I have a lot of trouble saying “no”, even when I know I need to.

It’s been a lifelong struggle for me, just to say “no” to things that I do not want… but this is something I am working on changing.

Why do I say “yes” when I want to say “no”?

Honestly, there are a variety of reasons that I do this:

• I want to belong. This is the strongest one, because I can feel it pulling me into things I don’t have the time, energy or finances to do. I have spent more of my life looking for people to interact with and a place to belong than any other goal in my life, and even though I haven’t made any headway in this area, I continue to say “yes” to activities where I might find people to talk to and belong with.
• I feel obligated. This is particularly strong where my children are concerned – because I am a divorced parent I feel that I have something more to prove to the other mothers, something that I lack from having chosen to divorce the father of my children.  This is particularly strong when I am receiving judgement from the school system or my children’s teachers.
• I feel guilty saying “no”. This is strongest when I am confronted with a situation where I am propositioned to be NEEDED for something. Usually, this is a volunteer position that I am needed for, taking time and energy away from other things that I need to do (either for myself or my family), but because of the awkwardness of saying “no” I agree to do things…

So yeah, I people please… for a variety of reasons, either wanting to belong and fit in or because I feel that I will be letting someone else down, I do things that I do not want or have time to do.

It happens over and over.

Now I’m starting to look at this part of my personality and actually start to say “no” to things I do NOT want to do. It’s been harder than I expected, let me explain…

 Saying “NO” to the Boy Scouts of Canada

Last year I decided to get BoyChild involved with the Cub Scouts. When I was signing him up I got the pitch that they needed more leaders or the program wouldn’t be able to be sustained (guilt)… and I thought that it would be a great way for me to be more involved with my children (obligation) and I had been a leader before with the Girl Guides of Canada (belonging) so I said I would “think about it”.

I didn’t really get much chance to think about it because right from the minute they sensed that I might do it they ramped up the sales pitch, and before I knew it not only was BoyChild signed up for Cubs but GirlChild was signed up for Beavers  and I was being groomed as a Beaver Leader.  Within one the costs started to rise:

• $150/kid to be signed up
• $30 for me to sign up and $35 for my police record check
• $75 for uniforms for the kids, $50 for a uniform for myself
• $10 for the Cub handbook
• $2 every meeting for dues (for 30 meetings =$60)
• Camp fees all year  ($20/person/camp for 4 camps = $240)
• $300 in  Camping GEAR
• $50 for fundraisers

By year end I had spent at least $1000 to be part of this group.

Every meeting I was cornered and asked when I was going to do more training, telling me I needed to “step up” and do more. By mid-December I was expected to attend committee meetings once a month, to do online training, to volunteer more, and plan more activities and events.

It wasn’t good for ME and it wasn’t good for my FAMILY. I was feeling pinched in my finances and every time I turned around the group wanted MORE from me. Making extra meetings meant sacrificing time with my children and sacrificing time getting their homework done and proper meals cooked. It meant giving up sleeping in on Saturday morning. It meant feeling rushed. It meant letting other people down.

It was hard to step back and say – “while I want to be part of this group (belonging need) and I believe that this is a good thing for my children (obligation) and I understand the need for qualified leaders (guilt) I just do not have the capacity to meet your requirements of me either financially or with my time” – and even harder to realize that it is TRUE and its OKAY.

I needed to say “no, I can’t do it” and not offer excuses or reasons. I didn’t OWE them a reason, my stating I would not be able to be there for them this year had to be enough.

What I learned:

It is OKAY to say “no”, without offering an explanation. In this case there was no way that the other leaders and committee members were able to understand my point of view.  It is sufficient for me to say “I cannot do this” without having to offer excuses or explanations or reasons or humiliating myself by explaining that I can’t afford something on my budget.

I have the right to say “I do not have the extra time for this” without an argument – after all, only *I* know what I have or do not have time to add to my life.

It’s OKAY to not belong. The requirements of membership in this group were too expensive – both in terms of money and time.

It’s okay to shift priorities. While I realized quite early on in my stint as a Beaver/Cub leader that it wasn’t really something I could sustain long term, I did my best to meet all the requirements of a leader for my term with them. I did not shirk my duties and I tried my best to meet their demands with the demands of a full time job, parenting, and personally rewarding activities. In the end, I realized that while I enjoyed Scouting, and my children enjoyed Scouting, it wasn’t high enough up on our priority list for this year.

