Boundaries

In the unique family dynamic that I find myself in, it is important to have boundaries. Mine aren’t brick walls, electric fences, or steel baricades. But they are there, they do exist.

In my own experience, where Richard’s ex-wife and I get along, cooperate, have gone out for drinks, shopped for grand baby clothes together, celebrated Christmas together, an outsider would ask,sotell me, where areyour boundaries?

One of myboundaries is around my marriage. A sacred covenant that my husband and I entered into before God, our families, and our friends. Second to God, our marriage is the number one most important thing in our lives. We both failedwith our respective first marriagesand neither of us, after finding each other again, want to see a repeat.

Recently, his ex-wife crossed our marriage boundary by assuming that she could stay with us on our vacation in Florida. A misunderstood converastion that took placeoneSaturday resulted in an incorrect assumption and a back door attempt to stay with us. After discussing the situation and running different scenarios in my head with her under the same roof, I came to my own personal truth. I had to politely tell herNo.

No one esle could tell her this. Not my husband, not her sister, not her children. It had to be me. I struggled with doing the right thing because her kids are staying with us and they are her kids. Her sister is staying with us and she is her sister. But the difference is she is Richard’s EX-WIFE.

Seriously. What if I wanted to have sex with my husband and she’s twenty feet down the hallway? That has AWKWARD written all over it. In fact, if she did stay with us I can count how many times Richard and I would have sex while on vacationZERO.

Or what if Richard made me coffee and she drank out of the same pot of coffee he made for me? It doesn’t matter that five other people might drink out of that same pot: no one but his ex-wife is his ex-wife.

Richard and I discussed our strategy and how we would deal with this together. I can’t stress how important his sponsorhip and support of my feelings and my decision to politely sayno. He understood. He agreed. And he backed me up.

When I broke the news to her over the phone, she hung up on me. She called my husband to yell at him and hung up on him. She yelled at my stepdaughters. She really caused a big commotion. And all I said to her wasYou are more than welcome to hang out with us during the day, from breakfast til midnight, but can you stay at your dad’s?

Through the drama and chaos I have remained mostly calm. I’ve had a few eye crossing moments, where my ego wants to squash a bug with a bazooka, but my Inner Knower has turned down the volume on my ego.Richard has helped tremendously by simply reminding mewe don’t have to respond immediately. Press Pause.

I can speak my truth and remain true to myself, honor my boundaries, my marriage and my feelings while remaining compassionate towards Richard’s ex-wife. Hurt feelings are inevetiable, but suffering is optional. Pain from her past reared its ugly head I am sad that she took that out on Richard and my stepdaughters. I hope that she will apologize to them but do I expect her to? Not really. (But there’s always hope)

While she has come around tocompletely understanding how I feel, she is blaming my husband and her sister for puttingus in this position when it is she who misunderstood a conversation and incorrectly assumed that she could stay with us.

As I navigate the murky waters of the relationship I have with Richard’s ex-wife, I have learned something very important. It’s ok to sayno. It’s ok to have boundaries.I saidno and I’m perfectly ok with it. Mother earth is in her rightful orbit, the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, and it’s still winter in New England.

All’s right in my little world.