Carolyn Hax: Don’t assume fight with adult daughter was over nothing

Q: We have an adult daughter who lives many time zones away and visits maybe once a year. She came over for Christmas, and everyone was having a grand time, or so I thought, until she picked a petty fight with me over nothing.

I was blindsided and hurt, and I pushed back, civilly. In retrospect, I could have just dismissed the whole situation, but in the moment I didn’t.

And then, somehow, the tables turned and she was the one royally offended at me and my reaction, and demanding an apology for ruining it for everyone. For what it’s worth, nobody else thought I had ruined anything. I would have apologized if I had known what for, but I didn’t know. As far as I know, all I did was show that I was hurt at the unprovoked lashing out. When I asked what I had done, all I got was eye-rolling and hostility.

The visit ended with her saying she won’t come back until I have “a solution so this doesn’t keep happening,” the implication being that this is a recurring issue.

I am still crying when I think about it, and can’t offer solutions to a problem I don’t understand. I think I am the wronged party here and eager to forgive and forget. What is my next move?

— The Wronged Party

A: The brave move would be to enlist the help of a trained and objective third party to walk through this story with you — and its backstory, too — turning over every unchallenged assumption, every rock, in search of other possible interpretations of what was said.

If you look at all these other angles with an open mind, then I expect you’ll find more productive solutions than “Let’s just forget this till next year.”

So, for example, “a petty fight” over “nothing”: perfect hiding places for other perspectives. (Define “nothing.”) That you “pushed back, civilly” is another rock. (Define “civilly.”) That you “could have” opted not to react but “didn’t.” (Do you ever back down with her?)

Other rocks: That your daughter was “royally offended” (hurt?), and “nobody else” agreed with her “unprovoked lashing out,” but you’ll “forgive and forget.” (Scapegoating, perhaps? Which you don’t admit?)

Flip all those rocks, and we might connect a hypothetical frustrated adult child’s point of view:

“Mom repeated [something] dissing [the one belief I have that deviates from family orthodoxy], which by the way is WHY I moved far away. Unbelievable! And when I objected, she accused me of getting upset over ‘nothing,’ so insulting. When she flatly refused to back down, looking to everyone to back her up like I’m the family freak again, that did it. I told her I won’t come back if I’m always the problem.”

Just throwing out one possibility. Here’s another one, abridged: Adult kid is struggling with (unexpressed thing that is not nothing, it’s just unknown to you), and Mom is the safe, albeit unfair, place to let all the pent-up anxieties rip.

These examples, by the way, can be both sympathetic and un- based on details.

Or maybe your holiday unraveled for some other reason. But dismissing your kid’s grievance as “nothing” would tank pretty much every parent-child hypothetical, so I’m hoping you’ll see the value of getting professional eyes on your whole family dynamic.

Your kid “lives many time zones away and visits maybe once a year.” Work, money and travel hassles can cause that, sure — but a “recurring issue” can, too. At some point, doesn’t it become a problem in itself for you to call it “a problem I don’t understand”?

• Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, or chat with her online at 11 a.m. Central time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.

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