Put Momma Bear Away

As I type this blog I will tell you I don't completely have what I am going to tell you figured out. I am definitely a work in progress. I am taking the advice of my family and friends, as well as my own advice, and trying to do the best job I can in every situation that arises. However, I feel like I keep failing time and time again because I let my anger get the best of me.

What do you do when your child calls you crying so hard you can't understand a word they are trying to tell you? What do you do when your child begs you to come home? What do you do when a situation occurs at the ex's house that makes your child pick up the phone and call you crying? Well, I can tell you what NOT to do. Do NOT do what I did. Do not pull out your inner Mamma Bear, pick up the phone, and relinquish a string of sentences that incorporates more "f" bombs than you can count. Do no call names. Do not demand that your child be brought back immediately. I did exactly that and hung up the phone feeling very justified in doing so........for about five minutes.

With divorce, or any situation that dumps life on its head as you knew it, emotions run extremely high, and unless you are a saint, you have to relearn how to control each emotion....especially anger. As I have said before, I have two qualities about me that can be easily manipulated. I have a short fuse when you hurt my family and friends, and I wear my heart on my sleeve. If this mirrors your character, good luck....lol. These qualities make you very vulnerable to not only other people, but to yourself. The best I can tell you is to take a deep breath, and don't see the situation on the surface. Now, saying that is much easier than living it. As I said, I'm a work in progress. Think before you react. Trust me, I've told myself this a million times. If you can't get yourself to step back and see the situation on a deeper level, just remember when you make that phone call, the person on the other end has a speaker button they can hit for everyone in the room, including your children, to hear you yelling your head off, and calling their parent less than favorable names. That is enough to stop me.

I received some advice that I initially was less than thrilled about. It wasn't what I wanted to hear. I chewed on that advice for a couple of days. I'm not going to lie, at first I was greatly irritated. Then I realized the advice I was given is spot on. The advice was to "let your child fight their own fight with their father. You step out of it because it isn't your fight." Why did that irritate me? I still had my Mamma Bear suit on, and therefore I was still thinking like a Mamma Bear. Now, all you Mom's out there, what is the first thing that happens when we hear someone hurt one of our babies? The hair on the back of our neck stands up, our top lip curls, and we go into "nobody hurts my baby" mode. Well, I'm going to tell you as long as your ex is not physically hurting your child, and your child is safe, and being cared for, we need to leave our Mamma Bear suits in the closet because your child getting yelled at probably isn't going to kill them. If it happens regularly and starts having a profound effect on your child, then pull that suit out. Had I thought of that at the time, I could have avoided putting my kids smack dab in the middle of a sticky situation.

So the advice I initially hated, I ended up embracing. It was hard, but I had to tell my child they had to fix their relationship with their father on their own, and I could not do it for them. Boy was that hard to say. As Mom, we fix everything. To not be able to do that will throw so much pain inside you it will be almost unbearable, but you have to do it because the fact of the matter is you have no control. Way easier said than done, trust me...I know. This is so new to me I don't even know if the advice I am giving you is right. There is no manual for this. I can't go pull a book off a shelf and tell my child that page 147 tells us to do this, so that is what we are going to do. Wow, wouldn't that be wonderful.

So for now, I've put my Mama Bear suit back in the closet. I encourage you to do the same. Keep that suit there for a better time. Continue to pray for strength. Ask God to take your pain and anger. I've asked a million times. Keep asking. One day you will get there.