'It often takes time for adult children to adjust to seeing their parents separate from their past lives together as a family.'
Although your adult child is in an adult body, a “younger child” is inside her adult body. She may be in pain and grieving all she has lost. If you are dating, the child part may have strong, uncomfortable feelings about you dating.
Avoid expecting your adult child to adjust and accept your dating immediately. She will likely need time to adjust, just as a younger child would. You and her other parent have been a parental unit for her entire life, so it may be difficult to see you with someone new. All the years your family was together envelope your adult child's formative years and define her identify.
Twenty-year-old Samuel repeatedly told his mother, who was the one who filed for divorce, “It’s your life. Do whatever you want. You already have anyhow. Go ahead and be happy, as you say you deserve to be. And stop telling me I should be happy for you. I don’t want any part of your dating, and I don't want to hear about it. Just pretend I don’t exist, which you already do anyway. I'm done with you telling me I should be happy for you.
Such anger and withdrawal can arise from his frustration that it seems you have discarded him and your past family life together while he is still mourning the losses. Understand that he is grieving the loss of his intact family, the family home, and a place to bring his children one day and share the nest where he grew up.
Eliminate shoulds: “You should be happy for me…You shouldn’t be sad. You shouldn’t be angry.” Feelings simply are. Your adult children may not be as happy as you are about your new life. You are focusing your energy on moving away from your past life with your adult child's other parent and toward your future. Your adult child is looking backward at what she is losing from her past and what will always be her past, not her future.
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