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

[SplinterSplit]

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.

My mum walked out when I was 9, I went swimming and when I got back she'd gone and I was left with my alcoholic dad.

Eventually my two elder sisters went to live with her but I didn't. I didn't see her for about 5 years then I tried to have a relationship with her but she would never acknowledge what she'd done and the effect it had on me. My eldest sister is her champion though ( my mum is dead now) and would always minimise the effect it had on me which hurts. I am nc with my sister now.

I'm 55 now and I'm still hurting from the rejection. for everyone else who's suffered.

A long, long time ago mine did, I was 7. Turned out that both parents were having affairs.
At the time was ‘unheard’ of for a mother to abandon her children. In our circle, school I became something to gossip about, stare at, possibly pity. Other children were cruel.
I went to live with her and new husband at 12 and spent years trying to get her to like me. In the school holidays I was packed off to relatives.
I became self sufficient, well educated and have a happy marriage.
When I had my own DCs she was completely uninterested and moved abroad. As a result we were NC. She died very lonely.
Only people who have been through this can understand, but I thank all those who try.

And a narcissistic selfish asshole is an emotionally healthy individual? Ok, I give up.

Meant as a response to saxatablesalt.

Apologies, OP, for a relatively offtopic post.

My lovely friend.... He lived with his mum and step dad. He was already suffering the emotional fall out of his parents bitter divorce, but came home from school one day and his mum was gone. He was 12. Step dad was ok, sort of tolerated him until he was 16, but then he had to move out and make his way in the world.
He's not seen his mum or birth father in over 20 years. He has a distant email type relationship with his step dad and his subsequent wife/kids.
He's so damaged from all this. He would love to find someone, fall in love, get married, have kids etc. But he's terrified of being abandoned (and lots of other complex stuff I suspect). He's in his 40's now. Professionally he's very successful but he's never had a relationship. It's heartbreaking.
I met his mum once, completely co-incidentally - she pretended she had a loving relationship with him. It was creepy and so cold because I knew the truth, but would have been totally believable if I didn't know though.
I'm get scared that something might happen to me and I might die before my children are old enough not to need me. Reading this thread, and seeing my friend struggle makes me feel even more scared.
for everybody who had suffered like this.

As an adult I'm finding this thread very disturbing. I can't begin to imagine what a child in this situation would be feeling.

This is heartbreaking - love to you all

My ex dp and his ex wife have done similar, but because they have money it seems glossed over a bit. Kids live in a house with a housekeeper and 2 nannies. Parents live separately and come and go at their own will. The kids are 2 of the most damaged and dysfunctional kids I’ve ever met, yet have everything materially they could ever wish for. Neglect is neglect, even in a gilded cage.

And a narcissistic selfish asshole is an emotionally healthy individual? Ok, I give up.

Obviously not but there is no deeper meaning to his behaviour, he's just a selfish prick. It's not like he could have some therapy and medication and he would magically not become a selfish prick.

I work in mental health snd yes maternal abandonment is something which does happen more often than you might imagine and unfortunately does tend to impact significantly on the. Children who are left.
However often when you look closely the Mother will often have been experiencing quite severe mental health issues / substance misuse or sometimes domestic abuse issues so I would say its never as simple as a woman just deciding they no longer want to be a parent.
So sorry you are still in so much pain though, have you ever discussed how you feel in real life?

thanks to everyone who is sending good wishes to those of us who have suffered from this circumstance

This thread is so important because it is still a somewhat taboo subject in our society, hence all the posters remarking they could not imagine anyone doing this.

I totally identify with the pp noting how they were then gossiped about, pitied and stared at by other adults. This happened to me too and makes a child feel so different to others and an outcast. It is different to families who's parents split and the father leaving, no one looks and stares at those children and pities them in the same way.

I find it so hard to make relationships with others, made poor choices of partners due to low self esteem or even feeling I was entitled to have my needs met, and even though I have a lovely dc, I brought them up as single parent as I never had a model of a nuclear family or stable relationship. We have a very close bond but I do wonder how he will fair in making a family of his own when the time comes.

This happened to me. My mum left when I was 6 and my sister was 2. Although we saw her weekly we never lived with her ever again. She did have mental health issues and I found out as an adult that she also had affairs.

