Okay, so this might sound a little dumb but I realized tonight that I never have to see another violent, gory, nasty movie if I don’t want to. I can say no. I can say it without drama. I don’t have to be involved with people who want to control me or who make me feel bad if I don’t go along with what they want. Self help books are great but it’s actually Blue Eyes who is helping me realize this (although the books help me recognize what he’s doing). He sets boundaries and pushes back with his family, with me, with work and you know what? The world doesn’t crash down around him! People don’t stop liking him. This may sound crazy to some of you but this is earth-shattering information to me. When someone tells me they want me to come over, it doesn’t matter if I have laundry on or am in the middle of a movie, I will usually drop whatever I’m doing and go so as not to make them mad or disappoint. This is partially a result of growing up with my mother (very, very, VERY passive-aggressive) and partially a result of living with my ex-husband for so long and just never knowing how he would react. Whenever I made the mistake of letting my guard down, he would pounce and shame me for whatever emotion I was expressing, especially excitement over something at work or school. Things are changing. Slowly, but they are changing. I’m learning to say no. I’m learning to speak up for what I need without worrying about the response (okay, so I still worry but I try not to let that stop me). It’s good!
My group tonight was really helpful. There’s probably 50 people in the class. My friend, Fred, is a facilitator and he greeted me with a hug to help relax my anxiety and then introduced me to a bunch of people, many of whom are close to my age and have kids. He also mentioned a dinner party the church has for single parents and their kids this Saturday night that sounds fun. I may bring a lady from my DivorceCare group and her kids. She never goes out because she always feels guilty about leaving them behind. Anyway, the group talked about rebuilding yourself after divorce as akin to remodeling a house. You wouldn’t tear down walls and put up new ones without examining the plumbing and wiring behind the walls before you put new ones up so why ignore your internal feelings and bad relationship patterns and just jump into another marriage making the same mistake as before? It’s interesting. The program runs for 13 weeks and we will see how it goes but they promised that we would learn strategies that would “stick.” My kind of program!
