She Didn’t Stop Being a Mother: She Stopped Being Seen

“I don’t understand why we need therapy. It’s a waste of time and money,” Keren complained.

“You know exactly why we need it. Our children need a mother, and the last thing they get at home is a mother,” Ilan shot back.

“The last thing? Are you serious? Where do you see a home today where children get a hot meal every day? I stopped my entire career to raise them. How can you say such a thing?” she replied angrily.

“She’s not emotionally available to the kids,” Ilan turned to me. “She’s always bitter. When they come home with their struggles, she often says ‘Leave me alone, I have no strength for you.’ It feels like she’s just waiting for the evening when they finally go to sleep.”

When the Parenting Struggle Is Actually a Marital Struggle

“That’s because you don’t leave her another option,” I said to Ilan.

“What?” he asked, startled.

“Emotional struggles in children are often connected to the emotional state of the mother.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he insisted.

“And that emotional state is directly connected to the relationship between husband and wife,” I clarified. “There is a deep connection between the children’s emotional difficulties and the atmosphere between you as a couple.”

“It is very difficult for a child to experience mother and father as separate emotional systems. The child experiences them as one emotional unit. The connection between father and mother provides the deepest sense of safety in the child’s psyche. When the mother is in distress, the children often become entangled in the marital struggle, even when no one consciously intends it.”

I saw Keren freeze.

“It is easier to treat couples who openly use their children in their power struggles,” I continued. “But here it happens unconsciously. Keren feels that if Ilan does not recognize her as a mother, does not validate her inner experience, then her motherhood loses meaning. Without meaning, she withdraws from the role.”

The Hidden Need Behind the Withdrawal

“Did I ever tell you to take on motherhood?” she asked Ilan sharply.

“Keren, this is not a conscious decision. This happens in the depths of the soul. You withdraw not because you want to harm the children, but because something in you feels unseen and unrecognized.”

She began to cry. “Why would I do that? These children are my life.”

“Because you need respect,” I said gently. “When a woman does not feel seen and valued as a mother, she loses the inner strength required to carry the emotional weight of her children. Respect is not a luxury. It is the fuel that allows her to continue.”

Why Respect Is the Emotional Oxygen of Motherhood

“So you’re saying I don’t respect her?” Ilan asked quietly.

“You are not recognizing the inner processes she goes through as a mother. A mother experiences her child’s pain as her own. When a child comes home crying, she first feels the pain deeply, almost as if it happened to her. Then she must perform an inner emotional process. She must move from pain to belief, from helplessness to hope, from fear to confidence in the child’s strength.”

“That inner transformation is not weakness. It is one of the deepest emotional powers in the soul.”

Keren looked up, listening.

“Now imagine your son comes home crying because someone hit him. Your immediate reaction, Ilan, is to solve the problem. You go find the other child, the parents, the teacher. You act. You fix. That is your strength. But when you do that without acknowledging the emotional process Keren has already gone through, she feels unseen. She feels that her deepest work has no value.”

He was silent.

“She is not asking you to become emotional like her. She is asking you to recognize the process she goes through and honor it.”

Contempt Replaces Containment

“When you dismiss her reactions as exaggeration or hysteria, she feels belittled. That contempt weakens her. Instead of empowering her to rise above the pain, it traps her in it. And when she no longer has the emotional strength to carry the children’s pain, she withdraws.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” Ilan asked.

“You contain instead of correct. You acknowledge instead of fix. You say: I see how hard this is for you. I see how deeply you feel this. You are a good mother. You are doing something I do not know how to do.”

The Healing Begins With Recognition

“When a mother feels respected for her emotional work, she regains strength. When she regains strength, she can once again find belief for her children. When she finds belief, the children stabilize.”

“This is not psychology. This is the soul.”

Keren’s tears softened. Ilan’s posture shifted.

“What Keren has been crying out all along is this: See my process. Respect my struggle. Give me the strength to continue.”

This column was inspired by the lecture of Rabbi Eliyahu Levy.