This isn’t normal is it? Mum walking out on her children.

[LondonLady1980]

My mum and dad got married in 1981 when they were in their very early 20s and quite soon after meeting each other.

My dad was besotted with my mum, whereas the impression has always been that my mum married my dad in order to escape from living with her parents.

My mum was pregnant with my sister within a year of being married, and then a year after my sister was born she had me (we are only just over 12 months apart).

When me and my sister were 2 and 3 years old our mum came home from work one day and told my dad she had met someone else and she just left, leaving me and my sister behind.

She moved into the other man’s house and although me and my sister stayed there a few nights a month we didn’t see her at any other time.

After 2.5 years she and the man broke up and she moved into her own place. Me and my sister were returned to her care via the courts.

It isn’t normal for a mother to walk out and just leave her two young daughters behind is it?

It’s unusual but it does happen. It happened to my dad over 70 years ago. His parents married after a whirlwind romance but his father was abusive. His mum left the home when my dad was 6 and his brother was 8. He never knew where she went but he finally tracked her down in his late 20s. She’d remarried but could never really give a reason why she’d left her two little boys behind (and with a father who beat them). But then I guess that men do this all the time and no one ever really questions why.

Not the same but I feel so much of your story resonates with what happened to me and my sister. My mum had an affair when I was 9 - I caught her kissing one of their supposed best friends in the kitchen. Me and my sister (6) left with my mum to live at the new boyfriend’s house. It quickly became apparent that the boyfriend was very abusive and he treated me and my sister awfully in the few weeks I was there. I told my Dad what was happening and I refused to go back there. I ended up going to live with my paternal grandmother whereas my poor sister was left in the abusive house. She tells stories of how he lined up 3 bullets on the kitchen worktop and other equally horrifying stuff. I don’t know why my sister was left behind but my Dad always said it was his biggest regret in life, not taking her too. After I left my Mum would go months without speaking to me and I would only see her during the school holidays. I still feel we have a very strained relationship and as a mum of three myself now, I find it hard to comprehend how she prioritised her love life over her own kids. So sad.

The information has come form my mother's side of the family, not my fathers.

I haven't said anywhere that my grandmother was "pretty awful" - please quote where I said that? All I said is that my mum had a bad relationship with her own mother.

Behaviour me and my sister experienced at the hands of our mother:

We were physically abused frequently (even unto our teenage years).
We were screamed at constantly. We were terrified of her.
She would go days and days without talking to us.
She wouldn't wash our clothes as she wanted to shame us by making us look dirty.
She would cook nice meals for herself whereas me and my sister would be given really plain food. She would then spoon feed us until we vomited if we weren't eating quick enough for her liking.
Long lists of chores that we were punished for if we didn't do to her standard.
She would throw our clothes and our toys into the wheelie bin all the time and then make us climb in the bin to get them out again if we wanted them back.
Overly sexualised us from a young age.
So much emotional abuse and manipulation. It was awful.
Threats to kill us.

That's just a general overview.

You do only what you are comfortable with OP, and only do that when you happy to do so.

Just do what you think will be healing, &/or cathartic for you & your sister. You owe your mum absolutely nothing at all, but you owe yourself & your sister special care & consideration with how you go about this path of healing. I've no doubt it will be very bittersweet & you will have to grieve the childhood you never had as part of that, which will not be at all easy I imagine.

Good luck with it all, your story is a sad one, but also very heartwarming in other ways ironically e.g. how you survived & thrived despite all this adversity that you & your sibling (&your dad & aunt) had thrown at ye and simply did not deserve. Good luck OP 👍

We speak about it a little - she finds it very, very hard to talk about though. Our upbringing has effected her a lot more than it has me. She's not ready to face the hurt and trauma yet. She has the same bad memories as me though and has recently started opening up more about things and specific occurrences that she can remember, but she's not ready to face it in the same way I am.

Jesus Christ. This is beyond awful. I’m sorry people have demanded detail of what happened to you. Do feel free to share if it helps, but you don’t owe anyone an explanation. What you describe is disgusting treatment of children. But you already know that of course. I’m so sorry no one stepped in to help you. It’s great that you are seeking therapy to deal with this. It’s easy to think you’ve come out of it OK. More than likely the scars are so deep you can barely recognise them, but the feeling of not being safe as a child will likely be impacting your decisions and your relationships to this day. I’m sorry for your sister too. It’s often worse for the younger ones. My sibling was the younger one of the two of us and I’d say he’s been impacted worse than me. (Though he laughs and jokes all day long! You’d never know).
If you’re not ready to engage with your mum on the subject then don’t. It may be that you never want to. And that’s perfectly OK. Explore things with your therapist, stay close to your sister, and sack anyone off who doesn’t add positive things to your life. (Easier said than done!).

