So You Aced the Interview With Your Boyfriend’s Kid. Now What?

Image by Jennifer Regnier from Pixabay

Well the moment of truth arrived the other day. I met the daughter, and it’s probably the most nervous I’ve been in a long time. Sort of a combination of an interview and a date, with a little “I don’t know what the frig I’m doing or what I want!” thrown into the mix. It felt so surreal to meet the offspring of the person I’d been spending all of this time with.

We met for dinner. I was already quite buzzed off of a half bottle of wine. Nerves shot. She was ethereally beautiful and so quiet and shy. So I went on the offensive with charm and questions and did my best to be both interesting and interested. We ate, I drank some more. It was all very sweet and proper. At the end of the meal she left to meet her friends and I heaved one big sigh of relief. The feeling of release was intense and I felt like I’d just been through something really big and monumental.

I looked over at my boyfriend and he said reassuringly “that couldn’t have gone any better,” and gave me a big hug. He pulled back and I could see tears in his eyes. “Sorry, I’m just a bit emotional,” he replied. “That was a really big deal for me.” And we hugged again and got all goopy and it felt warm and squishy and special.

I got home later that night and was on a huge high. I’d passed. Approved! I am a perennial people pleaser and I felt like I’d aced the interview. Made the grade. And it felt amazing. Forget what I thought of anyone else, they liked me. I was accepted and therefore a-ok. It’s an addiction, this people-pleasing high.

When the “Approval High” Fades

I woke up the next day with a similar feeling of warmth, but I could feel a trace of that good old anxiety bubbling up from the depths. I wanted to hold on to the good vibes, but my head came in and filled up every warm spot with questions and worries and what-ifs. What if I don’t even want to help raise someone else’s kid? If I decide I don’t want a kid, do I want to be with someone who has one? Or do I want to flit about with someone who is equally fancy-free? 

And on and on. My worries ranged from practical to totally ridiculous projections of a future I have no way of predicting. And it took away all of the joy. My roller coaster of emotion was back. High highs and feelings of connection and “this could be it” to low lows of “what the heck am I doing? I’m messing everything up as usual.”

Be Kind to Your Patterns

I know all of this sounds like I have some pretty deep-rooted insecurities. But I think (and my therapist agrees ;)) that it’s all a pretty normal response. As is usual in life, it’s what you do with those initial responses that determine your maturity and ability to handle what life throws at you.

My anxiety response is just my familiar pattern emerging. Big positive event happens, thoughts come in and drench all the good feelings. Someone shows me they’re committed (hello Facebook relationship status change), and I think of all the people I’m missing out on committing to. What if? How come? Is it okay?

Our patterns come up for a reason. They were developed to protect us during moments in our past when we were hurt. It all goes back to that fight or flight response to threatening situations. The patterns are sort of your boxing gloves or your plane ticket. The best thing to do is to try to be aware of when these patterns come up, acknowledge them, and then just let the feelings/thoughts/patterns pass.

Breathe Through the Discomfort

A friend gave me some good advice the other day, which was to just breathe through it. Breathe through all of the crazy thoughts that come up and try not to sabotage the relationship by letting them take over.

There’s a part of me that wonders why I’m going through all of this. The single life in some ways seems so much easier. It’s familiar. But there’s also a part of me that knows I want the connection. That loves having someone that cares for me and vice versa.

But the steps towards getting to true intimacy are incredibly scary to me. What if I get hurt? What if it all goes south? What if it’s not what I really want in the end and I’m wasting time? There’s no way to know any of this for sure. So I just need to trust that whatever happens, I’ll be okay. Here are some other tips and tricks for working through this kind of anxiety:

• Stop looking for reassurance from others that it’s all going to be okay. It’s only how you feel that matters in this instance.
• Be okay with not knowing, and trusting that you’ll be okay regardless of what happens.
• Move forward despite your fears when there are more good things going for a situation than bad. The only way to see what’s on the other side (radical intimacy, family, support, love) is to get through the tough bits that challenge the life you know (you know, that single life you always say you want to move away from).
• As mentioned above, stop pushing against your natural tendencies and patterns. When you do that, you’re actually cementing the pattern, instead of just seeing it for what it is and letting it pass until new patterns are developed.
• Be compassionate with yourself. Let it be okay to have all the anxiety.  Another good acronym to get through all the anxious feelings is RAIN.