My dad was amazing but married a couple of years later and my step mum was indifferent at best and emotionally abusive at worst to my sister and me. As an adult I don’t mind her and she has stepped up amazingly and I have a lot of time for her.

My mother on the other hand has completely whitewashed the past and expects my sister and me to be the dutiful daughters and I genuinely don’t believe that she feels she did anything wrong. I see her periodically but I don’t like her much, I certainly don’t love her and we both see her as a hassle and a duty.

This happened in the early 80’s, I felt like a total freak not only being the one person at school with divorced parents but everyone thought it totally weird that I lived with my dad.

As a mother myself I can not even begin to fathom what led her to do it and most importantly why she never asked for us back again

Obviously not but there is no deeper meaning to his behaviour, he's just a selfish prick. It's not like he could have some therapy and medication and he would magically not become a selfish prick.

I never claimed there was a deeper meaning behind their behaviour, all I said was that emotionally stable, healthy individuals don't abandon their children, and narcissists are definitely not emotionally stable.

OT: Read through the entire thread, it really is heart-breaking. I really feel for everyone who had to go through this.

Happened to my mother and aunt when they were 8 and 6 respectively. Their mother was an alcoholic and used to drag them from pub to pub and man to man. Eventually she just left one day leaving them with their dad, who I believe was good to them (he was always horrid to me) but who re-married and had a son.

Really affected my mother who then suffered severe depression, was unable to bond with me as a baby, and was emotionally abusive all thorough my childhood. As a result, I’ve been badly affected and really struggle with self esteem and find it very difficult to form female friendships. Have had loads of counselling which has helped to a degree but feelings still there. Difficult to blame my mother as was grandmother who set the ball rolling.

Very very determined not to allow my son to be affected and am very conscious of how I am with him

I read something years ago that was enormously triggering. Something along the lines of -whatever age you were that your mother left you, you’ll either follow the same path or emotionally disconnected when your children are about the same age you were.

This scares me to death so much so I’ve revamped my whole life, quit drinking completely because my DM was an alcoholic, spoke to my doctor about my MH as my DM suffered with her MH, took up meditation/yoga etc because my DM has serious anger issues.

It’s probably utter nonsense but I think it’s worth discussing as I know it’s a lot of our fears not to end up like our mothers and sadly some people do.

Does anyone know the study/article I might be talking about because I have no idea! It just freaked me out so much I must have closed it off.

Snotwotallmumsdo I’m so sorry. Your story is heartbreaking. It prob doesn’t mean much but I honestly hope you and your brother are ok now.

@YogaWannabe - it's a cliche but not a prediction.

Yes, lots of us who were abandoned/abused as children will be triggered when our own children get to that age.

Equally, lots of us won't.

The more you open up and work on your own healing, the less likely your DC will be affected.

And here is a

for literally every poster on this thread.

My own experience- I had already left home but my mum left the country for a job abroad when my brothers were 6, 10 (with severe autism) and 15. My sister was 17 but in the depths of drug addiction. The boys went to our dad but my stepmum made it very difficult for them and my oldest brother tumbled into drugs and an abusive relationship, he is now a graduate and has a nice gf but he still has serious abandonment issues in his mid twenties and I think he feels the hurt deeply. My brother with severe autism has been used as a pawn by my dad and stepmum to guilt my mum and he has seemingly progressed into violent episodes and is facing adult social care. My youngest brother is now in mid teens and a bright kid but severe adhd and behavioural issues. My sister got pregnant on a drugged up ONS in her late teens, she’s cleaned up her act over the years and my dn is amazing but again, I can’t help but think it was a chain of events that destroyed a lot of peoples lives at a crucial point. For me the fact she wasn’t around when I was struggling with MH issues at uni seemed to lead to a stronger of abusive relationships including my marriage which I am now looking to escape.
It is hard to overstate the consequences of abandonment. We all needed her. We had been through her and my dads terribly acrimonious divorce, we had been living so poor for years and mum had no mental or physical energy left for all of us.
As an adult I forgive her and she is back in the country and is a good mother and grandmother. I can see that she was pushed to her limit and wanted to run away. But I also don’t think she was in her right mind. It’s something I will never quite understand.

My mother left when I was a baby and never returned. We never met and I know that she died a few years ago. Throughout my life when I have told people their reaction is invariably one of shock. It is seen as so unnatural to abandon small children and I truly believe that nothing on earth would have made me abandon mine. It is a burden you carry through life and my only advice is to begin therapy to come to terms with abandonment. Your own life is affected, but not defined, by these early traumas.

