To be utterly shocked at my friend leaving her family...

[threeinmybed]

I can't believe this is happening, I can't believe I'm posting about this... Been hanging about for a few hours trying to work up the courage and trying to word is post right.
Longtime poster, serial name changer so please bear with me.

My best friend of about 15 years has just upped and left her family. She has a husband and two children (one boy of 3 and a baby girl of 10 months). It happened totally out of the blue, and I did not see it coming at all. I actually work with her DH, who is as shocked as anyone.

We last saw one another on Sunday, for lunch. It was just she and I, and she seemed happy enough but a bit distracted. She said that she and her DH had been going through a rough patch and marriage was just such bloody hard work; she felt too young for all this etc. She asked me if I ever thought about just buggering off somewhere, leaving and never coming back. I laughed and said yes, in my worst moments I did and made a stupid joke out of it. I can't even remember what I said now, it seemed so trivial at the time. She said later on that she'd never seen herself being like this five years ago. I asked if there was anything I could help with, she just brushed it off and said 'nah, I'll get over myself!' like it was a joke and we just carried on chatting.

Yesterday, I was on a team building day at work and I got a text message that said not to worry, but that she was safe and she'd be in touch really soon. I was in the middle of no where so I couldnt call her back. I got home later in the afternoon to find her DH standing at my door, in an absolute state. He said they'd had an argument the night before and that she said she was leaving and not coming back, she wanted a divorce and she couldn't take the kids anymore, not one more second of them. She said she was happy to pay her way for them, but this wasn't the life she wanted and she was sorry.

I should say at this point that she did have PND going back about 8 months ago. But her DH interjected quickly, and she got the treatment she needed. She cited this as well apparently, saying the AD's had helped her see clearly for the first time in years.

When the initial craziness had calmed down, and her DH had gone back home I called my friend, who pretty much confirmed all her DH had said. She said that she was seeing clearly now, she'd not been happy for a while and that being a Mum just wasn't what she wanted. She's happy to pay maintenance for them, but she's not sure about visitation rights etc, maybe when she gets settled she can see the kids at my house? It seems she's been thinking this over for a while. I'm distraught. For her poor family, even myself a bit. I'm cross at myself too. Why didn't I talk to her more on Sunday? Push the issue a bit?

She is staying at her sisters who is a few counties away. Far enough, anyway. I don't know what else to say... I can't think of any other information right now. I couldn't think of anything else to say to her. Please help, I don't actually know what advice to give, or how to help right now. My friend and her DH are a massive part of our lives.

Is she in contact with her DH?

I would not press her at all right now for that type of decision.

People in the past did become unable to cope, it was often referred to as a 'nervous breakdown'. However calm and rational she appears, it is unlikely a mother would leave both her children and refuse to come back without some type of huge internal crisis. Women (and men) also went off and had 'episodes' (e.g. going to their mothers for a while). It is not even that unusual for people to just disappear.

The way back in has to be left open. There's nothing wrong with saying she's gone for a rest as an explanation. I think thinking about practical stuff like him coping on his own just sets up a situation in which she can't come back. I would continue to deal with it as a massive existential/emotional crisis, one that will be resolved very soon. Practicalites will have to wait, there's no sense in pushing her into a corner with talk of benefits and making a life without her. She has to see that the option to just get up and go and have no contact is not an option. It really isn't. You can't do that when you have children (or at least I couldn't be friends with someone who did, just as I couldn't be with a male partner who abandonded his children).

She probably doesn't know herself if it is a permanent or temporary situation. If DH pushes her to decide now, she may feel forced to say it is permanent. And that would make it very difficult for her to come back.

Her DH will need to know her plans for the future, but I really think that discussion shoulld be postponed for at least a week or two.

