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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Anyone else's dm walk out on them when they were a young child never to return?

150 replies

SplinterSplit · 09/03/2019 20:10

Mine did. Just upped and left over night with no warning when I was 6. One minute there, next minute gone. Never to be seen again. Has anyone else experienced this? I've never met anyone else like this during my life.

OP posts:
Bobbycat121 · 09/03/2019 20:12

Fathers do it alot but I dont know of any mothers who have done this but I guess it does happen.

Bluntness100 · 09/03/2019 20:13

Yes, mine did, same age. I never saw her again.

Why are you posting about it, does it still hurt you? Is she alive? Have you met her since?

Original poster
SplinterSplit · 09/03/2019 20:13

It was devastating.

OP posts:
Bluntness100 · 09/03/2019 20:14

Sorry, I assume never to be seen again means you haven't met her since and are the same as me.

Original poster
SplinterSplit · 09/03/2019 20:14

I believe she's still alive but I have no contact. It's too late now, the damage is done.

OP posts:
jellymaker · 09/03/2019 20:17

I shared a house with someone as a student who this happened to. She was very close to her dad. Have you thought about submitting a DNA sample to ancestry.com?

Bluntness100 · 09/03/2019 20:17

Mines dead, I wasn't devastated, more confused, I'm sorry it's impacted you so much, mine caused a lot of people a lot of damage, but for me worse was to come. Which I won't go into. So her actions pale into insignificance.

Bythebeach · 09/03/2019 20:17

I have an acquaintance who experienced this at age 10. I cannot fathom it and can only assume her mother, and yours, had insurmountable mental health issues. I am sorry this happened to you and hope you are able to access some help for yourself.

Encolere · 09/03/2019 20:17

I knew a girl at uni whose mother had done this. She had fallen for another man and left her three or four girls with their dad. The dad was fantastic though. I met him at our graduation, my parents had been unable to come so he just gathered me up into his party and took Proud Parent photos and sent them to me for my parents after. I didn't stay in touch with the girl, i didn't even know her that well but I thought at the time that he had really stepped up to the position of father and mother to his children (and their casual friends).

DonPablo · 09/03/2019 20:18

My paternal grandmother did this. She was always emotionally cold tbh, and I think it's because she locked a piece of herself away.

What was your childhood like? Was it just you and your dad? 6 is a terrible age to have this happen to you-old enough to feel the loss and too young to understand any of it. Not that it may ever be understandable. Flowers

jellymaker · 09/03/2019 20:18

Sorry cross post with your last post OP

Summeriscomin · 09/03/2019 20:20

My auntie done this. I’m not sure of the ins and outs and why’s. it happened before I was born. I think it was due to another man. She moved miles away but recently returned to the area.

My mum & her look alike & my mum has been mistaken for her in the street & received nasty comments. I can’t get my head around it. Why would extended family not step in (gran parents etc?) why would aunties and gran parents not want to maintain contact?

I have close cousins living next to me that I don’t know who they are or what they look like. It’s a massive family though (my mum was 1 of 12) so I guess they weren’t a close knit family. But if my sister walked out on her kids I would still want contact with the kids.

After leaving my auntie had 3 kids who then passed away. Was tragic really.

teyem · 09/03/2019 20:22

When I was a kid, the mum of the family opposite my home just upped and left. The Dad stopped functioning and left the older two children to raise the toddler.

Original poster
SplinterSplit · 09/03/2019 20:25

My childhood was shite.

OP posts:
Bluntness100 · 09/03/2019 20:27

Yeah, me too op. But because of the people who took over.

I can only advise you not to dwell on it. It does no good. And learn to be a better person than she was.

Summeriscomin · 09/03/2019 20:27

I can imagine. How awful. Sad

Were you given an explanation?

slipperywhensparticus · 09/03/2019 20:29

My nan had to leave her sons her husband gave her no choice it devastated them all the father was awful to her by all accounts but she thought the kids were safe he said you want out you leave they are staying she couldn't contact them again they found her before she died I don't believe the younger son ever forgave her for leaving them

seriousone · 09/03/2019 20:36

Yes mine did, probably older a little older than op.has unfortunately shaped the way I am today and deep down I feel abandoned.did have access but was stopped by court, no contact now and couldn't cope with it damage is done

Windygate · 09/03/2019 21:12

Mine did this without even looking over her shoulder. The damage she did to my and my little sis was irreparable. We did have very limited 'access' and now m is 80 plus, unwell and with dementia she an others expect us to care. Very, very dificult

MIdgebabe · 09/03/2019 21:21

Happened to relatives of mine. Judge took ages to realise that the mother did not want the kids at all but the dad would have them. And the dad Had to learn so much so quickly...like cooking upwards really. Really odd as one of the kids now hates his dad and blames him for everything wrong in their life and regularly visits the mum but not the dad.

