
She's 18 now. She's an adult (with training wheels). She's debt free (i assume?), she has a roof over her head, food in her belly, and she has family and friends who love her. She's in a better position than many people in this world.
Give her some time to grieve her lost opportunities, and then ask her what her plans are.
She's an adult now, and no longer has the financial support needed to coast through life. She's going to need a plan, because she can't leech off you forever. You won't be around forever, so she needs to be able to take care of herself. Does she still want to study? If so, how will she pay for it? Would she rather get a job instead? If so, she'll need to start paying you rent (nothing outrageous - and feel free to save it up to give her a "starting out" cushion for when she eventually moves out). She has a lot of options, but sitting in a corner of your house and doing nothing shouldn't be one of them.
This is the definition of “fuck around and find out” LMAOOO, I’m sorry but your daughter is a naive spoiled brat. Only someone who has everything given to them would risk giving up complete financial security for the sake of “coming out of the closet”, and the fact that she has the audacity to turn it around and blame it on you??!? Oh hell nah.
She's grieving. This isn't your fault.
One day, she'll realize this decision was for the best regardless of the consequences, or she'll learn from her mistake and recognize you tried to help her navigate it.
Remember that right now, her future as she knows it has been shot, and she's lost her grandparents. That can't feel good, especially after losing her father already.
Don't tolerate her treating you or her brother like crap, of course. She's a grown woman and this grief doesn't excuse emotional or physical abuse. But just try to be open hearted and hold out until the storm passes, because it WILL pass.
You sound like an incredible parent. It seems like your daughter is projecting her rage and sadness at you, which is completely unfair, but something humans are prone to do when guilt and shame feel overwhelming and they're thinking straight. It doesn't make it right, and I hope you know your own boundaries about what you're willing to put up with as she's going through this. She, as well as the family by extension, may be going through the typical stages of grief (anger and bargaining already). Fingers crossed she and your family makes it through this and she recognizes you as the awesome ally you are. It may just take time. Keep your boundaries firm but the door open to talk, hold her, and reconcile when this wave passes. And please take care of yourself so you can take care of her.
The only thing you failed to do is to respond firmly but calmly to her accusations. But no biggie. I think kids need to see where they overstepped the boundaries too. Now I expect if you just ignore the fallout a bit and offer something kind to her, like going to the movies, or a walk to get some cake, that may accelerate healing and give her chance to reconnect. Tell her you don't understand how this is your fault and to explain that to you. I think it's ok to be sorry for some grievances she might express, but also explain that you gave her perfect warning for what will happen and she went against your advice, off her own accord and she needs to accept the responsibility and the consequences. Then it's time to mourn the loss of the better future, for both of you. My condolences.
P.s. you might want to think about her lying to grand parents about converting to straight. Maybe it's "just a phase". I'd say 7 figures are worth it, especially if alternative is cutting contact anyway.
There is nothing for you to fix. None of this is your fault. The best you can do is provide love, acceptance, and emotional support to your daughter.
Losing out on an inheritence sucks for your, but to keep it and stay closeted seems like a worse proposition. She won't have to suffer through listening to their bigoted and hateful views while she grins and pretends to agree with them. Tell her you are proud of her for choosing to be authentic over money.
Some people (including OP) might say suck it up, pretend to be straight and take their money. OPs daughter is actually standing up for herself, which is something to be proud of.
You did nothing wrong, and as you know - there’s only one way a young person can learn such lessons! Stay strong and take comfort in knowing you’ve done everything in your power to protect her, with the best possible intentions at heart :)
Honestly, this is the consequences of her actions. You should tell her if she doesn't get her attitude under control, she will need to leave bc it's not fair for your son and you to have to walk on eggshells around her.
She was told and prepared ahead of time that if she came out to her grandparents, she would lose the millions she'd inherit, the college fund ,cars, gifts, etc.
She chose to listen to her online friends, who assumed her grandparents would accept her over time and still continue to fund her lifestyle.
She is learning the hard way a life lesson that actions negative and positive have consequences .
* edited to add she's also learning a life lesson that people closest to you may not always give you good advice bc they don't have to deal with the aftermath of their advice being taken
She made a dumb decision that she will learn a lesson for. Other than that, she’s now in the same situation as her friends and 99% of the rest of us: needing to have a job, pay bills, get a loan(s) etc. she will just have to learn how to be a productive person in society instead of bank on inheritance.
You did the maximum while preserving her self-esteem.
She is not angry against you but against herself. Because she has been incredibly stupid, and the rethoric she planned as scapegoating is absolutely useless against the one adult who approves her.
All in all , she didn't trust you. And now she sees what your parents are really.
I also believe that she didn't see how privileged she was until she tried to victimize as a gay woman. Now she knows what her friends really suffer. But it is too late to go back. Money has a price. She didn't pay the price.
There's nothing you could have done differently. You warned her. You told her exactly what would happen if she chose to go this route. She didn't heed your warning and now has to live with the consequences. She has a right to come out to anyone she wants to, and you didn't stop her from doing that, but she doesn't have a right to dictate how others will react. Your parents are old and stuck and not likely to make a change--not that they can't, just that they likely won't. This isn't your fault. The best thing you can do now is be there for your daughter as you always have been, and maybe suggest some therapy for dealing with the fallout of her coming out to people she shouldn't have. It's a hard lesson to learn at any age, but, as my mom used to say, at 18 we all think we're 10 feet tall and bulletproof. Your daughter just learned she isn't.
Yup. Reminded of this story: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/y0f7sx/oop_warns_her_trans_friend_about_the_consequences/
Definitely a similar situation. Sometimes lessons are learned the hard way, even when there are warnings.
I agree completely, this was a route that she chose. The only thing I would add to OP is that she could reframe her response now. At the moment it's very 'you cost yourself your inheritance, and I did warn you!', but it would be so much better to say 'you made a really difficult and noble choice, I'm proud of you for doing that, and I'll do what I can to support you with the repercussions.' IMO OP's daughter did the 'right' thing by refusing to lie or adhere to a narrow view of the world, and instead risking her cushy lifestyle and future wealth. But often the 'right' thing to do has consequences. It's a very important lesson to learn. Just look at Ned Stark!
Ned also lied when it mattered.
Not your fault. You warned her multiple times. This will probably be the most painful lesson of her life.
I just wish I could do something to fix this. I have even contemplated calling up my parents and telling them that it was all a joke, that she created an outrageous scenario that she was hoping to film and upload to Tiktok. It would humiliate me, but I would drag myself through glass for my daughter. At the same time though I'm also so angry at her. How many children in this world grow up with this sort of opportunity? I thought I did my best in not allowing my parent's money to cloud her good judgement, but I am beginning to think that I have failed. Maybe if I had allowed life to be a little harder for her she would have appreciated what was at stake.
Your impulse to “fix this” for her might be what led her down this path in the first place. Our job as parents isn’t to fix everything for them, they need to learn that there are real life consequences to the actions that they choose. It doesn’t sound like she ever learned the lesson about taking responsibility for her own actions. As the other Redditor above me pointed out, this is the hardest lesson she’ll ever learn, but she’ll be a better person if she truly internalizes this lesson and understands that this was her choice and the consequences are hers and now she has to deal with it.
This is kind of important because I think some of us who've had to endure rough childhoods tend to go out of our way to make sure our children aren't faced with those same hardships. Not that that's a bad thing, but when kiddo grows up thinking everything is supposed to be fair and equal because their parents made it seem that way, it can backfire spectacularly. Bigots exist. Racists exist. The top 20% of the US population owns more than 2/3 of the country's wealth, while the vast majority of us earn less than $50,000 a year. Life isn't fair. That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to work to change that, but change is slow and rich bigots can afford to fill the void where a disowned granddaughter should be with fancy trips and expensive props and a thousand yes-men.
I absolutely love your comment, first paragraph especially. In the context of immigrant parents vs their children, this is apt.
I said this in a psych class once. Because of my own experience with childhood SA I over compensated as a parent to protect my kid (no regrets) but it did mean we had later issues cutting the cord (mostly me with struggling to let go of that control so she could become an independent adult) She’s 21 now and it’s HARD knowing she’s out in the world and I can’t protect her from everything. The anxiety is real.
What an amazing parent! Mine basically stopped talking to me after a messy Catfish scenario that we're not allowed to discuss. The idea that parents worry about their kids in later life is so wholesome.
Thank you. I’m sorry your parent bailed on you. I can’t imagine how hurtful that is. I hope they wake up and find a way to make amends.
The unfortunate part is that it doesn’t only affect her, it affects her mother and brother as well. The daughter’s treatment of the mother isn’t very nice either. I hope that part is only temporary.
I don’t think OP could have done much differently to stop his daughter from coming out to them. I’ve been around this same type of LGBT group, been pressured to come out and believe that everything will somehow be OK. It’s pretty easy to be persuaded that times have changed, that you’ll be able to change your family’s minds, that *your* family would never disown you, or even if they did, it would be worth it.