Saying “no” is not burning bridges. This summer I had another situation which I had to say “no”… this was very difficult for me because, like the other situation, it was something that I really wanted to be part of. I had applied for a scholarship to an online workshop type thing, and had received a partial scholarship – which was still a bit beyond my budget. I didn’t want to disappoint the workshop leaders, whom were people I respected and wished to be friends with, but after a few weeks it became apparent that the material presented was just not right for who I was at this point in my life. Luckily they graciously accepted me stepping down from the course, understanding that right now was not a good time for me to accept the information they were giving me.

Sometimes it’s okay to have no reason to say “no”.  As I get to know myself I have started to realize that sometimes it pays to listen to that little voice inside me telling me not to do something (or, to do something no matter what it takes). I don’t have to understand WHY something feels right or feels wrong, I have to go with the feeling.

Don’t rush into decisions. Because my time and resources are finite, and because I have to juggle work and kids and leisure activities for all of us, I need to be more careful agreeing to things. Like the Scout Leading, quite often there are more time or money requirements that aren’t immediately apparent and thinking about these things, and determining how saying “yes” to this might affect other priorities, is essential.

Meet YOUR needs BEFORE you please other people. For me it’s always easier to avoid confrontations by agreeing to do what will make the other person happy, if possible. Often that means putting the needs of the other first and subsuming what I need to do to make myself happiest.  Its NICE to please other people, but the $1000 I spent on the Scouting experience could have been put towards the Dream Vacation (DisneyLand) and we’d be 25% closer to our dream.

It’s okay to think in terms of money, or time, or interest. So maybe not everything in your life HAS to be socially motivated. That’s OKAY! It’s okay to sacrifice for something that has a higher priority, even if it is more “me” time when people think you SHOULD be more social!

So, while I still FEEL guilty when I say no, these experiences have made me step back and start to focus on my priorities and what *I* want out of life – for my social experience, for my money, for my family – and not to keep being bullied into what other people want.

What do you (if there are any YOUS out there anymore) do when you want to say “no”? Have you ever had a time when you said “yes” to something that you knew you should have said “no” to? What steps do you take to avoid the “no” guilt?

I have been thinking a lot, lately, of my personal power and how little of it I OWN.

You see… I wasn’t raised to believe that girls had any real power. Girls were supposed to be delicate, fragile, powerless creatures. We were things protected by the fierceness of our fathers, our brothers, our boyfriends, our husbands… without all these wonderful POWERFUL males to encompass our soft fragility we would be nothing.

What a load of BULLSHIT.

Yet, for YEARS I didn’t question this notion of male power. It was taken for granted, in my upbringing, that I would follow the Path that my family wanted for me – I would dutifully get my high school education, go to university and get a suitable degree in a nice cushy area of generalized “Arts and Sciences”, find a suitable man from a good, upstanding family, marry, have children and go on to continue the lines.  In my early years my grandmothers taught me the “womanly arts” – knitting, sewing, baking, cooking, gardening, cleaning, needlework – and the ways of female society. I hated it.

I was dragged to church to learn obedience and faith. I was dragged to learn to fear the male POWER that the Christian God represented and to learn (apparently) that this same power resided in not only the ministers of God, but all males — and that someday, if I was “good enough” I would be lorded over by a husband who would have ultimate say over me.

GAG ME.

Early on in my career as a woman (pretty much right after menarche) I rejected Christianity and the ideal of a Patriarchal God-Being that preferred men to women.  I out rightly denied the tenets of Christianity in my first attempt to “find myself” in my teens… and ultimately became a Wiccan.

You’d think that having rejected the God-Man-Power Triumph-ariate (yes, I made that word up) I would have awoken to my own powerful nature. But while I rejected the Male-God-Power-Over bullshit in favour of a more balanced Male-Female-Power-Sharing spiritual ideal I never quite made the mental leap to intimate relationships being equal partnerships…

In SPIRITUALITY I was willing to raise and celebrate my own power, yet I continued to life my mundane life as if my gender identity meant I needed to be cared for and protected and lorded over by the Godhead of a male figure. I continued in my social life, to believe that I needed to have a boyfriend and eventually a husband, to fulfill the female destiny and to take my place in society.

