Story Time: Baby Momma Drama
What 1 simple rule taught me about coexisting
After four years of knowing my male best friend, he finally told me he had feelings for me. Apparently, he’s had feelings for me since we met way back when, but I was the last to notice. Or maybe I saw and didn’t want to take it past the friend zone. Anyways, once we did decide to take the next step and start dating, we were on a romantic high. Go figure, dating my best friend was seamless and damn near perfect.
Well, here’s where things got messy.
The Shaderoom, yes THE SHADEROOOM, posted a picture of my best friend, turned boyfriend under the “Celebrity look-alike,” tag (My boyfriend is Steph Curry’s doppelganger). The comment section was in shambles as they clowned my poor man, calling him everything from Steph Blurry to Steph Tumeric. While some of the comments were hilarious, the Mr. wasn’t pleased with the attention and deactivated his social media account.
Not too long after, I receive a message from his baby mother, hounding me with questions, concerns, and speaking ill on his character.
“Ain’t this bout’ a b*tch.”
I bring this to my partner’s attention, even getting insight from his parents and sister, who are all confused about this “evil” person she is making him out to be. So much for the idea of a drama-free love life. It forced me to come to terms with the fact that I am dating a man with slight baby momma drama. Getting threats on social media from her, messaging from new accounts and stalking my Twitter and Instagram started to be the new normal.
I do my very best to avoid confrontation and to help him deal with his frustrations, but she is relentless. I’m pretty sure she hated me or still does — who knows. All I know is that for some odd reason, I’ understand where she is coming from. Now while I don’t agree with the name-calling, popping up, cursing, cyberstalking and lengthy messages; she is the mother of his child and her feelings are valid. How she expresses them can be daunting and, at times, a bit juvenile, but everyone handles healing and coping differently.
After reading a few self-help books and going to therapy, I was able to empathize with her a bit. This is her first child, and she probably envisioned her life a lot differently. The fact of the matter is my partner is doing everything in his power to co-parent despite the drama. Relationships don’t always work out, but a beautiful child happened as a result, so both parties should at least attempt to be civil.
I’m learning to never take things personally, just as Don Miguel Ruiz affirms in his best-selling book, The Four Agreements.
The agreements are:
- Be impeccable with your word.
- Don’t take anything personally.
- Don’t make assumptions.
- Always do your best.
“When somebody talks about you, they are talking about a secondary character in their story who represents you; they are talking about an image they create for you. That image has nothing to do with you; it’s just a projection of that person’s story. If you take it personally, if you agree and believe what others say, their story becomes a part of your story. If you don’t take it personally, the opinions of others do not affect you, and this helps you to avoid a lot of suffering and conflict.”- Don Miguel Ruiz
According to John A. Johnson, professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, learning not to take things personally provides us with a way of dealing with potentially hurtful treatment from others. Because each person uniquely sees the world, the way that others treat us says as much about them as it does about us. When we don’t take things personally, we instead acknowledge the unique identities of other people. “We respect their subjective realities, realizing that their views do not necessarily describe us accurately,” Johnson said.
His baby mother has every right not to like me right now, for the simple fact that I have someone she once may have loved. I’m hopeful that we can get to the point of mutual respect of one another solely for the mental well-being of their child. But even if we don’t, I’ll never have any ill feelings towards her. We are both navigating through our separate realities, but we are still tied together by my partner. Finding common ground to coexist shouldn’t be that tough, right? Or maybe I’m just too optimistic.
“Once you understand that the opinions, the beliefs, and the point of view other people use to see the world has nothing to do with you, then you no longer even try not to take anything personally. This awareness makes you immune to what other people think about you, and what’s more important, it makes you immune to what you think about yourself.”- Don Miguel Ruiz