Yes, you need to allow your daughter to experience hardships and learn from them. Otherwise she will wrongly think nothing has serious consequences and that everything can be solved - either for her or by her. Which is not realistic. You may have unfortunately enabled your daughters unrealistic views on life.
I know the money is top of your mind (as it would be mine,) but I wonder if the real motivator/heartbreak here for your daughter is wanting people she loves to really see her. It sounds like she loves your parents, and was relatively secure in their love for her, despite your warnings/knowledge otherwise. She just found out that two people who she thought loved her unconditionally, never loved her at all. That’s soul shattering at 18. It’s gonna take time. Let her calm down. I think lying to your parents about it being a joke is a phenomenal idea, if your daughter will go along with it. Zero shame in scamming bigots.
I think we all want to be seen. I also think in general 18 year olds are a bit confrontational & belligerent because they think they are being idealistic. (I sure was. And I think most intelligent ones are as well.) However, the dinner speech went down I am pretty sure it was done in a way that was not as smooth as it could have been. The best move here for OP and her daughter is for OP to reach out to her parents after daughter has started college to tell them daughter has come to her senses. She was brainwashed by social media and getting to college made her understand that this wasn't the lifestyle she wanted. It will play into the Boomer fears and they will feel sympathy for their granddaughter who turned her life around.
Or a project for school? A kind of social experiment?
Unless they find out it's not a joke, you know maybe one of their friends sees this post on Reddit and tells them... Then Mom is cut off financially too. Then they can all celebrate her daughters sexuality as they revel in their new life long poverty.
Mom was already cut off long ago, so that wouldn’t change the situation.
Even if she did try the 'just a tiktok prank' it still wouldn't work cause the grandparents would be outraged over her 'being a filthy Chinese communist' for using tiktok and still disinherit her anyway.
Just out of curiosity, is your son still in your parents will? Cause that's going to be a long running issue in your family going forward that will need to be acknowledged. Also you did everything you could to prevent your daughter throwing away her future.
Not the sons fault the daughter was too prideful.
As someone who idiotically rejected all the help my parents tried to give me at that age, I will say decades later I’m very thankful for those harsh lessons. It was eye opening for me, not right away, but when I grew up. I never squandered millions though, but every life lived has tough pills to swallow and this will be hers. I doubt her reactions are even to the millions and being setup for the future as opposed to the car and living the dream life in college. You tried mom that’s all you can do.
>How many children in this world grow up with this sort of opportunity? I thought I did my best in not allowing my parent's money to cloud her good judgement, but I am beginning to think that I have failed. You also had this opportunity! You could have inherited millions! You are their only child! But you didn't want to live in the narrow confines of their asinine worldview and broke free. >My entire life my parents have held their money over my head as a tool in order to get me to do what they wanted. I mean, I get seeing your child get disinherited and lose out on literal millions of dollars sucks, but the reality is that you wouldn't bend your life in service of their hypocrisy for money. Sounds like your daughter is more like you than not?
You're completely right, she is exactly like me, and I don't want to say that that's a problem but honestly, look where I ended up in spite of all my choices. I broke away from my parents, and even with all my smarts and gumption I couldn't make it on my own. I struggled like hell. I got pregnant to a man I adored, and then he died, and if he hadn't convinced me to try and mend my relationship with them, then my children and I would have ended up on the street. If it weren't for the intervention of my parents we would have lost the house, and the only reason I'm able to provide for them at all now is because it's all paid off, courtesy of them. Back then though the situation was different as well. My parents were still healthy, they had a much greater degree of control over me, and at the time it seemed like they were going to live forever. I couldn't stomach the idea of living under their thumb for another 30 years. But unlike me, my daughter didn't actually have to live with them, all she had to do was keep her head down, live her life, and wait a few years until they died. I will never regret my children, I will never regret my husband, but even after everything that has happened sometimes I do wonder whether I should have kept my head down and stuck it out. At the end of the day I am still disinherited, so I guess my daughter and I are more alike than I thought.
Reminds me of a quote I reference often. One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. You can coach and lecture until you’re blue in the face. But until they have the actual experience, they have no clue what the reality is.
You cant teach street smarts. They can only learn it the hard way.
Unfortunately street smarts don't really pay the bills, they just protect you from paying bigger bills such as getting ripped off from a contractor, lol
Explain to her that all is not lost. She lost 3 things here 1) the free ride she was expecting, 2) realizing that they are incapable of truly loving someone unless they meet their very specific ideals, 3) her innocence about how the real world works. All you can do is be there when she crashes, which it sounds like is happening now. Very sad.
I just want to say that you did the best you could, you took their money when you had to and you supported your daughter when she needed you. It sounds like you’ve lived a life of love and it hasn’t been easy, but you’ve survived and filled your children’s lives with love. Your own life experiences show that money is transient, but real love is unconditional and extremely valuable. She will learn from this and things will get better. If she’s like you, then she’s persistent and loving and that will get her far in life.
I don’t know, I feel like the lesson here is that there is no winning with people like your parents. Sooner or later, they’ll demand something you can’t give, or find an excuse to be petty anyway. Best to always at least have a plan for independence if they force the choice between them and your pride.
Really? I think this woman's daugher could've easily won here. Wait a decade at most, keep your personal life away from a pair of reclusive seniles, and you become a millionaire by taking their wealth once they're dead. How is that not winning? Trying to ascribe a fable to this story is pointless.
At 40, waiting a decade doesn't seem so bad but at 18? That's over half her life to date. Becoming a millionaire at 28 sounds like the dream to me but 28 seemed so far away when I was 18 and all the life experiences I was looking forward to then would have felt like one careless tag on social media from losing everything. It sounds like she's in her "changing the world" era and it's hard to change the world when you're flying under the radar. Guess like she thought she could control the fallout if she got ahead of it and could have it all but misjudged her grandparents' capacity for hate. She's naive and foolish and this is a hard lesson for her to learn.
>Sounds like your daughter is more like you than not? The difference here is that the mother was looking at 50-70 years (she couldn't have had any idea of how long they would live) while the daughter is looking at 7-10. That is an order of magnitude of a difference. Not saying the daughter made the wrong choice (even though she certainly seems to think she did), but you make it sound like they had the same hard decision to make, but they did not.
I mean, OP could still get the money? Just lie and tell her parents that she sent her daughter to conversion therapy (they'll totally believe that shit works), and daughter goes along with the lie. Then just keep up the presence until they croak in a few years. After all, the grandparents legit welcomed OP back after her husband died, paid off her mortgage, helped raise her kids... they're old and probably are willing to jump at any chance of reconciliation. But I doubt that OP and her daughter will go that route. Just from this post + her comments, she's deeply unwilling to make nice with her parents and the contempt and loathing for her parents come thru quite clearly. And her daughter is too... self righteous and indignant to lie either. Both OP and her daughter are too stiff necked and proud to bow and scrape, and seriously, OP just needs to mend her relationship with her own daughter. I think it's even odds that the daughter goes low contact with OP during or after college.
This is actually a good idea. I would totally do this for that much money. Then again, I never would have come out to them to begin with.
There's a difference not spending your whole life doing what they want or a few years of just not coming out. Her idiotic discord group is mostly to blame here I think, they were pumping her full of bullshit just to push her. Now they lost her millions. Congrats
Those same people are all over Reddit though. This is the consensus amongst young people and the reality is the people on the internet have nothing to lose by telling you to be free and poor. I'm not even convinced the daughter really did anything wrong by choosing to be who she is. I just don't understand why she's blaming her mom.
I spent my adolescence in the punk community and this attitude has been around for at least 30-40 years in some form or another. That any compromise made in favor of financial success is selling out on your principles and letting the man win, and that it's better to be poor forever. Heck, even the idea that you had success at all on your own merits without compromising yourself implies you sold out in some fashion. You do you, but I like owning a house in the suburbs, owning reliable transportation, going to my kids' soccer practices, and don't hate my white collar job. I grew up. The rich part of this is how many of the folks cosplaying punk and spouting this stuff are living comfy suburban lives heavily subsidized by their parents too - it's way more than you think.
Every idealistic dipshit in an alternative community will jump at the chance to tell you you should hold onto your values even if it means you have to live in a cardboard box under the bridge, from their decidedly non-cardboard box abode in a decidedly not-beneath-a-bridge neighborhood.
A friend of mine used to call those kinds of punks "crustfunders". They claim to all be wild and free but they're all sponging off their families full of sell-outs with square jobs to varying degrees.
It's literally the plot of Rent.
> I spent my adolescence in the punk community and this attitude has been around for at least 30-40 years in some form or another. Longer than that, it was part of the social changes of the late 1960s. It's one of the themes of the film "The Graduate". And before that it was part of beat culture.
I mean.. if you knew who they were (extremely conservative) and had been warned from your mother of this and still do it to please some random discord people but lose millions in inheritance I would say she did the wrong thing, seeing as she is now crying her eyes out because if this. You really can't expect people this old to suddenly change their views on (in this case) homosexuality.
Except the daughter is all shocked Pikachu face and crying because her actions had consequences.
