Losing teenage daughter

Glitterfish, I share your sentiment and understand completely what you feeling. I shared a bit about my own unique experience in the following thread:

https://forum.emptyclosets.com/index.php?threads/bittersweet-graduation.457432/

You need to play the "long game" sort to speak as you evaluate your situation. And try not to look at it from your perspective, but instead look at it from your daughters perspective.

I do trust her father is getting her the proper medical care, this will be important. Even so, be sure to take actions today which will keep the door open for your daughter to come back to you when she is ready to come back to you. She needs to know that you love her, but she needs to sort through her emotions in her own way and on her own timetable.

 

I understand your fears, and it's admirable that you won't leave if it's going to hurt your daughter, but i question whether staying in a relationship that's not working is really the best option here?

I come from a divorced family and as much as it hurt when my dad left, in the long run, and looking back now, i can see that it was the best thing that could have happened. My mum and dad weren't happy and now, some 20 years later they are both in better places.

Your daughter is struggling right now and i understand that you worry the upheaval will make things worse, but your daughter has to be the one to work through things herself. With your support obviously. But ultimately, whether you stay or go, she needs to be the one to do it. I say this as someone who still to this day struggles with self harm. No one person can make you stop, it has to come from you, you have to work through your feelings on your own time. You can still be a supportive person in her life, even if you aren't with her dad.

Does your daughter go to therapy at all? I definitely think it would be worthwhile if she doesn't already. It certainly helped me so much in my teenage years, and i still to this day regularly see my therapist.

Take care

 

Communication is the key word here, you have to sit with her and have a long and honest talk.
You can ignore your feelings for a while, but not for a lifetime, this is the kind of emotional charge that triggers great stress on the human body and mind which, consequently, leads to various diseases; your altruism is admirable, but everyone deserves to be happy, including you.
My parents divorced when I was 14, and I knew that my mother wasn't abandoning me, she was simply abandoning my father, I know that many teenagers would not have the same perspective as me, but due to the fact that we had an open and honest communication many things were cleared at the time, and that's the most important part, you love her and it's with her that you need to have a honest talk...
In my case at 14 I was very shy and suffered from low self-esteem, but I still understood the situation, my parents divorced, my mother left home and went to live with her boyfriend, I wanted to live with her, but being a very shy teen I wouldn't feel comfortable living with a stranger (her boyfriend), so a few years later when I had enough confidence and wasn't so shy I finally went to live with her , the world doesn't end because of these things, we've always kept in touch - phone calls etc
In other words what I'm saying is - my mother didn't give up on her happiness just because she had children (me and my brother), and everything worked out for the better in the end.
You said she's having a hard time, so now is the best time to clean everything up once and for all, so you sit down and talk about everything and anything you need to say to each other, so you'll understand her better and vice versa ^^