My Mom Broke Up With Me Last Week

She sent me an email telling me she wouldn't be contacting me again. 

You wouldn't think from looking at the family in this picture that a disaster was on the horizon.  That baby in the picture is me, in my mom's lap. 

It's been a long time coming, really.  When I was very young, she and my dad got a divorce.  She spent all of my growing up years putting all of her efforts into finding a man, and it didn't seem to matter what kind of man she found.  She went from one abusive relationship to another, putting my brother and I in a constant state of crazy circumstances and, frankly, dangerous ones. 

As an adult with some life and professional experience under my belt, it's easy now to see the mental illness and dysfunction.  As a child, however, I thought our lives were normal.  Leaving home in the middle of the night to pick up the latest guy from jail?  Normal.  Watching dishes fly through the kitchen while adults screamed at each other?  Normal.  A child calling in sick for her mother because she was heartbroken over the latest breakup?  Normal.   It's honestly remarkable I'm not crazy myself.

There were moments of joy, for sure.  She got my brother and me a Nintendo game, and together we conquered Mario's quest.  We watched family movies together on Sunday nights on the TV.  Sometimes, on paydays, we'd get to go to Taco Bell for dinner.

Mostly, though, it felt like navigating a minefield.  If I was good enough, got perfect grades, and didn't mess up, maybe I could escape the yuck.

There were plenty of adults in my life who noticed what was going on and stepped up and in to try to fill the obvious gap.  My grandparents did what they could on summers and breaks.  We lived with them for sporadic periods of time when she couldn't keep housing or jobs.  Teachers were especially supportive during middle school and high school, noticing my drive for excellence and baby-stepping me into college.  Family members, including my brother and dad, did what they could to mitigate the fallout of having a mom who was constantly in a state of crisis.  In college, my roommates and their parents took me under their wings and introduced me to experiences I would have never had otherwise.

Once I reached adulthood, I thought I had things figured out.  I recognized my mom's strengths and weaknesses and was able to work with them so we could maintain a relationship.  She was terribly jealous of Mike and any friends I had, making it difficult to juggle relationships, but I made it work.  Sometime in my mid-twenties, she cut off contact with my brother completely.  Again, he protected me and didn't bring me into that drama. 

Then seven years ago, we had a major family crisis.  Mike was deployed and  something terrible happened, and I NEEDED my mom.  I needed her to choose to stand by me and my family.  She didn't.  In fact, she stood in direct opposition of what we needed and then disappeared.  To be fair, she was in the midst of crisis as well, but the betrayal was huge, and real, and awful.

We didn't talk except for terse conversations via phone and email for a year.  After that, Mike and I went to her in the spirit of reconciliation, hoping to set things back on a path to a relationship.  After meeting with her for nearly two hours, we left, hopeful that we could make things work.  When I got home there was an email from her waiting for me telling me we hadn't even tried and how disappointed she was.

The next five years followed the same pattern:  a push-pull scenario where Mike and I made our best efforts to reconcile and our attempts were never good enough. In order to protect the kids because real safety issues were involved, I told her she wouldn't have access to them until she was able to first fix her relationship with me.  I offered to go to a counselor with her.  I offered to talk to a pastor with her.  I offered to meet again.  She didn't like those options.  She wanted full unrestricted access to our kids, and we weren't allowing her that.  She didn't talk to me for nearly a year.  Then, last December she sent me a multi-paragraph email with instructions to "forward this to Mike."  In it, she detailed to Mike every wrong she felt I had committed against her.  I replied, telling her that I wasn't forwarding the email to Mike, but that if she wanted to discuss the issues she'd brought up with me, I was willing to do that.  She never replied.

Last week I got the break-up email.  She told me that she loved me, but that she would never contact me again.  She gave that weird apology people give when they aren't really sorry:  "I'm sorry if I did anything to hurt you," and then told me she forgave ME.  She quoted a Bible verse.

I've chosen not to reply. I'm not sure what else there is to say.  Short of allowing her to be unsafe around my family, there's nothing I can do at this point to please her.

It's weird losing a mother in this way.  There's no death date I can mourn.  I can't visit a gravesite and leave flowers.  No one talks about having crappy mothers, because mothers aren't supposed to be crappy.  They are supposed to be strong.  And brave.  And present.  And trustworthy. It's strange and uncomfy to admit you have a terrible mother, because it makes you worry that people will think it's your fault for some reason, or that there's something wrong with you.

That's why I'm sharing my mom break-up story with you.  I KNOW her problems are not my problems.  I KNOW I can't be responsible for her happiness.  And I KNOW that my decisions have been made based on what's best for my family, paired with a genuine effort for reconciliation.  There is truly nothing else I can do at this point.  I feel bad that my kids have lost a grandmother.  I feel bad that my mother will likely spend her last years without family.  I feel bad that I don't have a mom to call with questions only moms can answer.  But none of those things are on me, and I know that.

I am so blessed by other women who have come alongside me to support me as I grow in my marriage, my role as mom, my career, and my spiritual life.  There are several older women who recognize that I am motherless and have stepped in to mother me.  One dear friend made us meals during a particularly trying time.  Another is always ready to step in at a moment's notice for emergencies.  Other women who are closer to my age have been a sounding board for hairy parenting, career, and marriage situations.

Friends, many of you have mothers that are mentally ill or disengaged or just plain crappy.  Please know that my heart hurts for you and I get it. To be motherless without a death is a seriously sad thing. But know also that there are people in your life who are ready and willing to stand with you and for you.  We can help fill the gap and make sure you are not alone as you walk this road we are all on together.

One last thought:  it was only because people saw the situation I was in as a child and stepped in to do something that I am able to be a successful wife, mother, and teacher today.  There are kids in your life in this same situation.  You can't take them home with you, but you can fill in the gap.  You can point to a better future.  You can help procure resources.  You can be a cheerleader.  It was people like you who literally gave a girl like me a future.  Don't be discouraged when you come across kids with absent or crappy parents.  Instead, be encouraged that the time you invest in them can make a huge difference in their lives.  It definitely did for me.