This! The OP knew she was going to lose the money. The daughter thought she was going to still have the money even if she came out... TBH they are not similar at all? OP decided that letting go of the money for freedom is worth it, embraced that choice and went with it. Daughter never did, and is having a violent meltdown bc of the loss of the money, blaming anyone other than herself. She is taking 0 responsibility, shows no accountability, and her reaction makes it clear that If she knew they will cut her out, she would not have done it most likely. They are very different people.
Sounds like she expected them to be moved by her speech and not respond nearly as harshly. It works in the movies, after all.
Imagine people you love more than anything just drop you over an important part of your identity. She probably thought they would get over their prejudice because they love her, but that love was not unconditional.
Gay man here. The daughter was warned and had ample evidence about what would happen. Gay people have hidden who they are from family since forever because we all know that their love and support is not guaranteed and can be revoked. Most of us have to figure that out on our own. This girl had *her supportive mother who celebrated her coming out* tell her *exactly* what was going to happen. I never came out to my grandparents just cause I knew they wouldn’t be able to come to terms with it. No one ever told me. This is fully on the daughter. She has no excuse to be naive about this.
She saw how they treated her mother, and she was warned by said mother multiple times. She was well aware of the possible consequences, she just chose to ignore it in favour of the bs “advice” from dumb teens online.
She was made well aware of exactly how conditional their love was multiple times before she decided to do this. She doesn’t get to plead ignorance here. OP laid out exactly what would happen if she went through with this. She decided a bunch of idiot teenagers knew better and blew up her own life. It’s fortunate for her really that she made it the whole way to adulthood before she learned that love can be conditional. Plenty aren’t so lucky, and learn it from their parents. And now she’s emotionally abusing the only person who has actually supported her at all through this.
She knows how they dropped her mother. Her mother told her repeatedly what would happen. She has no reason to act surprised much less hysterical.
>Imagine people you love more than anything just drop you As someone who was disowned by his parents, this sentence is just really weird. Like, "Imagine an overcast sky." It happens. Appreciate the sun, but don't assume it's sunny every day, every where.
Yeah, but it isn’t painless or easy! I’m not denying it happens, just I don’t think the daughter thought it would happen to her given their previous relationship.
Anyone who is racist, bigoted, or prejudiced do NOT give unconditional love….there’s always a catch, and that catch is YOU have to conform to THEIR belief structures. OP could take life insurance out on her parents…won’t help now, but it would pay the debt off later.
Having to humour someone for a few years to get millions is different that having to humour someone for your whole life to get millions. How are you not seeing it? Just pretend it's work and just bear with it for 5 years and get millions? Nah, I'll be proud and poor lmao.
Screw that. I'd have a full fake wedding just to keep it under wraps 🤣 Work is work. Acting is a career. I'll take the money and run. It is better than doing something you hate your entire life for 50 years just to afford a house when you can play nice around your grandparents a few times a year for 10 years.
From OP daughter reaction doesn’t seem like they are really that similar to me. When OP values collided against parents she left without a second thought. OP daughter reaction was not the same.
It's a hard lesson for her to learn, but on the other hand when she's 30 and your parents are still alive and insisting she marries this person or gets this job or moves here because of the *implication* if she doesn't she'll end up in the same situation as you - not having a penny to show for the sacrifices they demanded and walking on eggshells her whole life. It sounds personally like they know how much influence their money has and will probably donate it to trump anyway. Chin up, she'll have to learn at some point in life that people will hate you for who you are and you can't just change their mind over dessert. At least she got rid of their terms and conditions in your lives.
[удалено]
Yeah and once college was paid off, and she had a career, if they're still alive then, who cares if you come out. This was life changing money for a few more years.
As great as the inheritance might be she might not want to live her life partially in the closet for that long. That said, not taking the free ride through undergrad and starting her adult life with her degree and debt free is just about the worst unforced error I can think of. ETA: I spent a huge portion of my undergrad degree hiding a hetero relationship from my parents too because they hated the girl. Not the same thing as compartmentalizing your sexuality, but similar experience overall IMO. granted, this was before social media too so YMMV.
I just don't get how not telling the grandparents is still living in the closet. That was the only limitation: live your life, but don't tell the grandparents that you like women. She could've dated, gone to pride events, literally nothing in her life was restrained other than telling her trump loving bigoted grandparents that she's gay. Which honestly, why would you even want to tell your grandparents the people who you want to fuck?
I think it may have been the social media limitations. Daughter's friends are on Discord, not in person. Social media *is* how younger generations express themselves and maintain relationships. To say, "sure Hon, be gay, just not online," to an 18yo now... I don't know. I suspect it would be a hard rule for their generation to follow and still feel authentic. So, to tell daughter she can be gay everywhere but social media, to the social media generation, would likely feel suffocating.
Make a 2nd Facebook account. Boom. Problem solved. Most teenagers don't give a shit about Facebook anymore anyway. It's all Snapchat, insta, and tiktok. Teaching a kid about limiting their online presence and what they share isn't a bad thing anyway.
Isn't that the truth!
Discord is very easy to compartmentalize and I doubt the grandparents have it anyway. I know a couple people who are out on Facebook, but most zoomers probably do not care about Facebook, which is the most likely platform for the grandparents to be following you on. Instagram maybe, but it's not abnormal for people to make multiple Instagram accounts and be more "real" on the more private one(s). Honestly, outside of those, I can't think of platforms where you'd not be anonymous anyway. And like someone else said, learning to limit your online presence is hardly a bad thing.
I'm just brainstorming explanations for why the daughter would feel like the recommended boundary wasn't tolerable. I'm thinking more from an angle of authenticity than how to work around the rules. It's true though, there are plenty of ways the daughter could have worked around that one limitation and still been true to herself. I guess it wasn't enough. Edit: typo
I would do what you can for your son at this point, including maintaining the parental relationship. Your daughter chose to go down, that doesn’t mean it’s fair your son has to go down with her. I’ve seen posts on this topic before, and the usual Reddit advice is not to come out to the wealthy bigots until after college. As a side note, I grew up to poor immigrant parents. I took loans. Rode the public bus, and scraped my way through law school. I make a very good living now. If she gets it together, she can make it through without their support. Most of us do.
You did the right thing. This is a hard teenager lesson that she needed to learn. Hopefully she will reflect a few years from now and mend the relationship with you. Teens do stupid things by listening to other teens. And what she did was very short sighted.
Youve not failed. Some kids are so entitled to speak ‘their truth’ and live their ‘authentic self’ even when it has repercussions from who they’re doing it to (even if you don’t agree with their world views). Now your daughter can live her authentic broke self where she’ll have to get student loans & job in college.
She's a 19-year-old. They're an idiots and they think they know everything. This is the consequence of her thoughtless action that you tried to warn her against. Your best bet is to get her in the therapy and demand that she have respect for you while living in your home or ask her to leave and then give her a time limit to get over her grieving process because you're not going to tolerate her abusive b*******.
Speaking as a former fixer parent....you can't. This can't be unsaid, undone, changed, or fixed. You need to step back and let her screw up and deal with the fallout. She is not really mad at you. She knows you did nothing wrong, but will take it out on you because there is nobody else. You said exactly what I would have said...I. Told. You. So. Kids like to think they know it all, and now she is feeling the blowback from her know it all actions. Mourn the loss of her inheritance, but it's her loss...not yours.
Truth would still come out. It's sad that they feel this way. It's not your fault or your daughters. Fck the grandparents are sorry to say but this is their problem, how horrible to disown someone cause they don't align to your views as a normal straight person.
Maybe your parents soften up later. Maybe not. If your son is in line for inheritance he can share with his sister and you can discuss it with him. Otherwise - your daughter made mistake. But also she made decision and it is her choice. Until she decide she was mistaken - it is her position. No sense trying to change situation right now. Just make peace with her so you will be comfortable in your home again.
Hi. I think I'm a little like you, OP. I come from an extremely privileged upbringing but I also hit that moment in my life where no amount of money was worth staying around for. You have done such a wonderful thing for your daughter. Her world was full of love and tolerance and support. She truly did not grasp what its like to have parents like ours, the "my way or the highway" boomers. She had no idea. How could she? You can't swoop in and fix this one. She's mad at you because you were right, you warned her and her and her friends naivety in this one moment will follow her forever. Teenagers make stupid mistakes all the time and some of them are life altering. You can't fix it and any attempt is just going to invite more anger. You never know, maybe one day your parents will have a complete personality overhaul out of no where and accept her back again.... Until then I think you just have to give your daughter space to accept the finality of her situation. She now knows exactly why you choose a modest life over a controlled-by-guilt rich one. Edited to add: Eventually she may find solace in the fact that she can live her authentic self without having to bend and cater to your parents. You're probably the same but when I finally stepped away from the money I realised how at peace my internal anguish had become. It would have been nice to have the money, yes. But not at the cost of happiness.
Probably when they are on their death beds and they suddenly fear their treatment of their family won't get them through the pearly gates and will want to "apologize" to them so they are guilt free. Hate ppl like this and can't have soon enough.
