“I devoted my whole life to my child and I was left alone. My son broke off contact with me”

When I was young, I often heard: if you don’t have children, there will be no one to give you a glass of water in your old age. Everyone emphasized that there is nothing more beautiful than motherhood. For a moment I agreed with them. Now I know that a mother’s life is constant pain, longing and loneliness. Especially when the child is already an adult.

I gave birth to a wonderful son and devoted my whole life to him. I didn’t think I would ever regret it. Back then, the only thing that mattered was his happiness. As soon as he was born, my career stopped mattering. Work has turned from a passion into a means of making money. I gave up training and development, I stopped going on business trips. I came to the office, but my thoughts were always at home – with him. He was the apple of my eye. My husband never understood this. He, in turn, ran away from home to work.

“I did everything to make sure my son didn’t lack anything”

There was never overflow in our house, but I think that as a mother I did everything to ensure that my son lacked nothing. He wanted to learn to play the guitar, I bought him a guitar, he wanted to play basketball, I took him to training. He dreamed of designer shoes, I worked overtime at work so that he could get sneakers. My husband was furious because there were months when, due to the child’s whims, we were late with payments, but we always managed to get out of it somehow. At least my son didn’t lag behind the kids in his class.

When he went to college, my husband and I separated. We didn’t have much in common anymore. All that was left was anger and mutual grudges. My son accepted this and tried to spend one weekend with me and the other with his father. However, when he got his first job, something changed. He started to move away, to disappear.

“He called me a toxic mother”

Suddenly I realized that I had devoted my whole life to my child and I was left alone. My son broke off contact with me. I understand that a career is important, but is it more important than a mother? I always told him to study, that we would hear from him again someday. I believed in him like no other. But I didn’t expect it to turn against me. He was so absorbed in his work that at first he stopped visiting me because there was always something more important, and then he didn’t even call me anymore.

When I started demanding contact, I heard a whole litany of complaints. He called me a toxic mother, said that I only think about myself and that his life doesn’t matter to me at all. I felt like I had been punched in the face. After all, I gave him my whole life. What went wrong that when I needed him the most, I was left alone?

Mary

***

Your stories are important to us. We are waiting for letters and comments. Write to us at: pozna@agora.pl. We will publish the most interesting lists.