Mothers abandoning their children

[Cinderfreakingella]

Hi, my first thread. My mother left my father back in 1962 in London England. Us three children were aged 7 4 and eighteen months old. I was the eldest and I virtually grew up overnight. No explanation was ever given to us and dad never mentioned her ever again. Life was hard. I could write a book about our lives, our childhood etc but what I would like to hear is from others that went through this abandonment and how they feel now, how it has affected their lives, their relationships etc. This year I will be 66 years old but on the inside I am still that little girl whose mum walked out on her. How do you feel?

@JKScot4 you sound like you are implying I am copying out some lines previously spouted by other MNs.
I’ve never read a post about this issue.
I am not copying anyone.

I am trying to give different perspectives - not because I am being sexist like you appear to imply, but because it might be true.
As what you say may be true. The woman may have just done a runner because she wanted to leave. Or she may have been a loving mum who had mental health issues and couldn’t cope.

Nobody knows the truth and I feel sad for the OP that she will never find out either.

Forgive the vagueness (and the pronouns) but this is not my story.
Someone I was once very close to discovered in their early adulthood that the woman they believed to be their mother was in fact their grandmother and their "sister", with whom they had a very strained relationship was actually their biological mother. Once sister/mum discovered the truth was out she disappeared. It would be impossible for me to overstate just how bad this was for the affected person but I ought not give too many details. Sadly, they pushed everyone that loved them out of their lives following this revelation, me included. I wish I could have helped them.
I am not sure why I am posting really, other than to offer some support and to say that there are people who will at least try to understand and people who love you. Believe in yourselves.

@Elieza but as a small child it still feels heart breaking that you mother would rather be without you. In my case my mother left because my dad was a bully, and so we were left with a bully. Just because she was hurting, doesn’t make it right that 3 children she chose to bring into the world should be damaged
I am now a mother and I still firmly believe that if you bring children into the world you don’t abandon them. On a brighter note, I have a wonderful relationship with my own daughter and this is some parts makes up for a teenager hood alone and with no support from any family member.

@angell84 I'm sorry for everything you've been through but I think a father leaving is completely different to a mother. Speaking as a mother myself, I couldn't possibly think of any situation ever where I could ever even consider leaving DC behind.

The other impact I had to feel was how utterly devastated my dad was. It ruined him emotionally and financially. He had a really good job that he just couldn't cope with anymore. He ended up losing it and going on benefits for a short while. He got a job after that but he couldn't ever afford to give us the life we used to have and he resented himself for it. I can see that it still hurts him now.

Growing up in an abusive household is awful. It's different to abandonment. I don't want to minimise what you've been through because it's horrible and I'm glad you found your coping mechanism, but our experiences and emotions are different.

@nibdedibble- you summed me up too!
Sometimes I wonder if I’m too sensitive, especially if someone’s inconsiderate etc but equally at same time, if someone wrongs me personally ( mainly in my youth) they would only get 1 chance after and I’d cut them off if happened again.i think the self defence mechanism kicks in more now than ever.
If childhood/teens and early 20s were shit, I’m not gonna spend the latter part of my life feeling the same.

*@JKScot4 your DDs words are very true and extremely wise. I've put them in my phone to give me a boost when I need it. Please thank her for being astute enough to say them and thank you for sharing. .

My FIL. His mother got pregnant when she was young and “in service” (this would have been in the 1940s). She was unmarried, and had to leave her job. Then she got sick with TB. Her parents told her that she could come back and live with them
But she wasn’t allowed to bring the baby - they didn’t want the shame. So she put him in an orphanage, left, and died within the year.

My FIL has done incredibly well to build a life considering where he started. But the same things that many report above have haunted him: lack of self confidence, lack of self worth, depression and anger. He forgave his mother but has never made peace with the fact that no one else in the family would take him in as a baby, preferring to abandon him to care - out of sight and out of mind.