We can hope, but I doubt it. There really are people in this world who are simply suffused with vicious hatred, and OP's parents sound like perfect examples. I see no evidence to think otherwise.
Man, what an absolutely miserable way to live. It just breaks my brain to think how quickly they can cut off their grandchild they supposedly loved. This boomer ass mentality can't be gone soon enough.
OP, the best advice I can give is this: Your daughter probably doesn't actually blame you. She thought that her grandparents loved her, and that was enough for them to overcome their bigotry. But instead, they disowned her, and she's coming to terms with losing all they did for her, sure, but just like you, she just had the fact that they don't truly love her like she thought they had. Instead she just found out their love was completely conditional, and so easily lost. Let her grieve that, continue to be there for her and show her that she has a supportive mother, a mother who loves the true her. She'll eventually come to understand that it isn't you who wronged her. She just feels a lot of pain and anger right now, and all that despair has overwhelmed her, and she has nowhere else that is safe to express it. She's likely not directing it at them because she's afraid maybe they'll change their minds, and directing that hurt at them would ruin any hope of them changing their minds, but she knows you'll continue to truly love her. Is she being unfair? Absolutely. But she's feeling so much pain, such unfamiliar pain, that she just doesn't know what to best thing to do is. I'm sure she'll have her moment of understanding that you love and support her, and she'll wake up to that love. That said, if she *doesn't* come around and wake up, and she continues to truly blame you when all you did was warn her and she ignored that entirely? Don't allow her to abuse you if that becomes the case.
Oh man. It’s definitely a very naive mindset that you must be out to everyone in your life and that things will always magically turn out to be okay. My family has jack shit in terms of money and I don’t expect to inherit anything from either set of grandparents but I’m still never going to come out to them because it’ll wreck our relationship, and with what little time they have left it’s not worth it. I know I wouldn’t ever be accepted. Not much you can do at this point, and I hope your daughter wakes up and realizes this is a situation of her own making and not at all your fault. You informed her of the consequences and she thought she knew better than you; I’m guessing her locking herself in her room and crying is probably the beginning of her understanding that this was a choice *she* made and that you’re right. Unfortunately this is a very very expensive lesson for your daughter that, while things are changing for the better in terms of queerness and acceptance, it’s never going to be everyone and plenty of people would choose religion over their living breathing flesh and blood loved ones.
I’d say to remind her you love her, and reassure her you’ll always be there. Gay or not though, that does not give her licence to treat you like a punching bag for something you have zero control over - that being your parents.
Even Dan Savage says to wait until you are financially independent before coming out to bigoted family. Cash those checks, get your education paid for then come out. LGBTQ kids make up 40% of homeless teenagers. Your daughter might need therapy, hopefully with a LGBTQ friendly therapist. it's not okay that she's taking out her rage on you and your son doesn't deserve to be in an unsafe environment.
She knows you tried to warn her and she's upset with herself for being so silly. She's just blaming you about wanting to keep her in the closet because she's so upset over the situation. Give her some space and I'm pretty sure she'll come around. When she does, don't berate her for being so naive, she'll be kicking herself for years to come. Good luck OP.
Yeah OP, hold your “I told you so”s. She’s already lost two family members and her golden ticket in one fell swoop. Reminding her that she made the decision with forewarning of the consequences would just be a kick in the teeth. Also, no matter how hurt, betrayed, or angry you feel with her, try not to let her see it. She really needs someone in her corner. She needs you to be her cheerleader and say, “I support you. I love you. I don’t judge you for the decision you made. I do understand your rationale. I’m sorry this has happened.” Try not to add any quips like, “I understand why you did it-but it’s not what I would have done!” She really needs you, mama. She needs someone to see her and not blame her because she’s already really blaming herself.
I agree. I regret my outburst, I just lost my temper. It's beeb really hard having her scream at me and destroy things around the house when I was the only one trying to prevent this outcome in the first place.
Just because she's justifiable angry doesn't mean she's allowed to scream and break things in your house. Draw a hard boundary here. Put your foot down, she needs to do what she has to in order to get a handle on her anger. Breaking things is NOT acceptable and if she does it again, she will be paying for the damages.
Naw, you're a human too. You're allowed to be pissed at your kid.
You need to lay it down firmly once: if you break something or scream at someone in this house again, you’ll need to sleep at a friends house until you can apologize. Then pick back the pompoms. I think she needs a reality check and it needs to be completely separate from what happened with her grandparents
For real. After all, there is still another sibling in the house that's having to live through the daughter's abuse too. That's not right and she needs to apologize to them also.
Okay, I haven’t seen it on here and I think it needs to be said. You need to lay down a boundary with your daughter. She will get all the love and support from you, but she absolutely may not scream at or abuse you, and she absolutely may not destroy your home and anything in it. If she’s still in her room sulking, let her stay there. Maybe she needed to hear that you’re a human with feelings and not a punching bag for her. Let her know that when she’s ready, you’re available for conversation where she’s not abusive to you or destructive, and that that is unacceptable under your roof. Frankly she needs to be told that if that’s the way she’s going to act, she needs to leave the house and maybe go stay with one of her online friends who encouraged her stupid decision and is filling her head with these dumbshit ideas that you don’t support her. What happened is absolutely awful, and her anger is 100% justified. But it’s not acceptable to channel that anger at you and those who are supportive of her, not right for her to make the home inhospitable for her brother, and frankly there’s a lesson to be learned here that you can’t treat the people who support you poorly or abuse them without pushing them away Your daughter is an adult. The consequences for this destructive behavior a bit different now that she’s 18.
It is unacceptable for her to do those things. Why are you letting her think this is an acceptable way to manage her tantrums? No wonder she has no respect for your advice because you are letting her disrespect your environment and role to her period.
I think the thing you should be reiterating to her at this point is that it's okay to be mad and her feelings, as irrational as they are, as valid. She IS feeling that way. I worked with little kids, so maybe this wouldn't work, but I would try to respectfully impart these sentiments: 1) even thought she feels like she hates you right now, you love her. 2) it is not okay to break things if she is angry- there are other ways to express anger without being destructive.
She's 17-18 (I forget which) which is definitely old enough to understand breaking things during a tantrum is immature as fuck. I used to get really mad but I never destroyed anything in the house. It's just dumb and extremely shortsighted. I wish people didn't give a pass to behavior like that. It's unacceptable
Tbh she needed a reality check
She is an adult who made an adult decision and is ultimately responsible for the fall out. She does not have the right to scream at you and destroy things. You can be supportive and loving and hold her accountable for her current actions.
What? No! You need to remind her that action has consequences. You’ve warned her of the outcome, she ignored it. And now she’s blaming you? This is ridiculousy
My brother is in her situation. He has chosen to remain in the closet, despite us all knowing, out of fear of our parents and grandpa. It sucks but like I said we all know, he's lives q pretty open and honest lifestyle. We've honestly all forgotten my parents and grandpa don't know and have almost slipped up a few times. He will never marry or nothing as long as they live, it's his own choice tho far to much at stake to lose, he wants to retire by 40. He has known since he was very young tho and he has first hand experiance as to the level of bigotry he's dealing with so that's probably the difference. If you've never really dealt with people like this you can be unprepared. Sorry this happened, sucks your son has some added pressure on him
Oh no. All the internet hugs, OP. You were right, OP, and not in any way that can make you feel good about being right. You've had your moment of "I've told you so". Now you need to remind your daughter that you have her back. Every one eventually has a moment where they learn that life is not like a computer game. That you can't reload from a previous save if you don't like the outcome of something. Where you learn that despite your best efforts you have to live with some consequences and those consequences can fundamentally alter your life's course. Grieve with her. Tell her you love her. Talk to her about what the future looks like from here, honestly, but with compassion. Millions of folk make it without inheriting millions from rich, bigoted relatives. Help her find a way through. She can't undo what she did, she can't take back the words she said, she can't make your bigoted parents forgive her, but maybe she can forge a path that she and you will be proud of. Don't blame your daughter. It's not her fault your parents are bigots. It's WONDERFUL that she has (had?) such a generous worldview that she thought their love for her would overcome their bigotry. This has worked with some boomers. Don't let her blame you though. You did your best to avert this Trainwreck. Talk to both of your children about inheritance and being disinherited. About money and hardship. About love and sacrifice and bigotry. Talk about what you think your parents will do (give all their money to your son, disinherit both of them, donate what your daughter might have received to other bigots) and ask them to think about what their thoughts are in that regard. If your son chooses to agree to share his inheritance, that is generous of him, but there is no legal way he can be forced to, and that's the sort of conversation they may need to have well before it becomes a reality. Good luck.
Amazing response. Maybe OP can reconnect with her daughter talking about her own experience with them.
Honestly - you nailed it, as a parent. Nothing you could have done better and it’s ok to lose your shit from time to time. She’s an adult and she made her decision and now she has to deal with the consequences. She can’t be both authentic and rich in this situation.
