My mother chose a man instead of me: how she betrayed me for a stranger
My name is Valentine, Im 17 and Im from Marseille. I kept this story inside me for years, silent, but now Im ready to share it. Maybe someone will see themselves in it, maybe someone will rethink their actions, or at least a mother will think twice before betraying her own daughter, as mine did.
My parents split when I was ten. I cant say we were a happy family beforearguments, blame, a growing distance were felt even when I didnt understand everything. After the divorce things only got worse. My mother and father seemed to fight over my attention, not out of love but out of duty. I was shuffled from one flat to another, like a suitcase nobody knew what to do with. My fathers place was cramped but calm; my mothers house was spacious, yet each year the atmosphere grew more suffocating.
Everything fell apart when a new man entered my mothers life. His name was Christian, in his early thirties, almost ten years younger than my mother, and he immediately acted as if he ruled the household while I was just an annoyance. At first he wore a polite smile, pretending to care about me. Soon, the façade vanished. He didnt want me living with my mother. He didnt like my mother spending money on me. He didnt hesitate to loudly call my father irresponsible, label me a burden, and declare that I should already walk alone in life.
He manipulated my mother, draining her financially, convincing her that she didnt need a teenage daughter, that she needed freedom and to look after herself. And my mother she listened to him. She no longer noticed my tears at night. I would quietly gather my books in the kitchen just to avoid crossing their paths. I would lock myself in the bathroom for an hour, sitting in silence.
The final straw came one night when I heard them arguing again. The shouting was so loud the windows trembled. I left my room to place myself between them, trying to protect my motherI feared he would hit her. But the situation flipped. He stared at me with such rage that my heart pounded. I shouted, Enough! Stop yelling at her! and instantly received a hard, powerful blow. He struck my face so hard I fell, smashing into the corner of a wardrobe. Everything blurred. I only remember my mothers scream and then silence.
I thought he would leave. I imagined my mother would throw him out, hug me, call a doctor, tell me how much she loved me. I hoped for that. I looked into her eyes, searching for a glimmer of rescue. Instead 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 ripped 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, to show up Yet deep inside Im still that little girl waiting for her mother to open the door and say, Im sorry, my daughter. That will never happen. She chose a man. She chose himthe one who hit his own child.
I dont wish her 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. By then I wont be the one who forgives everything. A mothers betrayal is a wound that never fully heals.
I say this to every parent: dont bring children into the world if youre not ready to be there for them, if you cant put them above your romantic dramas. We children arent responsible for the choices of your hearts. We never asked to be born. But if you chose to bring us into this worlddont betray us.
Mom, if you ever read this know that I survived. I got back up. I am strong. But I will never come to you crying like before. You are no longer my mother. You are just a woman who once gave me life.
