The lengths a mother will go to when she hasn’t seen her children for two years

I have a confession to make.

Looking back, I have to laugh.

When I got together with my ex, there was a very important detail he apparently failed to notice.

I wasn’t actually there because I was particularly interested in him.

I was interested in his postcode.

Yes.

You read that correctly.

My children lived nearby.

I hadn’t seen them for two years.

And when you’re a mother who has been separated from her children for that length of time, geography suddenly becomes extremely interesting.

A village that might otherwise have been completely irrelevant can suddenly look like prime real estate.

Forget romance.

Forget chemistry.

Forget candlelit dinners.

How far is your house from my children?

Now that was the question.

The secret mission

Before I met my ex, I had actually been seeing someone else in the same village.

Coincidence?

Perhaps.

But looking back, I think I had developed a very specific dating criterion:

Must live somewhere near my children.

I wasn’t consciously sitting there thinking:

“Excellent. Another man in the village. This could be strategically useful.”

But underneath everything was the same motivation.

I wanted to be close to my children.

I wanted the possibility of seeing them.

I wanted the possibility of bumping into them.

I wanted the possibility of speaking to them.

I wanted to be geographically close enough that perhaps, somehow, an opportunity would arise.

Because when you’ve been separated from your children, you don’t always think in conventional terms.

You think:

How can I get closer?

And sometimes you will go to extraordinary lengths.

Meanwhile, the men thought they had won the lottery

The funniest part is that I don’t think either of them ever realised what was really going on.

They apparently thought:

“She really likes me.”

Meanwhile, somewhere inside my head:

“Yes, yes, you’re lovely. But remind me again how many minutes you live from my children?”

😂

I suspect both men were so completely absorbed in themselves that the possibility that I might have had an ulterior motive never entered their minds.

They were presumably busy admiring themselves in the mirror while I was mentally studying the local map.

Man: “I think she’s really attracted to me.”

Me: “Interesting. And how close exactly is your house to my children’s home?”

Man: “I knew she couldn’t resist me.”

Me: “That’s not quite what I meant.”

😂

A mother’s GPS works differently

There is something extraordinary about the psychology of motherhood.

When you haven’t seen your children for years, your internal GPS becomes highly sophisticated.

You notice distances you would normally ignore.

You remember villages.

You notice roads.

You learn where people live.

You become interested in places you would previously have driven straight through.

A man can say:

“I live in that little village over there.”

And most women might think:

“Lovely.”

A mother who desperately wants to be closer to her children thinks:

“How far is ‘over there’ exactly?”

Suddenly the most romantic words in the English language aren’t:

“I love you.”

They’re:

“I live five minutes from your children.”

The sacrifice mothers make

Behind the humour, though, there was something much more serious.

I was willing to sacrifice my own happiness for the possibility of being closer to my children.

And I think many mothers will understand that instinct immediately.

When your children are missing from your life, your own needs can become secondary.

You can tolerate things you wouldn’t normally tolerate.

You can convince yourself that something is worth trying.

You can move towards situations because they might create an opportunity to reconnect.

You can put your own emotional wellbeing on the back burner because the possibility of seeing your children feels more important.

It isn’t necessarily rational.

It’s maternal.

When it comes to your children, the heart does not always consult the head.

I wasn’t looking for Mr Right

The irony is that I wasn’t necessarily searching for some great romantic love story.

I was searching for proximity.

I wanted to be somewhere my children might be accessible to me.

I wanted a door to remain open.

I wanted the possibility of contact.

I wanted to feel that I hadn’t completely lost them.

And perhaps that is why the whole thing looks so funny in hindsight.

The men were apparently auditioning for the role of Man of My Dreams.

Meanwhile, I was conducting something closer to:

Operation: Get Near My Children.

😂

And neither of them spotted it

This is perhaps my favourite part.

I genuinely don’t think either man realised that my motivation had very little to do with them being the irresistible romantic prospects they apparently imagined themselves to be.

They thought they were being chosen.

I thought I was finding a route back to my children.

Two completely different interpretations of the same dating experience.

It is almost a sitcom.

Him: “I think she’s falling for me.”

Me: “I think I’m getting geographically closer to my children.”

😂

What would I do differently now?

Quite a lot.

With the benefit of hindsight, I understand that sacrificing your own happiness in the hope of reconnecting with someone you love can come at a very high personal cost.

There is a difference between doing something difficult because it genuinely serves your wellbeing and repeatedly putting yourself into situations that make you unhappy because they might create an opportunity.

At the time, though, I wasn’t thinking about it like that.

I was a mother who desperately wanted to be closer to her children.

And sometimes desperation makes you extraordinarily creative.

The lengths a mother will go to

There are some things you can understand intellectually.

And then there are things you understand because you have lived them.

A mother who hasn’t seen her children for two years may do things that, from the outside, appear completely irrational.

She may move.

She may change her plans.

She may tolerate unsuitable relationships.

She may cross geographical boundaries.

She may sacrifice comfort.

She may sacrifice happiness.

She may even date a man largely because he happens to live in the right village.

I’m living proof.

😂

And perhaps the funniest part is that the man may walk away thinking:

“She really fancied me.”

When the truth is:

“Darling, it was your postcode.”

Looking back with humour

Today, I can laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.

Because underneath the complicated relationships, the questionable romantic decisions and the geography lesson disguised as dating, there was something very simple.

I was a mother who wanted to be near her children.

That was the real motivation.

And perhaps this is one of those stories that only becomes funny once you have enough distance from the pain to see the ridiculousness of the route you took to survive it.

I wasn’t looking for a prince.

I wasn’t looking for a millionaire.

I wasn’t even necessarily looking for the love of my life.

I was looking for a man with the correct postcode.

😂

And honestly?

The lengths a mother will go to for her children are extraordinary.

Even if, occasionally, the man thinks he’s the main attraction.

He wasn’t.

The postcode was.