Adult child possible love bombing/discarding cycle

[OverHere]

Would someone please give me a talk about my adult child confusing me?  They were out of my life for a very long time and their other parent, my ex, has the hallmarks of a parental alienator with uNPD. Now my child is much, much closer geographically and we text intermittently but it's clear they don't want to see me in person.  How can I work this out?

I try medium chill but don't always succeed.

[OverHere]

PS I have "lost" my other adult children to parental alienation, sorry I should have mentioned that.

[notrightinthehead]

If I understand you correctly, you have adult children and are in intermittent contact via text with one of them. No contact with the others.
Medium chill is a strategy when a person is coming on too strong and trying to push you to do or say things you don't want to. It's cooling down a relationship.
Do you want to cool down the relationship with the one child you are texting with intermittently?

[OverHere]

notrightinthehead thank you, no I absolutely do not, however my experience with the others has been that the harder I try, the more they retreat.  If I express affection towards this adult child, it seems to just give them strength to chase after their other parent harder and they give me the punishment they fear giving to their other parent who has upset them.

At one point when my child felt I was being particularly empathetic towards them, they said something like "I now see that my other parent has always wanted to treat me very well and I have not been letting them do that".  But actually the other parent threatens and devalues them all the time and they report being upset by that.

I'm so confused. This whole thing has been going on for about 25 years.

[notrightinthehead]

I agree. This is totally confusing.

I have always found that when I cannot make sense of what others are doing, I focus on my own feelings and behavior. And I behave in a way that is according to my values and my feelings.

[xredshoesx]

i feel deeply for your situation.  i think the best advice is to leave the door open for a deeper relationship with your one child and keep texting.  you may never get the answers you seek that led them to be estranged from you via their other parent but you may in time be able to have a more close parent/ child relationship with them.  with my real dad time told me the truth about what my mother lied about- and time has healed some of the rift we had between my dad and i. 

best to you- it's a marathon, not a sprint

[OverHere]

notrightinthehead thank you, that is something.  I texted them with the equivalent of "Just saying hi" a few days ago, as it was 2 weeks since I heard anything, and after a day or two of nothing, there was a little texting chitchat.  It felt good in the moment, but a day or two later, I started to feel confused again, and I think it is because, when the person is acting as if they don't want to see you (repeatedly cancelling IRL meetups they themselves suggested so you give up responding to it) the texting doesn't carry a "this is just a stopgap till we can meet again" message.  Instead it seems to be saying "I want to have you, but I don't want you to have me".

Feeling: sad and used, apprehensive   Thank you again

[OverHere]

xredshoes that's nice and I am so glad you are seeing through the lies now.  Thank you for the kind words