My mother chose a man over me: how she betrayed me for a stranger
My name is Valentine, Im 17, and Im from Marseille. I kept this story hidden for years, silent, but now Im ready to share it. Maybe someone will see themselves in it. Maybe a person will rethink their actions. Or perhaps at least one mother will think twice before betraying her own daughter, as mine did.
My parents split when I was ten. I cant claim we were ever a happy familyarguments, blame, and a growing distance were evident even when I didnt fully understand. After the divorce things got worse. It felt as if my mother and father were fighting over my attention, not out of love but out of duty. I was shuffled from one apartment to another, like a suitcase with no clear destination. My fathers place was cramped but calm; my mothers house was spacious, yet the tension grew suffocating each year.
Everything fell apart when a new man entered my mothers life. His name was Christian, a man in his thirties, almost ten years younger than my mother, and he immediately acted as though he owned the household while I was merely a nuisance. At first he wore a polite smile, pretending to be interested in me. Soon, however, his façade disappeared. He didnt want me living with my mother. He resented the money she spent on me. He freely declared that my father was irresponsible, that I was a burden, and that I should already walk my own path.
He manipulated my mother, leeching money from her, convincing her that she didnt need a teenage daughter, that she needed freedom and to look after herself. And my mother she listened. She no longer noticed my tears at night, how I silently gathered my books in the kitchen just to avoid crossing their paths, how I locked myself in the bathroom for an hour just to sit in quiet.
The final straw came one night when I heard them arguing again. Their shouts made the windows tremble. I left my room to wedge myself between them, trying to protect my motherI feared he would hit her. Instead, he stared at me with such rage that my heart clenched. I shouted, Enough! Stop yelling at her! and he struck me. A hard, solid blow to my face sent me crashing into the corner of a wardrobe. Everything blurred. I only remember my mother screaming and then silence.
I thought he would leave. That my mother would throw him out, pull me close, call a doctor, and tell me how much she loved me. I hoped for that. I stared into her eyes, searching for a glimmer of rescue. She whispered, You ruined everything. An hour later she told me I had to go live with my father.
I packed my things in silence, my heart torn from its roots. I didnt cry. I didnt scream. I simply left, realizing I no longer had a home.
Now I live with my father. He does what he can, but we lack the closeness I desperately craved from my mother as a child. I no longer expect her to call, to apologize, or to come back. Yet deep inside Im still that little girl waiting for her mother to open the door and say, Forgive me, my child. That moment will never come. She chose a manshe chose him, the one who struck her own child.
I wish her no harm, but I know one day he will leave her. Hell find someone younger, prettier, more compliant. Hell abandon her, and perhaps then shell remember me. I will no longer be the one who forgives everything, because a mothers betrayal is a wound that never heals.
I tell every parent this: dont bring children into the world if you arent ready to be there for them, if you cannot place them above your romantic dramas. We children arent responsible for the choices of your hearts. We didnt ask to be born. But if you chose to bring us into existencedont betray us.
Mom, if you ever read this know that I survived. I got back on my feet. I am strong. But I will never again come to you crying, as I once did. You are no longer my mother. You are just a woman who gave me life one day.
