I Abandoned My Family to Live in Costa Rica for 3 Months — And It Saved My Life
Being a “martyr mom” was only harming me.
I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, at midnight. A taxi from the airport carried me down a long, dark highway until we reached the small town I’d be living in for the next three months.
The driver drove straight past the central plaza and then bumped onto an unpaved road. Bouncing along for another ten minutes, we finally hit the cluster of guesthouses I’d be taking care of for the summer.
The owner was away on business. All I had to do in exchange for free rent was to clean up after the guests after their stay.
How was that any different than what I already did at home? Back home in Los Angeles, I was in charge of taking care of three people.
Caring for my two children was one thing. Spoon-feeding my husband was quite another.
My husband was depressed and rarely got out of bed. I washed his clothes, made his meals, and carried his dirty plates out of our bedroom back to the sink to wash them.
I was his live-in maid — and I was sick to death of it.
My seeming act of “selfishness” was really one of self-preservation.
In a fit of despair, I booked a trip to Costa Rica to get away from him for the summer. My children were supposed to come with me. After a particularly ugly argument, though, my husband refused to let me take them out of the country.
He wanted me to cancel my trip. I put my foot down. I was tired of dutifully “serving” him. Our children would stay with their grandparents while I traveled to Costa Rica alone.
It wasn’t an easy decision. I felt incredibly selfish going through with it. But I needed a break from my husband. My seeming act of “selfishness” was really one of self-preservation.
My unhappy life as a “martyr mom”
Over the two-year period that my husband had stopped working and fallen into a depression, I lived in my own kind darkness as a “martyr mom.”
I sacrificed my needs for the good of the family so that my children could grow up in a two-parent household — but I was miserable.
According to the psychologist Craig Malkin, in Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad — and Surprising Good — About Feeling Special, I wasn’t alone in sublimating my needs to those of the family.
“In most cultures around the world, women are socialized to defer their needs to others, and in some ways it’s synonymous with the role of being a mother.”
Women everywhere too often put their families’ wants and needs before their own.
But what effect does this have on our emotional and physical health?
Not only had I also become depressed, but my chronic pain was constantly flaring up. My muscles ached. My back was sore. I ground my jaw from all the stress, which gave me terrible tension headaches. Every time the children misbehaved, my entire body was thrown into agony.
I had to escape this situation. Finally, I did.
Traveling to Costa Rica alone was my way of saving myself.
As the taxi transported me down the steep, winding road that led onto the property where the guesthouses were located, I inhaled the scent of recent rain. We were in the middle of the jungle and the air was hot and sticky.
Though it was pitch dark outside, the car lights brought into focus the tangle of vegetation growing all around us. We were under a canopy of trees. I couldn’t see the stars.
It felt as if we were driving through a primordial birthing canal, and the jungle was accepting me into its womb.
I knew I would be reborn here.
When I woke up the next morning, this belief was underlined when I looked out the guesthouse window. Vivid flowers bloomed in the bushes. Vines hung from the trees. I heard water flowing in the near distance. A river? I wanted to see it.
Yes, I had selfishly abandoned my family for the summer, but in doing so, I was saving myself.
I got dressed then made my way down a trail that led in the direction of the water. As I hiked through the jungle, insects skittered over the tree trunks and giant ants marched in thick trails over the ground.
Shiny bugs flew through the air. I breathed in deeply of all that life and let it replenish me.
I found a river cutting through the trees and vines, but there were places where the water diverted into shallow pools. I stripped off my clothes and walked into one of the pools, dunking my body inside. I let the jungle baptize me.
Yes, I had selfishly abandoned my family for the summer, but in doing so, I was saving myself.
By considering my own needs, I healed that summer.
During the next three months that I lived in Costa Rica, I recovered my health.
First, I did this by eating better.
Back home in Los Angeles, I was always snacking on sweets and sugary baked goods. Sure, I’d enjoy a sugar rush but the empty calories made me sluggish and irritable.
In Costa Rica, I ate food that was grown right on the organic farm located on the property. Each morning, I collected fresh eggs that the chickens laid and picked plantains to fry and bananas to eat from the trees.
I slow-cooked beans and rice I bought at the store. I also spent a lot of time walking in the jungle.
Like the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing, I practiced “jungle bathing,” immersing myself in the greenery and letting it heal me.
There’s evidence that spending time in green areas is good for you. Walking through natural, wooded regions reduces the body’s production of stress hormones and has a positive impact on blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
I was reversing all the harm I’d done to my body during the past two years of my marriage.
I never forgot about my children though. Regret often overwhelmed me when I thought about leaving them in L.A.
I felt incredibly selfish. But was it really selfish to finally start taking care of myself?
Noam Shpancer, Ph.D. wrote in his article on Psychology Today, “Women and Selfishness”:
“Taking your own needs and wants into consideration is not the same as selfishness… Self-care is not selfishness.”
I had been under the false impression that only by sacrificing my needs could I be a good mother. This simply wasn’t the case.
“…if you’re not making room in your life as a woman and a mother, you’re not going to be able to be as present for your kids.”
During the past two years of my marriage, I had spent most of my time either arguing with my husband or feeling miserable from depression. I hadn’t been able to be there for my kids.
Having recovered my health, now I could be.
It’s not selfish for a woman to take care of herself.
By the end of the summer, I felt strong enough to confront my husband. When I arrived home again, I told him I wanted to separate.
It wasn’t easy to end my marriage and become a single mother. Within just days of leaving my husband, though, not only did I become even happier, but my children did, too.
Only by “selfishly” putting myself first could I become the great mom I was meant to be.
Leaving my family that summer and traveling to Costa Rica wasn’t selfish. Only by “selfishly” putting myself first could I become the great mom I was meant to be.
As a “martyr mom,” I wasn’t a good mother. I was just a sick and unhappy woman.
So let’s stop believing that when women put their needs first, they are “selfish.”
Taking care of ourselves is not the same as being self-obsessed. Instead, good self-care is an expression of our self-esteem.
