Only Out of Love

It wasn’t the first time I had to do this. Honestly, I think a part of me always knew that trying to make amends would result in something like this happening again. My hands shook as I tried to write out my response to the, literally, ten-paged text message she had sent. The words she used ran over and over in my head as my response grew longer and longer.

“I know you asked us to respect your decision but I can’t in good conscience stay quiet about it.” “This was your plan all along.” “You both are being foolish.” “Hannah, you just run away. From me, from your father and his wife, from your brother. Everyone.” “I wasn’t happy when this started, but you have to stick it out now.” “You were setting it up to be with other men all along.” “You don’t know how to love.” “I say this only out of love.”

That last one echoed in my head nonstop. Only out of love. She was willing to tear me down, call me a whore, accuse me of adultery, make claims of my ability to be a parent to my little girl… but she claimed it was said only out of love. So, that made it all okay, right? Right…

As I typed and typed, I knew it wasn’t even worth arguing with her. I had done this before after all. I had tried to point out the flaws in her thinking. I had tried to explain how her words cut deeper than anything that my to-be-ex had done to me. But she didn’t care, because she believed it was all said only out of love, therefore, it couldn’t be harmful.

What are you supposed to do when your own mother’s version of love is only to tear you down.

The entirety of my 21 years of life was this. Always the difficult child. I could never do good enough, not in her eyes. My therapist said it was why I try to always prove myself to everyone around me. It was also why I didn’t often let anyone too close to me, so that way I couldn’t let anyone else down. But here I was, failing once again. I couldn't be strong enough to hold my young marriage together. I couldn’t be strong enough for my daughter. And my mother was sure to be the one to tell me so.

I erased my response and started over.

I thought about the times that she had done things “only out of love” before. I remembered a time, not long before she had been institutionalized, when she locked me in a dark closet with a bottle of water and told me I couldn’t come out until I repented. I didn’t even know what I had done wrong.  Maybe I said something like whatever or had told a little white lie, as five year olds do sometimes. 

I remembered when I was nine, how she made me testify in court that it was my fault she got a ticket, because my seat belt wasn’t on right. Therefore, I was the one who needed to be punished, not her. 

I remembered how when I was twelve, my dad came out and apologized on her behalf for her screaming at me. She eventually responded with that she was not sorry and I needed to listen better. It was a lesson I needed to learn. All done only out of love.

I was fifteen when I decided to finally cut her off. The day is still so clear in my head. It was a Tuesday after school. My mom had just gotten off work and was sitting on the couch gossiping with her friends about her coworkers over the phone; she even went as far as to brag to my sister and I about how she was so much more mature than her coworker who filed a complaint against her. I rolled my eyes and continued with cleaning the kitchen, packing four lunches for school the next day, and then moving on to my homework. I had only sat down for a few minutes when I heard the dreaded words.

“Everyone, I’m calling a family meeting.” My mom yelled from the living room. We all grudgingly got up and gathered where she was.

“I’m very disappointed in you guys,” was how she decided to start it. “Look at this room. There’s trash on the floor and dust everywhere. And the whole house looks this way. Why haven’t you been keeping up with things. Hannah, weren’t you supposed to finish laundry yesterday? Why is it still in the dryer? I work hard to provide for this family. The least you children can do is help me out around the house.”

I was ready to snap.

“No you haven’t.” 

There was a pause of silence at my words. No one had dared confront my mother like this before.

“Excuse me?” She asked accusingly.

I stood up. “No you haven’t. You haven’t worked hard to provide for us. You barely work part time at a middle school down the road. Our dad pays you most of his paycheck so we can survive under your care. You do nothing to help. We do all the cleaning, and I make sure everyone is fed and ready to go each day. I take care of my siblings and this home, while you sit on the couch laughing with your friends at other people’s expense like a spoiled school girl.”