UTTER. FUCKING. BULL. SHIT.

What can I say, hindsight IS 20/20,what I can see standing on the fallout of 36 years of life shows me that I had the power all along, I was just afraid to use it. And what was more, that someone, somewhere KNEW that girls had power, and tried to teach the impressionable ones (like myself) that wanted to please, that in order to  have a place in the world they needed a MAN to hold them up.

So, here I sit… resting on the baggage of 36 years of experience on this earth, and what do I see clearly:

• Everyone, from my grandmothers to the school system to the formalized religious institutions, was AFRAID of the power that I held. Instead of teaching our girls to embrace their powerful natures as much as our boys, our culture seems to have tried to deny us the power.  Men hold power, women cower. Despite how far we have supposedly come, there are still people teaching their daughters to FEAR being FIERCE, SELF EMPOWERED PEOPLE, and I was one of those daughters!
• The abuse I suffered from theEx came about because, right from the beginning of the relationship, I handed him not only the right to use HIS power but MY power as well. I would never have accepted the “I am your husband, I have the RIGHT to make the final decisions” bullshit if I hadn’t BELIEVED he had in some ineffable, inalienable RIGHT given to him by virtue of his owning a fucking PENIS! This belief in this could be explained by virtue of upbringing and culture, but more than that I need to OWN the fact that I never once scrutinized these things or challenged the way they were.
• The best way for ME to change the world, is for me to change MY world. That means CHALLENGING the things I take for granted and NOT letting the world wash over me as “the way it is”.
• I can start now, challenge the way things are and find the way they work best FOR ME without it bringing down the whole of the fabric of society.
• And for THAT matter, the idea that we have to follow certain customs or norms in order to maintain this fabric of society? That’s another load of bullshit.

So… also looking back, things I wish that I had known these truths:

• Have a man if you want, but don’t be afraid to leave him.
• You have the right to change your mind, even in love.
• Divorce is not failure.
• No one has the right to abuse you physically, mentally, emotionally, verbally, financially or sexually.
• Protect your body from harm but if someone does you harm SPEAK UP and don’t be ashamed for THEIR actions.
• You don’t need to get married; you can choose to get married.
• Love is not something to be hoarded or something that only one group of people is allowed to celebrate.
• Babies are a blessing, not a curse. Don’t marry for the sake of children.
• Never quit learning, and don’t ever let anyone tell you learning something is a waste.

Now is the time for me to Challenge the status quo and come into my power…

I hope it’s not too late for me….

I’m having a hard time writing lately. Things are feeling… hard… right now. I am distracted, trying to keep so many “balls in the air” in so many aspects of my life.

It’s hard to talk about things, even here, because I know that my words will be judged.  I appreciate people READING/Listening to my words, but there are some times when I do not necessarily need the FEEDBACK on my decisions, just the support that I am doing things the way I need to do them.

That being said… I have things that I want to get off my mind that don’t necessarily need the judgment of minds outside me (although support is okay, I don’t necessarily need “shoes” thrown (to use a Havi-Brook-ism) right now)…

1. Divorce

Amazingly enough, the order of divorce has FINALLY been signed by a judge, meaning that I will legally be no longer married (according to the Government of Canada) 31 days from that date. For those keeping track, the divorce judgment was issued April 15, 2010, and so I will be legally divorced as of May 16, 2010.

I don’t know how to feel about it.  My emotions are all over the place with the finality of the ending of my marriage.  I am:

