A Common Thread

After catching up with various Bridget friends this last week I have noticed a common theme running through our lives at the moment. It seems that we are all learning/re-learning the lesson of personal responsibility in relation to our own happiness and experiences. These lessons are also being delivered by similar "teachers" ie parteners past and present!

When it comes to men and relationships my Bridget friends and I have all gotten to the point of feeling almost powerless, and extremely resentful because of it. But on closer inspection it is not actually the man (husband, ex or otherwise) in each of our lives, that can be wholly and soley blamed for this. It has been an unconscious giving away of our power to him, that is to blame...in otherwords it is "nobodies fault but mine".

One of the D&M's I had with a longterm friend of mine went something like this;
her - "I love my husband, but GOD he shits me! I have been waiting 7 months for him to do this job for me, and it makes me sooo angry when he doesn't even try to do it!"
me - "why don't you stop waiting for him to do it and just do it yourself, get someone in and just get it done. If you were single you would have had it done 7 months ago." (this is my favourite piece of advice at the moment because I am single and my soapbox has a pretty good view!)

Another conversation with a different friend was more like this;
her - "My ex is being such an abusive prick at the moment, he's constantly making my life hell. And now my new boyfriend is whingeing because he says there is so much drama in my life and he's sick of it.....do you think I'm melodramatic?"
me - "no, but I think your ex creates a ridiculous amount of stress in your life so that you are always on edge and tend to over-react to things that you wouldn't normally. Why are you in contact with him so much, why do you give him permission to treat you like shit? They call them 'exes' for a reason you know. The two of you are like a miserable married couple that live in seperate houses." (don't worry she got her own back a few days later with some pearls of truth for me and my particular brand of ex-drama.)

So the key lesson of taking responsibility for my/our own happiness, and all the sub-lessons of setting boundaries, taking action, self-awareness, and standing up for ones-self are playing out in wonderful synchronicity, if not a slightly infuriating repetitive manner.

In case you're wondering my lesson is coming in the form of recognition (finally) of the passive-aggressive way in which I have been dealing with my very controlling ex/father of my children, and the ensuing battles, wiping of said exes feet on my doormat back, and eventual explosion of my inner-bubbling-cauldron of rage. The eventual realisation being that in order to be a happy person I need to take responsibilty for the way I allow him to treat me and for the way I treat him.

So dear Bridget, what are some of the lessons that you are learning at the moment?