My fingers stopped typing as the memory ran through my head. That had not been a good day. Granteed, my words had been harsh, but they still didn’t warrant the response I received. I ended up stuck in a homeless shelter for a week with no way of communicating with anyone, because my mother had taken all of my belongings the moment she dropped me there. She thought it would teach me a lesson in respect. She did it only out of love.

I erased my response and started over.

It took four years for me to try and open up lines of communication with her again. Four years. Not even my wedding was enough for me to reach out. Four years of everyone telling me that I had been right in what I had done, but that that’s just how she was. I need to be the one to fix things. 

“What about your siblings? Who’s going to take care of them?” Too many people asked me that. Didn’t they recognize how toxic of a mentality that was? “Other people have it so much worse, at least she never beat you.”

I hated hearing that. My response was always, “Just because it could be worse, doesn’t mean what’s happening now is okay.”

It took four years, and my daughter being born, to try to fix things with my mother. I felt as though my daughter deserved to have her Nana in her life. Just because I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother, didn’t mean my daughter couldn’t have one with her. My daughter.

My heart broke for her as I thought about what she was about to have to go through. Her parents were supposed to be her rocks, the symbols of love in her life. She was only two. She wasn’t going to know anything but this broken home from now on. Just like I had growing up.

I was always scared to have a daughter. When I first found out I was pregnant, I hoped it was a boy. I hoped, because I didn’t want my daughter and I to have a relationship like my mother and I. I thought that I wouldn't know how to raise a girl with only my one negative example. I cried when I found out it was a girl. But now… Now she was my whole world. And I was breaking hers. My mother made sure that was clear to me in her ten-paged message.

I erased my response, and started over.

It had been two years of relative peace between my mother and I. She had even apologized for some of the things that had happened between us. She still insisted it was only because I was such a difficult child. But still, those apologies counted for something right? Up until that day…

It was almost the end of the year. My marriage had become abusive and was falling apart. I was doing my best to seek out help for myself. I reached out to friends for support and advice. I started therapy. I professed my most vulnerable fears to my mother. I wrote a note.

That note… that’s what pushed everything forward. After writing about how much I hated myself, and how I thought my daughter deserved better than what I could give, I realized how depressed I was, and just how much help I needed. I was in the hospital for a week. My mother came down to help me with my daughter because my husband was still deployed. That’s when it all began to fall apart. The painful memories filled my head.

I erased my response, and started over.

It didn’t take long before my mother began the same old habits she had done before. She accused me of sleeping with other men because I had friends checking on me after they found out about my note. She told my deployed husband I was cheating, and that I wanted him to kill himself so I could take his money and start over. She threatened to tell child protective services that I couldn’t take care of my daughter, and that she would take her away from me. She even locked me in my own room and hid my keys, because I wanted to get a coffee by myself. But it was all only out of love.

My husband forced his way back from his deployment, which led to him being removed from the military. My marriage became more abusive. My mother continued to tell me how horrible of a wife and mother I was for even considering separation now, only out of love, of course.

Then finally, I had enough. It was a new year, and I was going to start over. I was going to create a better life for myself, and, even more so, for my daughter. I knew her father loved her, but he couldn’t continue what he was doing to me. I reached out to friends and family and asked for their support in this choice. I never went into detail about how horrible my marriage had been, but explained that it was what I needed to do. Most people responded well. They sent their love and support and told me how their heart’s broke for me, but they understood. Not my mother though.

So there I was. One week into a separation, phone in hand, tears running down my eyes, my daughter asleep in her room upstairs. I read a ten-paged text message from my mother that condemned me, only out of love. In that moment, all I could think was how badly I wanted my mother. How I wished to be curled up in her arms, and to hear the words “it’s okay, life is hard, but I love you unconditionally.”

I erased my response.

I thought about what I could say. I thought about trying to convince her why I needed to do this. I thought about telling her how badly she hurt me with what she said. It wasn’t the first time I had to do this though. My hands shook as I wrote out my simple response.

“I say this, only out of love. Goodbye mother.”