This is pretty close to my heart at the moment. This could be pure stream of consciousness, so forgive me in advance if I ramble.
When I was 12, my sister 10 and my brother 4, my Mum left us and went to live with my Dad's best friend. He left his 2 sons, aged 10 and 7, as well.
I had counselling for it when Iwas a student but recently have developed severe PND and overdosed, and found myself in the psychiatrists office, and he has been taking me through it again, as it is this which seems to be at the root of my problems.
Basically I cannot fathom why any woman would abandon her children. I am afraid that I see it as a terribly, terribly selfish thing to do. I don't understand why a man would either, but I am not a man or a father and so can't judge that, but I am a woman and a mother, and a mother who was abandoned, and it just breaks my heart to think of any other kids going through this. I use the word abandoned here, as it is the way my psychiatrist has used to me. Up until now I had always rationalised it, she 'left' or 'went away', but it was a very deliberate choice on her part to pursue her own happiness at the expense of her children. SHe said she was going to come back for us, but I personally think that she never planned to, that once she was gone she was gone and that was that. I for my part never wanted to live with her again after that - my mind just kept saying 'what if she left again?'
This isn't making much sense is it? Just trying to say that this has been the most traumatic experience of my life, and in many ways my entire personality feeds from it. I have always found it incredibly difficult to trust, I find it almost impossible to let people care for me, to let them look after me and I find it very hard to forego any measure of control over my life. To be honest, dh is the one person who has broken through that shell, until our children came along and also broke through it, which is, I suppose, why I am having so many problems now.
I feel like I have no role model in how to be a good mummy (though a lot of people are in that situation through death or sheer bad parenting) but I feel that something is missing. I am desperate, desperate to be a good mother, to be a better mother than her. Me, my sister and my brother are all screwed up by it to a certain extent, and it happened 21 years ago, and we are all still dealing with it.
I just cant fathom her mind. Of all the things to choose to do, to leave your children, your babies, just seems like the most unnatural thing to do.
And I see my mother now, 21 years on, very happily married to the man she left with, and has been for longer than she was to my Dad, and my Dad also happily remarried, but it seems to me that to this day my mother carries with her an immense burden of guilt. Not that she wishes it hadn't happened, but that deep inside her she knows she did something wrong. I have recurrent severe depression (which she finds very hard to acknowledge), my sister has terrible trouble forming adult relationships and has been through many, both hetero- and homosexual, and has never been able to love anyone properly, my brother has had problems with debt and drugs, and I know that in her heart of hearts she knows that a lot of our problems stem from that early abandonment. She is always looking for reassurance that everything is OK (it's all worked out well in the end is something she says on a regular basis). And yes, it has. I have 3 stepbrothers through my Dad's second marriage who are wonderful, and Mum and my stepfather had a daughter who I am close to. She must have been terribly miserable in her relationship with my Dad, but he can't have been the bad bloke she has sometimes painted him to be, because she left her 3 children with him! And can I take a moment to sing the praises of the best Daddy a girl could ever have had - imagine being a stressed executive who couldn't doa hand's turn in the house and taking on 3 children on your own, and bringing them up as well as we have been brought up, to be screwed up but at least improving and surviving, and to be the best Grandpa in the world!
I think the only way she managed to do it was to harden herself beyond imagining. I think she had to stop thinking of us as her children, her babies. When I talk to her now about my children, she always refers back to her memories of my half-sister as a baby, not me or my full siblings. Like we were friends discussing our children, not mother and daughter. It was a choice she made - she chose not to be our mother any more. She treated me as if I was 12 until I was 18, she was stuck in the timewarp of the day she left. She even left us on the Monday after Mother's Day, can you beleive? I hate it to this day.
Sandyballs, I have no idea if this is any help or explains anything. You asked if anyone had experience of this, and this is mine. I don't understand this woman any more than I understand my own mother. In fact, in some ways I hope I never understand, as it seems to me such an alien thing to do.
But it is true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I am determined that I will beat this and not let her be the overriding influence of my life.
Sorry, I have hijacked your thread to tell my story. I'm sitting here crying so much that I can hardly see to type, and I havent cried about my Mum for years, I dont think. Its been a great help to type this, so thanks for giving me the opportunity to do so.
I hope you can work out your relationship with your brother and this woman, and do what you can to help you brother's family through this hard time, if you can.
Take care.