It’s less common than a dad walking out but family friends had this happen. When their boys were about 8 and 10 she came home one night and announced she had been having an affair for the past 2 years and was leaving him and the kids

My mistake I thought your sister was younger! Sorry OP.

If it helps, I do know someone who was abandoned by his mum. She never tried to get in contact, but a couple of years later bumped into them all in the street and acted like a friendly enough neighbour who had moved away. She even offered to babysit if her ex husband 'needed a break from the kids'. Utterly bizarre.

It's not as common, no. It does happen though. My ex-partner's wife left him with their two children, and she moved away with another man. Around the same time, a woman in our street left her husband and two children for a man in the armed forces who moved away. A friend of my Mum's, met another man, left her husband and two daughters. In all these examples, the children were left with the husband's and the women didn't all have regular contact with their children going forward. It tends to be more shocking when women leave their children, because women are portrayed as the maternal sex, the ones who nurture and fight for their children. When we hear of women, who do the polar opposite to what we expect, it's shocking and we're appalled. We are used to hearing of men who walk away from their partner's and children, but not so much women. The fact is not all women are fantastic Mothers, who put their children first - some are selfish and self-centred - just like the men who do the same.

I am so sorry that this happened to you and your sister. It is much less common for a mother to leave her children with their father but still falls within whatever we choose to define as "normal". Men do it every day and while there is criticism there is not the opprobrium that a mother who does the same faces. My husband walked out on me and our baby because he was having an affair with a work colleague (this was in the 80's so the same time you and your sister were babies) and I was asked by my health vistor what I had "done to drive him away" and when I went to the CAB to get financial advice the male worker told me that i must have neglected my husband and that women with young babies "forget about getting their hair done and wearing make up so men look elsewhere" I was too gobsmacked to complain, but that is indicative of the sexism of the time. Of course none of this helps you but it is a snapshot of the times you were born into. .

I know someone whose mother left him and his two siblings when they were still young children. I believe she ran away with the milkman and never contacted the children or her husband again.

That was in the 1960s so it must have been even more unusual then.

My father-laws mother walked out her 6 kids, the youngest being 2 years old. My father-law never forgave her

Sadly it’s probably more common than you think, although nowhere near the rate of fathers leaving. I went on a group cycling holiday with a lady that left her children (not sure of the circumstances). I work with a woman that left her children to go marry her affair partner (incidentally they have now divorced as she’s started an affair with his best friend) - children are young adults now). My male cousin had a relationship with someone who was a bit of a druggie waster. They had 2 kids and she already had one. She left all three with him, and his mum (my aunt) ended up bringing all 3 kids up as he was useless. In a cruel twist, one of those children had a daughter very young and has also ditched the child with my aunt (so my aunt has brought up her children, 3 of her grandchildren and currently her great grand child, whose about 9 or 10 at the moment.

@SpidersAreShitheads i just want to highlight that it’s pretty normal to not recognise your parent(s) were abusive for years and years. It’s a protection mechanism both then and now.
Its not possible to say ‘if you didn’t realise until you were in your 40s then it’s not that bad’.

I know I would never have used the word abusive with my parents. I’d have said my dad had a really short trigger as a child. But I thought it was normal. Later on I’d have added that my mum was unavailable. But even now I’m struggling to use the word abuse. Even though I have c-PTSD from it. It has affected me my whole life etc….

@LondonLady1980 🫂🫂🫂
That was a shitty behaviour from your mum.
im sorry. You and your dsister deserved better.

Up until about 6 months ago me and my sister used to laugh and joke about how "crazy" our mum was.....that was how we protected ourselves. It was far easier to dismiss our childhood as being one that resulted from having an "eccentric mother" than have to admit the reality.

We genuinely thought we just had a strange mom and a crazy childhood.

I could write out pages and pages of all the things she used to do to us and how she made us feel, even how she treated me as an adult, but I still can't use the word 'abuse'. I can write it down in a sentence but I cannot bring myself to say out loud that I had an abusive childhood.

It's too painful to say out loud that my own mother was abusive to me.

