Letting go of always/never/forever.

[Cat of the Canals]

I had a lightbulb moment yesterday in a discussion on the PD In-laws board. I was asking for help with boundary-setting for the inevitable unPD mil visit. And Cordelia said something along the lines of, "But why do you have to accept her coming there at all? Why can't you just say no? I think you have a right to have veto power."

My first thought was, "Well, I can't just say no..."

But then I realized I felt that way because my instinct would be to say no to all visits, ALWAYS and FOREVER. And that seems... too big, somehow.

I think my mind was pushed to this absolute because always/never/forever is the way that PDs think. I even have a clear example of it.

We used to go to my mil's for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. One year, we decided we had too much going on around Thanksgiving to go to her house and declined her invitation. Her response: "So you're just never coming to my house for Thanksgiving ever again!?" A single "no" after we'd gone to at least fifteen of her Thanksgiving dinners in a row, and she reacted as if we were saying no FOREVER.

And in response to this type of thinking in absolutes, I had a tendency to react by saying, "Well, I can't say no forever, so I guess I'll just say yes."

When we lived closer to my mil, there was a pattern of her demanding visits, and us saying yes because we felt like we should "get it over with." We thought we were appeasing her, which would buy us some time before we had to do it again.

But it never worked that way. She was never happy with what we gave. Every visit had a moment where she demanded more. We either needed to come to dinner next weekend or she was coming back next week... It was one of the reasons our visits grew fewer and fewer. We realized we weren't getting anything "over with" because it just went on and on.

So the lightbulb moment is that I'm no longer going to envision the long line of demands that she'll have from now until eternity, and how I can't possibly say NO to all of them. I am only considering the present moment. And NOW is not a good time for a visit.

Just like with Thanksgiving, we are not saying NEVER. We are simply say no to THIS Thanksgiving. We will come to a decision for next Thanksgiving when the time comes.

Suddenly I am free from absolute of black and white thinking! I don't have to make a huge "forever" decision. For me, making an "always and forever" decision can feel almost impossible, which is probably why we'd ended up "giving in" in the past. We didn't feel like we could hold out "forever." That's too big.

But the reality is that all we actually have to do is hold our boundaries RIGHT NOW.

(At first I was going to preface this post with a disclaimer about this being more applicable to people who are not NC. But I realized that even though NC feels like a "forever" decision, it might still be easier to reinforce the boundaries on a "right now" contingency. Especially if you have those "can I really do this forever?" thoughts. Forget "forever." Just say NO for NOW.)

[Lauren17]

Cat, I went back to the toolbox a few weeks ago and reread all of the information there. What you're describing  is stinkin' thinking'
https://outofthefog.website/what-not-to-do-1/2015/12/13/stinkin-thinkin-the-ten-forms-of-twisted-thinking
I've been realizing that I do this too. The "always" and "never" thoughts about what the PDs in my life do and don't do. And then trying to make decisions based on this email thought process.
There is a relief is recognizing this behavior in yourself. I've put "always" and "never" right after "should" on the list of words to watch for in my mental-talk.

[Thru the Rain]

Cat - What a healthy way to re-frame things!

[Cat of the Canals]

Thanks for that link, Lauren. I'm going to bookmark it, because I definitely fall into the trap of "twisted thinking" on occasion. I think I should probably read The Feeling Good Handbook, too!