Interestingly he made contact with his mothers family in his 30s. The grandparents were long dead, but various aunties, uncles, cousins are still around. He has tried so hard to become part of that family, but knows that he isn’t really in there. It’s heartbreaking: like someone said above, he has this fantasy where he has relatives that are nice and care about him. Then he realises he’s the one doing all the running, he’s the one that doesn’t get told about funerals or invited to weddings, and the fantasy crumbles leaving him very angry and sad.

The only thing my mother taught me, was how NOT to be a mum.

This. A thousand times over.

@restingbitchface30 you sound like a lovely person and I’m so sorry you have suffered as you have.

@robinsinthespring thank you for posting this. It’s so interesting and I’m sorry this happened to you.

@GiveHerHellFromUs
Thank you for also recognising what I was trying to say.

To answer the Ops original question about how feelings relating to being abandoned by your mother, in my own experience I don't feel anything towards her now. After a lot of therapy, grieving for what I never got from her as a child when she was around and the chaos she caused the first time she bolted, I have worked through my anger towards her. I no longer crave the validation I once did. She did me a huge favour by bolting again when she left her second husband for her third. It was another act of cowardice. She upped and left and all the old feelings flooded back but I was older, had my own family and decided to finally draw the line under the relationship with the help of a therapist. I suppose I had closure which I get the feeling a lot of other posters on here haven't quite got to. Now when I think about her, which is less and less as the years go by, I see her as a bit 'pointless'. There's nothing to be had from her and I don't try anymore.

Not 'having' a mother left me with all the insecurities that other posters have mentioned, fear of abandonment, low self worth, underachieving. I am tolerant of other people's faults to a point but when a line is crossed I am willing to let them go, permanently. I am also a fiercely protective mother to my daughter. God help anyone that hurts her. My driving incentive has been to provide her with stability, despite an awful marriage, so that she never has to feel the lack of solid ground that I grew up with. In my head, your parents should be your rock so that you feel safe to go out and explore the world, always knowing you have somewhere to come back to.

@myidentitymycrisis 

@Dacquoise can I ask how you went about getting therapy please?

@angell84 thank you for your kind words. I have no idea who I am. I am about to go to my therapy appointment so I'm going to stop reading at your post then reread everything again and make notes of what will help me. Great thread. Should be in classics as some of the shit voted for classics is so vacuous but this thread is strong.

I really can’t stop thinking about this thread, in a good way. I’ve often looked online for a support group for people who have been abandoned as children by their mothers, but all I find is support for those with difficult mothers, narcissistic etc.

I know I need therapy but I know that only a tiny number of people understand this peculiar situation. People default to comparing it with an abusive childhood and it is in no way the same in my case.

I’ve no friends who grew up with an emotionally lonely and struggling father or knowing they were being watched at school for signs of rape by their father, for example (he would never have done that ffs!). The shame and loneliness of it. I don’t know the words to begin to share it.

@nibdedibble 100% agree with the last bit of your post. People assuming that they needed to keep an extra close eye on you.

I also hated the teachers at school who disregarded the fact that some children don't have mothers in their lives. Our teachers knew about everyone's home lives. They knew who turned up to parents evenings and school plays. Who you talked about when you were telling your friends what you'd done at the weekend etc. I was a bit of a knob at school and I recall a teacher (she was more of a knob than me ) telling me she was going to call my mom. I'd repeatedly told her in the past that I have NC with her but she still couldn't get it through her thick skull.
15 year old smart ass me retorted "ok cool. If you do find her be sure to let me know!"
But it really affected me and nobody seems to acknowledge that.

I wanted my mom to be there when I got home. I wanted to have a mom who would give a shit if I'd been in trouble at school. I wanted her to actually be able to contact my mom.

@GiveHerHellFromUs, I used the BACP website, searched by area. Sounds daft but I went for someone who looked 'kind' from his picture. It's not cheap but it has certainly been worth every penny. I dip in and out as I need it and totally trust him.

I think you can get therapy through your GP but it tends to be short term group therapy on CBT lines although any help is better than none.

That's amazing @Dacquoise, thanks so much!
No it doesn't sound daft at all. I'll probably do the same!