The same happened to my nephew at the same age (around the same time too). His 'DM' decided to get a job for the first time when DN was around 7/8 and would therefore receive the child support because DB had a good career, (before that it was taken into account for benefits iirc). She decided she wanted him back.
She grabbed him off the street one day, went straight to a solicitor and was even asking for years of backpay.
unisually for back then, DB was granted full custody through the courts.MDN's 'DM' never pursued any visitation.
MN often defends mothers at all costs and makes excuses, but they've never met anyone like her. She was toxic and caused nothing but heartbreak.
DN died suddenly when he was in his early twenties. She has a narrative of herself as the grieving mother. If I hadn't been there I'd believe her because the truth of her actions, some of which I can only describe as evil, as compared to reality, bear no resemblance.
she completely abandoned him aged two, never bought him as much as a Birthday card or Christmas gift. I'm so sorry you experienced such toxicity.

It’s not common, but my SIL’s mum did that to her as well. She also had several children taken off her before my SIL. My SIL thinks her mum never really wanted to care for the kids, she only wanted unprotected sex and the attention of being pregnant. Sadly it happens, she doesn’t wanna be a mum and I’m really sorry that she was yours.

I hope your dad was good and provided the unconditional love you needed

It's not the usual way for a couple w/children to break up. My aunt left my uncle one day, she left on my little 8 yr old cousin's birthday to drive her friend home from her bday party and never returned. They'd been having marital problems but this was a shock esp for my cousin.

Aunt moved across the country and returned approx 20 years later when her 2nd marriage broke up. There were many very awkward moments at family events where she tried to blend back in as if she'd never left except by then there was a new generation of children who'd ask 'who is that lady over there' only to be told that's your grandmother and the baffled expressions on those kids faces was worth all the awkwardness.

I always felt she had balls of steel to show her face, they had older boys who were grown/mostly grown but her actions were very destructive to my sweet cousin, an only girl with many older bothers. She craved her mother for years afterward.

I know my uncle had poor mental health and drank too much but he was never known to be mean. I also know that no outsider ever knows what happens in a family or marriage but even had uncle been abusive imo that's even more reason NOT to leave your kids behind! It sounds like your mother had serious problems of her own that she didn't know how to deal with and she tried taking the easy way out. That didn't work and she had to save face/have money to live on (child support)/maybe just didn't know what to do when the relationship broke up so she got your and your sister back and obviously couldn't cope or face the damage she caused (and to this day she can't cope w/it if you're afraid to broach it with her).

I'm sorry this happened but I'm glad you know now how wrong it all was and are getting therapy and that your own children will never know that pain.

From reading other comments here, in my family the aunt who abandoned her family-I think her mother may have abandoned her or died young. I heard a story of her father dying and no mention ever of a mother so possibly she came from similar painful early life. I know her reputation never recovered no matter how she tried, it was silly to expect to be accepted with open arms after disappearing for two decades.

OP keep on with your therapy it sounds like you're doing well working through trauma 💞

Thank you Lucy. Our dad was amazing and he still is. He would do anything for me and my sister and I'm so thankful that we had him growing up, he was definitely our safe space. Next to my husband, he's the one person I know that I can 100% rely on.

Mine didn't walk out but when given the court's ultimatum of me vs new man, she would always pick the new man, so I ended up living with my dad. She now has a diagnosis of BPD with narcissistic features which explained a lot and really helped me understand what I went through

Sometimes I genuinely do wonder if my mum has some kind of personality disorder. I'm sorry you had to go through that, it must have really hurt, although I'm glad you are now able to understand it better now.

I am so sorry this happened to you OP. My grandparents were in someways very like your parents in that my grandfather loved my grandmother but grandmother just wanted to escape her parents house. My mum was 7 and her brother 3 when my grandmother ran off with her boyfriend. It was 1966 and they went to Rhodesia. Granny tried to get her children back when she returned to the uk (some point before 1971) but was told that as she had abandoned them she couldn’t get them back. My grandfather was never aware that while he was working my mum was abused by her uncle (my grandfather’s brother). My mum told other family members but rather than help her they just kept their own children away. Meanwhile grandmother went on and had two more children with her second husband and when my mum would go and visit her mum, my grandmother would show her photos of family holidays and her younger siblings birthday parties (all things my mum never had). My grandmother could never talk about why she did what she did. Grandmother is still alive according to her Facebook account. My mother tried to go through therapy but the therapist just said it was amazing she could be such a good parent herself given her past and they weren’t sure how to help her so she gave up. My mum is always there when any of us need her because she cannot stand the thought of any of us feeling abandoned like she did.

How your mother could treat you like that is awful, awful abuse. I'm so sorry OP. You deserved so much more from your mum.

Thank goodness for your excellent father.