And try and support her to see her kids as soon as possible. I honestly think the longer it is till she sees her kids, the easier it could be for her just to walk away completely.

could the h get an aupair or live in nanny? or put 10 month in nursery full time with the 3 year old?

doesnt make sense to leave his job really... he shouldnt do this wihtout clear thinking

seems drastic to leave his job.

why cant he do an online shop? i mean it is nice of you to get stuff for him from M and S but surely online shop is easier? talk him thru it if needs be - and if the mother is there she can help shop for basics?

he could set up weekly online from tesco.com with all essentials then next time is easy to just add shopping list.

if he does leave job then its benefits/HB etc - maybe as single parent he will get more WTC etc? and maybe some HB?
and he could speak to his work about less travel?

when my exP had his MH crisis and evetually i got him to leave to his home country, i had six weeks off work it was enough time to get organized and set up childcare to go back to work (exP had been SAHD) .

leaving his job /moving house sounds like a really bad idea - take a long term view. better a single working parent in a good job than not, long term.

i think you shoudl all assume she not coming back or certainly not into full time mum role for a while.

he needs to set himself up as a single full-time working parent.

it can be done.

practicalities are childcare, childminder/au pair/nanny/nurseries and being organised like weekly online shops - and having friends like you who can help with the DC on occasions.

child informaiton line at council for nursery and childminder lists .

Have to say, as much as I can understand the reasoning behind leaving the door open for her to come back at any time, it does sound like it simply won't be possible for her husband to manage on his own on an ongoing basis either financially or practically and it will not help him one bit to spiral into debt because he is unable to work his current job and possibly pay the rent waiting and hoping she will come back when it is entirely possible that she won't.

Although it might make it harder for her to come back, alternatively it could give her a kick up the arse to think about how serious she really is if she sees her husband is going about sorting his and the kids life out without her.

I wasn't suggesting that they be made homeless to prove the point, simply that if they just get in a nanny/claim as a single parent within a couple of weeks of her crisis/leaving, it's basically saying what she suspected all along, that they don't need her and will do fine without her, which they absolutely won't, the children will be devastated for ever. So, personally, without leaving them destitute, I would continue to see this as a 'episode' and not as a rational sensible choice on her part, because it absolutely isn't. I would be very suprised if she just made a happy shiny new life for herself without looking back, I find it much more likely that she will have a massive nervous breakdown anytime soon.

Hardgoing, yes I totally appreciate you weren't suggesting they end up destitute.

I think I was just doing the maths in my head about how I would manage if my husband upped in the night tomorrow and I would have to move pretty quickly before I started having to get the credit cards out or loans because I simply would not be able to pay the mortgage without getting a new job / childcare in place / tax credits PDQ.

No idea about the husband's financial situation but I (perhaps wrongly) got the impression that things were pretty tight, so there may not be much of a grace period befor ethe husband finds himself in this situation.

whether she has a massive breakdown or has a shiny new life - the H needs to get used to coping with the practicalities on his own. in either scenario.

stuff happens.
if she has gone - they will have to cope.

people die/leave/separate all the time.

the reality is that life WILL go on without her.
none of us are totally indispensable. of course is is sad, of course Dc devastated (but at 3 and 10 months they will get used to the new reality)

H has two options - he gets family/friends support to cope - whether it short medium ro long term - or he eventually gives children up to foster care. sounds like he is hands on so he hardly likely to do that.

he will cope. dc will cope. their lives continue with or without mum.

families find ways to cope. they have to.
later the DC can get counselling and with family support they will cope. life goes on. it really does. the DC will grow up, play, learn.

my exP first had massive MH episode including violence to and in front of the dc, then was out of country for four months. we coped got into a routine. he returned, caused havoc, i moved with DC. again we coped. curently tehre is v little contact due to his severe MH and behaviour.

in this case - it is all new but the h has to deal with this - first, day by day (hour by hour even) focusing on the DC needs - they have to be fed, watered, bathed, played with. one foot in front of the other. really he ash to focus on him adn Dc right now. leave others to sort out the wife...she is, one asusmes, "safe" with her sister.

then as time goes by and the outcome becomes more evident (is this for ever?) make practical decisions which will pan out whether she stays away for ever; flits in and out; comes back having a breakdown -- or she "gets over it" and asks to come back into fammilyhome - but really, even if she does it aint gonna be the same again is it? not for a while anyway.

Norky - you really honestly are not alone there. And you are right - there is this huge social "Women do not do these things" stigma. And I guess for some women the only reason we DON'T do these things is because we are afraid of being judged by society. Not because we want to stay, not because we think the impact on our children's lives would be so great that it is worth the misery that we feel every day. Just because society says we cannot.

How old are your children? I have found that it does get better as they get older. There are days when my eldest was a baby that the only thing that stopped me abandoning him on a doorstep somewhere is the knowledge that my husband would come home from work and say "Oakie, where is the baby?". Otherwise I would gladly have pretended he had never been born. If I hadn't had the security of a relationship which I wanted to maintain with my husband, it would have been so much easier to just walk out on it all.