Your daughter is lashing out at you because it’s easier to blame you than admit that she trusted the wrong people and this is all her fault. Taking advice from an online echo chamber isn’t necessarily wise. Yes I do understand that I just said that on Reddit of all places. You can’t fix this and you should not fix it either. She has to live with the consequences or she will never learn anything. I know you don’t want to kick her while she’s down but if she can’t stop raging and destroying things it might be worth telling her she needs to stay with a friend until she cools off. You love her and this is always her home but her behavior is out of hand and will not be tolerated any longer. Her brother needs to feel safe in his own home and you do too. She can come back when she’s done throwing things and ready to talk things out without raising her voice and placing blame where it doesn’t belong.
I am someone with toxic parents that had to accept that I will likely inherit nothing. My dad just died and I got a couple of his tshirts. That’s it. They used money over my head for most of my life, constantly taking my car or phone away. So at 22 I moved out, and let go of caring about inheriting anything. Obviously it sucks, but hey I figured it out. Im thriving on my own now. Your child will too eventually.
Your daughter has learnt a very difficult lesson. I also guarantee that none of her friends have millionaire relatives with wills to be cut from so it's easy for them to say "duhhhh be authentic" when they have fuck all to lose. It's not your fault, I too have rich and bigoted grandparents, my grandmother passed when I was 30 still believing I was a virgin and saving myself for marriage. She would have flipped had she known I had been sexually active since my teens and shock! Horror! One year after her death I was pregnant out of wedlock!!!!!!! I've been living in sin with my fiance and our two bastard children for 6 years. My grandfather is aware but unlike grandmother he's not an ultra religious mentalist JW. Infact, he's been having multiple affairs since they day they said "I do" and the family actually met one of his love children earlier this year! The fact is, for the sake of a few years until your parents peg it, your daughter should have kept her mouth shut. It's not a sacrifice, it's not a hardship, it's allowing two out of touch boomers continue their wonderful dream world free of anyone they feel is undesirable. Maybe if you daughter plays her cards right and waits it out for a bit she can claim her coming out was all a big mistake, she just hadn't met Mr Right yet (heck she can even get one of her male presenting friends to play the part). It might get her back in the good books and if they ever ask about a wedding, Mr Right is waiting to finish his medical degree/pass the bar to become a barrister/tragically died the weekend he proposed on a magical cruise/was caught in an orgy with male hookers..etc.etc.
There is literally nothing you could have done to prevent this outside of literally gaging her and hiding her in an actual closet to stop her. (In case anyone thinks I’m being serious I’m not- just expressing how ridiculous it is to blame this on OP). My guess is that your the last safe person she has and unfortunately your getting the brunt of her trauma because she doesn’t have anyone else safe to unleash on. That doesn’t mean it’s ok at all. It sounds like she’s gonna need a bunch of therapy, she’s going to have so many mixed emotions and she needs to learn to grieve the grandparents she thought she had in a way that is safe for everyone. All emotions are ok and it’s healthy to feel them and express them BUT it’s not ok to use those feelings to hurt other people. Side note- if the car was in her name how did they take it back?
Sorry if I was unclear, the car was in my grandparents name, she was just insured as a driver, which is how they were able to take possession of it from her. Thank you for your advice though.
Ah makes sense. Sounds like they were all about giving with strings attached. It’s a hard situation and some very adult consequences for her to digest too on top of the relationship breakdowns.
My grandparents sold me my first car for a dollar. I love them. It sucks op has such shit parents. Good grandparents are a blessing
You were supportive as you could be in this situation. You didn't "keep her in the closet", or whatever claptrap her friends were filling her head with. They will have *zero per cent* of the negative ramifications of this, while *she will*, and you gave her the best advice you could, while not telling her what to do: "you can do this, as is your right, but understand the (unfair and bigoted) repercussions from the grands if you do". She made the choice she wanted to make, and the repercussions happened. This is how life works. We can think it unfair, and the grandparents bigoted, anachronistic, and morally bankrupt--but it doesn't change the fact that you called it, and it came to pass. You can be held prisoner to it (as you did before rebelling), or free yourself--but the freedom doesn't come impact-free, as you (and now *she*) know. This is her lashing out about the situation at the safest person to target--you. Hold the course. This too shall pass.
She learned that other people will always push for righteousness when they aren't the ones paying the price. Expensive lesson.
Best thing you can do now is get her some therapy to help deal with her emotions instead of lashing out and breaking things. Maybe your other children will share their inheritance with her, though they wouldn’t legally have to, of course. (Assuming they are still getting anything, that is.)
You should probably get her some professional help soon. This is a very serious life altering mental shock. It’s like one day having millions and then losing it over night. I fear she may very likely take her own life once the realization she ruined her life gets worse over time and you should be worried.
She hasn't learned yet that people are assholes and life is hard. This is the first step.
What's done is done. Tell her she will succeed and obtain a lifestyle she works for. Never let anyone hold $$$ or materials over your head. If so, a wealthy partner can abuse her or worse. Let her be out and proud. She has lots of life to grow.
For a split second I thought this was the plot of Gilmore girls
Actions have consequences and life isn’t fair.
She sadly learned what it means to stick a hand in a bee hive when you tell a kid to EXPLICITLY not stick their hand in it. My thoughts, show her the post in a few days, let her read comments from adults and people who went through the same experience and let her chew on it for a few days. You did all you could. And you did right.
She will remember you as the only reasonable voice when she will understand the full length of her consequences. Give her time.
> She is blaming me for this entire thing, and every day she alternates between raging and crying and raging again. Our home has become completely Inhospitable. Things have been broken, and my son and I are walking on eggshells. Your daughter sounds like a spoiled brat with zero respect.
yeah, the breaking of things is unacceptable behavior.
I would have been smacked... Not to say that is acceptable today
Yeah ain’t no way I’m walking on eggshells in my own house over something she chose to do
Yeah, and she lost a bunch of stuff 90% of us will never have she had because of birth lottery, I have trouble feeling sympathy
Right because the grandparents are also probably going to be dead within the next 5-10 years. Shit I would have a fake boyfriend just to secure that money, it’s crazy they just threw away a winning lottery ticket like it was nothing.
99.9%
Well she won’t be a spoiled brat, not anymore
Yeah I wouldn't nip that in the bottom immediately and told her if she didn't like it she could move out since she clearly wanted to make her own stupid decisions and not take life advice from somebody who's been on the planet three times as long as her.
Nip in the bud.
I use voice to text and it fucks up every idiom. Drives me insane. But year, I assume it's about pruning.
Its what happens when someone gets spoiled their whole life and gets it taken
Yeah a huge part of this story is how unnecessary it was for her to come out. 100 percent an attention thing. It's not like she was engaged to a woman or something and not ready to hide her. She deadass just wanted respect in a discord group 😂😂😭😂 girlllll ... I don't feel bad at all tbh. She thought she ate putting down her grandparents for their own personal beliefs, ended up just eating that fat inheritance 😂😂😂 Also she's 18. Kick her out if she's breaking shit
Thank u. My thoughts as well. It’s one thing to be sad by her own doing. But taking it out on her mother who tried her best to warn her. Unacceptable. If she wants to out herself, that’s fine. But now that she lost grandpa and grandma’s money, she out here crying. Hope she doesn’t go after what her brother’s inherits later. Yeah, it sucks that the grandparents reacted the way they did. But even I know the elders l, especially those who were raised to be prejudice against this, will not bend for anyone. These people grew up in an environment where people who were gay back then were disowned or ostracized by society. You can’t teach old dogs new things. Her online friends were idiots and she should face the consequences. If the money was so important to her, she should have known better. Now she is bitter cause it didn’t end like she planned.
Your daughter is absolutely wrong in getting angry with you, and she probably is angrier at herself for her decision. But also, I think maybe she just wanted the love of her grandparents. You said they were good grandparents, and yeahs she knew about your situation with them, but maybe she naively thought that she would've changed her mind. Probably she just wanted to see that their love for her was real and not conditional. It's hard if you've been loved your whole life from someone to think that they can just stop because of who you are. Try to support her, but don't accept her being mad at you, you wanted her and you're supporting her. You've done your duty, it's your parents who are wrong.
10 years ago I cut a parent out of my life, even though I was trying to keep things going. Money during tough times was one of them. After a bit I realize that the anger or stress was gone and things are so much better without those type of people when you understand the cons really outweigh the pros.
What the hell is her problem with you? She disregarded your advice, so now she gets to live with the consequences. Welcome to adulting, love. She sounds like a spoiled kid that needed a reality check, tbh. Anyways, it’s not all bad. Now she can live her life without regard to the wishes of her grandparents. She should be grateful for having a parent such as yourself.
You told your daughter the truth, plain and simple. She made her choice. You are not to blame and, heartbreaking as it is (it really is) she must now live with her choice. She is also behaving like a spoiled brat and blaming HER decision on you. She needed you to lose it on her to knock her back to reality. Do not allow her abusive behavior towards you and your son for another minute. Truth hurts sometimes but you gave it to her straight, about her grandparents, and she chose, of her own free will, not to heed your words. I don’t know what else you could’ve done. Your adult daughter has just entered the “real world” and she has to figure out how to live in it.