Maybe this relationship is going to be the one that makes me a couple. That gives me my extended family. Or maybe it’s just going to be a stop on the way to figuring out what I really want. There’s no way to know…today. So I’m just going to try and enjoy the moment! And wade through the thickets of anxiety, head held high.

Any tips and tricks you can share for dealing with relationship anxiety?

Is Motherhood Actually “For Me”?

Photo by Bethany Beck on Unsplash

I was sitting in my therapist’s office over a year ago, talking about the same old thing,  How the heck am I going to make the decision to have a baby on my own?

Instead of giving me tools or help in making the decision, she provided me with the following gem of advice:

“You know, I see a lot of patients who regret having children. They don’t talk about it too often outside of the safety of therapy, but the number of people is surprisingly high.”

She then went on to talk about the resentment that many feel towards their children for the time taken, money wasted, lives monopolized. Or frustration that the children didn’t behave in a way congruent with their reasons for having a family (e.g. they move far away and never visit). I know this isn’t a popular thing to talk about, but apparently it’s a real struggle for a lot of folks. People often fall into parenthood as the path of least resistance and can come to regret the lack of thought put into the decision.

This is why I truly believe that if you have any seeds of doubt, you take the time to sort it out, instead of just romantically leaping forward with your “one true love” into what seems like the logical next step.

Sometimes a Non-Decision Becomes a Decision

For me, Original Baby Decision Day is approaching quickly.  And even though I gave myself a reprieve on making a decision right now, given the circumstances of the world we’re currently living in. I can’t help but feel the panic rise up. I don’t feel any closer to making a decision. And there’s a part of me that fears I never will, and that that non-decision will become my ultimate choice.

So I decided to look into some of the resources a good friend sent that she used to determine her motherhood desires. There are surprisingly few resources (though growing) for a topic that is such a big deal in so many people’s lives. For a long period of time, the decision was just a matter of “what’s next” in life, and many people sort of fell into motherhood as the next step in their journey into adulthood. I mean societal expectations support it, religion supports it, pretty much everything points to this as being the natural next step for a woman. And while things are changing and it’s becoming more acceptable to decide to not have kids, it’s still bucking the trend a bit, and requires answering the questions “Do you have kids? Are you going to have kids? When are you having kids?” on a pretty annoyingly consistent basis.

Motherhood – Is it for Me?

The course recommended is delivered by a parenthood indecision therapist, Ann Davidman, who also has a book entitled: “Motherhood — Is It for Me? Your Step-By-Step Guide to Clarity”  A bit of a testimonial for the process can be found in this article: Washington Post article on parenthood indecision therapists

I’d already read the book, Choosing Single Motherhood, and it was a good collection of things to consider, but in the end made me more stressed out about the whole thing. It piled up a list of things that I needed to figure out or to consider, without getting to the root of what I actually desired.

Ann Davidman’s course and book was recommended as it really focuses in on what you, at your core, truly want. The course itself is offered a number of times a year, but the cost was a bit prohibitive for me. So I decided to purchase the book and do the course on my own.

I’ve just started and so far I’m sold. The book suggests that you take twelve weeks to complete the course, to give yourself the time needed to actually process the exercises and visualizations that you complete. I love this idea as I tend to rush through self-help books and am no farther ahead in the end, as I haven’t really “felt” the recommendations.

The book also advises that you don’t discuss what’s coming up for you with anyone while you’re completing it. Which takes out the ever-present consideration of the noise of other people’s desires and expectations. I’m definitely impacted by my friend’s comments about their motherhood experiences, good and bad.  But this course is really about you and your desires. It’s suggested that things might get a bit uncomfortable, and that clarity might not come immediately, but to follow it through to the end regardless.

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So this is my next step. I figure the timing is good. I can continue to follow the path of getting closer with my dude over the next three months, while I give myself the proper time to really sit with my feelings about becoming a mother. In some ways, this is a gift. When I was younger I was so sure that I wanted to be a mother, and the fact that there’s some doubt there now (granted it’s mainly doubt related to the frightening thought of doing it alone) means that there’s something there to explore. Had I just gone ahead and had a kid without this focused attention I might have some regret.

I won’t talk about the process until the end of the twelve weeks,  but I look forward to sharing my insights at that point.

Anyone else try any courses or read any good books that helped them get to their motherhood decision?