And actually, yes... I was depressed. But not so much that anyone outside my immediate family was really aware of it.

MY MUM WALKED OUT ON MY DAD WHEN I WAS 7 MY BROTHERS WERE 5 AND 3

she never came back we didnt see her for 2yrs then we saw her 1 saturday per month

threein - I think that you are feeling almost as betrayed by your friend's actions as her family are, hence you are having troubles dealing with it - I'm sure this has already occurred to you!

Whether she is ill or not, deadlines are not the way to go. If she is ill, the extra pressure of a deadline will make her worse; and if she's not ill, she's likely to take the easy option and go "never coming back, get used to it".

Of course it would be easier for all concerned to get some certainty back into the picture so that everyone knows how to move forward, but I think that you may all just have to accept a short period of floundering.

I am another one who doesn't like the sister's involvement and wonder what is behind it - she didn't come to the wedding, why? Does she hate your friend's DH? If so, she's hardly likely to encourage your friend to return to him. If she is single herself and having a good time being single, she is hardly likely to encourage your friend to go back to her life as wife and mother, especially if she (the sister) thinks little of those things.

I totally understand your reluctance to talk to your friend but I think you need to. You can tell her how hurt you are that she didn't confide in you - but of course, you would have tried to talk her out of this plan of action, which is probably why she didn't tell you. She didn't want to be talked out of it.

I have a friend here who is in a similar situation to you at the moment - another friend of hers has just walked out on her 2 DDs and her not-so-DH. She has gone off an is living in a hostel type place, hanging out with younger blokes, doing her own thing. Now, I know a bit about this woman's background and she has been looking after her half-siblings and step-siblings since she was about 16 - even has one of her younger sisters living with her. I believe in her case that she has just Had Enough - she missed out on living the life of the carefree and single when most people manage it, had her first DD at 20 and has been tied down ever since - so has broken out because she feels the need to. I don't condone it - especially as the DDs' father is a bit of a feckless wanker, this woman's father has to do part of the caring, my friend has to do some of it too or our equivalent of SS would be involved. But I can see how her life just got too much for her. I hope she will sort it out, get it out of her system and go back to her DDs - she is still seeing them, she is just not living at home.

I (afaik) did not suffer from PND but I also had days when I just thought "I can't bear this a moment longer, I am not good enough at this, DS would be better off without me" - don't most women? - but those thoughts for me were closely followed by "no, I could never voluntarily leave him without a mummy, even if I am a mean grumpy cow sometimes". I still have occasional moments like that and DS is nearly 4 (DH contributes to those moments quite heavily, I might add).

I'm probably not helping much - but I do think you need to see and speak to your friend away from the sister. And if she does seem very bright and chirpy about it, it may just all be brittle surface. she may be breaking in pieces underneath.

In the meantime, be supportive of the DH and the DC - but I would suggest you avoid offering him any advice ( in case things change and it backfires). Practical support, yes. Advice, no.

Hi everyone;

cest he will eventually have to leave his job; it involves a lot of travel and he cannot leave them alone. I agree a nanny would be a good solution; a live - in one would be a good idea. However, it would end up being more expensive since the nursery is a work - based one and heavily subsidised (sp?) I'm not sure if the extra benefits he would recieve would cover that. It's definately an idea worth looking into, and one I hadn't thought of.

I agree that acting too soon would push her away, but my friend's DH cannot carry on forever. He will soon start to struggle financially and mentally; I don't think it's fair to him to carry on like this indefinately. There has to be a point where he cracks on with this. He is broken hearted. DH spoke to me earlier and it appears that a lot of both families are questioning him along the lines of 'what have you done to her to make her do this?' Which obviosuly isn't that sympathetic. I think her family must think he's beaten her or abused her or something.

I'm swinging between being fairly relaxed and utterly insensed. As I said, I've had an aunt walk out on her children (my cousins) when they were young. Whilst she now has a good relationship with her son, the one between her and her daughter is utterly ruined. It's so horrible to see the strife it's caused.

And by the way; I'm not sugggesting in ANY WAY that suicide is a preferable option. I never suggested that! I just think there must be options before walking away.

