My Mom Betrayed Us
Question: Dear Luise: My mom detonated a bomb on Wednesday night that blew our entire family to Hell and gone. Then, on Thursday she flew out to another state to be with her new love for the next five days. There is no way I can tell you how shocked and furious I am. I am fifteen. My sister is eighteen and just graduated. My parents have been married for 28 years and my dad is a totally great guy. The mom I thought I knew and loved could never have done such a thing, never! The person she turned into on Wednesday night is apparently the person she has always been…selfish, irresponsible and totally without a conscience. We were all fooled. My dad says he knew what was coming down but my sister and I got blindsided. I guess he has been trying to get her to change her mind. Why? Who would want her? She’s out of my life forever and the man she has picked to live with for the rest of her life will never be in my life. As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead and he never existed. How could this happen? Shawna
Answer: Dear Shawna: This isn’t a very good time for me to try to help you with this. You are too angry and too hurt to consider any other point of view except your own. I think you wrote because you wanted someone to hear you and know what you are going through. I have and I do.
Parents very seldom live up to the expectations of their offspring. Eventually, the fact that they are human, have limitations and short suits and often, (in more ways than one), have feet of clay…comes to the surface. You didn’t come to this realization slowly…you had it dumped on you overnight and you were flattened by it. That’s because there is just no way to soften such news.
Do what you need to do to make it through this. Be furious! You have every right and it would be unhealthy if you weren’t. Cut you mom out of your life and punish her to the max if that helps. See every kind thing she has ever done for you and every kind word she has ever spoken as lies, if that works for you. Counseling, if you are willing to do it, could also help a lot.
I can guarantee that you will move through it to some degree. Where you will come out is an unknown, right now…even if you think you know. You are on the threshold of adulthood yourself and probably have no concept as yet of what maturity will ask of you or how far short of the mark you may fall. None of us know, thank goodness.
You have an opportunity here to step up to the plate for your dad and sister. They may or may not have the same reaction as you but they are both in for a rough time for the foreseeable future. Under your fury, find, when you can, the love that remains in the family that’s left…and let it help you heal. Blessings, Luise
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