"Is It Mom Guilt, Ungratefulness, or Is It Just Me?"

I’m about to go to New York for work. I should be excited, right? It's an incredible opportunity, something many people would jump at. But instead, I’m overwhelmed with guilt and anxiety. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I feel guilty for leaving my husband to carry the load while I’m away. I’m already dreading how much I’ll miss my kids and worrying about how I’ll manage emotionally being apart from them. The worst part is that I know these emotions are only growing stronger the more frustrated I feel about having them, and it’s creating a vicious cycle.

And here's where it gets really tough: How do you explain these feelings to someone who isn’t a mom? Or do dads feel this too? How do you express to your partner, “I feel guilty about going to New York—can you help me feel okay about it?” without feeling like you're being completely ridiculous? How do you address it without receiving a response like, “How can you be upset about this? I’d love the chance to go to New York,” or, “This is such a great opportunity, you should be grateful!” And that only makes me feel worse. I start to feel like I’m being greedy or ungrateful, that my feelings are somehow invalid, and it just compounds the guilt.

This is mom guilt at its worst. In my head, it all makes sense. I’m torn between an amazing opportunity and my role as a mother, but when I say it out loud, it sounds absurd. I want to enjoy this trip, to embrace everything it has to offer, but instead, all these negative emotions cloud my mind. And the hardest part is knowing that it’s my issue to work through. These emotions, these worries, they’re coming from within me, and I’m the one who needs to deal with them.

But how? How do you navigate guilt about doing something that feels so selfish in a way that doesn’t make you feel worse when it’s brought up to someone who doesn’t get it? How do you explain it in a way that doesn’t make you sound ungrateful or like you're complaining about something so many would love to have? How do you find the balance between taking an opportunity for yourself without feeling like you’re abandoning everything else?

Motherhood, I’m asking for advice. How do I deal with these feelings, and how do I communicate them to people who don’t understand, without being met with comments that only make me feel worse? I don’t know where to start, but I know I need to figure it out so I can actually enjoy this opportunity without the weight of guilt dragging me down.