I am 26 years old and When I was 2 my mother left with one of my 2 brothers. Come to find out she was hooked on drugs and it would be something that she truggled with for many years. So fast forward 13 years. My father brother and I now live across the country and my oldest brother locates us and begins to be a part of our lives again. Well in the process I become reunited with my mother. After being back in contact with her for about 6 months my father agrees to let me go try and live with her. That lasted about 2 months before her current husband can't stand me. She drives me to her sisters house drops me off and says she is leaving her husband and she just needs to set something's up before I can go back to living with her. Well 2 months pass and she has not called me once. Come to find out she dropped me off drove back home and basically forgot about me. So my father is tired of waiting on my mother and decides to fly me home. That was the end of that. So fast forward 11 years and I have a very close relationship with my brother (that was gone for years) his wife and family. I now have built my own family as well. But I have not had a relationship with my mother. She is now reaching out to me saying she wants a relationship with me and wants to get to know my son and husband. But I am reluctant to let her back in. She has asked me to write her a letter and tell her why I am angry with her and I am not entirely sure what to say. I desperately need help on how to go about this problem and need some advice. Please help.

*angry and confused

Tell her exactly how you feel and what you went through. Be completely honest on why your angry. Send her the letter. That is all you can do. There might be a change in this person, might not be. Always leave your options open but protect yourself and family at the same time. Just be completely honest with your feelings. Why worry about being harsh? Not sure why your so concerned about that.

I'm afraid if I don't chose my words carefully she will get angry with me and disappear from my life again. Which I don't want, I just feel like I really need to write the letter so that I can let go of the past and move forward.

She has not been in your life in the first place. She has not even been present. So to disappear would be real easy for her to do. No matter what you say. She is asking you to write to you a letter. Be truthful. Do not chose your words carefully. It might or might not work out regardless of what you say. If your not honest with her and tell her exactly how you feel then all your doing is avoiding things that needs to be said and will build up in you until eventually you will become resentful of your mother again. Your holding a lot in emotionally and it is obvious you feel some sort of guilt deep inside yourself about her not being in your life but it is not your fault. Your not to blame. I know you want to move forward. Leave the past behind, but sometimes it is not that easy. Sometimes life experiences ingrained in us will be there in some form. I would say writing down your feelings and being completely honest with your mother is one way of getting your feelings and thoughts out in the open and your mother can better understand where you stand. I have personal experience with a parent that was absent. There are so many things that I wanted to say and so many hurt feelings. I held back, did not say everything, but it was good to talk to this parent, and nerve racking at the same time but do you think this person stayed in touch. So far not. I will always keep that option open as you are yourself. It might seem hard to realize but she opened it up so you can let her know how you feel. Take advantage of it. You can write down exactly how you feel without being rude about it. Just be honest with your feelings and if she can not handle that honesty, then tough for her. If by opening up to her with your truth about how you feel. It could and might bring you even closer then you can imagine.

I would wonder why she wants to be part of your life now, and why she's asking you why you are mad when it is clear that being absent from your life would make any child upset. She's not taking responsibility for her actions, and putting you through grief that a good mother wouldn't. If she were interested in building a good relationship, she should put herself in your shoes, think about how you feel, and then write a letter to you apologizing for her actions.

My mother puts herself above her children and others, and has difficulty in maintaining good relationships. Relationships are important to me, and I always wanted that ideal one between mom and daughter, as I sense you do too. I usually find myself making excuses for her behavior, giving her another chance, and putting up with it, only to find that I was leaving myself open to be hurt and manipulated. I have finally accepted that I do not have the ideal mother, and have been working out the anger through conversations with friends and prayer, and trying to find the place where compassion is present but manipulation is not.

Now, when I think of the ideal mother, I envision the mother of Jesus, and pray to be like her. I realize that my expectations of my birth mother are unrealistic, as she is dealing with issues in her life that preclude a healthy relationship between us. Viewing her as a completely separate person, and understanding/accepting that she behaves differently than my ideal helps me to be a healthy person and adjust my expectations accordingly.

If you are afraid that writing a letter to her will offend her and she'll take off again, on some level you may feel like this is likely to happen. From my perspective, writing the letter may provide her with an excuse to take off and blame you rather than taking responsibilities for her own actions.

Rather than write a letter to explain why you are angry and invite her to reject you, perhaps write her a letter to say that you are sad that she wasn't more of a presence in your life earlier, that you somehow turned out OK, and ask her to describe a relationship that she'd like to have with you in the future. Explain that you'll read her response and share your perspective of the relationship that you'd like to have with her in the future. Then, maybe you two can find if you have common ground and continue, or if there is no common ground, accept this and move on. God bless -