Mummy doesn't live here any more

This Mother's Day will be a painful one for many women - those who left their children to start a new life. Sarah Edghill reports

It is Mother's Day on Sunday. But not every mother makes her children reach for the cards and the boxes of chocolates. An estimated 200,000 women live apart from their children in Britain. Some leave because of miserable marriages, some because they have fallen in love with someone else, some because their own upbringing left them unprepared for parenthood. Having left, many find that courts rule against them. What was meant to be a short-term solution turns into a permanent separation.

Helen Holyoake, 42, lives in Billericay, Essex, with her partner, Ray, and daughter Grace. Nine years ago she left her husband and children, aged three, six and eight.

I was 21 when I married John. It was always a stormy relationship and the violence started even before we got married.

Like most women I thought that having children would bring us closer together, but that was naive. John loved them, but had no time for them, and if they got in the way he'd expect me to sort them out. I thought about leaving him regularly, but for years I didn't have the strength.

The turning point was going to Relate. John refused to come but I went on my own, did a lot of talking, and came to realise the relationship couldn't be mended.

When I left I took the children. We went to my sister's in Basildon. The boys only stayed a few days. They'd been in a lovely little village school in Norfolk and had lots of friends there. I took them along to the local school in Essex and watched their faces fall and realised I couldn't make them go there because of me. I gave them the choice of staying or going back home. They chose to go home.

Laura was nearly four, and she was with me for a few more days. But when we went back to visit the boys, she asked to stay. I kept thinking that I must do what was best for the children. John had never been violent towards them and I knew he loved them. I also didn't feel well enough to look after them myself - I was desperately unhappy and had lost a lot of weight. My mother had died a few months before, and everything felt out of my control.

I continued to visit most weekends, but then a joint custody order was awarded by the courts, and I had just four hours' access a month. In a way that was a relief - I had never seen the children on their own, John was always there and made things so hard. On one visit he locked me in a cupboard, and I hated the children to see us screaming at each other.

Over the next two years I became more of a stranger to them. I'm sure John had been telling them everything was my fault and that I was a wicked woman and a bad mother. But it was hard to know how they were feeling, because they never showed their feelings. All through their childhood they'd been used to bottling up their emotions because John wouldn't let anyone cry in our house.

The last time I saw them I'd taken a picnic. The visits had been getting harder and harder. I was unhappy, the children were unhappy. I looked forward to seeing them, I also almost dreaded the visits, because I knew they would be so awkward and emotionally hard for me. I'd started to think that I was causing them more pain by still being in their lives.

We went to a local park and I said to them, do you want me to keep on coming to see you? They just said no. We said we'd call and write, but contact ended on their part. I still sent cards and money, but had no way of knowing if they got them. When I tried to call the phone was put down on me.

It has been nearly seven years since we had any contact. James will be 18, Daniel 16 and Laura 13. I'm living with a new partner, Ray, and we have a daughter, Grace, who's five. Ray and I don't row, we talk things through.

People ask how I can live with what happened, but to this day I believe I did the right thing for my children. I admit that when I left there was a sense in which I needed a complete break from the family. But all I wanted was some time to get my head together.

I'll never give up hoping that one day I'll see my children again. I want them to know that I've never stopped loving them, and that I'm capable of being a good mother.

Sally, 35, left her husband four years ago. She couldn't face telling her two sons, so left during the day while they were at school.

David relied on me to look after the house and the boys, and I needed the money he brought home. We hardly talked. It sounds mercenary, but that was how things developed.

I met Lewis through one of my girlfriends. I'd been seeing him for two years when he asked me to move in with him, and I really did think he was someone I could spend my life with.

At first I thought I could take the boys with me, but soon realised that was ridiculous. Lewis had just left his wife and was living in this horrid little bedsit. Ian was nine and James 10 - there was no way they could come too.

One Thursday night, after the boys were in bed, I told David that I was going but leaving the boys. He wasn't surprised and just said, "How are you going to tell them?" I know it sounds unbelievable, but that was the first time it had occurred to me I would have to explain myself to my children. I suppose I'd been so wrapped up in my own plans and what leaving would mean to me that I hadn't stopped to think about anyone else.

I lay awake all night thinking about what I'd say to the boys in the morning, but when they got up and were flying around looking for school books and grabbing bits of toast I couldn't do it.

They left for school in a rush, and afterwards I just sat on the stairs and cried. David went off to work half an hour later, and just looked at me in disgust. I'd already packed, so called a cab and went to meet Lewis. That evening I wanted to phone Ian and James, but couldn't. I knew that if I heard their voices I'd want to go back.

I don't really know how the boys reacted when David broke the news - I never had the courage to ask him. He did tell me that they were confused and couldn't understand why I wasn't there any more. Ian kept saying, "But she is coming back soon, isn't she, Daddy?"

On the Monday I went to meet the boys outside school. They looked daggers at me. We went for tea while I talked to them about what had happened. They hardly said anything. I kept bursting into tears and putting my arms round them but they were like little rocks.

The next few months were awful, but we settled into a routine. I went to see Ian and James one evening a week, and took them out on Saturdays. It was always me on my own because they hated Lewis. Some days the time I spent with them was better than others. David often went out, so we stayed in or we'd go skating or to see a film. They were mostly glad to see me, and we chatted about what they'd been doing at school and what their friends were up to.

Six months later, Lewis and I rented a larger flat. It had three bedrooms, because I'd been expecting the boys to live with us. When they said they'd rather stay with their father, I was dumbfounded. I'd just assumed they'd choose me rather than him. David and I got divorced a couple of years ago, but he and the boys are still living in the family house.

I never planned to leave my children. I admit that there are times when I'm relieved to be away from them - being a full-time mother is hard work, and I've felt less stressed since I left. But I miss my sons desperately. Friends and family thought I behaved appallingly and they're right - I did what would make me happy, not my family.

Lewis left me last year, so I'm now on my own. I don't regret ending my marriage, but I wish I'd thought about the effect it would have on the boys. I know they love me - I see them every week, but they've grown distant over the last few years, and although they're there physically, in many ways I feel I've lost them.

Maggie was 12 when her mother left. She is now 24 with a child of her own, but feels that the experience had a devastating effect on her life.

For the last couple of years my parents were always fighting, so in one way I felt relieved when my mum left and the screaming stopped. But there was also this big gap in my life. One minute she was there, telling me she loved me, the next it was just me and dad - him slumped in front of the TV, telling me what a cow she was.

I didn't see her for five months, and then she only came home to pick up the rest of her things. Although a part of me wanted to rush up and hug her and never let her go, I was also so angry that I wanted to hit her. I just stood in the kitchen while she asked me about school and my friends. She was crying, but all I could think was, if you're that upset, why did you go, and why don't you take me with you now?

When she left, no one told me what had happened and I was sure it must be my fault - that she and Dad were rowing because I'd done something wrong. I was 12 and had started doing the stroppy teenager stuff. Three weeks before she left, Mum had bought me my first bra. I'd been really excited, but after she'd gone I couldn't wear it. I didn't want to grow up - I wanted to turn back the clock to when we'd been a proper family.

Until I was 18 1 had little contact with her. She sent me birthday and Christmas presents, but I only saw her a couple of times a year, and those visits were awkward. For a long time I was very angry, and that has made me quite hard. I don't find it easy to show my feelings.

I've now got a son of my own. I can't imagine how any mother could just up and go, however bad her marriage.

`Mothers Who Leave', by Rosie Jackson, is published by Pandora.