Welcome!

I want to welcome you with open arms and lots of hugs.  As one who was also abandoned by my husband, I know the pain you are going through. After my husband left me alone with two children, I felt lost.  Immediately I searched the Internet to help me, but was disappointed to find limited information about Wife and Family Abandonment.  There is quite a bit written about Runaway Husbands though.  Vicki Starr has done an incredible amount of research about "The Runaway Husband" and I am eternally grateful to her for all of her hard work on the subject.  Her site was instrumental in helping me understand why my husband could leave me/us without a word.  

Women who are left with children present a different set of challenges than women who are left alone without minor children at home.   As we try to understand how our loving and trusted spouses could leave us without a word beforehand, we are left to navigate our children through their horror while maintaining the personal strength and fortitude necessary to keep them from being frightened any further than they already are.  

As parents, it is our responsibility to provide security to our children.  No child wakes up each day wondering if that day is the day that one of their parents will leave them.  However, children of wife and family abandonment experience just that.   The child is changed forever on the day one of their parents willingly leaves the family.  Their entire concept of self, trust and security has been changed forever.  In my view, it is such a pivotal time in their lives, one of which will never be erased.  The pain will be with them for as long as they live.  

Fortunately or unfortunately, we don't have the luxury to grieve for our loss because we have the immediate demands of confused children.  How may we adequately, and age appropriately, explain to them what happened to them and why?  My children were middle school aged when their father left us.  My husband's desertion affected my daughter in a way that almost threw her into an eating disorder.  She believed if she was only a little bit thinner, maybe her father would want her.  My son's trauma translated into a fear of something happening to me which created additional anxiety that kept him from wanting me to be out of his sight..  I can't imagine the rejection that comes when a father up and leaves his family, but I am sure it will be a struggle for them throughout their lives.  How can it not be?

It is hopeful to me that this blog may serve as a safe place for open discourse and exchange and of ideas - a place to come to feel a little less lost. Maybe we can find some answers to our questions.  What is the best therapy for our children?.  Do we file for divorce immediately?  How do we speak truthfully to our children about what happened to them without deepening their already distorted idea of family and healthy relationships?  What do we do about money if our spouse has taken it with him?     

I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel for us.   We will come out stronger and on the other side!!!!

XOXOXO

HannahSarah