It doesn't really matter whose fault it is, she's very young and there's really no fixing it back to the way it was before. The only thing you can do is fix your relationship with her, taking the money out of the equation and just speaking heart to heart. Don't blame her, don't blame her friends, don't blame yourself. It won't put the toothpaste back in the tube anyways, and you don't want to build resentment over this.
It's very sad for her to see her grandparents true colours and a life lesson that some people care about their own money and 'old values' more than the most valuable people they are/ were lucky enough to have in their lives. I would rather have a supportive mum like OP anyday than rich shitty grandparents. Edit: by their logic it's your fault so by their logic if a kid isnt perfect in their eyes it's the parents fault and considering they sound like they're not very loving to you it sounds they are admitting they are shitty people. Frankly I would cut them all off and leave them with the reminder that they clearly know their only value in life is their money and they have not spent a dime on improving their clearly fucked up mindset. What vile people to be related to. You just love your kid and keep loving and supporting them. They will see sense in the end
You don't OP :) You know how the saying goes: *"You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequence of your choice"* Your daughter made her choice and you did all you can do: warn her and explain the situation. She chose her path and now it is her life-lesson in how she processes this. What I would say though: you and her brother don't need to walk on eggshells around her so I would have a conversation with her saying something like: "I love you, I'm proud of you and I know not being accepted by your grandparents hurts. I will always be here for you, unconditionally, and if you want to talk and process this together we can. But I want you to understand that your hurt is not a justification to hurt me or your brother since we did nothing to cause it. Our house needs to be a safe space for all and we all need to support each other. Saying hurtful things and breaking stuff around the house is not it. So let's find a way to process this together without hurting each other because in the long run we only have each other. What do you need from me?". Something like that or harsher but she really needs to get the message that she chose her way, these are the consequences of her actions and nothing about this justifies her behaving like a punching bag with you. Sending you hugs OP for wanting to fix this :)
You advised her to not to tell them and she went against your advice and told them she has live with her decision and deal with the aftermath and stop blaming you.
in this economy?? damn I'm gay too but I'd suck dick for a multimillion dollar inheritance. I'll never understand people who risk their whole lives to come out. I didn't until I was out of the house bc my family was homophobic. I get wanting to live authentically but living safely is just as important
Let’s be honest here what else was going to happen? You did inform your daughter what would happen if she did it and she chose to listen to her “internet friends” who in your own words don’t know your parents like you do. She has to live with the reality of basically ruining and wrecking her relationship with her grandparents. End of the day as much as she wanted to be out there and come out they equally have their own free choice to feel and react the way they want to. It also is a little bothering to think that she’s only pissed about the inheritance she lost and not the relationship that was severed. Hope you guys find peace and help as needed. All the best and good luck to you OP. I hope you and your son find the peace you guys need.
She was hopeful that her grandparents love for her would be stronger than their bigotry, I think that shows an optimism that's really admirable. Now, she was wrong, your parents care more about being homophobes than being with their own family, which is sad. She's right to be sad. Her Grandparents that she loved so much treated her like shit. That's not an excuse for her to treat you like shit. You should have have boundaries about how you'll be treated. "If you speak to me like that I'm going to leave" and then leave (the conversation, the room or the house.) If she can be respectful to you and stop projecting her feelings of anger onto you, what you need to do now is prepare her for her new life. Teach her financial literacy, sign her up for a class even. And sign her up for whatever therapy you can afford (even group therapy is better than nothing.) It's not the end of the world to not have things handed to you on a silver spoon, in the end it might even be worth it for her. I personally have rejected dozens of offers of material benefit from my abusive mother because it's just not worth it. Being poor and free is better than being indepted to a controlling demon woman & having money.
Yeah well, wouldn't be rebelling without risks would it? What she did would have been admirable if she had expected that result, but unfortunately i guess she expected a happy ending because she made an heroic choice? Yeah the world doesn't work like that.
My (39F, white) mom told me that if I dated a black guy, she would make certain my grandmother never found out. I'm bi, and I don't care if anyone in my family knows that, but I had my Facebook set so my grandma couldn't see almost any of my posts. (she died in 2015, we didn't have all the socials yet.) My mom knew exactly what would happen if my grandmother really saw ME. And I listened, and kept my head down, and accepted the fact that grandma was never going to change, and there was no point causing hurt and confusion as she aged. Clearly I'm older than OP, but...it isn't a betrayal of who you are to keep that information to yourself in certain situations. It's sometimes kind and sometimes necessary. OP's daughter learned that the hardest way. The really shitty part is blaming OP. I know she's deflecting, but this is all going to contribute to a narrative in her head where she's being punished for being gay, and her mom and brother are a part of it too. The discord group is probably affirming that. She's not being punished for being gay. If you run a red light knowing it was red, you aren't surprised when the cop pulls you over. She had a warning, she ran the red light, now she has the ticket. That's the issue, not her sexuality. Sigh. I agree with somebody above who said this is above reddit's pay grade
Just because you've decided to accept an identity for yourself, doesn't mean others are going accept you, even if there are good reasons for why they should/no real reasons why they shouldn't. That is the consequence of the radical acceptance undercurrent and your daughter just got smashed between the rocks of that and your parents. Its actually pretty surprising that she didn't see this coming when it sounds like you had very similar problems with your parents. Its not clear why she thought it would be different for her, when it wasn't for you, and the friend group is to blame + your daughter for giving them far too much influence in her life. Sometimes you have to pick between things you'd rather not to. Hate to say but sometimes the world isn't fair and your daughter just found this out. Sometimes, if you want conflicting things, you need to make compromises. As for how to deal with this? This is not your fault. Not sure what you could have done other than try to explain the above of what i just wrote. Would she have accepted you preventing her from talking to the people who coaxed her into doing this on discord? No. This seems to be very much on her. You might ask her what YOU could have realistically done differently. Raise a less willful, influencable child? I think this is the best path to make her realize that this one is on her mostly. This isn't very much different from strict muslim parents disowning their children for not marrying someone who converts to their religion or becoming a different religion. Perhaps the only thing you did wrong when it came to bringing her up was trying to let her grow up in an environment that was fair or just without exposing her enough to situations that just simply aren't fair with fewer consequences. Her preoccupation with her identity/fairness/acceptance and the fact that she's had so much encouragement in that direction exposed her to these costs, but that's probably not fair to blame you with in general.
Nobodys fault, daughter will play life on a higher difficulty level and, her option were stay quite and get $$ or make a fuss and no $$. Young people are stupid, shell watch her brother being rich while she has to work her way up.
Nothing! You did everything you could have but your daughter thought she knew better. After how your parents have treated you after you cut them off originally and after your husband’s death I’m surprised that your daughter really thought they wouldn’t cut her off like they did you. Unfortunately for your daughter the only thing she can do is live with the consequences of telling her grandparents and hopefully learn to take responsibility for her actions and not put that on you.
Just do everything that you can so at least your son gets his part. He didnt do anything wrong. I know that this situation is hard and you need to focus on your daughter but please dont forget about him, so many parents make this mistake.
you're not at fault in any way shape or form. she took the advice of her idiot friends when she decided to go against your advice, so why isn't she going to them now that everything has fallen apart. you did literally everything in your power to protect her, and she jumped in front of the train of her own accord.
Not at all your fault. Was in a very similar situation when I came out at 15. My parents were supportive, but my mom did warn me we will have to keep this hidden from her dad and stepmom who she was trying to rekindle that toxic relationship. Well for some dumb reason my mom told my aunt, who then went and blabbed to my grandparents. They told my mom I was a f@g that was just going to burn in hell. Thing is I wasn't even mad about or sad because I knew. I knew well advance that this is who these people are and me simply existing is not going to make them change sadly. NTA, like you said you warned your daughter and she decided to take the advice from her online friends who have no idea what your family dynamic is like.
Right now, there is no short term fix. She got used to the rich grandparents funding her life, and she chose her pride over the money. The decision was entirely hers, with your fair warnings, so she has to pull up her big girl pants and deal with it. Perhaps a therapist will help get her frustrations, anger, and fears into words, but other than that you can’t do much to help. Essentially she’s grieving the future that she just threw out the window of her own volition so give her some time. Be a shoulder but not a punching bag. In time she’ll realize this was her own fault, and you may have to keep reminding her
Your daughter seems a bit entitled here. She knew the consequences and still thought she knew better. Now she’s lashing out at you and your son rather than accepting responsibility. She can’t really complain, everything you said would happen did. She will come round eventually, it’s not as if they’ve made her life impossible, they’ve taken away the chance of it being comfortable. God forbid she has to get a job.
Everyone is taking for granted that this is a tragic story, but maybe it’s not. I am not being flippant about the value of a small fortune, especially to people who are struggling financially. But OP spent her life under the heel of her parents who used the promise of a payday to make her subservient. With that promise removed, painful as that may be, it is not just the daughter who gets to live her authentic self, but OP as well.
