My (45f) daughter (22f) wants to move back home and I just can't

Storytime:

Around the time my sister hit puberty, she became highly antagonistic, dismissive of others, and overly emotional. Far more so than your usual teenager. Anything set her off, either into a rage spiral, or a sobbing hysterical mess. Most teenagers grow out of it by the end of high school. My sister didn't.

I still remember one time when she was home for the summer after her first year of college, my mom was cooking dinner when my sister came downstairs announcing that she wanted McDonald's for dinner. When my mom told her no, since she was already making dinner, my sister collapsed to the ground and began sobbing hysterically.

Nothing changed for years. Not until she graduated from college, and she wanted to move back home. Similar to your daughter.

Let me tell you something about my mom. She can be very passive, absolutely dreads conflict, tries to make everybody happy, often to her own detriment, or asking the less difficult people to make a sacrifice to avoid the more difficult person (like my sister).

So, when my sister asked her about coming home after graduation, my mom simply told her, "Ok, you can move home, but you have to do something to stop being such a fucking bitch all the time."

After that, she took my sister to the doctor who put her on some sort of medication to help her with her extreme moods. To this day, a decade later, I still don't know what meds they put her on. But it worked, sort of. She can still be antagonistic, dismissive, and overly emotional. But she has calmed down a lot, and she throws tantrums far less often than she used to.

You need to be direct with your daughter about the problems she's causing in your home, and she needs to make active moves to fix them. Whether she goes on some sort of medication like my sister, or she goes to therapy, maybe even cognitive behavioral therapy, to work on the way she interacts with your family. If she refuses, then tell her that she cannot move in.

/r/relationships Thread