Dear Freddie,

I’ve tried to get her to open up about her daughter throughout the years but she just seems to give short answers and it never felt like the whole picture. I know her pregnancy was traumatic and the father has never been on the scene.

I can understand if she’s been traumatized by the whole experience, which might be a part of the reason why she is reluctant to be in touch with her daughter. But even if so, she would need treatment for that, talk it out in therapy, since being estranged from her daughter isn’t a healthy thing. And also, there must be a reason her parents obtained permanent guardianship of their granddaughter. But she refuses to talk about it.

That’s unacceptable in my books, and even if there is some big trauma involved, she’d need to show some willingness to work on it. Keeping it a secret and pretending it’s not there doesn’t solve a problem. And it shows she isn’t really willing to open up about it to anyone, including you.

She would say that for that type of conversation she needed advanced notice, which kinda sounded like she needed time to prepare answers she thought I would want to hear, not necessarily the whole truth.

Right… of perhaps it meant the conversation is so triggering for her that she’d need special preparation. However, the fact is that she never allowed this conversation to happen, and never tried to work on the potential trauma with a therapist. So it’s like a tightly sealed box which she refuses to open. Definitely not healthy, specially since it may have repercussion on your relationship and the potential child you may have together. So again, it’s not a trivial thing and not something you should just look away from.