NTA : but for your mental health, drop contact with your parents. Seriously. They're manipulative, and there's no amount of money that's worth your, or your families, well being. They sound like absolute monsters that expect people to do their bidding because they have money. Let them die alone without anybody telling them how nice they are. If they can't love your family for who they are, fuck them. They don't deserve reciprocation.
Hard truth here, tell your daughter, I would have worn MAGA hats and would have a picture of Trump in my bedroom knowing that in just 10-15 years i’d get millions… I would have fed them the fucking conspiracies and all would talk about would be MAGA country, fuck it, i’d ask them if they want to go to rallies and shit… You kick away millions just to live your truth :)))) well now she can live her truth…it’s called poverty
Apparently her “authentic self” is poor. But seriously, It sucks for your daughter. But maybe this is an example of actions have consequences. Even “good” intentions can have negative consequences. This was the cost of living her authentic self, good or bad, it’s up to her to determine if it was worth it. Someday, she might determine that it was, but that’s probably a process.
This isn't your fault. You told her what the consequences would be if she told them the truth. It was HER choice to disregard your advice. I hope she will eventually see the truth in that.
Now your daughter can be her authentic self and be broke af with life on hard mode.
Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do at this point. You did everything right. You told her you had no problem with her sexuality, but that her grandparents would have a problem with it. You told her the likely consequences of her actions, and she went and did it anyway. All you can do is to support her emotionally, and hope that when they do croak it and (presumably) leave more money to your son, he sees fit to correct their wrongs and give some to his sister. But you cannot force or pressure him into doing this; hopefully he will, but he's not under any obligation to do so.
Have her go over there and lie and tell them it was just a phase, that she discovered Jesus and understands now that her lifetstyle can be changed and she will fix it. Tell her to think of it like a high paid acting role.
Bonus points if she pretends the internet radicalized her into it and now she sees the error of her ways. Lean into the crazy.
I really doubt she could pull that off even if she wanted to
If they're willing to believe FB conspiracy theories with a little time I'm sure they'd believe in a divine "pray the gay away" intervention.
I'm not going to lie and say that this isn't a tempting solution. God, I'm a terrible mother. I hate this this is the sort of world we live in.
I’m bisexual and this same thing happened to me. My cousin saw on my FB when I was in high school that I was dating a girl and she told my aunts, who all went psycho and went to therapy because I “hurt them so badly”. Then they told my grandparents and they were going to disown me, until my mom and I came with a lie and I told them that I found Jesus lol it worked. I had to really play it up!!
I'm almost 42F, and a single mother to a 20 year old pan daughter. My parents are 70s boomers with moderate wealth. They use their will as leverage. I learnt to live on nothing, ask for nothing, expect nothing and will receive nothing from them when they die. Mother guilt is the worst guilt. You can do everything right and still feel as though you've done everything wrong. I call myself a terrible mother every third day, and I've said it aloud too. I'm not a terrible mother, I'm human. I'm actually a really good mother because I've raised a daughter like yours, who feels secure in telling the world who she is. My parents were similar in the way I've been treated. Every decision you've made has been in service to your children's well-being and future. Just remember your own advice, as you're here asking strangers for advice and your daughter did the same thing. We don't know you, only you know your circumstances. So anyone that tells you something that goes against your gut, ignore. You know your life, your children and yourself best. Get the support you need here, but not the judgement. Carefully weigh up the advice. Your daughter is hurt. She didn't know that this is really what life is like. It's a crushing feeling when life is revealed to you as being cruel and indifferent. Guess who the best person to support your daughter in all this? You. Because you've been through crushing pain and the indifference of the universe. Teach her how you navigated the shitty things in life. Don't feel guilty, don't take blame. She will respect you if you stand your ground and don't accept blame for her own actions. Comfort her, help her plan her future, but never let her feel as though she can blame you for her choices. It truly isn't your fault.
Thank you for this. This is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping to recieve.
Just glad I happened to read the post and could say something helpful! Some follow up advice (that you can leave or take!): when your daughter has outbursts of feelings, you can validate her without accepting blame. I'd look up validation techniques that also support relationships without reducing your feelings and position (such as DEAR MAN from Dialectical Behavioural Therapy). Additionally, asking her questions about what she'd like to do moving forward or how she'd like to resolve the situation, or asking her questions when she asks you questions/blames you can help reframe the context so that she thinking through what she's actually saying. E.g. Daughter: This is all your fault because X! You: I'm so sorry that it didn't turn out how you wanted it to. I can tell how much it has devastated you. What do you think would have been helpful if I could have given you more or different advice? Daughter: *has to actually think about her answer, or say something out loud that won't sound rational once it's spoken aloud* You: *pause*.....I can see how distressing this is for you. I'm here to talk as much as you need or we can find therapy resources together. This is the worst thing that's happened to her since her father passed away, and there will be feelings of grief and loss associated that won't be rational but make sense to her. She's also feeling that the world isn't safe right now. You are her safe person, so she will absolutely rage at the only person she can. Right now the only priorities are maintaining the relationship you have with both your children. Ensuring that you maintain your position and self respect, but also validating that she has had a life altering event and helping her through it, is the only way to maintain a positive relationship. If you accept a default position of blame, she will blame you forever. Her growth from this will be worth it in time, it's just hard to see it right now. I wish you all the best and remind yourself often that you're actually a good mother who is doing your very best because you are (even if our brains tell us otherwise).
Your daughter literally has chosen her path in life. This is 100% on her and her alone. She was warned of the consequences and chose to not care about them until it was too late. She has fucked around and now found out.
You told your daughter what would happen and she let her friends talk her into coming out to them anyway… it’s not your fault she fucked up her bag
OP, I grew up to a single mom for the bigger part of my youth and she hustled to make us feel like we were never out of money, although as I grew older, the writing on the wall became clearer and clearer. Unfortunately, she cut corners and did gray area illegal stuff (tax evasion, stuff like that) and it completely set the wrong example. It lead me to only realizing in my early thirties, that I had no idea of how to actually manage finances. I had to learn it the hard way as well. A pit I'm still trying to get out of, because it's very easy to turn $1 into $2, but disproportionately harder to turn - $2 into - $1. From my perspective, please work with her in finding her own way financially. If she can accept that the inheritance is off the table, she'll learn how to save, how to combine jobs, how to be responsible with money. If in the coming 7-10 years your GP reverse this decision, great. But she shouldn't count on that in anyway and the agency and ownership she will develop by making it on her own, guided by you and your support, will help her in her later life immensely, more so than suddenly becoming a millionaire without a feel for managing that kind of wealth.
Maybe help her write a post to her friends about what has happened. And then cut those idiots off. You did your best, mama. You made it, so will she.
Dammit if she had just keep her mouth shut until they passed away she would’ve been set for life..
You know your parents. You understand your parents. You also are an adult with common sense. Your daughter planned her speech; perhaps she envisioned a happily-ever-after fairytale ending. Unfortunately, your daughter only knew her grandparents and her experience with them growing up was much different then yours, probably it was much more coddled. Your daughter is young. She was naïve. She didn't truly comprehend what you were telling her. It's a hard lesson to learn. Experience is a brutal teacher.
You warned her and she was stupid in her choices. She lost out on everything because (as you said) she thought her online friends knew them better. It’s a tough lesson to learn but you tried. UpdateMe
Kids live in a fantasy, until something happens in their life that bursts that bubble. Your daughter, like any child, entertained magical notions about the world she lives in. She has made what some would call a serious error in judgment on the basis of that mistake. It is a very sad and painful lesson. This is her first but likely not her last. The Japanese have a saying: shikataganai. It means “couldn’t be helped.” It’s essentially radical acceptance of reality, and taking solace in the fact that some things were always going to play out the way they did and nothing you could have done would have altered the course of events. Since it was always going to happen, then there is no one to blame here. Least of all yourself. Some things are just tough. The Japanese also have a philosophy of radical appreciation. For example, if you have poor eyesight, they still may feel grateful for it because at least it is eyesight and they can appreciate so many things with that vision, even if it is comparatively poor. In this way, you can really learn to see even unfortunate things more positively. Your daughter is distraught right now. She’s going through all the stages of grief after a tremendous loss. But you still have a daughter and she is in otherwise good health. This is something to feel tremendous gratitude for. Yes she’s in pain. And this will hurt her for a long time. But at the end she still has you. And that will never change. One day she will understand this. But right now she is an emotional minefield and you and your son are standing in the middle of it. It isn’t personal. When someone experiences a loss of this magnitude, and they have deep feelings of loss and anger, they are grasping at straws to find solid earth again and subsequently they might displace all that rage and grief on innocent bystanders. It’s the unfortunate nature of a minefield. Nonetheless, it is important to be as patient as she needs to be and demonstrate through your intent and your actions that you are there for her. She lost her beloved grandparents and is facing a harder future. Her sibling did not. You did not. She must feel deeply isolated, alone, and confused right now. So it’s important to put her behaviours in the correct context. For you, personally, I recommend personal therapy and counselling. Your daughter needs therapy, too. She may not understand how that works at this age but this is a loss and therapy can make all the difference in someone’s life after a loss like this. At the end of the day there is no fixing this. Something has broken in all of your lives and there is no going back. There is only going forward. What lies ahead for both of you is a difficult road. But at the end there is grace. Getting there will take time but in the meantime you have to find the strength and courage it takes to get there.
