The Pain Of A Mother

My heart is broken, I’m beside myself and yet it’s my fault. I can’t change the past but the past has certainly changed me. I did the unthinkable. Sure others have done it before I did, but I’m a mother; mothers don’t leave their children, fathers do. And for some ungodly reason people tend to expect it when a man walks out on his family. But a mother? Mothers don’t leave their families. But I did. Why, you might ask in disgust; I can’t explain what was going on in my bipolar, drug-induced brain, except I was tired. I may have had a bad case of “poor me,” we’ve all had that at one time or another whether we admit it or not. That’s no excuse. I love my children more than life itself, but I was sinking. I lost my job and my savings was going quick, I was scared of letting them down, I was scared of becoming my mother and in doing so, I became worse. Their dad is a great dad; he makes a lot of money and can give them more then I could. I actually thought I was doing them a favor. The way I saw it, if I wasn’t around, their dad would provide them with everything their hearts desired and more. I know he loves them and wouldn’t let harm come to them, just I had. What I didn’t plan on was how much it was going to hurt me, and how it was going to affect the rest of their lives, our lives.


If only I had asked for help, if only I had known where to ask for help. I was almost forty years old, and was feeling all those “age” pressures too. My children and I had a great relationship. But I destroyed that, sure I have made attempts to repair that bond, but I admit I was still a bit of a flake. It was so different after being gone for six years, I felt like the outsider trying to fit into someone else’s shoes. I forgot how to be a mom; more importantly, I didn’t feel it was right to walk back in to their lives and start telling them what to do and where they could go, it didn’t feel right to be their mom again. They had become these really great young adults, and I had nothing to do with it. I was impressed with who they had grown into but I didn’t feel worthy of them, so those feelings of mine destroyed our relationship again.

I found myself wishing they didn’t have to deal with me; I wished I was dead. I thought without me in the picture they would be able to accept their father’s wife as a stepmother easier. So I started plotting my death, it’s all I thought about, I was so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed, I had nightmares, I cried all day, I couldn’t stand to be around children, and god forbid I heard a small child cry in a store I would break down right there. I realize now if I commit suicide I will be doing even more damage to them, but how do I go on? How do I pick up the pieces and prove to them I want to be their mom? How can I show I’m sincere when I’m stuck in a horrible marriage that I’m too frightened to leave? They tell me, “Just call Dad, he’ll help you,” well I did call their dad, and yeah he came and got me from Colorado and drove me back to California, but he had other ideas for us, how we (him and I) were going to be back together and how I needed to sleep with him now for him coming to get me. I couldn’t do it, I don’t have those kind of feelings for him and haven’t had them for thirteen years now. Should I have just leaped into another loveless marriage for the sake of my kids? Is that what “a good mother” would do? I didn’t, and when my controlling husband hunted me down and demanded I get my tail back to Colorado or else, I folded and hopped a bus back before he was to mad to take me back. Now I driven a deeper wedge between me and my kids, and their father I can be pretty sure will never help me again.

I just couldn’t imagine myself back with him even if it meant I would be making my children happy, I am the worst mother in the world. I know I’m messed up but I just don’t know how to fix me. Maybe this is God’s plan for me, maybe in my next life I will be a motherless child. I have made such a mess of my life and in turn my children’s lives too. I can’t live with my mistakes. How can I ask them to forgive me when I can’t even forgive myself? I’ve never felt worse pain.