Not because I stopped loving him.
Not because I refused to listen.
But because, in his words, I have been dead to him for seven years -- ever since I separated from his father.
He told me that the only way to fix our relationship is if I get therapy.
What makes this harder to understand is that my son has been in therapy himself since last year. So I am left confused, trying to understand how healing language -- something meant to open doors -- became a condition for my existence in his life.
Over time, a painful pattern became impossible to ignore.
I believe he blames me for leaving his father.
He once told me that his dad is a very good father.
Those words cut deeply.
Because I am the one who raised him -- and his sister -- with my own hands. I taught them how to speak, how to read, how to think, how to become capable human beings long before they ever entered school. I carried the quiet, unseen labor of motherhood. I stayed present. I endured.
And yet, somehow, I am now the one rewritten as harmful.
Leaving a marriage that hurt me erased everything that came before it.
He has said he does not want children of his own.
He ended a relationship with a woman I genuinely liked.
And he shared a fear that still echoes painfully inside me -- that her family was close-knit, like his father’s family, and that he isn’t sure her family would accept him because he comes from a “broken” one.
And somehow, that brokenness is placed at my feet.
What hurts most is that he does not want to hear my truth.
He has said he does not want to know why I left his father. He calls that a boundary. He has said I should not write him a letter -- that he would not read it anyway.
So my silence is framed as respect.
My voice is framed as harm.
At some point, he told his sister that I had “trauma-dumped” on her -- simply because I shared how their father hurt me. That word turned my pain into something shameful.
Now she is in therapy too.
And now she no longer speaks to me.
What makes this especially painful is not knowing why.
Being shut out without explanation creates a kind of grief that never settles. It is worse than anger. Worse than confrontation. It leaves a mother searching for answers that never come.
I never asked my children to fix me.
I never asked them to choose sides.
I never asked them to carry what was not theirs.
I shared my story because I believed honesty mattered. Because I believed silence would do more damage than truth. Because I believed pain could be named without being passed on.
And yet here I am -- cast as the source of trauma, while the trauma itself remains unnamed.
Therapy language is now part of our family vocabulary, but instead of bringing clarity, it has become a way to justify distance. Words meant for healing are being used to assign blame without conversation.
I am not against therapy. I never have been.
Growth, reflection, and healing are part of my life.
But I refuse to turn therapy into a ransom for being a mother.
If I choose therapy, it will be for me -- for grounding, support, and growth -- not as proof that I deserve to be seen, heard, or loved.
Here is the hardest truth I am learning to live with:
Time has not healed this pain.
Each day adds to it.
This is not a grief that fades quietly. It is the grief of loving children who are alive but unreachable. There are no rituals for this kind of loss. No permission to mourn it publicly. No closure.
Blocking me is control over what feels unmanageable.
Silence is protection from emotions they cannot yet hold.
Calling me “dead” ends the story without having to face its pain.
I respect the distance -- not because it doesn’t hurt, but because chasing would erase me.
I will not beg for access to my own children.
I will not carry shame that does not belong to me.
I will not accept the rewriting of my life as if I never mattered.
I remain open -- but I will not disappear.
Reflection
I pray every day. I hold my faith tightly. And still, the pain remains.
Faith does not remove grief -- it gives me something to lean on while I carry it.
Some losses cannot be solved by prayer alone. They must be grieved, named, and held with honesty. Writing has become my sounding board -- the place where the weight can rest for a moment, where I can breathe without explanation.
I am learning that love does not always lead to reconciliation. Sometimes it leads to distance that must be honored, even when it breaks the heart.
I am still a mother.
I am still here.
And loving my children -- even from afar -- will never be something I apologize for.
