oldmum50s

I would like to tell my story if I can. I have 4 kids to a man who treated me like a servant, he abused me, but he didn't do that to our kids so I thought he was better then my father was. I tried to be the best mother I could, while their father did nothing, but try to be their buddies, so I was the only real parent to them. 11 years ago, after 23 years, I left him, after making the decision not to kill myself or him, I was that depressed by then. My oldest has not spoken to me since then, he's 32, married with 3 kids whom I haven't seen, & I don't think we could get along now anyway. He was always daddies boy, & when they were young I encouraged that, I wanted all my kids to have a good relationship with their father even though he never returned the favour for me, he never backed me up. The second & third kids were old enough to make the decision to stay or leave but I took my youngest, she was 11 at the time. I was the one who cooked, cleaned, fixed up their cuts, made sure they could read & write, & tried to teach them how to look after them selves, took them places & picked them up from places. The younger 3 are now 29, 28 & 20.
After I left I found a man, who I never thought I could find & for the last 11 years I have been happy for the first time in my life & I have some one who has excepted me for how I am & so I'm a differant person to the mother my kids knew when they were groing up. I was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer 5 years after I left my ex & my new husband stood by me the whole time, I wouldn't have fought the cancer if it wasn't for him, it was a slow growing cancer & I probably had it when I left my ex. I'm now having to have total knee replacements because I have osteoarthritis. My problem is, now I want to have a nice peaceful life & don't want sympathy nor do I want my kids to do what I say, or think how I think, but I would like them to try to understand who I am now. You see when they were growing up I was a down trodden person who tried to please every one just so I could be loved & liked, my ex didn't do that for me, hence, why I left him. Now my adult kids think they should come first in my life, they all have lives & families of they own now. I can't seem communicate with the other three kids, without doing something to upset them, even when I try not to. If I try to advice them, I'm interfering, if I don't say much, then it's, I don't care about them, if I try to let them know I understand them by telling them a time I went through the same thing, then I'm being self centred by talking about myself, so no matter what I say or do I am doing the wrong thing, they don't seem to understand me because they haven't gone through what I have & that is because I tried my hardest to make sure they didn't. My oldest daughter even told me I was not a good grandparent, in a round-a-bout way, she refereed to my mother whom she said had told her off when she was a kid. Apparently I wasn't very motherly ether. This my be due to the fact I never wanted kids, but when I did & this was under threat from their father, I did my best. I told my 5yo grandchild off, when my daughter, husband & 3 kids, came for one of they rare visits (they live 3 hours away) why she wasn't allowed to move my things around in my loungeroom, (she did break something) even if it was to clean, my daughter got upset because she said I had no right to tell her off, I didn't shout, it had been only the second time I had to explain why she shouldn't touch other peoples things, in her life. I now have all my kids upset with me for one thing or another & if the things they were upset with me for, they had done to me, then there wouldn't be anyone upset. My youngest daughter has been angry at me because I said I was selfish for having her, to someone else, she took it as if, I was telling how miserable I was with her father , I never mentioned him & I didn't want her, I had always told her I never regretted having her. She has since married her boy friend but made sure we couldn't come & even said because her father wouldn't come if I was there, then she would rather not have any one there, yet she expected us to send a card & call when she gave me the impression she didn't want anything. She didn't send me a card when I went into hospital for my knee opp, but wants every one else to consider her feeling. She has since told me she is pregnant. They want me to be their depressed mummy, who devoted her whole life to them because I didn't have any one else to give my love to. Well I'm not depressed now, I'm who I have always been but was never aloud to be, & they have there own lives now. I don't want to be that unhappy person again but they don't want to know the me now, so how can I get them to see I'm different now. Recently I have had to tell the 2 girls that I didn't want to talk to or communicate with them again till they stopped accusing me of wanting to live my life, my own way. They have told me I'm selfish, disrespectful, a liar, have a ****ed memory, uncaring, insulting, friendless, unfeeling, embarrassing, & more & I have not complained about their behaviour once. For the whole time I have been arguing with them, it has been defending & trying to explain myself, but they come back with more accusations. I have been so upset with it all, after I had given every thing to them when they were little, they don't remember, I couldn't take it any more, so I had to cut them off, that's not easy or I could get sick again.

My grandmother once told my mother that kids make your arms ache when they are young but they make your heart ache when they have grown.

Can any one help me come to terms with my decision.