My Mother Wanted Me to Be Her Husband

Only recently did I realize how abusive my mother was to me.

She treated me as though I was supposed to be her husband. She would come to me with her personal problems. She would dump on me her emotional pains.

Children are not supposed to be surrogate comforters for their parents. That is wrong.

The role caring for one's children comes into play when they become elderly, frail, unable to care for themselves. That is a different matter altogether.

By then, the children will have become stable adults who can handle challenges, who can deal with difficulties, who are living their own lives.

I was not allowed to grow up. I was not allowed to make my own decisions for a great deal of my life, For a long time, I was not permoitted to allow the peace off Christ preside in my heart.

There was so much fear, there was so much worry, there was so much reproach. I was always waiting for her to tell me whether something or someone was OK or not. Such abuse I endured.

I trust and thank God for everything that He has been doing for me. He has seen me through so many difficulties. He has seen me through so many challenges. He has redeemed me from so much hurt, pain, loss, and shame.

It makes no difference what others did to me, even my own parents!

I remember reading this verse a long time ago, when I was so angry at my parents, especially my mother for how she had treated me:

"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up." (Psalm 27:10)

The LORD seemed so far away from me when I was a child. I did not see Him as someone was actively in love with me. I was constantly afraid of doing something wrong, of making Him mad. I constantly worried that I was doing the wrong thing. It seemed like I had to guess what He wanted me to do.

Now I know and believe what Paul writes about our Loving Daddy God:

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Now, towards the end of her life, and the end of my bondage to the lies that I had to tolerate her abuse, she was calling me a number of times. She wanted to spend her time with me, she wanted me to give her the love that she had hoped from her husband, my father.

The day came in November 2011, when I had to let her go, I had to hang up on her, send the message loudly and cleary that I was not going to be used anymore. She kept calling me over the next two months.

In February, when she ended up in the hospital, she called me to pick her up. I refused, directing her first to my sister, who in turn directed her back to her husband, my father. "She has a husband. Let him pick her up," I said to myself that Saturday evening early in 2012.

I was talking about this with a fellow believer, and I finally, finally realized this ...

My mother wanted me to be her husband. That is such child abuse. That was wrong. No wonder I had some adjustment issues. No wonder I struggled so much as an adult. Unconditional love means that we are not expect to provide it for someone else. Someone provides it for us, and that someone is JESUS!

I could not be her husband, I could not provide that unconditional love, and I praise Jesus that in that one year 2011, so much changed for me, in me, through me, everything.