When Love Means Disappearing: A Mother and Adult Child Tell the Same Story.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev from Pexels.

Introduction

Many parents remain in unhealthy marriages, believing they are protecting their children. They endure, sacrifice, and silence themselves in the name of stability. Years later, they are often confronted with an unexpected pain: adult children who feel unseen, unheard, and resentful.

This is not a story about bad parenting or ungrateful children. It is a story about how self-abandonment quietly becomes emotional absence, and how love—when paired with overwhelm—can still leave lasting wounds.

Below is one family’s story, told through two perspectives, 

The Mother

The mother was exhausted.

Not the kind of exhaustion that rest could fix, but the kind that settles into the body after years of holding everything together.

She stayed in a marriage that slowly erased her. She believed staying was what good mothers did. She convinced herself that stability mattered more than her happiness, that endurance was a form of love.

Her husband was a self-absorbed workaholic, emotionally unavailable, and a neglectful Father.  Much of the household revolved around managing his moods, his needs, his volatility. She carried the emotional labor. She kept the peace. She absorbed the tension so her children would not have to.

She met her children’s physical needs. They were fed, clothed, and protected. She showed up to appointments, school events, and daily responsibilities.

What she no longer had was emotional capacity.

By the time she finished taking care of everyone else, there was nothing left for deep listening, curiosity, or emotional presence. She was overwhelmed. Overburdened. Surviving.

She did not choose emotional absence, nor did she recognize it at the time. Numbness crept in quietly, disguised as responsibility and strength.

Years later, her children—now adults—told her how unseen they felt. How lonely their childhood had been. How their feelings had nowhere to land.

She apologized repeatedly.

Yet each apology felt painful. To her, it seemed to erase the years she endured, the life she postponed, the parts of herself she sacrificed for her family. She had given everything she had, and still it was not enough.

She wanted her children to understand that she did the best she could with what she had. She was not trying to hurt them. She was trying to keep the family from falling apart.

Only later did she begin to see that love without presence still leaves a mark.

The Adult Child

As children, they noticed the weight their mother carried. They saw how overwhelmed she was, how much the marriage demanded of her.

What they did not have—and deeply needed—was emotional connection.

They needed a mother who could hear their feelings without being consumed by her own pain. They needed their inner world to matter, not just their behavior or achievements.

Very early, they learned not to need too much. Not to add to her burden. Not to make things harder.

They became responsible. Independent. Low-maintenance.

And lonely.

As an adult, when they spoke about feeling unseen, it was not an accusation. It was grief. Naming what had been missing so it no longer lived silently inside them.

They did not doubt their mother’s sacrifice. They did not doubt her love.

But love that requires a child to disappear in order to keep the family functioning leaves a wound.

They were not angry that she stayed in the marriage. They were hurting because no one protected her emotional availability—including her.

They needed a mother who chose herself enough to be present.

Where These Two Truths Meet

Both experiences are true.

A mother can sacrifice everything and still cause harm. A child can recognize that sacrifice and still carry unmet needs.

This story is not about blame. It is about reality.

Children do not experience love through endurance. They experience it through emotional attunement—being seen, heard, and responded to.

When a parent abandons themselves, even for noble reasons, emotional absence often follows.

The Moral of the Story

Parents must not give up their needs and desires—not even for their children.

When a parent disappears to keep the family intact:

• Children learn that love requires self-erasure

• resentment quietly replaces gratitude

• Apologies arrive too late to heal what presence might have prevented

The greatest gift a parent can give is not sacrifice.

It is wholeness.

Children do not need martyrs. They need parents who show them that love does not require disappearing.

This blog honors both the parent who endured and the child who felt alone. Healing begins when neither experience is minimized or erased.

References:

• Bowlby, J. (1988). A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. Basic Books.

• van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.

• Forward, S. (1989). Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life. Bantam.

• Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Harvard University Press.

• Gibson, L. C. (2015). Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. New Harbinger Publications.

• American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Emotional neglect, attachment, and family systems (APA Dictionary & related articles).

• Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Jason Aronson.

• Crittenden, P. M. (2008). Raising Parents: Attachment, Parenting and Child Safety. Willan Publishing.