Estranged

• January
• 13

6:00 am Mental Illness, Survivors of Abuse, The Friday Files

The Friday Files continue …

So how did our relationship break down irretrievably? I tried soooo hard to make things work. I wanted to be a good Christian girl! I wanted to honour my Mother!  But like any relationship, it takes two. And one of us just wasn’t cooperating …

The first period of estrangement occurred when I left home at 19 after a huge family argument. Understandably, there was no contact for over six months.  But I felt guilty, and initiated contact when I had just become engaged and felt it was the right thing to do, to a: have contact and b: tell her about my engagement.

Our relationship was strained for the next 3 years, until the run-up to my wedding  (to my darling Lawrence - I broke off the first engagement – thankfully realised I was on the “rebound” from my difficult home life before I made a very big mistake!).

Lawrence and I decided to pay for our wedding ourselves.  When it came time to send out the invitations, I asked both my Mum and her current husband, and Dad and his partner. 

All my life I had been forced to “choose” between them (Mum usually won out, after all, she was the parent I lived with), but I was sick of it.  It was MY wedding, and I was the one paying for it, so the time had come to be assertive once and for all.  I invited both, and told them both that they were my parents, I loved them both, I’d invited them both, and THEY had to sort it out.  Greatly offended, Mum refused to come to the wedding.

In hindsight this was probably a good thing, because heaven only knows what trouble she would have stirred up if she’d actually turned up.  When the Big Day dawned I couldn’t help but wonder if she would put in an appearance at the ceremony at least.  I just couldn’t fathom a parent staying away from such a momentous occasion.  I still can’t!  But sure enough, she didn’t come.  After that intial thought early in the morning, I was too busy,  happy and excited to give the matter another thought and it wasn’t until during our honeymoon that my new husband and I discussed her boycott.  Although there was some lingering sadness, overall I was relieved.

It wasn’t until months or even years later that I heard about what Mum did to my brother.  At 16, he was the only one still living at home.  We’d asked him to be a groomsman and my mum told him that if he went to “that” wedding, that he needn’t bother coming home!  My brother had a lot more guts than I would have at that age, and not only came to the wedding but never once let on the turmoil he went through to be there.  He ended up staying with my sister and her husband that weekend.  It took a lot of courage for my brother to do that and keep it to himself, not wanting to spoil our day. Bless his heart!

All was quiet for several years, until around Mother’s Day 1993.  Mum rang me at work, and said something along the lines of, “This is ridiculous, let’s try again”.  I was so happy to know that she cared, I went out to the tea room and bawled my eyes out.

However, I now think it was more part of her act to play “happy families”.  Her motivation was to put on a good front at her wedding (Number 4!) a couple of months later, and have all her children there.

Again, things were strained.  First off, she blamed ME that she didn’t come to her wedding which really, really annoyed me. Hey, she received an invitation - if she didn’t come, whose fault was it really?!  But, I held my tongue, thinking “anything for peace”. I desperately wanted this relationship to work out this time but it was very, very hard.

In February 1994, I was six months pregnant with our first child.  Mum rang one day, and Lawrence answered the phone.  He had a quick chat with her, saying “Janet can’t talk for long, we’re going over to her Dad’s today…..” which was like waving a red rag at a bull.

By the time I got on the phone she was in full rant and rave mode.  I don’t know if it was the pregnancy hormones or what, but I snapped.  I just couldn’t take it anymore so I told her exactly what I was feeling.  Not surprisingly she hung up and that was that.

I sent her a birth announcement when my son was born, and got the plainest, cheapest card in return, just signed “Mum and A (her husband)” – nothing else written on it.

All was quiet for a few more years, when one day I picked up the phone, and again, it was Mum wanting to renew contact.  I sighed deeply, and as gently as I could, tried to tell her that I just couldn’t handle it anymore.  My heart just ached.  A lot of my anger had dissolved by this time, as I consciously tried to forgive her.

Calling out to God silently for help,  I remember saying something along the lines of “I don’t think it’s for the best.  We just seem to hurt one another”. What I was REALLY thinking, was YOU are always hurting ME and for the sake of my own sanity I just can’t do this anymore!  Once again, I found myself listening to a dial tone.

It was the last time I ever spoke to my mother.