Peak Pandemic Panic Mode: How to Deal

I had another meltdown. And this one didn’t fade away as quickly. It was triggered by my boyfriend making a major financial commitment that I somehow felt was out of line with this idea I had in my head of where we “should” be at a certain point in our relationship future. It was definitely out of line with having a baby in the next 1.5 years (which is the max I can really wait given my age). So my crazy “to baby or not to baby” brain completely took over. What did it all mean? I immediately came to the conclusion that he’s just not considering this as a long-term, serious thing.

Now remember, we’ve only been dating for four months now (four quarantine months so things have moved faster in some areas, but more slowly in others), so I get that logically, even if he sees this going long term, he’s (once again) a dude and is probably not sitting around mulling over the mechanics of it all. Though he says he understands that, knowing my age and that I want a baby, realistically this is not a 5-year future proposition. But I really don’t think any of this lands with guys until the sperm hits the egg so to speak. They are blissfully detached from having to dedicate a whole lot of headspace to the topic.

So I made another panicked phone call and I could tell in my guy’s voice that I might be getting close to the line. He was a lot less patient and seemed to react with a lot more defensiveness at the whole topic being brought up again. And I get this. In my brain. But my heart and my anxiety and my biological clock just won’t let it go.

We were also on a date the other night (so basically hanging out in his living room on a Saturday night. Thanks COVID), and after I came back from the bathroom I saw that he was intently focussed on his phone. It turns out that he was playing a game with his daughter. On a Saturday night at 11 PM. On OUR date night. And that silly “I don’t understand what it’s like to be a parent, so this other girl taking up all of his attention is making me quite unreasonably jealous” schtick came out again.

How to Manage That Pesky Panic

This all required a trip back to my therapist to try and figure out what to do next. Basically (again without going into all of the details from my psychological past) everything I seem to be doing in relationships, what many of us do, is to protect myself from being left, criticized, or hurt. I cause issues where there aren’t any. I interpret silence as dislike. I make mountains out of molehills and catastrophize everything.  I lash out before I’m lashed out at. I mentally collect a list of faults with my partners, so that when they ultimately discover my faults, I’ll already have one foot out the door. All because I don’t want to be too vulnerable. I bet some of you can relate!

Here’s some advice she gave me that really stuck, and I can see it being helpful when applied to most states of anxiety:

• Stop avoiding the thing that’s leading you to panic. Take small steps and don’t even worry about the eventual outcome. In my case that can mean meeting the daughter before I determine that she’s some bratty teenager I want nothing to do with. Avoidance can become debilitating.
• Use this relationship as a safe space to correct past behaviours. Try out not taking everyting so seriously for once and not reacting to everything. Breathe. As always.
• Consider the “AND.” I keep panicking that I might have to give up on all of my life goals because things will not, can’t possibly, work out the way I want them to. But she suggested that there is always an “and” scenario. Maybe you can have a relationship AND live alone. Maybe you can move to the suburbs AND be in the city when you need to. You can have a kid on your own AND have a meaningful relationship. Unconventional but possible.
• Remind yourself that things have a way of working themselves out. One thing I freak out about is that houses are expensive and I feel we’ll never be able to afford a place to live (certainly not with his kid and ours). But money circumstances change. Housing markets change. What you need changes. There are so many variables that it would do your head in to think about them all. Just let them unfold.
• Practise grounding. I’ve mentioned this before. But when you’re panicking, try to focus on grounding yourself in the moment by noticing something that you can see, feel, hear, and smell. This will take you out of that worried headspace at least for a moment.

The panic also reminded me that I really do need to continue to explore the two paths that I feel are the most likely for me at this stage: having a kid on my own or having a kid with this guy. I’m scared that focussing too much on the former will block me from being open to really falling for this guy, or giving the relationship my all, but I need to protect myself to some extent.

In any case, a pregnant (and single) friend of mine is about to give birth and she suggested reading “The Unexpected Joy of Being Single” to “get okay” with the idea of maybe not finding that perfect relationship prior to baby. I also have on my list a motherhood book and I’ll talk more about those in my next post. Until then I’m off for a 5-day silent retreat, woohoo! So happy they opened things up to allow for a modified retreat during the pandemic.

If you have any other panic management tips, I’d love to hear about them in the comments! I’ll see you on the flip side.