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 happens more than we would like to think. My MIL left her two children with their father, started a new family later on and kept her previous children a secret for 35 years. It all came out eventually, she now has occasion contact with one child, the other is not interested. It was all very shocking.

My cousins' mother did this when her children were 6 and 8. Never saw them again, my uncle and grandmother raised them.

She went on to have three children with the new bloke. My cousin met her half sisters for the first time when she was 45.

There would be no point.

She most likely wouldn’t read it, and even if she did she wouldn’t care about the threat.

We all know what kind of person she is, her side of the family knew what kind of parent she was, nothing I could say would surprise anyone.

About 8 months ago my grandad (my mother’s father) said to “it’s a bloody surprise social services didn’t take you and my sister away from her because of what she used to do to you both.” I let it go at the time, I thought he was just ranting, but it was his comment that was the catalyst to me then starting to question my childhood.

I have opened up to my aunt a lot over the last 5 months about what our childhood was truly like and she was incredibly upset. She said they all knew that our mum wasn’t the best parent, but she didn’t know it was that bad.

As children me and my sister kept completely quiet about what homelife was like. Whether it was due to fear, or because we’d been threatened by our mum, or we thought it was like that for every child, I don’t know, I can’t remember.

Now I can understand that it was abuse, I haven’t even disclosed it to my dad as I know it would break him to think me and my sister had to go through that.

The whole thing is a mess.

Even if I spoke out about our abusive childhood my mum would deny it outright, or make out me and my sister are lying, and twist it so that she’s the victim and we are the bad guys. She’s done it all her life.

She has never felt any shame or regret about anything. She has always thought that she’s superior to everyone.

My friend left her 11 and 13 year old DC. emigrated with another man. The boy is in his 40s and she hasn't seen him since. The girl has made contact but is quite wary and restricts access to the grandchildren

It is relatively uncommon but also shocking, not just because it's uncommon but because most mothers feel an intense natural instinct to care for their children.

I can think of a handful of mothers who left children.

My great aunt left her husband and two small children for another man and never saw them again. I didn't know her or any more detail so I don't know the context. It would have been the late 1940s and I think societally it was a bit scandalous to be divorced and particularly if the father was well to do and could afford a nanny he would usually be awarded custody. Aunt married the OM and had another daughter who only found out about her mums first marriage and family after she died. She made contact with us and she was lovely but sad about all the lost years she could have had with the extended family. She remembered her mum being very prim and proper do perhaps it was the shame of the time that made her "hide" the first marriage and kids.

My BIL's dad and stepmother had an affair when they were both married to other people and both had small children. They literally cleaned out the respective joint accounts and ran away together to another country. Contact with their kids was sporadic and none of the kids ever lived with them. They are quite fun charismatic people but both very self centred. Their attitude was/is "we deserved to be happy".

Colleague's mum left out of the blue one Boxing Day and was barely seen again. Apparently she felt she was unsuited to being a mother. She had 4 kids though so it took a while to decide that! Colleague is very close to her dad and siblings but decided not to have kids of her own as she was scared the same thing would happen to her.

Local couple in our friend group split at the instigation of the wife who had fallen for someone else. She also said she was bored with family life (SAHM) and wanted to "find herself". They had a 50/50 arrangement at first but within a couple of years the kids were with their dad full time as she always had an excuse why she couldn't have them. She just totally lost interest. 9 years on and she literally lives a few streets away from them but barely sees them. I also found her to be a very self centred person, not just about her kids but about everything.

Women left their husbands and the kids too a lot more in the old days when there was domestic abuse involved and the dad would refuse to let her take the kids with her and also the courts in those days backed men’s rights up more than women’s

This is a very sad thread. I hope it’s helping you somehow, op, to know you’re not alone, and cathartic to share your story.

I’m reminded of the film The Hours, and the mum who abandoned her son and husband because she was unsuited to domestic life. Very moving film.

Not really strange men leaving is normalised over the last 25 years ive seen single moms breaking under the strain of having it all single moms getting into relationship after relationship and having children by multiple fathers a single dad "forced" by social services to take care of his own child because his ex couldn't due to neglect as soon as she was deemed "fit" he returned the child who was removed again back into his care he did the same again and now the child is old enough they have a substance problem and are living with neither of them a single dad who did a good job loudly with lots of support a single mom castigated for leaving her children without a father while she went to work (she stayed single people took issue) a dad who has many many children by many many mothers at the same primary school my ds had a little counselling at primary because of his dad's behaviour that stopped due to covid he hasn't had anything since the expectation is he gets on with things

It's all behaviour thats been normalised and out of all of them no-one has had any real therapy and its a shame because the pattern repeats

I agree men leaving isnt surprising unfortunately. I don’t agree that people generally don’t get counselling for Dads leaving. But we’ve obvs been exposed to different circles and can have different opinions on that, that’s ok

I'm so sorry your childhood was so shit, OP. Your mother sounds like a psychopath.

