Melissa Collins shares the reaction to her decision to leave her kids on Insight. Courtesy: SBS

IT GOES against all maternal instinct; when a mother decides to walk away from her child.

In 2010, twelve years after marrying her husband, Melissa Collins made the hardest decision of her life.

In what had been an “on again, off again marriage”, Melissa’s final straw in separating from her partner was a “no brainier” that had stemmed from a long period of “exhausting everything possible” to make their marriage work.

“I didn’t want to break it off in a blaze of glory,” Melissa told news.com.au, who will also appear on tonights episode of Insight on SBS One.

“I instigated the separation and told him how I felt. He didn’t want it to end, but what he really didn’t want was for me to take the kids.”

Desperate not to lose his two sons, who were six and seven at the time, Melissa made a life decision that left her “traumatised”, but honoured her ex-husband’s wishes.

She moved away to Brisbane, and left her boys with their father in country Queensland.

“My husband had the more stable career, and being with him meant the kids would stay in the same school, around the same people, and I thought that was more important and they should stay with him.”

Melissa, who is now 48-years-old and works as a freelance writer, said when the decision was made for her to move away, it was very difficult to make her young boys understand what was happening.

“They were so little when I left, and they just wanted to know why,” Mrs Collins said.

“We tried to find ways to make them understand, which was impossible. It smashed my heart into a million pieces.”

Asking for their mummy to “come home”, Melissa said there was no way she could go back — because to her, “it was impossible to stay married for the sake of the kids” and live a life of unhappiness.

“As a woman and a mother, your damned no matter what you do,” she said.

“If I said I was going to stay married for the sake of the kids, or if I said I’m leaving because they are better off with their father, people are shocked either way.

“My ex-husband and I came to the understanding that he would have the hardest job, and I have the saddest one.”

Melissa said the first few weeks were actually the easiest, and it was after the first month away from her children that the “terrible, painful grief” of her decision really set in.

Losing some friends and family members in the process, Mrs Collins said revealing her situation to strangers made her realise just “how cruel women could be” to one another.

“I was crying on my kitchen floor all the time,” she said.

“When I started talking to others about my decision, and about how my sons lived with their dads, women would respond and say ‘I love my kids too much’ or ‘I could never do that and leave my kids’. The judgment got to a point where I stopped talking about it because I had such shame.

“The questions like ‘what kind of mother does that’ and ‘what kind of woman does that’ is really hurtful.”

‘My mum left just before my fourth birthday’

Teigan, 24, knows all too well what it’s like for a mother to walk away from her children.

When she was almost four, her mum — who “enjoyed going out with friends, and had a party lifestyle” — left her and her older sister with their father.

“I remember a specific argument between my mum and dad late one night,” Ms Reid said.

“My mum came home from being out, and was supposed to come home at an earlier time, but she didn’t.

“Dad was really upset, and that was the final straw for her. She stayed a few more weeks, then moved just before my birthday.”

Teigan, who remembers getting quite upset when both her parents couldn’t be with her at the same time, said her father got full custody of her and her older sister because their mum “didn’t have a stable home” at the time.

“Mum wasn’t fit to have us all the time,” Teigan said.

“When my sister was older, she decided to live with mum because she didn’t like dad’s rules. But I never felt comfortable living with mum, because I felt like I didn’t know her.”

While Teigan continued to visit her mother every second weekend after her older sister moved in with her, she felt “quite forgotten” by her mum — especially when she had a new baby.

“She had my older sister living with her, and a new baby with her new partner,” Teigan said.

“I would call dad to come and get me because I knew I would get the attention I needed from him.

“Going to see my mum, I felt like an intruder because she didn’t have the time for me.”

When Teigan turned 10, her mother separated from her partner and moved to the North Island of New Zealand with her two sisters. The move only added to Teigan’s feeling of distance with her mother.

“I felt quite abandoned by her. We never cuddled, there was nothing there,” she said.

“It felt like I was just in the same house she was in, and I never spent a long time with her.”

Teigan’s “hardest years” of not having a mother figure was during puberty and high school, when it felt like everyone else had a mum except her.

“I was envious because people around me had a mum in their life,” she said.

“I felt like I was missing out on how to be a girlie girl, and those moments made me think how nice it would be to have a mum around.

“My Dad really stepped up, and as I got older it became normal not to have her around. It got to a point where we could have six months without talking and it was normal, but that has lead to issues with trusting other women.

“I don’t think I have that trust you form when you have a mother around.”

Now, after living with her mum for six months when she turned 17, and giving her a very open letter about how she felt towards their relationship, Teigan is mending the broken bond with her mum.

“We are now in quite a good place, but it’s going to take time to have that relationship,” Teigan said.

“I’d never really told her how I felt, so I think hearing it in a letter was a shock to her.”

Melissa said while she “isn’t a traditional mother,” and her boys get very angry sometimes, she is making the best of her decision — and mothering her sons in the best way that she can.

“My ex and I aren’t getting what we thought we would have [in a family] when we started,” she started.

“I get judged and cop a lot for doing what I did, but you have to make the best of it.

“What I did was right for me and my children, and if you really love your kids, you will do what is right for them.”

Both Teigan and Melissa will appear as a guest on Insight, which airs tonight at 8.30pm on SBS One.

Hosted by Jenny Brockie, this week Insight looks at why some mothers leave their children.