Snotwotallmumsdo · 09/03/2019 21:33

Mine got me out of care when she heard we were about to be adopted.
Within a few weeks she abandoned me and my little brother in a phone box. Just fucked off telling us she'd dropped her purse and to wait, a drunk took us to his early the next morning and called the police.
She pulled the same shit outside a police station at night (took the police 4 hours to realise we were unattended we were still 5 and 2 this was in Finsbury Park)
When the police or Social services found her she would be all crying and acting like we'd run away from her, the adults believed that shit.

The coup de gras was delivered on saturday morning, we were going to see my grandparents, she put us on a tube and while still outside the tube, collapsed the buggy and pretended to mess about in her bag until the tube started moving, I screamed "Mum get on" or something and the tube was stopped.
SHE RAN AWAY FROM US at wood green tube station, watched by all the passengers who just stood there watching me try to chase her with my little brother clinging to my hand.

That's the last time I saw her
Some bloke took us to social services at the top of the road, back into the care system for 5 years.

She was dead within a few months, accidental overdose of diazepam,temazepam and opiate painkillers.

The selfish cunt didn't even have the decency to wake up and suffer for a few hours.

Some mums are just not fit for purpose, we were about to be adopted, her cunty antics lasted a few months and left us both too traumatised for most foster parents, we were both abused for those years and she was dead the entire time.

So to answer @SplinterSplit No, mine ran away in front of an audience and was too incompetent to get it right first attempt....

I will never stop hating her. But I do not talk about her in real life, ever. She doesn't deserve a single noise from me

Frecklesonmyarm · 09/03/2019 21:38

It happened to my dp and a few other people I know.

She left him and his older siblings in the house all weekend on their own. All under 5. Their dad was working away. He found them dirty and starving when he arrived Sunday evening.

Dps dad wasnt great either. Very selfish as well.

His mum and had run off with the dads best friend. She had 3 more kids with him, then left him for another man again. It also came our she had a child before she met dps dad and left that one too, though no one knew until recently. Dp and his sisters have no contact.

Dps dad remarried another fairly selfish woman. He didn't have a great upbringing. Its caused him lots of issues.

januaryfirst · 09/03/2019 21:47

Thanks all these stories are heartbreaking! I'm so sorry to all of you who have been through this.

CharlottesInterWeb · 09/03/2019 21:57

This thread is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry to anyone who's been through this. I can't begin to imagine the hurt and confusion. OP I hope you are able to find peace and build a happier life for yourself. Flowers

Thecrown3 · 09/03/2019 22:13

Hi
My mother walked out in my brother and I when I was 7 and he was 5.
She’d been having an affair 7 months.

Didn’t see her again until I was 21 yrs old.
Childhood was utterly miserable ... it was unusual for a mother to go and I always felt utterly excluded from the normal life my friends had.
My dad bought us up with help from my darling nan an two aunties.BUT he wrecked us... he initially had a breakdown and I as the 7 yr old had to become mum overnight.
He done the best he could I guess, was working full time etc but emotionally he was awful.Angry, bitter, volatile , we walked on eggshells.
He remarried when I was 13 and should never have done so because total opposites.
Their still married now, but my dad is a still the same as when I was young, getting worse by the year, flies off the handle, ruins every family gathering , loathes his wife and she him but won’t split, use my db and I as therepists.
In reality I can now see why my mother escaped because he was the same when young.
I have a text/email relationship with her.shes now got the start of Parkinson’s , has diabetes but she’s quite chipper.Shes had a tough life since leaving dad, he definitely came out the winner now in retirement and yet is awful and we used to be close but getting further and further apart as he ages.
I had terrible pnd with my first child and had to go to counselling etc as I quite literally didn’t know how to be a mother.
It defined me, will define me forever - the fact I had my childhood snatched at 7 and grew up overnight still haunts me.
Although I’m successful, I’ve had relationship troubles as I fear everyone will go eventually , if you love it it will leave/go.
I do wonder at times in my life whether I have ptsd.