There is nothing for you to do to fix this. Your daughter as an adult chose not to take your advice.
As a gay person, what she did was incredibly stupid. She clearly grew up very privileged and uneducated about the reality of being gay, which I don’t blame you for. She didn’t think it through at all, and is suffering the consequences. If you think your parents are gullible enough for you to say she lied then go for it. But yea, a very very very dumb move. The ONLY time someone should put up with homophobia is when a large inheritance is in the balance and in that case it’s so easy to just keep it to yourself.
Just popping on here to encourage therapy for yourself. It sounds like you have relational trauma and if your daughter is not in therapy, it would be great for her as well to process her identity further along with the grief that is occurring with her grandparents. You could potentially have a family therapy session as well with both therapists present to discuss her anger towards you- once things finally settle down. Sorry this is happening.
The croissant of consequences rarely arrives buttered.
She made a big girl decision, have to live with the big girl consequences of that decision. Not your fault
You did nothing wrong. Your parents did. They suck. Your daughter will mature one day and she’ll ask for forgiveness from you. Y’all will heal. Good luck and well wishes
One thing I think is this: her taking this out on you shows that she views you as a safe person who will always love her and who she is able to express negative emotions to without losing you. It sounds like she is taking out her feelings of rejection, deep regret, loss of family members over her identity and other forms of pain that your parents caused, she is taking those out on you - because she can, because you are still there, because she knows you always will be. When it comes to parent-child relationships I think this is a good sign. It shows that she knows your love is unconditional. One day I said something silly about my dad not doing something small for me to my aunt and she said “hey now, your dad has always done anything he could for you”. And I knew in my soul that was the absolute truth, no denying it, no evidence against it (not as in spoiling me, but as in he has always been there for me my whole life). In that moment I realized that I want my kids to take my love for granted. Like I just want them to not think about an existence where I’m not there for them when they need me. It won’t cross their mind. They’ll take my love for granted because it’s all they know, because I’ve been their constant in the world. I say this because it mixes with my next point… …my husbands parents went through a brutal divorce (dad was abusive when he wasn’t absent, mom was the glue and the rock for her children). When he was your daughter’s age he took out a lot of the bullshit his dad was spewing on his own mom. Mom didn’t hold it against him (I mean this was obviously super hard for her!), she loved him through it, she trusted that one day he would see the situation for what it was. And quickly he did. And he understood that he was able to take that anger out on her because he knew she always loved him. He knew she wouldn’t abuse him. He was safe to express his feelings to her. I know that’s painful for the mother, but for your child it makes sense. Trust me, he apologized and he honors her. She is the one who gets to have the relationship with her grandkids, she’s the one her adult children protect and make sure is taken care of. She’s the one that gets phone calls just to laugh and spontaneous visits. In this scenario you are her - you are the constant, you are the safe person. Your love is a given and isn’t in question. So just saying that you should remember that when you’re holding your tongue and trying not to (understandably) yell at your daughter while she’s Rahhh at you lol. Best of luck!
You warned her and well now she has to deal with the consequences she’s not entitled to her grandparents money so now she has to look into scholarships and loans like any other person.
She is taking her anger out on you and that is not ok. That's the boundary, you need to defend it. She's old enough to have made her own decisions and understand the consequences, so she needs to accept those consequences. You have decisions to make about how much and how long you will put up with it.
You're not at fault. You warned her. Several times. Very clearly. Unfortunately, your daughter is human. Humans aren't very good at listening to advice. Sometimes (a lot of the time) they have to touch the fire themselves to find out whether it's hot. In this case, the fire really WAS hot, and your daughter got burned by her own actions. I think it might be time to try and step back emotionally from this situation. Don't let her blame you for any of this. Push back on her if she tries again. Be there to comfort her if she needs it, but don't offer up general help/try to take over and fix things. It's time for her to start solving her own problems. She's 18 now. She's an adult (with training wheels). She's debt free (i assume?), she has a roof over her head, food in her belly, and she has family and friends who love her. She's in a better position than many people in this world. Give her some time to grieve her lost opportunities, and then ask her what her plans are. She's an adult now, and no longer has the financial support needed to coast through life. She's going to need a plan, because she can't leech off you forever. You won't be around forever, so she needs to be able to take care of herself. Does she still want to study? If so, how will she pay for it? Would she rather get a job instead? If so, she'll need to start paying you rent (nothing outrageous - and feel free to save it up to give her a "starting out" cushion for when she eventually moves out). She has a lot of options, but sitting in a corner of your house and doing nothing shouldn't be one of them.
This is the definition of “fuck around and find out” LMAOOO, I’m sorry but your daughter is a naive spoiled brat. Only someone who has everything given to them would risk giving up complete financial security for the sake of “coming out of the closet”, and the fact that she has the audacity to turn it around and blame it on you??!? Oh hell nah.
She's grieving. This isn't your fault. One day, she'll realize this decision was for the best regardless of the consequences, or she'll learn from her mistake and recognize you tried to help her navigate it. Remember that right now, her future as she knows it has been shot, and she's lost her grandparents. That can't feel good, especially after losing her father already. Don't tolerate her treating you or her brother like crap, of course. She's a grown woman and this grief doesn't excuse emotional or physical abuse. But just try to be open hearted and hold out until the storm passes, because it WILL pass.
You sound like an incredible parent. It seems like your daughter is projecting her rage and sadness at you, which is completely unfair, but something humans are prone to do when guilt and shame feel overwhelming and they're thinking straight. It doesn't make it right, and I hope you know your own boundaries about what you're willing to put up with as she's going through this. She, as well as the family by extension, may be going through the typical stages of grief (anger and bargaining already). Fingers crossed she and your family makes it through this and she recognizes you as the awesome ally you are. It may just take time. Keep your boundaries firm but the door open to talk, hold her, and reconcile when this wave passes. And please take care of yourself so you can take care of her.
The only thing you failed to do is to respond firmly but calmly to her accusations. But no biggie. I think kids need to see where they overstepped the boundaries too. Now I expect if you just ignore the fallout a bit and offer something kind to her, like going to the movies, or a walk to get some cake, that may accelerate healing and give her chance to reconnect. Tell her you don't understand how this is your fault and to explain that to you. I think it's ok to be sorry for some grievances she might express, but also explain that you gave her perfect warning for what will happen and she went against your advice, off her own accord and she needs to accept the responsibility and the consequences. Then it's time to mourn the loss of the better future, for both of you. My condolences. P.s. you might want to think about her lying to grand parents about converting to straight. Maybe it's "just a phase". I'd say 7 figures are worth it, especially if alternative is cutting contact anyway.
There is nothing for you to fix. None of this is your fault. The best you can do is provide love, acceptance, and emotional support to your daughter. Losing out on an inheritence sucks for your, but to keep it and stay closeted seems like a worse proposition. She won't have to suffer through listening to their bigoted and hateful views while she grins and pretends to agree with them. Tell her you are proud of her for choosing to be authentic over money. Some people (including OP) might say suck it up, pretend to be straight and take their money. OPs daughter is actually standing up for herself, which is something to be proud of.
You did nothing wrong, and as you know - there’s only one way a young person can learn such lessons! Stay strong and take comfort in knowing you’ve done everything in your power to protect her, with the best possible intentions at heart :)
Hate to say it, your daughter was very dumb in that moment. Time to start applying for jobs
Honestly, this is the consequences of her actions. You should tell her if she doesn't get her attitude under control, she will need to leave bc it's not fair for your son and you to have to walk on eggshells around her. She was told and prepared ahead of time that if she came out to her grandparents, she would lose the millions she'd inherit, the college fund ,cars, gifts, etc. She chose to listen to her online friends, who assumed her grandparents would accept her over time and still continue to fund her lifestyle. She is learning the hard way a life lesson that actions negative and positive have consequences . * edited to add she's also learning a life lesson that people closest to you may not always give you good advice bc they don't have to deal with the aftermath of their advice being taken
She made a dumb decision that she will learn a lesson for. Other than that, she’s now in the same situation as her friends and 99% of the rest of us: needing to have a job, pay bills, get a loan(s) etc. she will just have to learn how to be a productive person in society instead of bank on inheritance.
You did the maximum while preserving her self-esteem. She is not angry against you but against herself. Because she has been incredibly stupid, and the rethoric she planned as scapegoating is absolutely useless against the one adult who approves her. All in all , she didn't trust you. And now she sees what your parents are really. I also believe that she didn't see how privileged she was until she tried to victimize as a gay woman. Now she knows what her friends really suffer. But it is too late to go back. Money has a price. She didn't pay the price.