Remember me
My son, Charles, was just four when his father left us to move abroad with a new, much younger girlfriend.
I only discovered later that he had been cheating on me with a motley crew of other women – but by then I was grateful to them for eroding our soul-destroying marriage.
Divorce was, for me, a liberation. Yes, I was run ragged, but easygoing Charles was such a joy that life felt like a festival of lights. Christmas became, as the advertisements say, the happiest time of year. We would sit at the kitchen table making decorations from scratch – hand-stitched bunting, felt animals, ornaments from egg cartons – and I would bake biscuits in the shape of angels and Christmas trees.
We were effortlessly happy without his father’s baleful presence. Indeed, we were the closest mother and son I knew until, in 2021 at the age of 19, Charles met Chloe, an older French girl who studied with him at Bristol University.
Friends at first, I was elated when he told me they had fallen in love two years later. Barely pausing to breathe, he said that she was beautiful, brilliant and destined for great things. ‘You’ll love her, Mum!’ he assured me.
Chloe was certainly very beautiful in photographs, tall and slim and casually elegant with long, dark hair and sparkling blue eyes. I experienced a pang when I saw them together – not jealousy, but that bittersweet feeling known to every parent when they realise a darling child has become an adult.
When Charles told me he would be bringing Chloe home for supper during his mid-term break, I was both nervous and immeasurably excited. I bought peonies and set about making boeuf bourguignon and millefeuille as a nod to her homeland.
Chloe lit a cigarette within minutes of entering the house. When I pleasantly told her I was asthmatic and couldn’t have smoke indoors, she shot me a disdainful look and slouched outside to puff. The shock really set in when Charles followed her out and promptly lit up himself. Since when had my son smoked?
Charlotte Harper has felt distant from her son after he met a girl at university and moved away
The evening only worsened. Chloe made no effort to hide her boredom, drank a bottle of red wine and, when I served the delicacies I’d taken almost all day to make, surveyed me with open pity and made a remark about how ‘sweet’ it was when ‘British people try to cook like the French’.
She then said she didn’t believe in contraception because ‘artificial hormones give you cancer’.
As they drove off, I burst into tears. Chloe had arrived empty-handed, and appeared to have no interest in establishing any kind of relationship. I was, I think, most hurt by the fact that my adored son seemed blind to the way she had treated me.
Careful to be tactful, I said only that Chloe was, indeed, very beautiful and that I had loved seeing him... but he should never forget to wear a condom. Amused, Charles affectionately warned me not to be a ‘helicopter parent’.
My friends dismissed my concern, noting that university relationships rarely last beyond the degree. But this one did. Chloe left university and started working as a lawyer in London. The following year, I endured supper with her parents, who were, if at all possible, worse than their supercilious, chain-smoking daughter. Chloe’s father was an opinionated, drunken buffoon of a man, a financier who shouted at waiters, and her mother was a deeply tanned Mounjaro-withered stick, stupefied by anti-depressants.
At the end of the dinner, Chloe’s father announced that Charles would be spending Christmas with them in Paris, where he would introduce him to heavy hitters who could help him get ahead when he and Chloe moved to Paris.
My heart hit the floor. I don’t know how I managed to finish the meal without throwing up. Why had Charles made no mention of a possible move to France or the prospect of Christmas with Chloe’s parents? He had spent the previous Christmas with me, as she had with her family!
Too upset to raise the topic in person, I texted that he had been thoughtless not to consult me first. I felt as though I’d been good enough for him his whole life, dedicating my entire heart to him, but then he’d had his head turned when a more glamorous offer came along.
The true shock of this slap in the face has come back to haunt me recently with the painful stories of Adam Peaty’s heartbroken mum. I know exactly how she feels to be snubbed.
Charles’ passion for Chloe appeared to have rendered him deaf, dumb and blind to her true nature. When, later on the phone, I made the smallest criticism about her father – something along the lines of, ‘He appears to be a little over-confident, don’t you think?’ – he flew to the family’s defence, calling me ‘negative’, ‘unsupportive’, and hanging up on me.
In short, Christmas 2024 was the worst of my life. I spent the day alone, crying. The sense of abandonment was profound. Friends invited me to join them, but I simply couldn’t bear it. Charles appeared to have grown into a man who, like his father, could, without blinking, turn his back on one family for a new one.
It dawned on me that our two-man team had disbanded. He was moving on... and perhaps I should, too. So a few weeks later, I accepted a date with Thomas –an implausibly wonderful man I met through a speed-dating event. Love really took me by surprise.
When I introduced him to Charles some months later, I was surprised to note Charles’ jealousy, which he mostly expressed through curtness and aggressive indifference. ‘I’m glad you’re happy,’ were the only words my son said after the meeting.
Weeks later, I invited Charles to join us for Christmas, which is when he primly – and with breathtaking hypocrisy – announced that he refused to spend such an important celebration with ‘a stranger’. To my surprise, I remained unruffled.
‘That’s fine, darling,’ I said. ‘See you in 2026!’
Delighted, my (childless) partner immediately booked us a fortnight at a beautiful hotel in Barbados, and Charles very sullenly began making arrangements for yet another Parisian Christmas with the buffoon and his withered stick.
As my relationship with Thomas has deepened, so my relationship with Charles has grown more distant. He has either ignored Thomas or rudely snapped at him on several occasions – to the point where I suddenly understood: Charles is enraged he is no longer my priority.
I began to laugh at his petulance. He had taken me for granted for years and I hadn’t even noticed!
I now realise I’d always overcompensated for his revolting father’s absence by letting Charles believe he was my sun, moon and stars (which of course he is, but I’m no longer going to tell him that).
When I received a grovelling pre-Christmas email from Chloe suggesting a ‘girls’ dinner’ in January, I laughed.
‘February may be better – January’s booked out!’ I messaged back.
I then started shopping online for a new bathing costume for Barbados, where I’m now sprawling under a beach umbrella with my second rum punch of the afternoon beside my darling boyfriend, thousands of miles from my ungrateful son.
Of course I want to repair my relationship with Charles, but feel deeply that he has to make the first move. I want him to show me some respect – not only for everything I’ve done for him as a mother, but for my feelings as a person.
I can’t pretend not to be happy that his Christmas in Paris this year has been miserable. He rang me, choking up, late in the day to tell me he missed me.
I was affectionate and light-hearted in reply, but inwardly crowed when he admitted he was disappointed by the gifts Chloe had given him: a griddle pan and a French-language novel by Albert Camus. Will she be gone by this time next year? I can’t help but keep my fingers crossed.
Charlotte Harper is a pseudonym. Names and identifying details have been changed.