And yeah, I do feel a bit betrayed, actually. I shared a lot with this person. A LOT. And clearly, she doesn't feel the same way about me. It's clear to me that whilst I will try my best to support her and her family; things can't go back to normal after this.

thumbwitch I think I am upset more than maybe I should be, because when I was struggling, there were so many times when I was in my car on my own and I just thought 'I could just carry on driving and not go back' or I'd be walking down the street and think 'I could just get on that bus and disappear forever'. It took so much for me to not do that. I used to cry sometimes because I was so desperate to do it. I think I saw it as the easy way out, you know? And also, I've seen what it does to the affected children. 25 years on, my cousin cannot forgive her mother, adn probably never will.

Parental Leave is the obvious option for the husband, but it's only a very short term fix. Nurseries will be cheaper in 2 months time, but a nanny will still be eyewateringly expensive (less so if live in).

some mothers are toxic, and dont love their children. But they have continued to raise them, and there are a lot of people who have had very unhappy lives BECAUSE the woman who gave birth to them was a constant presence in their lives and made it miserable

Like me. My mother didn't want me. I was her 3rd child & unplanned, she wanted to abort me, but my father & her brothers talked her out of it. I still live with the legacy of being unwanted/unloved. And it has affected my life a lot. I still have trouble believing that my dh loves me (I have been married 17yrs) I keep wondering if my girls will grow to hate me. I constantly question why my friends even care about me, let alone love me. I look for hidden agenda everywhere.

Why? Because the one person who was supposed to love me, didn't. My father left when I was 6, and I begged to go with him. But girls need their mothers, so I was told. But I didn't need someone who rejected me day after day, or who never gave me one ounce of love, of who couldn't be by my side through traumatic times in my life. I needed love & she didn't have that for me. And I lived with that until I left home at 18. I haven't spoken to her since.

differentnameforthis.

I think you are right - an absence is probably better than the presence of an unloving mother.

I left my DS when he was little. My relationship had completely broken down, I was working full time and my son had serious medical issues.

I left on a Friday and gave myself until Sunday to decide what to do about DS. I have always adored him and loved him more than life itself but I wasn't ready/prepared for his medical issues and it was just so unbelieveably difficult.

I saw him everyday after that weekend and had him 50% of the time, and gave Ex maintenance. But there were many nights I had to phone the Samaritans to stop me ending it all. I guess I was deeply depressed.

And I got a verbal pasting off everybody I knew. Funnily enough my Ex had broken the relationship up a year earlier, and left myself and DS. He was housed and fed (for over a month) by the very friends who turned their backs on me.

Basically, it's bollocks that society forces women to stay, it isn't harder for us to leave, just less socially acceptable. I actually think many posters are claiming PND as the cause as it explains why she left. Maybe there just isn't a reason than it being too bloody hard.

You can leave your children and still be a loving mother. RElationships break up, and its stupid to assume the mother is always the best parent and should automatically keep the children.
My husband is a better parent than me, for example. If we split up, why shouldn't he have custody?

differentnameforthis thank you for sharing your story, although I'm very sad that you experienced this.

I posted earlier about my PND problems. I was given up for adoption as a baby and have similar issues to you with regards to trusting people and relationships. There are so many ways this kind of thing can happen.

Hi OP,

Is it at all possible that your friend has some other diagnosed mental illness.

When I was 15 my mother walked out (we had just arrived at our new house. She picked up the car keys and left). She moved to a different county and filed for divorce.

Now, as she has diagnosed schizophrenia it was clear that something had gone devastatingly wrong. She had had a psychotic break. Once my dad and health professionals had persuaded her to start taking her medication again, she got better fairly quickly and realised that this was not what she wanted after all. She came back and has been fine ever since.

To an outsider she would have been fine but her family knew she was acting utterly out of character. Of course I don't know anything about your friend but your story sounded immediately familiar. What do you think?

Clarence, I don't think it's the situation here that they have been talking for months about splitting up and everyone agrees it is best if mum lives round the corner and does 50% parenting. This friend just got up and left, and even didn't seem sure about contact. That's not ok, for a man or a woman, and to imagine that has no effect on children is completely bizarre. Children feel rejected even if you didn't mean to reject them (e.g. in a friendly divorce); if you walk out of their lives, it would be devastating (which is why I think any/all ways back in should be left open, including living separately but sharing childcare).

Thanks for replies; MIL has just arrived to stay so I'll read and reply in more depth tomorrow

MILs - now there's a problem

Hope you get a chance to talk to your friend when you've calmed down.