Saying NO feels SO GOOD in Journey Back to ME

Any other recovering people pleasers out there??? So my daughters school is starting a Girl Scout Troop this year. In May when it was announced, I signed her up promptly with excitement, and I also signed myself up and did the background check..etc. Not ALL parents decide to BE Girl Scouts. Someone who pays dues, and does the background check is allowed to attend Girl Scout Events as well as meetings, so I was eager to sign up and be of assistance.
The guy I have been dealing with for almost a year now in every capacity (friend, lover, sexual partner, narcissistic abuser, friends with benefits, and now BARELY friend) signed his daughter up as well. Remember, she and my daughter are close friends, in the same grade, were in the same class last year, they do cheer and volleyball together....there’s just NO escaping these people.

So one of the BIG events of the Summer for all of the Girl Scout Troops in the area is called Midnight Madness. It’s an event where you go, watch a baseball game, watch a movie from the baseball field, and have a sleep over on the actual field. EVERYONE is able to come (brothers, sisters, parents…). In May, this sounded like an AMAZING idea. Sign us up! I actually took most of the Summer before I actually did sign us up. Well, in the beginning of the Summer I was asked if I’d be attending before HE signed his daughter up to go as well. I said YES. A few weeks ago I mentioned to him how I was kind of not wanting to go. I don’t own a tent (and even if I did, they’re hell to put up), I don’t own a sleeping bag, and honestly his daughter can be annoying, pair that with my daughter who can ALSO be annoying and my son who is 4, and my head is spinning thinking about it. From the beginning, he has been making comments that “dads are not allowed to go”. Which is NOT true. This event is OPEN to the entire family of the Girl Scout, so I saw from the beginning that this was something he wanted his daughter to attend, and wanted me to ATTEND in order to ensure that she could attend since he did not want to go.

So fast forward to Thursday of last week (the 14th), and the event was 16 days away. I let him know that I’d still be attending the event (the baseball game and movie portion), but once they locked the doors, I’d be on the side leaving…LOL. I changed my mind about spending the night. It scared me to tell him this BECAUSE he does not respond positively to being told no. However, if I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go! I also wanted to give the respect of allowing him plenty of time to find another way for her to sleep over, if that’s what he chose for her to do.

When I tell you SHIT HIT THE FAN, shit hit the fan. However, I did not allow his manipulations, his harsh words nor his guilt trip and passive aggressions to force me into doing something I did not want to do.

He gave me this entire run down about how I disappointed her. How she is so upset. How he told her that you can’t trust anyone’s words. How you can’t sit around and wait for someone to do things for you. How he forgets that other people aren’t like him because he’s a man of his word. How, he doesn’t trust anyone other than me with his daughter and now this is going to affect her negatively by not being able to spend the night. About how he’s not working and just spent X amount of money on a tent for all of us (I was sure to let him know that he could not hold me accountable for a tent or sleeping bags he bought to accommodate all of us without talking to me about it first). He then went on to talk about how he had even offered to keep my son while we were at the overnight event. This is 100% false. It was never offered or mentioned. You know how I know? Because I would have remembered that. This entire time, my son has been a HUGE part of my thought process and decision-making process as to whether or not I’d like to attend. I just let him have his moment of having verbal diarrhea of the mouth. I was not going to INTERNALIZE any of it because everything he is throwing a fit about has nothing to do with me. He throws these fits because of his trauma from childhood. Hell, I told him that if his daughter cannot remember all of the fun things we’ve done together this summer (I took her to a birthday party with me, I took her out of town to a Pride Festival with me, I showed up to a plethora of her softball games even though my child is not on the team, I attended her Summer Theatre Camp production of Finding Nemo). If she (and HE) cannot recognize all of the things I’ve done and been there for versus the one thing I can’t then that’s a parenting issue on his end. I’m allowed to change my mind, and quite frankly the child has her own mom…and she has her dad, and he has friends. It is not MY job to ensure that she gets to sleep over there, it’s his.

PLUS, my kids have to adjust as well. He is so worried about his child being upset. When I tell my kids we’re not going, they just say “okay” and get over it. I know for a fact all of this “disappointment” is not coming from her, it’s coming from him because if he told her ” Miss Alicia is not going to be able to sleep over at the even, but she’s still going to go to the baseball game and the movie”, she would’ve been like…”okay”. She’s an 8 year old child, they’re resilient and they get over shit very quickly. Not only that but the 2 moms who lead our Troop said they’d be willing to keep girls overnight whose parents don’t want to stay. I reminded him of this, and he went on and on about how he has to ENSURE HER SAFETY. He knows these women! These are not just women we don’t know…our kids all go to school together and play sports together. One of the parents he’s known longer than me. I’d trust my daughter with them in a heartbeat. It was just his way of trying to GUILT TRIP ME! If she wants to go so badly, convey this to her birth mother and let her have the option to take her.

Anyway, like I said in a prior entry. When I decided to rekindle our friendship, I accepted that he is who he is. While he does act, and react irrationally…it all stems from childhood trauma. It is not MY burden to carry, and the fact that I was able to stand my ground, speak my mind and find peace with it all…says SO MUCH! I have come so far…

He even tried to upset me by saying that his “best friend”/childhood ex-gf would FLY IN from Atlanta and take her. I said, “that’s awesome for her that she’ll be able to go!” If she wants to get a flight from Georgia to sleep on the ground of a baseball field, kudos to her because I AIN”T GONNA DO IT! And Thank goodness I let him know more than 2 weeks in advance so that she would be able to accommodate that. LOL. She’s the dummy.

I’m at the point where I’m about to call and cancel our tickets because I have a cousin and her family coming in from South Carolina that weekend, and quite frankly I’d rather see my family. Also, because as an adult individual, I have that RIGHT to change my mind and make my own choices.

I told him that this will make me hesitant to agree to do anything with/for his daughter in the future. I’m human, things happen, things come up, and I change my mind....if he doesn’t want his daughter “affected by the disappointment” of REAL LIFE happening, then it’s best that he find someone else to agree to take her. I have done SO MUCH for him in the aspect of his daughter and I’m realizing now that all of the things HE doesn’t want to go to, he’d pawn her off on ME because I was taking my child. I’m not doing that this year. He took my kids to ONE birthday party and that was one I hadn’t planned to go to in the first place so he wasn’t really doing me any favors.

He also fails to realize that he has cancelled on me, changed his mind, not done something he’s said he would do with my children…he even once made a comment that the only time I wanted to be bothered with him was if I wanted him to watch my kids. And that’s after he SWORE if I needed him to watch them if they got sick that he could do that because he worked from home. I NEVER asked him to watch them again after that. I just missed work and took the loss…

So I’ll be DAMNED if you’re going to try to diminish ALL of the things I do for the one tiny, miniscule event that I have not.

I take this as a HUGE win because I don’t want to do it, so I’m not going to do it. He tried to guilt me and I didn’t take the bait. Did it still upset me? Yes, but he didn’t know that because I was too busy setting boundaries.

He has hardly said a word to me since, and I am OKAY with that. Also, that “best friend”/ex gf is in town and every time she’s here…this is what he does.