I'm so glad that your father is a good person and, by the sounds of it, your husband too. That's worth celebrating - and quite remarkable, considering you suffered the odd combination of abandonment AND abuse from your mother... it's usually one or the other! Well done for surviving intact.

I can't imagine how it must feel to be abandoned. I'll never forget a newspaper article decades ago where a man in his 30s, who had been through foster care and eventually adopted, sought out his biological parents. They were still together, and had had four more children after him, which they kept! One big happy family! I can't imagine how that made him feel!!!!!!!!!! 😬 He rationalised that he was just a baby at the time and they couldn't cope, but that must have stung.

my mum had an affair. She left my dad, me (12) and my brother (10). She moved to America. My brother visited I never did. She came back following her 2nd husbands death. I was 19 when she came back. We are close now but it’s never bought up or discussed. For me it’s something I still can’t discuss in detail to this day as it’s painful. If your own mum can leave, what would stop anyone else? We had a good life with my dad and we are close but my teenage years were hard. I had to grow up quick. My brother was devastated so was my dad. I hid it for years until I had my own children and started having panic attacks that I’d do the same to them. Anyway I’ve blurted all that out so apologies for that. To answer the question I didn’t feel it was normal and I was the only one I knew who’s mum had left them

I only know one case where the mum left her 2 sons aged about 11 and 9. She had an affair and went to Australia.

The oldest son never got over it, he turned to drugs and never finished school, no job or career and was involved in petty crime. I felt so sorry for him. Before the shock to his family, he was so happy and had everything going for him. Being abandoned by your own mum is one of the worst things that could happen to anyone.I'm so sorry you had a mother like that OP.

How did you move on from that in order to be able to have a close relationship with her now? How did you bring yourself to forgive her and put it behind you?

as her second husband died without making amends with his children it made me realise I only had one mum. I was and still am used to hiding my feelings. It’s never discussed between us, ever. Sometimes it’s boiling away in side me and I want to ask her how could she but I can’t . Bizarrely I don’t want to upset her!! I really can’t explain it I just bury inside me. I don’t have many close relationships with anyone as I don’t trust anyone and the fear of rejection is always with me. I’d just rather have a mum with faults than no mum if that makes sense. I’m sure a psychiatrist would love to delve into my mind: I think it’s all just self preservation on my part. I don’t think for one minute I’ve ever dealt with it properly but too be honest it’s too painful to face.
from reading your posts it seems you hide it a lot also. It changes you as a person though doesn’t it. It’s like a shame almost that your mum wasn’t a mum in the way everyone else’s is
i hope that you have found a level of peace with yourself x

ETA I’m 43 now I’ve carried it with me for 31 years. Maybe one day it’ll all explode who knows

Well it's been 5 months since I've spoken to my mum now and I feel very at peace with my decision (at the moment anyway).

My counselling has helped me MASSIVELY as it's made me see how wrong my mothers actions were as a child, but even more so, how she continued to treat me as a teenager and as an adult. I have had my eyes opened as to just how dysfunctional our adult relationship was. for all my adult life I have along with the dysfunctional dynamic despite knowing deep down it wasn't normal because that's all I'd ever known since a child. See made me feel as a child that because she was my mother that gave her the right to treat me however she liked and as her child, it way my job to just accept it, and that way of thinking continued through to my adult life. It was the dynamic I have always known so I never knew to question it. I'm so glad that I see things differently now though.

My counsellor made me understand that if I wouldn't accept the way she treats me from anyone else (which I wouldn't) then just because she's my mother doesn't mean I have to tolerate it from her either. In fact, it's worse that allow it from her because she's the person who is supposed to care for me and nurture me more than anyone, so it just makes everything even more unforgiveable.

I do think at some point in the future we will get back in touch.....but I will be wanting answers from her. Our relationship will never be able to move forwards now until she faces what she did, and how its affected me throughout my whole life, and apologises. Deep down though I know the apology will never be sincere.....people like this are rarely truly ever sorry for what they did or rarely care about the damage they caused other people, they are incapable of accountability and having everything swept under the carpet suits them perfectly.

Even if my mum somehow finds a way to explain away all the last 42 years of the hurt I've felt and the actions she did, I know that things will never ever be okay between us. I will never look at her the same way again.

Mind you, I don't want things to be 'the same' - as nothing has ever felt real anyway. It's just been a front that we've presented for all of my life, the portrayal of us having a great "mother and daughter" relationship when the reality is that it's all been a load of shit based on nothing but abandonment, abuse, lies and manipulation.

Not as common as dad’s leaving but you’re not alone. My neighbour had five daughters, his wife went to work one day and didn’t come home, she phoned two weeks later to say she had met another man and didn’t want contact with the kids, this was 17 years ago.
I wonder if the mother leaving has a bigger effect on kids than the dad, either way it’s crappy behaviour, sorry that happened to you.

It took me 15 years of therapy to deal with my mother’s abandonment. I was the older of two and she took my younger sib. Made it worse later by denying she was my mother at all. These things are hard to deal with.