Hi op. I haven't read all the other comments, but just wanted to add my story. My mum didn't leave but my dad did. I was younger than you. I heard nothing nor had anything from him growing up. Neither did my mum (no CSA in those days). It really affected my whole childhood and I felt very different to my friends, it wasn't really the thing in those days to have no dad.

I met him again when I was 20 - I asked my mum to track him down. Turns out he was in the same city, very successful businessman, was on wife 3 but no other children. I met him and he seemed somewhat responsive to a relationship at the time which absolutely delighted me.

I now regret ever meeting him.

He has done nothing except bring repeated abandonment, rejection, mental torture and unnecessary suffering to my life repeatedly over the last 20 odd years. He has built me up with hope and destroyed my self esteem on so many occasions. I won't go into details, but his disinterest, outright rejection and cruel actions would begger belief. He has had an incredibly negative impact on my life.

I can honestly say that I would have been far better never to have met him. Perhaps you are better to move on with your life without your mum. I completely understand how it has impacted your life, but we can choose to focus on other things and actively use our past as a way of creating a better future.

I went on to get married at 18 and have 2 dd, both now in their 30's. I have a good relationship with both of them and my grandchildren. My dd tell me that they had a wonderful childhood despite me splitting from their father when pregnant with the youngest. Their father had them every other weekend until the eldest was 16, then he just stopped seeing them. He re married and had 2 more children. It seems like his first 2 were dispensable. Both daughters have tried to have a relationship with him but he's just not interested. I recently contacted him to try to work things out and tell him that I have an incurable cancer and that his daughters have been left hurt and bewildered by his behavior. His excuse was that he thought they would be more interested in seeing their friends than going to his house at weekends...
I've been with my current husband for 13 years. He has a wonderful son whose mother died when he was 5 years old. My stepson often says that he wishes that I had come along much earlier in his life and has put me down as 'mother of the groom' at his upcoming wedding.

I've never talked to anyone about all this, I wish I had. When I was in care I used to see a counselor who told me I had to put all these feelings and memories in little boxes and put them away so that I could move on with my life. This hasn't worked, its there inside me all the time.
I'm actually crying as I'm typing this. I really think its time I sought help

"However often when you look closely the Mother will often have been experiencing quite severe mental health issues / substance misuse or sometimes domestic abuse issues so I would say its never as simple as a woman just deciding they no longer want to be a parent."

Please don't insult those of us who have been abandoned and or abused by excusing shifty behaviour. Many of us who have had shit go on to be amazing parents. Many of people who were abusive shitty parents had loving upbringings.

I had a close friend some years back who's mum abandoned him a few times. She was a heroin addict, and awfully abusive when he was with her. He lived with his nana & aunt for sometime as a child, before going back to his mum when she got clean. Then she met a new guy, got back on drugs and it happened again. He said he remembers her taking him out to McDonald's as a treat and then just leaving him there when he was about 6 or 7. He managed to find his way home somehow and apparently she was distraught that he had come back.
He lived with his nana & aunt permanently after that and has turned into a lovely lad.
I can't understand how somebody can bring a child into this world and treat them with such horrendous cruelty

"I read something years ago that was enormously triggering. Something along the lines of -whatever age you were that your mother left you, you’ll either follow the same path or emotionally disconnected when your children are about the same age you were."

Please don't believe this for another second. I won't go into details as my first post wasn't welcomed but it's a load of crap.

child victim of a genuine 70s wife swap, here. my mother left my brother and sister with my dad, and married a man whose wife had left him for my dad.

i and my stepsister were raised in fear and abuse, by violent alcoholics. my brother and sister never got over my mother leaving them - conversely, i wish she’d left me as well.

i’m late 40s now. i went nc with mother 13 years ago. i look forward to hearing of her death. it might sound an awful thing to say, but that woman ruined 4 young lives and enjoyed it. it suits her fine to have dreadful children that have abandoned her, as she thrives on sympathy and attention.

i have a personality disorder, along with half a dozen more mental illnesses/diagnoses. i stopped work after a breakdown some years ago, and i’ll never work again. i’m an alcoholic, coming up on 5 years sober.

my life has mostly been shit, it still is shit, and i genuinely wish i’d never been born.