A mother of two shares her experience of taking a solo trip to Thailand after feeling lost in motherhood, and encourages other mums to prioritize their own needs despite societal expectations and criticism from family and friends.
Natalie's family called her selfish. Her friends said they 'could never'. She went anyway. And she thinks every mum should do the same.
You know that feeling where you look up one day and can't quite remember who you were before kids? Before the feeding and the broken sleep and the years of everyone else coming first? Natalie knows it. Most mums do.
She just actually did something about it. The mum-of-two was three years into motherhood when she found herself between jobs with four weeks free. Her husband James asked a simple question: why not spend some of that time going away alone?
'I hadn't even really considered it before then or thought of it as an option,' she tells Netmums. 'Which is so silly, because why not? ' She booked Thailand. Two and a half weeks of just her.
'I felt like I had lost all that' Natalie had breastfed her son Finn until just before the trip. Three years of being completely needed – by everyone, all the time – had taken a toll that's hard to put into words. Most mums reading this won't need her to.
'I had completely lost who I was before I had a child,' she says. 'I was an independent, fun-loving woman with a great career and I felt like I had lost all that. ' When she told her family, they called her selfish. They asked how James would cope.
When she told her friends, they said they could never – and kept circling back to the same question. How would her husband manage? Not: are you okay? Not: you clearly need a break.
Just: how will he cope?
'It's just really sad that women are made to feel that way,' Natalie says. She went anyway. The moment everything changed James was a little taken aback that she'd chosen somewhere quite so far away. Finn, three and anchored by his nursery routine, was sad – but didn't fully understand what two and a half weeks without mum meant.
Natalie admits the first part felt strange. Having to seek out company when you wanted it, rather than having it pressed upon you from all sides, it takes real adjustment. But the strangeness passed quickly. She planned her days entirely around herself.
She moved at her own pace. She met incredible people – some she still speaks to now. And the guilt she'd carried onto the plane simply didn't survive the trip.
'I didn't feel guilty when I was away,' she says. 'I could plan my days for me. ' There was one wobble near the end – Finn came down with chickenpox in the final few days. James handled everything without a word of complaint, and without making her feel bad for being away.
'Kudos to him,' she says. 'Trust your partner to be a partner' Ashley James has spoken openly about taking solo trips as a mum — and the reaction from women every time tells you everything. Relief. Recognition.
And then that small, hopeful thought: could I actually do that? Natalie's answer is yes. And it's worth hearing why. She came home a better mum and a better wife.
Not despite going — because of it. She came back knowing what her husband was genuinely capable of when she trusted him with it. And she came back knowing who she was again, outside of the roles she'd almost completely disappeared into.
'Being a mum or wife doesn't mean I should stop being a person in and of myself,' she says. Her advice to every mum currently talking herself out of it?
'Why would you not? Just book it. Even if it's a few days away by yourself. Trust your partner to be a partner.
' It's not selfish. It doesn't need to be earned or justified... It's just your turn. This mum shared her story anonymously with Netmums. Names have been changed.
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