I was offered CBT for my anxiety but the idea of being in a pressured group setting would trigger me.

GiveHerHellFromUs at the same time, it's not wrong that they did...we do all need to look out for each other. But knowing what they were looking for (in my case) when actually what they needed to see was that I needed nurturing, that's hard.

@GiveHerHellFromUs, I really hope that it helps you. I went through a bout of crippling anxiety and just talking to someone one on one made it go away. I have also never said this before on this forum but I had an eating disorder which developed very soon after I moved in with my now ex-husband. It went on for years but after one session of therapy (not this one, another one I used) it went away. Just like that. I think it was the first time in my whole life that someone actually gave me their wholehearted attention and listened to me. I don't want to suggest that that will happen with anyone else as I know how complex eating disorders are but something just clicked for me.

My dps mother left him and 4 siblings with their dad, she ran up 40k worth of debt in dad's name before she left. He had to declare himself bankrupt after she went. She moved to the other end of the country and cut them all off entirely for years. All of the kids had / have quite severe anxiety issues and depression of varying levels.

She sends things sometimes, for a birth of a baby or a birthday maybe, but for dp it's usually with a letter that's very snide and backhanded. Like my personal favorite, "I was going to take (little brother and sister) but they wanted to stay with you so I didnt.

So yes, she was never going to take dp, she wanted to take the 2 younger ones and now dp knows it. (the older 2 were 16 with a baby and 17 with a job)

Dp hasn't talked to her since she left 20 odd years ago, the other siblings have a semi relationship with her now but she's a horrible woman, his sisters always end up in tears round here after she's been. I've never met her but I can't stand the woman for how she's messed up so many aspects of their lives and still continues to affect them all now.

My daughters were abandoned by their mother (my ex wife) when they were 5 and 9. She had met another man and went abroad to live with him. I think my older daughter in particular found it very hard to deal with, and I probably didn't do as good a job as I should have as I was dealing with my own grief. They are 22 and 26 now and are both very happy ( I even have 2 grand kids too!).
I could never understand how my ex could leave us. There were now issues like DV etc. I think she just felt that there must be more to life than being a wife and mother so she took the chance as soon as it was presented to her.

My mother abandoned me at 14. She fleed her abusive husband (not my father) and took my 2 young siblings with her.

She woke me at 6am after my stepfather had gone to work and told me what was happening. I was to live with my grandparents and she was leaving and that was that. I remember her crying and telling me to pack everything up as I wouldn’t be going to school that day and would not be returning to the house.
My grandparents came and helped us pack all out belongings into bin bags. By lunchtime I was at my grandparents house in their spare room and my mum and siblings were being driven 300 miles away to a new town. It had been planned for months.

I was floored how quickly it all happened. I know why she did it, she felt it was the only way to protect herself and us kids from a violent man who was getting increasingly worse.

For five years I only saw her and my siblings twice a year. It was like she just gave up being my parent as I didn’t need parenting anymore.

My grandparents were great and I had a nice life with them, but I felt so alone. I went to uni at 18 and never looked back and just looked after myself and grew up very quickly.

My mum and siblings moved back to the area 5 years later after said stepdad had moved abroad. My relationship with her now is indifferent. I had a lot of therapy when my own dc were born because that’s when the reality of me hit hard. It has made me a better parent though, even though I have trust and abandonment issues. It did make me independent and I leant not to rely on anyone. This has stood me well in adult life.

I have a great relationship with both siblings too which is lovely.

@MrsWhy I worried about having a daughter in case it was my mother and I repeating itself but it really isn't. Don't let it ruin your pregnancy any longer .

My mother was away when I was aged 2 1/2 to 5 years of age. I was looked after by my dad and housekeepers, my grans didn't want to know.

My mother was abusive towards me. She left again when I was 12. I was left with my problem drinker dad, grans again didn't want to know.

I think I am like a house which has no foundations, everything looks fine on the outside but I have terrible problems with anxiety and coping.

I don't think I developed an inner strength my home life was so chaotic.