Letter To My Mother

You did­n’t know it, but for years I’ve come close to burn­ing the bridge with you. It was a heavy step to take, because in doing so, I knew that I would nev­er be able to go back on such a dras­tic deci­sion.

I appre­ci­ate all the finan­cial sup­port you’ve pro­vid­ed. It’s been more than I can ask for. Unfortunately, what I want­ed and need­ed the most was emo­tion­al sup­port.

I’ve always played the role of the sub­mis­sive son. Your boy who’s always done what you want­ed and agreed with what you said. When we exchanged tears on the phone in August, I let you know how poor­ly I was treat­ed grow­ing up. I’ve always put up with it, but the way you act­ed last week was the straw that broke the camels back. I keep giv­ing you a chance, over and over. Seeing you over those few days was the last one. Even if you say now that you can change, the risk isn’t worth it. The poten­tial mis­ery, frus­tra­tion, and anguish you may cause me aren’t worth it.

Normally, I would be sen­si­tive about the tim­ing — the fresh divorce, the tran­si­tion — but I don’t care any­more. I’ve put my feel­ings aside my whole life. You pushed me too far, and now I have to con­sid­er myself.

Don’t con­tact me again. Not even if some­one dies. Any calls, mes­sages, e‑mails will be ignored. This is not an easy or a brash deci­sion for me, a deci­sion I’ve made after cool­ing off and calm­ing down, but from my point of view it’s for the best.

You give me noth­ing but pain and mon­ey, and the mon­ey does­n’t mean a thing.

From now on, I don’t have a moth­er.

And you don’t have a son.

7 comments

  1. i’m so sor­ry jeff. despite it being such a hard thing to do, like you said, not an easy deci­sion, maybe it is for the best. Dont know any­thing else to say, be strong. even if it is your choice-you may think twice about it lat­er. Be strong.

  2. ” Having chil­dren makes you no more a par­ent than hav­ing a piano makes you a pianist ”

    I trust this was a dif­fi­cult let­ter to write, that you sent it or not, that you voiced it or not make it no eas­i­er, i’m sure. Admitting it to your­self and stand­ing up for your­self are strongest things you could do. I’m sor­ry it came to this.

  3. That was harsh. It must have tak­en a lot out of you to make that deci­sion, put it down on paper and deliv­er it. You need that break. Courage.

    Cheers
    Tisha

  4. It’s very sad that it’s come to that. I hope this deci­sion isn’t a bur­den for you and that you’re cop­ing ok. There seems to be so much emo­tion­al tumult in your life, I wish for you that it slows down a lit­tle, that you can relax soon.

  5. I total­ly under­stand com­ing from a place, where,
    you final­ly have to do whats best for you, no mat­ter the rela­tion­ship you hurt, break, or ter­mi­nate.
    I hope you find some peace soon
    hope the ‘tor­ture’ ses­sion helped
    holy shit
    looks like you went thru a pil­grim­age rit­u­al or some­thin’ freaky ;)

    cheers, Amy

  6. The let­ter was­n’t very hard to write actu­al­ly, most of it flowed quite eas­i­ly. It was­n’t even a bur­den of a deci­sion, it was exact­ly what I need­ed to do. I can say that I did my best to avoid things com­ing to this.

    Thanks to every­body for the sup­port.

  7. I admire that you found the courage to write this let­ter. I know exact­ly where you are com­ing from. My moth­er has hurt me deeply all my life with her sharp tongue. I remem­ber when I was 30 and received a phone call at work from her say­ing some very mean things to me, as per her usu­al. I hung up the phone and acci­dent­ly said out loud that I wish she was dead. The guy next to me gave me such a shock of hor­ror look and told me that I was a hor­ri­ble per­son to even wish some­thing like that. He said his moth­er was dead and wished she wasn’t. People who have not gone through life with a moth­er like this will nev­er tru­ly under­stand the pain they can bring. Thus, I will give some exam­ples of how my moth­er treat­ed me. One day I was over at her house, and she gave me a pic­ture. It was a pic­ture when I was very thin. I asked her what I should do with it. She said I should put it on the front of my refrig­er­a­tor so I can see what I used to look like. Granted, I could stand to lose a cou­ple of pounds, but am not obese by any means. I care the major­i­ty of my extra weight in the stom­ach area. All my life she picked on me for some­thing. If I wore trendy clothes, she would say I look like a clown. If I broke out, she would point out every sin­gle pim­ple I had. When I had breast can­cer, not once did she come over to help me or even bring a meal over. For mother’s day, I took her to a green­house to pick out her choice of a flower bas­ket. On the way, she told me now that I had a breast reduc­tion, I should check out get­ting a gut reduc­tion. My chil­dren are only one year apart. When I was at her house one day, she sus­pect­ed I was preg­nant with my sec­ond child and kept yelling this at me: “You’re knocked up, aren’t you?” I left with­out answer­ing her. When I got home, the phone was ring­ing. It was my moth­er yelling at me that I got knocked up. I am a mar­ried woman. This is a term that is asso­ci­at­ed with unmar­ried women. This was a choice between my hus­band and I, thus, it is none her busi­ness. She is now 83 and get­ting mean­er by the day. She blames me that she flunked the mem­o­ry test and screams at me every time that it is my fault she can’t dri­ve. If I don’t drop what I am doing to run over and take care of what she needs, she threat­ens to take the car. She has made me give her an ane­mia after I even told her that I want­ed to just be her daugh­ter and not her nurse. She has threat­ened to take me out of her will. She fre­quent­ly tells me that I am a hor­ri­ble daugh­ter despite all the things I do for her. I could go on and on with many more hor­ri­ble moments I have had with her, but will not go there. If you ask me, you made the right deci­sion. We don’t need poi­so­nous peo­ple in our life!

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