• Relieved that this part is over
• Frustrated with the way things were handled
• Upset that I failed
• Happy that I made it through, relatively unscathed
• Annoyed that theEx continues to try and muddy the issues and play games with support
• Intimidated by theEx with regards to his constant badgering me to see how he’s the one presenting things “fairly” while I am being greedy
• Disappointment with the “death” of a life I wanted – married with kids and a home
• Realization that I am better off (emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, socially) without theEx
• Unsure
• Self-loathing because I feel that he might be right in labeling me “greedy” for asking the lawyers to review the support documents rather than (yet again) agreeing with what he wants and sees as “fair”
• Proud of standing up to him and his bullying
• Afraid of the debt from enforcing my child support order
• Disappointed in theEx for trying to bully me out of support for our kids, when he makes THREE TIMES what I do
• Afraid. Afraid that I have been wrong. Afraid that the ex is right and that my asserting my NOW COURT GIVEN RIGHTS is “greedy” or “selfish” or will cause issues later on
• Virtuous. I did things right. I didn’t play dirty. I got out without bankrupting myself, and I asked for LESS THAN I was due from theEx and STILL made it through.
• ANGRY that even though I make 50-75% LESS than theEx he feels the need to constantly tell me that he can’t “live” on what he earns if he is required to pay support
• Guilt that he is “struggling” and feels that it is MY fault that he isn’t able to make his ends meet
• Frustration that I feel angry and guilty and a bit superior to him when he could definitely live within his means, rather than try to force me to give in and let him pay less and less…

2. CHILD SUPPORT ISSUE

There is a question of outstanding child support for 2009 on the table.  It shouldn’t be a shock to him, but he is trying to control the situation outside of talking to the lawyers. This is simply something he is struggling with, and getting DESPERATE trying to get me to agree with his interpretation of “fair”.

Most conversations go like this:

X: I had to wait to file taxes. I needed to be sure I had the money.

Me: I just need the forms.

X: I will get the forms when they come. But you DO see how it is unfair to have my income viewed at $X this year? They are counting it TWICE!! That’s not fair.

Me: I am not going to offer an opinion on that right now.

X: but it isn’t FAIR! 

Me: I do not know the tax and support laws/guides for this. Ask your lawyer, she’ll know.

X: But she charges me for every 2 min phone call! I can’t AFFORD that! But you can SEE its not fair this way! I can TELL Lawyer that my income is $Y and your income as $T and she will tell us what should have been paid.

Me: I am not agreeing or disagreeing. I don’t know the rules and I do not feel comfortable agreeing with you on this.

X:You’re being GREEDY!!! I have to live too you know…(much blah blah whining and email abuse about how I’m ruining him inserted here)

The funny part of this is that theEx makes THREE times what I make in a year. THREE TIMES. I don’t feel sorry for him. I don’t AGREE with him. I don’t DISAGREE with him, for the record.

I agreed to have it reviewed and dealt with… by SOMEONE ELSE, someone NOT theEx, someone who KNOWS about these things, is to look at both sets of documents and give us the answer…

I want to be protected.

3. LOVE LIFE

I haven’t wanted to write about this because I had enough of the negative reactions from people when I mentioned that I had been contacted by the Noodle.   And even worse when I mentioned that I RESPONDED to him

I got reactions that ranged from supportive but cautious to outright hostile about the Noodle. While I respect that things did not necessarily go very well between the Noodle and I, the ending was pretty much a letting go and stepping back away, not a blow out fight.  Responding to the message on FaceBook, then chatting on MSN, and talking on the phone??? Those were 100% my choices to make and didn’t affect anyone other than me and my children, and, those people are MY responsibility and no one else’s.

While there was perhaps a grain of trying to protect me from hurt, the vehemence of the proclamation that even talking to the Noodle again was “stupid” and that he was just going to “use” me again was a little disconcerting to me. Yes, the relationship went off the rails pretty early on – mostly due to lack of communication, stress of divorces (both of us were completing divorce processes), and child rearing pressures … but in the end only I know what I want and do not want in my life…

I wrote truly about the previous part of the relationship. The last day I saw him was January 1. The last time I talked to him was January 5 when I called to wish him a happy birthday. We drifted apart via MSN on January 12, and he had made it clear that he just hadn’t been interested in fighting for a future.

So I was shocked to hear from him 3 weeks ago. At first I wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted, but I was willing to listen, I was open to at least a friendship. I wasn’t about to pretend that nothing happened, I wasn’t able to just ignore the fact that I had felt very isolated and alone and unwanted in the relationship for most of the time we were “together”. I couldn’t ignore the things I had done wrong, but I couldn’t brush aside the lack of willingness to care and nurture a relationship on his side either.

