Last Wednesday evening my thirteen year old daughter threw the major of all tantrums, quite a normal daily episode over this last year and yet again she screamed how she wanted to go live with her dad.
I was tired, fed up of the constant arguing and after she screamed in my face she hated me and no longer wanted to live here, I called her bluff and told her if she wanted to go live with her dad to go, she phoned him, he collected her, she left.
9 days later she’s still gone and still not wanting to come home. While most are telling me to leave her and let her cool off and to enjoy having some peace, it is killing me inside. It feels like I have a missing limb.
I know she does not hate me, I know she is a hormonal teen and I know life with her dad is so much more relaxed for her, as he has no rules. He has never had to be a full time parent before, my children are also on the safeguard register because of him, yet I am told there is nothing I can do. She is old enough to make that choice.
I had a meeting with the social worker and “him” yesterday morning, he says she’s great and life is perfect, I smile and nod yet my heart is breaking that little bit more when he tells me she doesn’t want to talk to me, he has forced her to sign a Mothers Day card for me, she didn’t want too.
“He” leaves for work at 7am, my daughter gets up alone and waits an hour for the school bus, after school she stays home alone for two hours waiting for him to return from work. My daughter has a key to the house and is now a grown up. This is the same girl who only 10 days ago needed her mom to help her make some soup as she didn’t know how to even open the tin.
The worst part is being told there is nothing I can do, I have to accept “he” now calls all the shots. If I want to speak to my daughter I have to phone “him”.
I spoke to her last night, I happily told her I would box up all her belongings for “him” to collect at the weekend, I smiled at myself in the mirror so my voice sounded happy as the tears ran and my insides ached.
Friends are calling offering support, I am smiling and I paint a smile on my face. I have starved myself for days, I want to hurt myself, punish myself. I have told myself I deserve this as I am a bad mother, yet my five other children prove to me I am a great mother, I am being pulled in two directions.
I have lost the fight, I have nothing left to give as there is nothing to fight for. She has chosen to stay with her dad, my eldest children have noted how much more relaxed and happier the house has been since she left. She is my daughter, my first born, my life and she’s has now taken a large part of my heart and ripped it into two and then ripped it some more.
Thirteen years I have begged, borrowed, cried, laughed and worried myself to death over her, doing everything in my power to protect her. I have now placed her in the lions den and walked away. I can no longer keep her safe.
I can not go into details, I know “he” or his family may well read this and there is a court case ongoing, to which I am not able to go into detail about as of yet, social services are involved due to “Him”, yet they are now telling me “he” is allowed to raise my daughter, they will support him with skills.
I will be there to pick up the pieces as I always am when it all comes crashing to an end, which it will. But I will never forgive “them” for taking away my only sense of living, being a mother and protecting my children.
“They” have taken away her safety net and I have to sit back and just wait. Wait for “him” to screw up her life like he did mine, some say he may prove me wrong, I say one day and one day soon I will sit and say “I told you so”, yet that day may just come to late.
The Real SupermumUSA [email protected]