In the end I decided, FOR MYSELF, to give the relationship another shot. There are changes in the way things are going to go – I am not hosting weekends at my place, we’re not getting the kids together yet, the focus (whether anyone else agrees or not) is on the Noodle and I (not on our lives as single parents) and we’re communicating regularly. And even though people would rather I just stay single and focus only on my kids and my cats, I know that my life path isn’t necessarily going to follow the “approved” path that everyone ELSE wants for me…

So… there you have it: My divorce has been signed and I will be officially, legally single again as of May 16^th, I am still avoiding agreeing with theEx on back support issues, and I am once again dating the Noodle…

Any questions???

Last week I suffered a disappointment.

Not in something that I wanted. But in my identity as a mother…

My son has been lying to me (in particular) about his homework. Yes, he has been lying to his father as well, but the fact of the matter is that he has been telling me every day for MONTHS that he has had “no homework” when, in fact he has been steadily getting farther and farther behind in his work.

Now, because the teachers have decided to allow the children to take “ownership” of their workload, my son has been coasting along without any adult intervention in this. Not once has the teacher or school indicated, to myself (or presumably to theEx) that my son was failing to complete homework or seek any indication of problems. What they did do was make some pretty strong assumptions about the situation, instead:

1. They assumed that BoyChild was incapable of being able to do the work they are assigning to him. This was decided because they have decided that he has some pretty “severe” social issues (ie, they feel he’s at risk to be ostracized by peers and therefore more likely to fail, do drugs, and/or become suicidal)
2. All his issues are being chalked up to his social issues (which, as far as I can determine, are related to the fact that he talks too much to other kids, tries too hard to fit in, and isn’t entirely able to control his emotions and sometimes gets visibly upset and weepy/angry) which they are “working on” but have yet to give any idea of what can be done at home to reinforce these practices
3. That because we are getting divorced the issues are not present in our minds, as parents, so there is no reason to be bringing it to our attention. While that might very well be an issue with theEx (who is being nothing but a douchebag to me) I have done everything I can to put my children FIRST in this situation – I have set up counseling for both of them, I have tried to give them opportunities to make friends and do things that encourage them to feel proud of themselves, sought ways to help, bought them a computer, read with them, write with them, create with them, and I spend my time WITH them instead of leaving them with someone else almost every night to do my own thing —  But I am seen as the “bad” parent here????
4. The teachers have decided that either BoyChild doesn’t care, isn’t able to do it, or that we don’t care to help him do the work. And most especially, that I am either unwilling or incapable of being a good enough parent to help my child.

What pisses ME off is that when I go to these interviews I am not taken seriously by the teachers. The last few interviews I have gone to theEx has been in tow, and when he’s there my son’s teachers defer to him (ooh… big strong ENGINEER with PROFESSIONAL credentials, he can’t do ANYTHING wrong) when I am the parent making all the effort to stay in touch with the teachers – calling on my lunch breaks, dropping everything to take calls and drive into the city to pick them up, emailing when things seem wrong, making the time to go in for their events and activities, making the baked goods for sales, REGISTERING them for school, buying supplies, and making appointments for interviews – and he’s the one that everyone thinks is a “good parent”?

It hurts… a lot. I am a way better parent than theEx, and I have been the parent that has been there for the kids since CONCEPTION, whereas he’s only really been putting in the minimal effort for 2 years since I left! I have ALWAYS been the one to be there for them, despite what has been going on in my life.

So let’s compare the parents of these children:

Myself:

• Work full time
• Have vehicle of my own
• Pay all my bills on time and most of them in full
• Have a plan to get out of debt
• Have a  home of my own
• I actively participate in activities with my kids
• I volunteer in the community
• I have decided to  stop dating in order to focus more on myself and my children
• I actively engage my children in MY life
• Take responsibility for my finances

My Ex Husband:

• Works full time
• Has vehicle of his own
• Pays bills on time
• Complains of enormous amounts of debt (including credit cards and living in his chequing overdraft)
• Has no plan to get out of debt
• Is willing to do no more than drop the kids off and pick them up from activities
• Spends every Friday and Saturday nights out dating,
• Leaves kids with his mother 2 or 3 nights per week
• Refuses to allow kids to participate in sports/activities that require parental involvement
• Wants to withdraw the kids from activities that they enjoy because it interferes with his plans  (ie Scouts,  dance) even when they are showing real self confidence in these activities
• Does not take responsibility for debt/spending issues

I’m not saying that I am a perfect parent, but I am saying that I freaking TRY. I don’t throw money at the kids or buy them video games or movies to shut them up, preferring to learn what they like and how we can do things TOGETHER. I can’t afford all the fancy things that theEx is willing to go into debt for – in car entertainment systems, 25 video games, dozens of pairs of shoes – but I give what I can, my attention, my love, my dedication, my TIME.

Yes, I make mistakes. I care too much, I might push too hard, I might want to fix things too desperately. I do everything in my power to be there for my kids.

And I fail.

I fail a lot.

My son won’t talk to me. He keeps secrets from me, things that hurt him, because he sees me as someone who will make him do things he doesn’t want to do (homework, chores, play with his sister) or who can’t give him what he wants (to find a new babysitter, spend more time with them on their days off, more electronic toys)… and that’s a continuing issue because its obviously a failure on my part to parent correctly if my children can’t trust me to help them fix things that are going wrong in their lives.

As I see it I have three options:

1. I can continue doing things the way I have been doing, even though they haven’t been working all that well.
2. I can give up on my kids and walk away from the whole mess, as obviously this is going to be a continual fight with theEx, the schools, counselors, lawyers and judges, and other parents to prove that despite my lack of stupid iron pinky ring, fancy job title, and extra stupid letters after my name (I have 7 letters after my name, he has 8), that I am not only AS GOOD of a parent as theEx, but that for the most part I am the one that does the parenting. Obviously his mother is a good enough substitute for a mother, and if the kids don’t like being with me why fight anymore?
3. I can change the way I do things, and keep changing, until I find a way that works for me and my kids – AND NOT WORRY about what works for theEx, the teachers, the school or anyone else because in the end they don’t live our lives and what they want should NOT interfere with our lives as a family.

The choice is obvious (to me)… since I’m not the kind of person to continually do the same thing and hope for different results (I’m not INSANE), and I’ve fought this long and hard to keep my children in my life no matter WHAT other people say, I need to change the way I do things until we get results that work for US. 

I am working on changing and because of this my mantra (of sorts has become):

Change is slow, but it is happening. If I fail to live up to my desired changes today, I will do better tomorrow. Nothing is set in stone. I can do better tomorrow.

I am working on this process, it is a process of letting go – I am letting go of the external locus of control of my life that, up until very recently, was held by theEx. I am letting go of the idea that everyone else knows what is “right” for everyone and that includes the school system, teachers, and counselors – whether they will accept it or not, they are not experts on my family, my ways, or my children, and I will no longer defer to their wishes over the wishes of myself and my children. Even theEx is only able to exert limited control over the running of my home and life, and a lot of that is only when I ALLOW him to do so.

I am tired of letting other people tell me that I am not good enough. I am tired of people comparing me to my ex only on the things that he can buy and earnings, without knowing the whole story. I’m tired of being judged by teachers, school administration, counselors, and others based on their PERCEPTION of what they THINK they know about the situation of our divorce – and based only on what theEx feels is the “TRUTH” because I have not felt it is ANY of these people’s business what happened to cause me to leave my husband. I am tired of having to explain to people why I do NOT feel comfortable having theEx at every meeting. I am tired of having to defend my right to talk to people on my OWN merit, as the children’s MOTHER rather than as a co-freaking-parent. I shouldn’t have to have a permission slip to seek medical attention or to talk to the teacher or principal if I think there is an issue.

I will no longer allow people to make me feel like a terrible mother just because that is what theEx tells them – I feed, clothe, shelter, educate, entertain, soothe, love, and nurture my children well beyond minimal requirements. I will not longer allow outsiders to make me (or my children) feel inadequate because maybe we are DIFFERENT.

I am no longer seeking the opinions of anyone else on how I OR MY CHILDREN are doing as human beings. I am no longer willing to offer opinion on how any OTHER people are doing. I am accepting that we are ALL struggling with something, we are all in the process of becoming, we are all deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt,  we all deserve to be given second chances, WE ALL DESERVE TO BE BELIEVED IN no matter what has kept us from achieving our all in the past.